I meant the cost of just the switch obviously... It can hook up to whatever Linux machine you have running and I happened to have this one in the drawer.
The point of this was not to make the fastest or cheapest or most featureful switch available, it just had to fit in a case and none of the options have one port facing backwards so it doesn't require an ugly loop cable on the front of the final case.
It's also possible to make a managed switch with that card alone, there is a footprint for a NOR flash chip, if you load the netgear GS105E firmware on that (which is available on the netgear website) then it will be just a GS105E without leds and one port on the back.
The point of this was not to make the fastest or cheapest or most featureful switch available, it just had to fit in a case and none of the options have one port facing backwards so it doesn't require an ugly loop cable on the front of the final case.
It's also possible to make a managed switch with that card alone, there is a footprint for a NOR flash chip, if you load the netgear GS105E firmware on that (which is available on the netgear website) then it will be just a GS105E without leds and one port on the back.