As far as stablity of the router I haven't had a failure attributed to it since I hooked it up in the beginning of the year, it's been solid. However I never messed with it enough to manually assign all of my Ip addresses. I still have everthing on DHCP. I have an 8 port switch as well. So if I understand I could assign my IP addresses, set up the "Linux Router" machine, run it into the switch and take the router out all together. I'm horrible at linux so if it is that easy that will be great. I can install it but that's about it. And the computer is old enough drivers don't really seem to be an issue. Other than the second nic for the router is there anything else you think I'll need. What kind of customization have you done? Do you block many ports of do you find it does the job itself good enough? I think I'm going to keep zonealarm as a secondary as well, have you ever seen that be a problem. I'm not security paranoid yet, but I do what to keep my stuff as my stuff.