Many notable Linux people have given us good advice, moral support, and even pointed us towards business opportunities. In addition, an interesting subculture of the computer trade press and analyst community is sympathetic to Linux. Bringing our Linux appliance to the attention of these people was very effective at producing positive trade press. At the same time, the rapid progress of Linux development itself was immensely helpful, not only because we could take advantage of many new tools and capabilities, but also because the Linux community responds to security problems much more quickly than any commercial vendor could hope to do. This gives our company a built-in competitive advantage.
Initial configuration is done over a serial cable using a setup application.
It also provides a separate network segment with specific security policies to support public servers for Web, e-mail, FTP, etc. The Future of Linux network appliances The future of Linux-based network appliances is promising. On the hardware front, Intel is pushing an initiative to standardize hardware for the appliance market. Although this initiative has yet to bear fruit, it signifies that the appliance market is maturing. This should eliminate the high start-up costs of developing new hardware.