-=> ROY J. TELLASON wrote to WAYNE CHIRNSIDE <=-

 WC> I guess I need a good recent systems administrator's manual for
 WC> Debian Linux to get a handle on some security issues. Barnes and
 WC> Noble came up empty for anything later then 2001.

 RJT> There's a "Linux System Administrator's Guide" or something pretty
 RJT> close to that available online that covers a lot of stuff.  I think I
 RJT> ended up with it with one of my installs,  but if I run across a URL to
 RJT> it I'll send it to you.

Thanks, I'll do a search for it myself.

 WC> Have to check some Linux CD and books sales sites.

 RJT> There's *LOTS* of info available online.  

 WC> No intention of mixing the two up outside of copying some HTML back
 WC> and forth.

 RJT> Why copy it back and forth?  Just put it in one place where both sides
 RJT> can get at it...

Potential use for the extra partition I left in there.

 RJT> SSH is probably a better bet.

 WC> Thanks for the tip, will look into the info files for that. I'm
 WC> confident I can setup either MultiMail or APT and Infozip. Syntax
 WC> for telneting in either case involves a bit more by way of
 WC> switches than what I'm used to.

 RJT> You can set the defaults up in an alias.

 That too.

 WC> Will need to write my own script to automate the procedure
 WC> somewhat just for convenience.

 WC> Seems one can also install Knoppix as a image file to the hard
 WC> drive the same size as the CD and still save settings to either FAT
 WC> 32 or a small Linux partition.

 RJT> Letting people try it out all sorts of ways without having to commit
 RJT> themselves,  I guess.

IF they've got some RAM to play with.

Bet with a little editing one could modify the knx-hdinstall
script one could copy the Knoppix image to a partition
and circumvent some of the RAM requirements by substituting
a swap file. Slow it down a great deal though.

 WC> This seems to be the mother of all Linux releases to get one
 WC> relatively fast tracked if one has the RAM to run it.

 RJT> Looks like he's trying to get the win-users going...

 Got me going and usefull right out of the gate :-)
 Thanks once again for Charles Angelich in getting me going with this
 and to Jim Holsonback that gave me a great deal on some used DIMMS.

 Found I could have squeaked by with the 96 Meg I'd had but far happier
 with 256 :-)

 WC> All the bad changes happened after GTE became Verizon.

 RJT> No argument with that!

Unbelievable how cruddy they've gotten, looks like they're mdeling
themselves after AOL.
Changes in protocols have offed the usefullness of two modems, one
hardware and one software.

Verizon's home page now redirects one to a page where they're pushing
DSL so to get to the actual home page you've got to swing back
around.
Verizon's "online management" time used accounting link seems to
have permanently gone into "undergoing update, not currently
available" so one can't track their hours.

No wonder I've been sending pe0ple to the local ISP www.ij.net.

 WC> Before I could log on either box, start a download, close the
 WC> browser and the dialer would hang up after the download was
 WC> complete.

 RJT> I was looking for some info today,  and this one guy came back to me
 RJT> about how it was available -- as a 100-some-odd meg PDF file!  Not on
 RJT> my dialup uh uh...

I snagged the DigiKey catalog at some 36 meg but that was before Verizon
altered it's protocols so I no longer have 56k access.

 RJT> If he says it's got the info I need in it (not sure at this point) I'm
 RJT> going to have to see what can be done to snag it through somebody who
 RJT> has a higher-speed connection,  if I snag it at all.

snip.

 RJT> Not to mention the lousy connect rates...  I was emailing with my
 RJT> brother on this subject and gave him the local access number for my new
 RJT> outfit where he lives,  and he had the same experience,  going from not
 RJT> ever connecting any higher than 33.6 to 49-something on the first shot.
 RJT>  He said something about giving them a chance to fix it,  but they're
 RJT> not gonna fix it...

 RJT> Screw 'em.

Only took me about 14 phone calls and making a real pest of myself
and by that time I couldn't often understand a phone conversation
or maintain a 14,400 connection :-(

 WC> In a couple of months when I setup Internet Junction, have to
 WC> inquire if they block the telnet port though. In either case I've
 WC> got a clean pair of telco wires :-)

 RJT> Yeah,  you do have that going for you.  Did I mention I'm still seeing
 RJT> "connect 52000" every single time?  Can't complain about that...

I guess not!

I've only gotten 51k a few times.
I hate to pull the network card in my sole ISA slot in this machine
to put in an existing 56k ISA hardware modem I'd intended to use in the now
defunct NEC machine with 2 ISA slots.

 RJT> When you do get around to the command-line stuff,  mc is your friend.
 RJT> :-)

 WC> Already familar with it.

 RJT> Good.

 Yup, mucked up my desktop as root the other day with all kinds
 of very dangerous icons, went into mc and deleted the relavent files
 and bye bye icons.
 Heck I had an icon for /dev/hda1 mounted with write permission
 on :-(
 I want to keep that under manual control however may use the spare
 partition I made for Win 98 - Linux file keeping for ease of access.

 RJT> You have a vendor picked out for that drive yet?

 WC> Torn between Seagate and W.D. still.

 RJT> Either one of them would be fine by me.  Any difference in the
 RJT> warranty?

 W.D. is down to 1 year, last I looked a while ago Seagate
 was still three but that may well have changed.

 WC> Circuit City seems to have the best prices but CompUSA carries
 WC> some Seagate drives.

 RJT> That before or after rebates?

 That's what I like about CC, they generally quote out the door
 prices, CompUSA plays the rebate game.
 I did see a good deal at CompUSA IF the rebates actually happen.

 Still waiting on the 50 dollar dollar rebate from my ten year old
 Canon Bj-200 :-(

 WC> I see from the the Linux hardware docs I'd be better off with an
 WC> H.P. Vectra line box which takes true parity memory.

 RJT> Lots of stuff out there supports it,  if you can find it.  I have one
 RJT> box here that insists on parity ram,  and there's no option to disable
 RJT> the parity check on powerup so I have a couple of 16s and a couple of
 RJT> 4s in there giving me 40M.

 Hey this box was FREE so no complaints :-)

 RJT>  It was going to run OS/2 to start with,  but I haven't decided yet
 RJT> what I'm going to do with it,  maybe do a minimal install of linux on
 RJT> there and see how well the LAN really does work.  

Looked at those pringles hacked yaggi antennas and my landlady even
offered to allow me to network to her wideband with one at either end.
Too much of a project for me these day though :-(

 WC> Next go around that's what I'll look for used.

 RJT> I *think* that the MB I'm using now in the primary system also offers
 RJT> the option to support parity ram,  but not having much of it here I
 RJT> don't know if I'm going to bother with trying that.  If I had the
 RJT> funds,  I'd get something that would support ECC ram and be done with
 RJT> it.

Yup. Perhaps cut a check to my sister and have her snag
a brand new bare bones system`from pricewatch.com.

Just checked the classifieds for used computers and people really don't
seem to have any idea how much their beloved systems have depreciated.

300 bucks at PriceWatch would have me in clover :-)

 WC> If Internet Junction's unlimited really is unlimited I've no need
 WC> for DSL. Big need is downloading ISO files on rare occassion.

 RJT> Or if you start spending some nontrivial time in alt.binaries.*
 RJT> newsgroups... :-)

well... there is the matter of alt.binaries.brunette...
That however hasn't intruded much lately.

You know it occured to me with all the government intrusiveness
available under the Patriot Act Knoppix in it's ramdrive mode
just saving the setup options provides an unbeatable measure of
security with nothing on the hard drive but your dialer,
mail, browser and newsgroup settings.

Nothing on my machine offensive to current regs but it IS
a work around for the paranoid.

Let's see some clown attempt to recover files from RAM
after CNTRL - ALT - DEL or power off 

 RJT> Biggest gripe I have about that Celeron box I'm working on is how darn
 RJT> long it takes for the thing to boot!  I timed it -- it's about a minute
 RJT> and a half,  or so -- before it either boots or goes into setup.  It
 RJT> seems that even if you want to go into setup you still have to wait
 RJT> through all the hardware checks that it does.  I'm not that impressed
 RJT> with that MB...

Well this board takes about a minute but I've RAM check turned on
as advised for Linux. This option also allows plenty of blue screen
time on boot in which to hit F1 to enter CMOS setup.

Pretty much always on here now with power saving features
enabled with just a warm restart to go from 98 - Linux or back.

My current power saving features work in either Knoppix
or 98 seemlessly but I don't power down the drive and keep
14 watts into the monitor to keep the filiment lit.

I figure this cuts down on potential cycling failures on the
hard drive as well as thermal shock to the monitor's filiment.

Think it was Tom Walker who mentioned USB 2.0 devices were backwards
compatable to 1.1 which would be outstanding as UPS's have come down
in price and I'd like to do clean shutdowns under software
control in the case of power interuption.
60 bucks now buys you 8 minutes at near double my current draw.

 RJT> XMMS?  It seems to work well for me,  too.

 WC> Need to put that Turtle Beach sound card in to check it out.

 RJT> Yeah,  get some music going...   :-)

Well I can play it now through the software modem - sound card
thing in 98 but neither function is detected in Linux
as I expected from the get go.

Think I may have a go at locating the Linux software modem
driver for this one, it's available, and see if it's V90
compliant though.
 
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