Routers: Cisco vs. Linux?

[Matthew Carpenter]

Basically anything a Cisco Router can do can be done on a Linux system.
Cisco gear has the following advantages:
* IOS and CatOS are easy to clear the config and start over
* Gear can be bounced frequently and often without losing the FS (whereas most Linux distributions require some major tweaking for something similar)
* IOS and CatOS are a single image file.

Flexibility is lost and Linux has immense advantages over the Cisco counterparts.  It boils down to taste.  Many big companies tend to choose Cisco... whether for the "HA" mentality or the fact that it must be better because it costs more...



On Mon, 08 Dec 2003 17:19:06 +0000
Alma J Wetzker <almaw at ieee.org> wrote:

> I can't see any point in putting in a Cisco box.  A SMC or other type 
> DHCP/Firewall it plenty good to run what you want.  Of course you don't get 
> the nice logging and stats that Cisco could provide (but your linux box also 
> provides them).  Either way the Cisco doesn't make much sense.
> 
> ALERT!!!  Cisco is one of those companies that license their software 
> separately from hardware.  That means that buying hardware cheap from someone 
> doesn't cover software and you may need to pay Cisco directly for a license. 
> In practice, for someone small they may let it slide.  But they can play nasty 
> if they want.
> 
>      -- Alma