In my last post I talked about building an alternative to Cradlepoint’s routers, and as I’ve decided to use my Dell Mini 10v for my “carry” netbook, I’m looking at what to turn my Eee PC 901 into.
The most obvious choice I’m seeing is loading pfSense on it and using it as a prototype for the embedded router project. It meets the criteria for it: USB ports, a single ethernet port, and a supported wireless card. Having a keyboard and screen is a good benefit for configuring the interfaces.
This will make the transition to the embedded setup easier once I get the pieces for that as the netbook has the same concept as the embedded board, just with more RAM and a faster CPU. One other major boon is a battery for a rudimentary UPS. The 6-cell battery included with the Eee PC 901 offers about 6 hours of run time.
This all hinges on my aircard being supported by the current pfSense 2.0 betas. If it’s not, well, I’ll need to do manual configuration with FreeBSD 8.1-RELEASE. Either way, it should be quite fun!