How Good is pfSense?
About six months ago, I started using pfSense (uses FreeBSD) for my main router. I have been very pleased with it and will share a short description of my experiences with it.
Please take note this is not a “how-to” tutorial on installing pfSense. I am just giving my general opinions and experiences with using pfSense.
Install Procedure
The install has two different paths. 1) A quick install, or 2) a more detailed, custom install. I just went ahead and used the quick install. The actual installation took about 3-4 minutes to complete. The process was quick and painless.
Initial Setup
After pfSense installs and reboots, you will have the opportunity to tell pfSense which network card is for your WAN and which network card is for your LAN connections – all basic, routine information a router needs to know.
pfSense will give you the opportunity to setup a VLAN if needed. I had no problems with this part of the setup.
General Router Configuration
You can now access (via a web browser) the newly installed pfSense router using the default local (LAN) IP address pfSense assigned you.
Once in, you will need to modify the router’s basic settings (e.g., WAN settings, LAN settings, etc.). Having your old router configuration with you while setting up your new router helps a lot.
I setup a VPN (using OpenVPN) to my place of work. This has helped a lot in providing a safe and encrypted mechanism to transfer data between home and work.
I also assigned static IP addresses to the different computers at the location.
Powerful Gateway Control
pfSense gives you total control over your firewall’s gateway. For example, let’s say I have the following local networks: 10.x, 11.x, and 12.x Each of these networks are sand-boxed from each other for extra security.
Now let’s say I have computers on the 11.x network that only need to process data locally (e.g., computers that render 3d animated graphics). They have no need to use the Internet at all. All their work is assigned via a local computer.
I can now go to pfSense and tell it not to allow the 11.x network through the Internet gateway. So now I have the 10.x and 12.x networks with Internet, while the 11.x has absolutely no Internet access. This is a very good and effective way to secure important workstations from an outside attack.
I am pretty sure none of the consumer-grade routers you can purchase from your local retailer will have this ability out-of-the-box.
Backup and Restore
pfSense allows you to backup your entire router configuration. You can restore at any time you need to.
Upgrades
pfSense seamlessly upgrades to newer versions, keeping your previous configuration. This is one of the reasons I enjoy using pfSense. No more wasting time fixing configurations due to a system update.
I used to use OpenWRT (a Linux-based router OS) that required a complete reconfiguration, every…single…upgrade (no joke). I about had a heart-attack when I found this out. OpenWRT definitely was not a good fit for me.
Overall Opinion of pfSense
I am very pleased with pfSense. I have had almost zero trouble with it. pfSense handles many Internet connections well, allows for major flexibility in configuring my networks, and works perfectly with SSD drives.
If you want a extremely powerful router, but do not want to shovel out the money to buy a commercial setup, pfSense gives you a really great alternative.
To sum it up, pfSense is a great solution, open source, and available for free. I recommend you try it out for yourself. Click here to go to pfSense’s home webpage.
Posted in Internet and Servers, Operating Systems, Software
Response to “101 reasons why Linux is better than Windows” – Part 9
This is a response (Part 9; the last part of this series) to the web blog entitled “101 reasons why Linux is better than Windows”(http://cityblogger.com/archives/2007/01/24/101-reasons-why-linux-is-better-than-windows/)”. The author tries to discredit Windows by giving many reasons why Linux is “better”.
I will do my best to show how this is not the case. Operating systems are just tools. If you try to make one OS look “better” than another, you could possibly lead people into the wrong direction. Please note that the author has not written all 101 reasons on his blog. It appears he stopped writing it a while back. I will respond to everything he has currently written.
Direct quotes from the author are in red and my responses are in black. Please note that I mean no disrespect to the author in anything I say.
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80) Linux has bundled Databases such as MySQL and PostgreSQL which are extremely powerful and used in production environments. Customer doesn’t need to purchase expensive databases.
MySQL works wonderfully on Windows.
PostgreSQL is also available for Windows.
81) Linux is been used for super computing clusters, most of top super computers in the World use Linux. Windows just can’t scale to that level.
Actually Windows can and is used in super-computers, but Linux is the preferred OS for super-computing as well as having the most market share (for super-computers).
82) File system scalability: while NTFS file system can scale upto 16TB, XFS on Linux can scale upto 18 million TB! yes that bigger than what you would ever need.
Actually NTFS supports up to 256 Tebibytes in maximum volume size! Remember that with the proper drivers, Windows can read other file-systems. In addition, Windows can read more file-systems than just NTFS out of the box.
83) Processor scalability: Linux can scale to Unlimited processors. It is already running on a single system with 2048 CPUs. Windows can’t even claim to come anywhere near that number.
Linux does have a limit on the number of CPUs it can utilize, although it’s a relatively high one. It’s not entirely accurate to say that Linux can use an unlimited number of CPUs.
Similarly, Windows is also capable of scaling to support multiple CPUs, but as you mentioned, there may be licensing restrictions that apply, depending on the specific version and configuration of the operating system.
84) You have commands to check the systems Serial Number and other hardware information. to get serial number type:
dmidecode | grep “Serial Number” | head -n1 | sed -e ‘s/tSerial Number: //g’
or type dmidecode for all hardware info Read More. You can easily use this feature to extract data quickly and even write some scripts to do that.
Windows has a built-in program called “System Information” which will show you the same information.
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Well this is the end of Part 9. Thanks to everyone who has stuck around to read this entire series. It took me quite a while to write it up, but I hope that people will learn not to believe everything they read online about Windows and Linux.
Posted in Internet and Servers, Operating Systems
Response to “101 reasons why Linux is better than Windows” – Part 8
This is a response (Part 8) to the web blog entitled “101 reasons why Linux is better than Windows”(http://cityblogger.com/archives/2007/01/24/101-reasons-why-linux-is-better-than-windows/)”. The author tries to discredit Windows by giving many reasons why Linux is “better”.
I will do my best to show how this is not the case. Operating systems are just tools. If you try to make one OS look “better” than another, you could possibly lead people into the wrong direction. Please note that the author has not written all 101 reasons on his blog. It appears he stopped writing it a while back. I will respond to everything he has currently written.
Direct quotes from the author are in red and my responses are in black. Please note that I mean no disrespect to the author in anything I say.
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75) Cool integration between Calendar application and Desktop calendar. For example if you add an appointment into Evolution, it will show up in your Desktop Calendar in Gnome as well when you click on time.
Not a big deal, and not a good reason to switch to Linux.
76) You can have multiple work-spaces, its like having multiple desktops. Instead of having all your applications on one desktop, you can have them sorted on multiple desktop workspaces and easily switch between them. For example you can make one workspace for work, one for music, one for emails, one for browsing and so on. This can be in a grid or linearly organised.
Windows 10 can do multi-desktops.
77) You don’t need to create a Microsoft Live account and remember another stinking password just because you wanted to play Solitare.
Not a big deal, and not a good reason to switch to Linux.
78) Encoding compressed video files is a dream once you get ffmpeg compiled. In windows normally it costs money to get a program to encode video and often the encoded files don’t play on the device.
You can use the free program called Handbrake. This will do what you want.
79) games made natively for Linux run faster than the same game on Windows.
Why would a game compiled for Linux run faster than the same game compiled for Windows?
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Well this is the end of Part 8! Click here for Part 9!
Posted in Internet and Servers, Operating Systems
Response to “101 reasons why Linux is better than Windows” – Part 7
This is a response (Part 7) to the web blog entitled “101 reasons why Linux is better than Windows”(http://cityblogger.com/archives/2007/01/24/101-reasons-why-linux-is-better-than-windows/)”. The author tries to discredit Windows by giving many reasons why Linux is “better”.
I will do my best to show how this is not the case. Operating systems are just tools. If you try to make one OS look “better” than another, you could possibly lead people into the wrong direction. Please note that the author has not written all 101 reasons on his blog. It appears he stopped writing it a while back. I will respond to everything he has currently written.
Direct quotes from the author are in red and my responses are in black. Please note that I mean no disrespect to the author in anything I say.
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64) Twitter/Facebook broadcast from the desktop. With Gwibber client, you can view your social network status right from your desktop or update your status to all your accounts without logging onto each of them separately.
Why would this make Linux “better” than Windows?
65) Cut and paste is simpler, just select and middle click on the target window and your data gets pasted. Its far quicker and easier than the way Windows does Cut and Paste. Of-course the Windows CTRL-C/CTRL-V still works on Linux for people who are new to Linux.
Copy and pasting in Linux is not “better” than Windows. It is a matter of user preference.
66) Multiple cut and pastes: Klipper application (default under KDE) maintains a history of your clipboard and you can use it to paste text/etc which you had cut/copied earlier. Gnome users can use Glipper.
Why would this make Linux “better” than Windows?
This could be seen as a security risk, since if a user copied and pasted his password from his digital Rolodex, someone with access to the computer could potentially gain access to the password by looking at the clipboard history.
67) Easy to setup a Media Center like PC. You don’t need to purchase additional software or re-install a different operating system. Read this on how to convert your existing Linux into a Media Center like PC.
A “media center” PC could mean several things. You do not necessarily have to get other software to accomplish your media tasks. It depends upon what you are doing. If you just are wanting to play audio and video, then download the VLC Player.
68) Linux already has a usable 3D Desktop – Compiz. This makes it easy to switch and view multiple desktops simultaneously. It also add a nice eye candy to Linux. If you still believe Linux is only for geeks, this feature will definitely change your mind. This doesn’t require you to purchase expensive graphic cards, it very comfortably works with on board graphic card.
Windows 10 has support for multi-desktops.
69) Graphic view of how much space your data is using. In Konqueror File Manager tool bar, there is an option to get file size view which gives you a graphical view of how much space your directories and the files within are consuming. Or in gnome you can use Disk Usage Analyzer Baobab. This is an excellent way to know where all your disk space has disappeared and makes cleanup easy.
Windows has a built-in graphic view of how much disk space has been used on a device. Just right-click on a drive in Windows Explorer and click on Properties. Also, there is a program for Windows called WinDirStat that will show you disk usage statistics.
70) No annoying messages like Vista keeps telling you that xyz application is trying to access your system. Vista confuses the user, Either the user will always click allow or don’t know what to do.
I think you are talking about the built-in UAC that Microsoft added to Windows Vista (and beyond).
To be fair, UAC can potentially “get in the way” so to speak, but what I suspect many computer users do not know (or at least understand) is that UAC makes it easy to be a system administrator and a limited system user at the same time.
In short, UAC assists a system administrator with his or her job by allowing the administrator to perform administrative tasks while still being secure running under his or her own limited user account by default.
Also, if you click “no” to a UAC prompt, and the program it prevents from running due to you clicking “no” contains malware, then UAC did technically stop the malware from running with administrator privileges in the first place. So anyone who says that UAC is not a security feature is technically incorrect.
71) Easy to dual boot: Linux makes it easy for it to exist with any other operating system. If you install Linux on a system which already has Windows, Linux will not mess your Windows. Windows on the other hand messes up your Linux partition, if it finds one.
This is because Microsoft assumed that only Windows would be put on the computer. You would probably agree that pretty much almost every non-techy computer user out there just has one operating system installed on his or her computer anyway.
If you do need to have both Windows and Linux on the same hard drive, install Windows first, then install Linux. There are guides on the Internet explaining how to do this in detail.
72) Linux Works fine if you multiple partitions, operating systems and devices. Windows gets confused with ‘extraneous’ partitions used by other operating systems and allocate drive letters to them which cannot be freed. If you have, say, 8 partitions in your hard drive, Windows will associate 8 drive letters to these partitions, reducing the number of drive letter you can use. This also limits the number of drive letters you can have to 26. In Linux you don’t have a concept of drive letters, each drive is mounted as /home, /windows.. etc.. thereby not having any limitations.
Windows needs drivers to read other file-systems, such as EXT3/EXT4.
Windows is not limited to just the 26 drive letters. On Windows, you can mount partitions as a folder, or you can access the partitions directly without assigning them a drive letter or folder.
Instructions for mounting a partition as a folder: https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/11253-mount-drives-partitions-folder.html
Instructions for accessing a partition directly (without assigning a drive letter or folder to a partition): https://superuser.com/questions/465730/access-to-a-disk-drive-using-volume-id-instead-of-a-drive-letter-in-windows
73) Customise your shortcut: On Linux you can associate applications to whatever shortcut you choose. On Windows, you cannot associate your beloved Firefox to key combination Win+F, for instance, because it is already associated to ‘Find’ functionality provided by Windows Explorer which you can’t change.
This is not a real problem. Just use a keyboard shortcut like: Ctrl-Shift-F or something like that. Most Windows users will not even care.
74) Linux is more accessible: Most distributions such as Ubuntu include Orca, which is a screen reader. This can be enabled before installation. With this a visually challenged person can install Linux and also use Linux on his own. In Windows, the accessibility support is limited and not available during installation. It has to be purchased and installed separately costing over US$1000 and the visually challenged person requires an assistant to install Windows and the software before he/she can use.
More than likely, the user that needs accessibility features will already have a computer that has Windows preinstalled for them. Also, Windows does have accessibility features for them to use.
https://www.microsoft.com/enable/products/windows7/
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Well this is the end of Part 7! Click here for Part 8!
Posted in Internet and Servers, Operating Systems