If you want to keep an eye on what you firewall is doing then you can always just watch the messages it is putting out. I just learnt this funky new thing today (thanks to the ibm lpi tutorials...and a little extrapolation):
tail -f /var/log/messages | grep Shorewall
will give you everything that is happening to Shorewall, when it happens. You can just let it run somewhere (on another desktop, or whatever you like) and check it if you are feeling paranoid. Given that you just use the standard setup (control centre gui-styles setup up of the firewall). Sorry no popups, but does one really need them? Cripes, we had a play with Tiny personal firewall (now Kerio) in the networking paper I just finished and I can assure you those popups are a BLOODY nuisance. You will end up turning them off no doubt anyway!
Hope this helps.
Anton
ps you should be able to use the tail thing above for any logging configuration you come up with (ie, if you decide to send you log messages to another place, not /var/log/messages...)
Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
