Re: [newbie] Firewalls for Linux
On Monday 15 Dec 2003 3:35 am, Lyvim Xaphir wrote: Yes, I can elaborate. I have a Zyxel router here that has features much the same as what you described, however I am still unable to match the flexibility of a firewall running iptables/shorewall to the point where I can route incoming traffic to a specific port range on a specific local IP within the local lan. I can route a port but not a range of ports; very annoying. I spent a nearly a week going over the capabilities of the router appliance trying to find a fix and there wasn't one even when you went to the command line of the box. Also you must realize that the router appliance has a full OS of it's own, which in many cases is in fact Linux, but unadvertised as such. You have my condolencies. My place of work had a Zyxel, and it was a pig to administer. My firewall has the same limitation. Not a problem for me, although it could be. There are routers out there that can route ranges though. Yes it probably does have an OS, but pared down to the bare essentials and built by professionals, along which road you are in advance of me. Firewalls running MDK/Shorewall are more configurable, flexible, and just as secure as a router appliance when set up correctly. In my case, even more secure since the Zyxel was responding to ICMP requests before I turned it into a bridge; therefore it was somewhat vulnerable to ICMP DoS attacks. Mine does filter ICMP, if I tell it to, and I have. As far as packet filtering/mangling, there is no match for having an MDK firewall box. As a general purpose solution, you thus have a vast universe of scripts and utilities to choose from in order to enhance firewall functionality. You cannot download scripts or utilities to your router appliance; you cannot upgrade your appliance's OS except at the behest of the manufacturer; you are frozen in the crystalline matrix that the appliance manufacturer put you in. That's fine for people that don't care; however if you are seeking flexibility, knowledge, and greater security while not minding a minimal investment of time, an MDK firewall box is infinitely better. Agreed. But many or most people do not need that flexibility, which takes time to acquire, while their machine is vulnerable to attack. Hardware routers are generally for Mac users or non-tech types. That's fine, but if you are looking for knowledge, a router appliance is not going to get you there; in fact I recommend against it. Even if one is looking for knowledge, there is plenty of stuff to learn in Linux without having to learn a safe level of capability with iptables. This is one area in which a little knowledge is a very dangerous thing. A dedicated router simplifies the iptables setup with connection sharing, because the router can do the filtering and there is no extra work to share the connection - all machines are equal. Whereas using the Linux box complicates the iptables configuration. IMO, the best configuration has two rules: everything out, nothing in. (Most of the hostile outgoing traffic is going to be SMTP or HTTP anyway.) Adding connection sharing to these rules makes them a lot more complex, and every rule added has a chance of being wrong. You should configure a box of your own before you make statements like this. Like I already said, Shorewall is a requisite of connection sharing. Install the MDK secure kernel in conjunction with a 2 nic firewall box and connection sharing, scan it, and you will see what I mean. Right now I can't even ssh into the firewall box from the local lan, much less the internet cloud; physical access is the only option I've got for shelling. And that's with me in the hosts.allow. If it is as simple as checking a box then fine. But having a dedicated Linux box is more expensive than a dedicated router box, (and harder for the SO to accept.) My box is just as tight, using a router, except that I can http or telnet in locally. That's not a big security hit. So are you saying that a dedicated firewall is still a good idea? I would agree with that. My point was that it was bad security to be running the firewall on your workstation. In many peoples cases that is the only reasonable alternative to a firewall router. A PC is more expensive, much bigger, and usually noisier, than a router. If I was living on my own I would certainly build such a beast, but as it is I would rather win other battles ;-) I had many more ports open with the Zyxel in router mode than I have right now. I know because I've taken great pains to compare the two and had a cracker friend attack the MDK box on purpose. I have checked mine with port scanners. The results were boring. -- Richard Urwin Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Asus Motherboards and Mandrake - will it work 100% ?
On Sunday 14 December 2003 03:04 pm, Anne Wilson wrote: I just got an Asus A7V600. It works nicely with 9.2, though only three of my five speakers work with onboard sound. What the hell, my sound card should be arriving on Wednesday, so I can have fun wrestling with that instead ;-) Sir Robin That's not on the TWiki page either, Sir Robin! Consider your hand slapped g [rubs hand] OK, it's up there. Seen it, thanks. We'll get that list to a really usable size before long. Anne I'm just gonna reiterate some previous cautions I've mentioned about TWiki (for which I'm probly still in the doghouse). First of all the intention and effort is laudable. It will only continue as such if it's totally constantly maintained and changed. It has no advice (opinions) contained that are carved in stone. It should prominently mention that the suggestions contained in various parts, are just that suggestions, opinions, ie, 'worked for me' and 'YMMV'. Not giving the impression of real world real time solutions. One of the reasons MandrakeUser became ineffectual and in many parts wrong and dated. For hardware, well idiots like me know that's a changing deal, month to month. Case in point, I suspect Robin might'a got an AV7600 due to my referrences to it on the OT_her list. With latest 2.4.23 kernel's the board needs 'nolapic' passed to it to avoid kernel panics, specially under a load like sound or video encoding/decoding. A board difficiency or a need for the new kernel to mature more? To state either would be just an opinion. The board is great for 9.2 an early 10.0, but will it still be good for 10.0 final? Can prior kernel releases function with it? I've all but completely eliminated panics by moderating ram timings, increasing Vcore and IO voltages a touch, and using 2.4.23 kernel versions cautiously. Could be try'n to change PCI slots I use for the one card in the system. Point is, variables, and the permutations are a real problem. Then add in users. Before I got an AV7600 I researched it's components. I didn't use twiki's or hardware sites. I use Google and mailing list archives. Particularly the current linux-kernel ml (lkml). The study requires searching by components. Searching by mobo model number is mostly useless. For example, the integrated NIC is very new to market, 3c940. It has a 3com/Asus Linux driver for it, that doesn't work with (compile against) newer kernels. NBD for me, I had an old D-link card sittin around, and the onboard 3c is easily disasabled in bios. Similar deal with the integrated sound. The (separate, not part of the VIA south bridge chipset) is an Analog Devices Inc. ADI-1980, AC97 codec compliant. Fortunately, the VIA driver in current kernels works for this chip. For me, and my speaker system. It's a 6-channel sound device, that as Robin seems to have found, doesn't support more than 2 chl. for his use. Works for me, not for him. Variables. Nothin on the board is of any other particular interest, other than the KT600 chipset with 400Mhz cpu support. Since this isn't really new to the Linux kernel, VIA chipset support is almost a sure thing goin in. A read of lkml would probly be more discouraging for any other chipset vendor, specially nForce*. Well there are also SATA ports, but anybody who's a bit savy would know to avoid SATA anyhow, any OS. Does an opinion like that reflect TWiki 'documentation'? I think not but Google or lkml will lead you too it. Now these motherboard, hardware and such are particulars, and involve opinion. The info doesn't belong in a TWiki, and probly won't be valid longer than next month. Same deal with applications and configuration. How to do it in the X.1 version is completely wrong for X.11. Google and the lkml are by nature not as susceptible to such degeneration. Opinons are always inescapable. So IMO, TWiki should prominenty be displayed as At the current time, this is a best guess from various contributors, mostly gathered from mailing lists. It is not supported or endorsed by anyone. Use at your own risk. -- Tom Brinkman Corpus Christi, Texas Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Firewalls for Linux
On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 17:20:39 +1300 Carren Stuart [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Bryan, Funnily enough, I actually agree with most of what you are saying :-) What it really comes down to for me though is this. I use my computer as a home computer only. It is primarily a tool for me to communicate with the wider world and my friends, who for some unknown reason, all live on the other side of the World. I also use it as a learning tool and a toy I guess, in as much as it presents me with new things to try in order to challenge myself from time to time. Installing Mandrake was one of those challenges I set myself, and it has not disappointed me :-) Internet security is important to me, and I have my Windows system locked down as tightly as possible. I have a dial up connection, which is pretty much connected 24 hours a day. I use a respected AV and Kerio with a very stringently customised set of rules, I do not use any Microsoft software other than my operating system, plus I make use of several third party bits and pieces to help me keep my system locked down as tightly as possible. Having said that, I am not paranoid about this, and I do realise that my system is not, and never will be 100% secure. That doesnt bother me. I have taken all the precautions I can for my own particular computing situation, and that is enough for me. I have reduced the risk as much as I possibly can at this point. If I happen to get caught out by some nasty at some time, it will be bad luck, but it wont be due to something stupid I did. As you have already said Linux is an inherently more secure OS than Windows, and the risks are less, although not absent. I want to be able to feel secure using Linux but I don't the level of security someone in business might need. At the moment I dont *feel* secure because I dont understand how the firewall works, and I can't begin to configure it the way I want it, until such time as I can understand it! That's where I am at now. My previous posts about other firewalls available, were really indicating that I was perhaps looking for something I could *get* straight away, to use in the meantime, while I am busy trying to get my head around the built in firewall. As you said, if I don't have that configured properly while I'm learning it, I could be leaving myself wide open right now. I have no knowledge of what the current configuration is (other than what I've set up via Guarddog) - or even if there is a default configuration. I haven't even figured out what command I need to use to *see* the darned thing working! (or view the logs or view the current configuration) None of what I have posted here on the subject is intended in any way to be critical of you or of the linux firewall. I am just a newbie linux user who is trying to learn the basics of setting up her linux system as securely as she possibly can, so that she can get moving and start discovering what this OS has to offer her. I set myself a personal challenge here, and I'm not about to give up just yet. I'm sorry to say, you'll be seeing more of me here, at least until the light bulb in my head switches on! :-) - -- - Carren -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: PGP SDK 3.0.2 Comment: iQA/AwUBP902R8qIEIT739NzEQJdDQCfTgpCrdeLeCO2GpihZTOE8WGlQF0AnRgD Lo/PaIczbQmtlxrceYu5pgMu =Pjm5 -END PGP SIGNATURE- Carren I've been here for nearly five years. The lightbulb switches on and off regularly. Fortunately the newbie list is always there. Tucked in amongst the spats and heated opinions are real gems. Hang in there, and welcome. Lee -- User #223705 Linux Counter, http://counter.li.org Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
[newbie] Mdk 9.2 standalone firewall
Hi, I have seen some traffic about firewalls on the list...made me worry. This is a standalone box. Using mdk 9.2 with personal firewall activated via MCC. Is it working?... I do not know. The system was updated 14/12/03. The last screen is marked... FTP...probably for downloads and surfing? Mailserver...for mail? Cups..printing directly from net? The rest unmarked. Now which firewall is used? Is it sufficient? My ISP is *supposed to have a firewall mailscanner* but I had some virussus come through on my Win OS. (Protected ???... by Pccillin2003) Mdk..I just do not now. Ok maybe I should learn it...what/where...but by the time I understand this I might have been compromised. Please some pointers and direct answers to some questions above would be much appreciated. -- Johan May this be a good day for learning Registered Linux User #330034 - still learning Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
[newbie] Netgear wg311 wireless PCI NIC
Hi, I am new to the list and to Linux. Does anyone know whether Linux drivers exist for this wifi nic ? I am running a new installation of Mandrake 9.1 on an MSI mobo with an Athlon XP2400+ I don't even know how to install hardware drivers manually so help there would be appreciated as well! Tony. Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] How do I remove the gui boot screen ?
Guy Rouillier wrote: John Richard Smith wrote: I still cannot figure out how to get rid of the gui boot screen and return to my normal vga=791 black and white boot screen. It must be something simple, but what? John, I'm unclear if you are referring to the initial boot menu screen (I saw in later posts you are using LILO) being in graphics mode, or if you mean that you boot directly into the gnome or KDE desktop and would prefer to boot into a text-mode terminal session. If the latter, edit /etc/inittab as root and change the initdefault line to look like this: id:3:initdefault: No, No, No, none of this. You can accomplish the same thing using a GUI tool but I don't remember exactly what it is. If you are referring to LILO, I figured out under Redhat at work that if look in /etc/lilo.conf (which is a symlink into /boot), you see the following line: message=/boot/message I simply changed this to message=/boot/message.txt and created that message.txt file to contain something like Select a kernel to boot (tab or ? for list, enter for default). If you bring the original /boot/message up in an editor, you'll see it has all sorts of ANSI sequences that generate the LILO graphic. None of this, I want a vga=791 level boot upscreen, with FULL SCREEN WIDTH, BLACK AND WHITE TEXT BOOT SCRIPT WITH ALL THOSE OK or FAILED as the case may be. None of that poor resolution Large chunky B/W stuff with the same text. I had this all time from the beginning of my linux days. It's just recently after replacing the deleted kernel that it has gone back to that sqashed into a small white window on blue background boot screen , and I don't like the presentation it's too small , too cramped a visual display of the boot script, to be of much use to me, and I would far rather have that normal vga=791 B/W full screen width boot text. Why cann't I go back to what I had ? John -- John Richard Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] How do I remove the gui boot screen ?
mike wrote: I boot to run level 3 and use Xtart to get to my window managers. I use lilo in text mode which is a small blue window with the choices. If your talking about the big blue splash screen kinda like a monitor inside of a monitor that shows boot messages, I tried once before to find a way to disable it but to no avail. Even when I did my install I tried to deselect it from the individual packages on MDK but, when I tried to do that it wanted to remove an enormous amount of KDE packages! So I went ahead and installed it. Read a post about this, doing a google and one recommendation was to. [EMAIL PROTECTED] root]# rpm -e --nodeps bootsplash I tried it and it got rid of the big blue splash screen on boot up. This I'm certain this not the right way, must be some config file to disable it. But as I said no more splash on boot and shutdown. I quite agree, I tried this and it removes the wrong gui piece. Hope someone has the answer I would like to know my self. Mike But I agree, it's some config file, or possibly a change of symlink to use a different boot script, I dunno , but I'm still trying. There doesn't seem to be anything clear about how this works on the net. Seems like, that at some historic point a change was made but no effective description of how it all works has ever been written down. John -- John Richard Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] How do I remove the gui boot screen ?
Adolfo Bello wrote: On Sun, 2003-12-14 at 09:48, John Richard Smith wrote: I still cannot figure out how to get rid of the gui boot screen and return to my normal vga=791 black and white boot screen. It must be something simple, but what? John I uninstalled bootsplash urpme bootsplash I don't know if it can be done without uninstalling. Again, it's not the boot splash I'm trying to change, it's the boot script. John -- John Richard Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] How do I remove the gui boot screen ?
On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 09:25:47 + John Richard Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It's just recently after replacing the deleted kernel that it has gone back to that sqashed into a small white window on blue background boot screen , and I don't like the presentation it's too small , too cramped a visual display of the boot script, to be of much use to me, and I would far rather have that normal vga=791 B/W full screen width boot text. Why cann't I go back to what I had ? I'm a bit late on this thread but... have you tried running mcc, going to boot/Drakboot then advanced and in the dropdown menu selecting lilo with text menu instead of lilo with graphical menu? I don't pay a whole lot of attention anymore what happens when I boot since I've got all my issues worked out (though I can totally understand why you'd not want the whole blue splash screen thing) but wouldn't that fix it all? I hope this is of help to you. Jerry. -- _||_ Registered linux user #300600 (o_ Registered linux machine # 185855 //\at V_/_ http://counter.li.org Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] How do I remove the gui boot screen ?
On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 03:41:07 + Jerry Barton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm a bit late on this thread but... have you tried running mcc, going to boot/Drakboot then advanced and in the dropdown menu selecting lilo with text menu instead of lilo with graphical menu? I don't pay a whole lot of attention anymore what happens when I boot since I've got all my issues worked out (though I can totally understand why you'd not want the whole blue splash screen thing) but wouldn't that fix it all? I hope this is of help to you. Jerry. Supplement: this should change the whole boot up process to the text boot instead of the whole graphical thing. I just rebooted with that option and since i have init 3 set in inittab i never got any graphical stuff... just the old lilo: prompt and total text boot up to a text login: prompt. it showed the good old scrolling init instead of the fancy framebuffer stuff. It was like booting my old Slack... no nifty eye candy and such. Is that what you're looking for? Sorry if I've missed a few points of your objective here, just trying to help you out. Jerry. -- _||_ Registered linux user #300600 (o_ Registered linux machine # 185855 //\at V_/_ http://counter.li.org Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Mdk 9.2 standalone firewall
On Monday 15 Dec 2003 9:48 am, Johan wrote: Hi, I have seen some traffic about firewalls on the list...made me worry. This is a standalone box. Using mdk 9.2 with personal firewall activated via MCC. Is it working?... I do not know. The system was updated 14/12/03. The last screen is marked... FTP...probably for downloads and surfing? Mailserver...for mail? Cups..printing directly from net? The rest unmarked. Now which firewall is used? Is it sufficient? My ISP is *supposed to have a firewall mailscanner* but I had some virussus come through on my Win OS. (Protected ???... by Pccillin2003) Mdk..I just do not now. Ok maybe I should learn it...what/where...but by the time I understand this I might have been compromised. Please some pointers and direct answers to some questions above would be much appreciated. You can test your firewall here http://scan.sygatetech.com/ The default firewall in Mandrake is shorewall which is very effective. Some list members do not like it because the GUI provided on Mandrake Control Centre is very simplistic. If your GUI is showing as you describe then you have ports 21, 25 and 631 open. Unless you want people on the Internet to access your FTP server, to send emails direct to your mail server, or print to your printers, then you should close those ports. There is a better GUI for controlling shorewall in webmin. If you have not tried webmin yet install the webmin RPM and then go to https://localhost:1 (NOTE https not http ) Personally however I prefer to setup webmin by hand by editing the files in /etc/shorewall which are all extensively documented. www.shorewall.net also has lots of great documentation. A firewall of course will not protect against viruses, but of course running Linux you are not vulnerable to viruses anyway. If however you are running a mail server you may want to scan incoming mails for viruses before passing them on to Windows computers. Personally I use clamdmail ( in contrib) which I call from procmail. Clamdmail is a neat little utility which will call clamav virus scanner, and spamassassin spam checker. derek -- -- www.jennings.homelinux.net http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] How do I remove the gui boot screen ?
Lyvim Xaphir wrote: On Sun, 2003-12-14 at 08:48, John Richard Smith wrote: I still cannot figure out how to get rid of the gui boot screen and return to my normal vga=791 black and white boot screen. It must be something simple, but what? John I've read the rest of this thread, and there is yet another way to get rid of the boot screen, plus switch your monitor into a higher text resolution at the same time. Use vga=ask And rerun lilo. The next time you boot, you hit return and you are presented with a full list of video modes that your card will support according to what is seen by the kernel. The second column numbers are hex numbers and will be accepted by lilo. You'll see something like 30C or 31A or other items, plus the character resolutions they produce. Try booting into different text resolutions and decide which one you like. After you decide, say you like 30C, you then put vga=0x030C into your lilo.conf and rerun lilo. After that you will boot into that resolution and the splash gui screen will not be there. LX No, I know about vga=ask I use it on all my failsafe and nonFB boot settings , it's not the one to do the job I need. It's something else. Right form the very beginning of my linux experience I have always used a vga=791 screen setting and had a B/W text based full screen width boot script. It's the best, untill someone comes up with a gui alternative that looks and performs good.The gui alternative which I currently have is too sqashed up into a small white window on a blue background. I can hardly read the script before it's gone. I dislike it. If I cannot have a useful gui then I want my vga=791 (for font size /screen resolution) and the full screen width B/W text based boot script so I get to see the scrip long enough to be able to read it, if there are any problems. I don't understand what is controlling it, it's not the vga setting that controlls the text / gui switch , except , and in as much as, if you want to lower you screen resulution it will tend to force out gui and revert to text, but that is a poor reason to want to do it. I cannot remember what controls the switch from gui to text or back again in the higher screen resolutions, I prefer vga=791 which is one step below the highest available which if my memory serves me is vga=794. If I were to choose this level the text is so small I cannot read it and there is no advantage in having more script around on screen for longer if you cannot actually read the font size. So I choose vga=791 , always have , right back to M7.0 where I came in, the screen resolution is good and font size about as small as is practicable to get a nice smooth flow of text past your eyeball and still be able to read it. Has every single one of us on the list forgotten how to do this properly ? John -- John Richard Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
[newbie] mplayer 1.0 installation
I'd like to install MPlayer+MEncoder 1.0 pre3 for MDK9.2 from PLF. I have already installed MPlayer 0.91 on the same machine, should I uninstall it before proceeding? thanks, raffaele Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] How do I remove the gui boot screen ?
Jerry Barton wrote: On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 03:41:07 + Jerry Barton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm a bit late on this thread but... have you tried running mcc, going to boot/Drakboot then advanced and in the dropdown menu selecting lilo with text menu instead of lilo with graphical menu? I don't pay a whole lot of attention anymore what happens when I boot since I've got all my issues worked out (though I can totally understand why you'd not want the whole blue splash screen thing) but wouldn't that fix it all? I hope this is of help to you. Jerry. Supplement: this should change the whole boot up process to the text boot instead of the whole graphical thing. I just rebooted with that option and since i have init 3 set in inittab i never got any graphical stuff... just the old lilo: prompt and total text boot up to a text login: prompt. it showed the good old scrolling init instead of the fancy framebuffer stuff. It was like booting my old Slack... no nifty eye candy and such. Is that what you're looking for? Yes that is basically right but with good screen resolution , ie VGA=791 Sorry if I've missed a few points of your objective here, just trying to help you out. Oh, no , please don't be offended and if I have caused that , unreserved appologies. No I'm frustrated with myself because I cannot remember what controls the switch from gui to text in the higher screen boot resolutions. Maybe the MCC route will accomplish this for me haven't tried it yet, but I like to know how to do this from my knowledge of how it all works, rather that from dumb Control Centers methods that encourage ignorance, but is sometimes the easy way, once you know how it's all done, and save time. Not that it always does. It's not an init control, I'm not trying to boot to a consul, I'm not trying to boot on some low screen resolution with B/W text , I'm trying to to get back to where I was with a decent boot screen resolution and B/W text, full screen width. So the last thing I want is anything under vga=791, because that gives me a boot script with a good screen resolution. John -- John Richard Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Re: Laptops (DoH!)
On 12/15/2003 at 2:06 PM Anne Wilson wrote: snip So does it switch to the usb mouse when you plug it in? Anne *** REPLY SEPARATOR *** Anne; What? Are you crazy? Try a USB mouse when I just got the touchpad working? (Grin!) Actually, I'm planning on writing a second XF86Config-4 file, and a quick and dirty script file so that I can switch between the two, so that I can go from one to the other easily whenever it's convenient. I don't expect to switch very often, but it would be nice to have the option. Lanman Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: Re[4]: [newbie] Firewalls for Linux
On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 18:18:06 +1300 Carren Stuart [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It looks great but it's really designed for people using a network, which I am not doing. I'm just one lonely little mother of four, who happens to be addicted to her computer, and likes to find interesting things to do, to give her brain some much needed exercise ;-) Not to push the point to hard (me? Shirley not!) but if yer gonna spend money on *anything* (including one o' them Linksys thingies), a seperate box is actually probably the cheapest/best of all sol'ns. Even Lyvim and I would agree on that. And as it says on the Smoothwall site, it is intended for *anyone* who is interested in security, from the single inexperienced user up to the SOHO type operation. As everyone has pointed out, running the firewall software on your workstation just isn't as effective, though it is of course better than nothing at all, and infinitely better than anything on Windows. Besides, a seperate firewall box frees you up to play with your Mandrake Linux workstation at will, hacking and mangling as you wish, while the firewall runs happily on it's own seperate (cheap) box. Anyway, the choice is yours, but if you really wanna play, pickin' up some el cheapo used PC (not a Compaq, whatever you do!) would, IMO, fit all the requirements and desires ;-) -- JoeHill ++ ICQ # 280779813 Registered Linux user #282046 Homepage: www.orderinchaos.org +++ Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.-- John Maynard Keynes Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
[newbie] incredible: chromium worked fine without drivers
for a couple of versions, and with other distros tooo every time I install a new mandrake I then start chromium or tuxracer in a hope that someday the system will have 3d acceleration installed out of the box. In never worked ... with no nvidia cards I ever tried .. nor with an older ati ... but chromium worked with acceleation on a matrox g200 ... wow. The stuff of dreams of future. I just can't understand why a couple of Mb can't be spared to put a set of nvidia ( ati as it's becoming more spread) on the mandrake cds. I assume it's licenses .. but it's quite annoying for the user. And to top that the installation is still somethng a beginner can't really be expected to do: -you've got to run a shell binary from Nvidia ... which requires no X ... so how on earth do you do that as a beginner? I knew that I could go to mcc and have reboot without x starting and did it there .. but that's not quite obvious to the beginner ... and then knowing about startx -to top things I got pretty shocked when I saw that the 9.2 download cds didn't include the kernel source .. so when you installed the nvidia drivers and it asked for the kernel source ... well ... I was at a friends house who didn't reallly have internet .. sooo ... it stunk. well .. these are my feelings right now. Waiting and dreaming for a beginner friendly (and gamer friendly) Mandrake. Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] incredible: chromium worked fine without drivers
On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 17:11:39 +0200 Void lon iXaarii [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: well .. these are my feelings right now. Waiting and dreaming for a beginner friendly (and gamer friendly) Mandrake. These issues would be mitigated, for the most part, if you had plonked down a few bones for your Mandrake OS. When you buy the boxed set, IIRC, it comes with the commercial/closed source software you need, like the *NVIDIA RPM's*. You can't expect too much when you download an OS for absolutely nuthin'. The fact that there are about a gazillion howto's about installing Nvidia's drivers, one of which I'm sure is on the Mandrake Twiki, and that there are free help lists like this one are just a bonus. -- JoeHill ++ ICQ # 280779813 Registered Linux user #282046 Homepage: www.orderinchaos.org +++ Reality is what you can get away with. -- Robert Anton Wilson Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Firewalls for Linux
On Sunday 14 December 2003 11:20 pm, Carren Stuart wrote: Internet security is important to me, and I have my Windows system locked down as tightly as possible. I have a dial up connection, which is pretty much connected 24 hours a day. I use a respected AV and Kerio with a very stringently customised set of rules, I do not use any Microsoft software other than my operating system, plus I make use of several third party bits and pieces to help me keep my system locked down as tightly as possible. Prior to about 2 or 3 years ago, I also ran MS as my primary OS with WinXP as the last MS OS on my primary box. I also ran personal firewall software, had scanned my system externally and had a router/firewall appliance at the same time. I did not use IE for a browser (ran opera instead) and tried to be very knowledgable about security in general. At the time, I thought my own system was fairly secure and it might well have been, with their being easier targets that were more likely to be hit than mine. However, with the work that I have done and continue to do testing software and security aspects of software in general, I am much more aware of the deficiencies of certain aspects of the MS OS. I would not disparate anyone for implementing available tools to harden their system, but I would not regard any MS OS as being secure in any fashion. Having said that, I am not paranoid about this, and I do realise that my system is not, and never will be 100% secure. That doesnt bother me. I have taken all the precautions I can for my own particular computing situation, and that is enough for me. I have reduced the risk as much as I possibly can at this point. A standalone router/firewall, even on the modem connection would do so even more. If I happen to get caught out by some nasty at some time, it will be bad luck, but it wont be due to something stupid I did. Could very well be something stupid that some MS developer did. Probably more likely that. As you have already said Linux is an inherently more secure OS than Windows, and the risks are less, although not absent. I want to be able to feel secure using Linux but I don't the level of security someone in business might need. At the moment I dont *feel* secure because I dont understand how the firewall works, and I can't begin to configure it the way I want it, until such time as I can understand it! That's where I am at now. My previous posts about other firewalls available, were really indicating that I was perhaps looking for something I could *get* straight away, to use in the meantime, while I am busy trying to get my head around the built in firewall. Which is why I recommended the standalone router/firewall appliance in the first place. It is fairly cheap (about the same as antivirus software), simple to setup and it offers a fair amount of protection directly out of the box. Granted, it is not as flexible as one might like, but it should certainly serve your purposes until you find a solution that is flexible enough and just as secure. None of what I have posted here on the subject is intended in any way to be critical of you or of the linux firewall. IIRC, you took offense to my statements, not the other way around. I was simply defending what I had said. Again, I did not ever mean to deprecate someone taking all available precautions, including using something like Kerio on Windows, I was simply suggesting that hardening Windows against exploits is an almost insurmountable task. I'm sorry to say, you'll be seeing more of me here, at least until the light bulb in my head switches on! :-) Not at all. I hope to see more of you and wish that more Windows users were interested enough in exploring the limits of their own systems that they would see the weaknesses of it. I have just gotten finished reading an interesting ebook about computer security that suggests that PC software developers in general have for years disregarded security in favor of usability, functionality and ease of use for new users. Linux, having been built by and for hackers did not care as much about UI and ease of use as security and arcane functional utility. Perhaps this is yet another example of that premise. -- Bryan Phinney Software Test Engineer Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] incredible: chromium worked fine without drivers
On Monday 15 Dec 2003 3:11 pm, Void lon iXaarii wrote: for a couple of versions, and with other distros tooo every time I install a new mandrake I then start chromium or tuxracer in a hope that someday the system will have 3d acceleration installed out of the box. In never worked ... with no nvidia cards I ever tried .. nor with an older ati ... but chromium worked with acceleation on a matrox g200 ... wow. The stuff of dreams of future. I just can't understand why a couple of Mb can't be spared to put a set of nvidia ( ati as it's becoming more spread) on the mandrake cds. I assume it's licenses .. but it's quite annoying for the user. And to top that the installation is still somethng a beginner can't really be expected to do: -you've got to run a shell binary from Nvidia ... which requires no X ... so how on earth do you do that as a beginner? I knew that I could go to mcc and have reboot without x starting and did it there .. but that's not quite obvious to the beginner ... and then knowing about startx -to top things I got pretty shocked when I saw that the 9.2 download cds didn't include the kernel source .. so when you installed the nvidia drivers and it asked for the kernel source ... well ... I was at a friends house who didn't reallly have internet .. sooo ... it stunk. well .. these are my feelings right now. Waiting and dreaming for a beginner friendly (and gamer friendly) Mandrake. Actually you *can* install the Nvidia drivers while in X. And if you buy the boxed sets or are a Mandrake Club member they are available as RPMs As for not knowing about startx. Well it is mentioned in the manual :-) As for why nvidia drivers are not bundled with the download edition. It is simply because they are not GPL and MandrakeSoft **will not** include anything on the download edition which is not fully free. If you want to try out a Mandrake based distro which does include nvidia drivers out of the box then check out PCLOS at http://www.pclinuxonline.com/pclos/pclinuxos.html It is a live CD which will boot into a very nice desktop environment including Nvidia drivers. It is a preview edition and will not install to hard drive perfectly, but when it is finished it looks like a very nice way to get up and running with Mandrake with minimum learning curve. derek -- -- www.jennings.homelinux.net http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] incredible: chromium worked fine without drivers
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Monday 15 December 2003 8:24 am, JoeHill wrote: On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 17:11:39 +0200 Void lon iXaarii [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: well .. these are my feelings right now. Waiting and dreaming for a beginner friendly (and gamer friendly) Mandrake. These issues would be mitigated, for the most part, if you had plonked down a few bones for your Mandrake OS. When you buy the boxed set, IIRC, it comes with the commercial/closed source software you need, like the *NVIDIA RPM's*. You can't expect too much when you download an OS for absolutely nuthin'. The fact that there are about a gazillion howto's about installing Nvidia's drivers, one of which I'm sure is on the Mandrake Twiki, and that there are free help lists like this one are just a bonus. In addition to those valid points, a possible explanation to the oft repeated question; Why doesn't the 'Mandrake Linux/pick your distribution' download edition come with the drivers for hardware-X's latest geewhiz go-fast killer Wham-O integrator? In specific; NVidia, as well as ATI and quite a number of hardware manufacturers; don't necessarily own all of the technology and/or methods used to make their latest toys. What they own in the main is their own technology, and a license and/or contract with the owners of any other included technology, to use that other proprietary technology to make a blended whole. Since download editions are usually (always with Mandrake, others?) released under the GPL that means these items are not allowed to be used. It's a matter of licensing and permissions; and has nothing to do with Free as in no cost. It means the owner(s) of the technology or architecture have reserved exclusive rights to their own property or technology under a proprietary Copyright, and if you want to use it you have to agree to their terms. That means a distribution can't redistribute any technology under the GPL that isn't already released under the GPL by it's owner. Conflicting Copyrights and the owner of the technology will always trump the distributor of the GPL'd distribution. Take this _*opinion*_ with a bucket of salt since IANAL. (I am not a lawyer.) But I have read and tried to understand the GPL, and the simple parts (???) of relevant Copyright law for the U.S and Canada. For Europe you're on your own. The law gives me vapours, lawyers even more so. Charlie - -- Edmonton,AB,Canada User #244963 at http://counter.li.org Mandrake Linux release 9.2 (FiveStar) for i586 kernel 2.4.22-21.tmb.1mdk 09:29:40 up 21:02, 1 user, load average: 0.08, 0.06, 0.09 Every cloud has a silver lining; you should have sold it, and bought titanium. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE/3eZwZqvqlrLPr5YRAurjAJ0ZJFiFcFRrXWeduvNgJXGM7WPIMACdGFuM afV/+TUvvIsvi8WTbxjihN0= =tWv+ -END PGP SIGNATURE- Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
[newbie] While we're on the subject of firewalls...
Batten down the hatches, folks: http://tinyurl.com/zbr1 -- JoeHill ++ ICQ # 280779813 Registered Linux user #282046 Homepage: www.orderinchaos.org +++ Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding. -- John Kenneth Galbraith Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Desktop issues, revisited
On Sunday 14 December 2003 07:18 pm, Guy Rouillier wrote: Bryan, please keep in mind this is a newbie list. I realized when I composed my initial message that I ran the risk of offending those who might perceive me as attacking their child, and I tried the best I could to keep subjective opinions out of my message and only point out things that might make a newbie's experience less pleasant than it could be. I suspect that my reaction is driven by the manner of what you pointed out. You didn't post saying, How can I do this with Linux? but instead by saying Linux is deficient because I can't do this. There are two very different meanings implied by those statements, the first, that perhaps the deficiency lies with either you or Linux and that you yourself are open to solutions, the second that Linux is at fault because you have failed to do something that you wanted to do with it and there is no solution because it is not apparent to you. Judging from the tone of your reply, I failed, and I apologize for stepping on any toes of developer's of the products I mentioned. I was thinking of responding to the points you raised, but I don't see anything productive coming out of that. I would suggest rephrasing your anecdotes as I have indicated above. For instance, asking how you can start Open Office quicker under Linux, like Windows. You have already received an answer to that one. You may receive answers to the other points as well. Your experience would be improved, you would get what you want, and if there is a real deficiency with Linux, some developer might actually feel the need to address it. As opposed to saying, Linux isn't as good because it is not performing the same as Windows. You are unlikely to win much support from Open Source developers by pointing that out. Especially since some of us think that is a Good Thing. I've been tinkering with Linux for about 4 years now, but have been unable to adopt it full time because I haven't been able to assemble tools similar to the ones I've gathered over the years under Win2k and its predecessors. Unlike you, I have. You may be failing because you are approaching the problem in the wrong fashion. Rather than trying to duplicate your Windows environment and Windows tools under Linux, you might be better served to determine what functionality you are trying to accomplish and ask for ways to duplicate the functionality. You might be surprised at how easy it is to do some things under Linux that you otherwise would need an entire toolset for under Windows. I know that I have been. In my current situation, I find the opposite, there are many things that I would like to do at work with Windows that would take 5 minutes to accomplish under Linux but take hours to figure out under Windows. I still try, though, and I'm getting closer. My opinion is that the only way to improve the Linux experience is to point out deficiencies I find. I would simply mention here that you are seeking to improve your experience, not necessarily anyone else's unless they share your problem. In some cases, we may not, since we may have found a better way or work around that solves the functional problem. Again, if you approach the community with a request for solutions rather than a list of complaints, I think that the responses that you will receive will be much better for you as well as the community. YMMV. You apparently find that offensive, so we'll just have to disagree. If you feel that your post was correct in tone and that future such posts will actually accomplish your goal, then I suppose we will. I am a software developer by profession and can contribute to improving open source software (and I do), but I don't have the time to contribute to a dozen different areas. Since you are a developer, look again at the list of items that you had and the tone of how those items were presented and if you received the same list about one of your own products, where there were simple workarounds, or focus on alternate functional areas like security, etc., would your likely response have differed from mine? -- Bryan Phinney Software Test Engineer Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Reading PDF attachments from Mozilla containing spaces in the title
Richard Urwin wrote: This isn't a problem with Mozilla, it's a problem with your mail client. The point being that Mozilla is the mail client. Without built-in intelligent handling of common business document types, there simply can't be any kind of desktop Linux migration.I'm rather confused why it doesn't work in KDE right out of the 'box'. The users will simply say 'No Way, We want Windows back.' Outlook has the same problem. There is really no way for a mail client to detect the end of a URL except by the first space. HTML mail with properly encoded URL links should also work. I'm not referring to URLs. I'm referring to files attached to emails, quite often sent out by users employed by various other agencies over whom I have no influence, let alone control. --Adrian Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Firewalls for Linux
On Sunday 14 December 2003 11:49 pm, Lyvim Xaphir wrote: Well this stuff was mostly stuff on the way to be trashed; whereupon it was intercepted by yours truly. So I've got maybe, wellNOTHING, actually, in this box. If you look around, old stuff is not hard to find. Schools, corporations, government installations, even Ebay; lots of peeps getting rid of old stuff all the time. Not real hard to find these days, especially with this newfangled internet thing. ;) If you consider yourself to be the standard user, then I stand corrected and obviously, I must have exceedingly poor luck picking my own friends. However, since Carren himself suggested that he was looking for something that would duplicate the functionality of Kerio on a Linux box, I do feel somewhat vindicated. All this depends on the intentions of the newbie; which is whether they are going for a functional installation to do stuff on the internet with or whether they are in this for the learning process. Most newbies are here to learn, and attack a learning curve, not run from it. Fact is, there is nothing that says that you can not operate a router at the same time that you operate a firewall. I run both a firewall and a router device. I still prefer the hardware device that disables portscans on my system, again, you may prefer to see those types of attacks, I just want to block them. However, I do not know of any non-techie computer people that just happen to have a spare box lying around, YMMV. Absent a box, there is not really any way to build a standalone firewall box that is going to cost less than the $50 that a hardware router will run you. Installing the firewall on your primary system is not as good as a hardware router device. I have already proven your statement about a firewall box being less than 50 bucks false, since I have a resurrected box right here; and I never have stated that the firewall should be on your primary system. Just because you have managed to do something does not mean that everyone would be able to. I don't know of any way that I could put together a standalone box, including two NIC cards for less than $50 currently were I not to have the hardware lying around from past purchases. It is possible that Joe Average could manage it, but not the ones that I know. At any rate, there is no reason that both of us can't make recommendations and the person in question can choose his own path. I made mine and you made yours. That depends on whether you are instructing newbies at a LUG or at Wal Mart. True, but a person currently using Windows with Kerio is unlikely to be at the LUG. Even if he was, if he didn't have competent assistance, I would be reluctant to advice him to take a shot at it knowing that he would be depending on the results right out of the gate. Were it something simpler than firewalls, I might have a different opinion. There is time for learning after your computer is running and doing the things that you want it to do. I definitely would not suggest to someone coming from the Windows world whose current idea of a good firewall is Kerio with a system tray icon on their primary machine, that they should jump full bore into the world of shorewall and iptables while their current machine is open to attack from the Internet. That I agree with; that's why I made this statement: Hardware routers are generally for Mac users or non-tech types. That's fine, but if you are looking for knowledge, a router appliance is not going to get you there; in fact I recommend against it. That being said, running a firewall on the same box that you use as your primary computer is simply not a good idea. It needs to be a standalone box that sits between you and the Internet. In fact, in most corporate setups the chain goes, Router - Firewall - Router - Internal lan. There is a reason for setting up routers between those boxes. Where in the heck are you getting the idea that I said anything about running the firewall on the primary box? This is what I said -- Thus the modifier, that being said The assumption is that they only have a primary machine (WIndows with firewall software running on that machine) and they want to duplicate that setup with Linux instead. If they had a spare machine lying around with dual NIC cards, they could be running kerio or someother software on a dedicated firewall currently. If they are not, possibly it is because they can not. Since running the firewall software on that primary machine is inferior to running a standalone router appliance, I suggested the router. I did not ever mean to say that a dedicated firewall box, correctly configured was inferior to a router, simply that the router was the quickest, cheapest way to provide security until one learned how to properly configure a standalone firewall. I still stand by my statement. WHAT
Re: [newbie] Reading PDF attachments from Mozilla containing spaces in the title
On Monday 15 Dec 2003 5:27 pm, Adrian Kuepker wrote: Richard Urwin wrote: This isn't a problem with Mozilla, it's a problem with your mail client. The point being that Mozilla is the mail client. Without built-in intelligent handling of common business document types, there simply can't be any kind of desktop Linux migration.I'm rather confused why it doesn't work in KDE right out of the 'box'. The users will simply say 'No Way, We want Windows back.' Outlook has the same problem. There is really no way for a mail client to detect the end of a URL except by the first space. HTML mail with properly encoded URL links should also work. I'm not referring to URLs. I'm referring to files attached to emails, quite often sent out by users employed by various other agencies over whom I have no influence, let alone control. --Adrian I would save them to disk. Once they are saved you can either rename them without the space in Konqueror, or you can substitute %20 for the space (I think that's correct?) from the command line. I guess the first option is preferable for your users. Being of the 'old school' I never save files with spaces in the name, but windows has positively encouraged it, so you have to find workarounds. Perhaps having to rename before reading will encourage good habits g Anne -- Registered Linux User No.293302 Have you visited http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org yet? Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Reading PDF attachments from Mozilla containing spaces in the title
On Monday 15 Dec 2003 5:27 pm, Adrian Kuepker wrote: Richard Urwin wrote: This isn't a problem with Mozilla, it's a problem with your mail client. The point being that Mozilla is the mail client. Without built-in intelligent handling of common business document types, there simply can't be any kind of desktop Linux migration.I'm rather confused why it doesn't work in KDE right out of the 'box'. The users will simply say 'No Way, We want Windows back.' Outlook has the same problem. There is really no way for a mail client to detect the end of a URL except by the first space. HTML mail with properly encoded URL links should also work. I'm not referring to URLs. I'm referring to files attached to emails, quite often sent out by users employed by various other agencies over whom I have no influence, let alone control. --Adrian Well mozilla-thunderbird, sylpheed-claws, operamail, and kmail all open pdf attachments with spaces in the name, so the problem you describe seems to be restricted to mozilla-mail (which I do not have) So I suggest a bug report to mozilla bugzilla might fix the issue, or else use a different mail client. (mozilla-thunderbird is quite nice :-) derek -- -- www.jennings.homelinux.net http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Desktop issues, revisited
On Monday 15 Dec 2003 5:25 pm, Bryan Phinney wrote: On Sunday 14 December 2003 07:18 pm, Guy Rouillier wrote: Bryan, please keep in mind this is a newbie list. I realized when I composed my initial message that I ran the risk of offending those who might perceive me as attacking their child, and I tried the best I could to keep subjective opinions out of my message and only point out things that might make a newbie's experience less pleasant than it could be. I suspect that my reaction is driven by the manner of what you pointed out. You didn't post saying, How can I do this with Linux? but instead by saying Linux is deficient because I can't do this. There are two very different meanings implied by those statements, the first, that perhaps the deficiency lies with either you or Linux and that you yourself are open to solutions, the second that Linux is at fault because you have failed to do something that you wanted to do with it and there is no solution because it is not apparent to you. Bryan, I always respect your views, but I'm not entirely happy with parts of your reply. It seems to me that his line was generally that there are still many things that make linux newbie-unfriendly, and I have to agree. I tried linux several times before discovering Mandrake, and, most importantly, the support that I could get here. I am, though, rather geek-minded, and refuse to let any darned box get the better of me. That is not so for many people who, quite rightly, prefer to see their box as a tool for getting things done. As several people have pointed out, you have to invest a huge amount of time to learning, and that's not always possible. I've been tinkering with Linux for about 4 years now, but have been unable to adopt it full time because I haven't been able to assemble tools similar to the ones I've gathered over the years under Win2k and its predecessors. Unlike you, I have. Good for you. But there are acknowledged gaps in what is available. I would suggest that a graphics app that supports cymk separation, a dtp app with properly ordered booklet printing, and an easy-to-use front end for small but multitable database usage - not on the scale of mysqul - as examples. Many of us reluctantly find we cannot entirely ditch windows - yet. Anne -- Registered Linux User No.293302 Have you visited http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org yet? Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] How do I remove the gui boot screen ?
Charles A Edwards wrote: On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 09:52:24 + John Richard Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Has every single one of us on the list forgotten how to do this properly ? John, I have not been closely following this thread but if you are running 9.2 the configuration option you wish to change did not exist previously. Edit /etc/sysconfig/bootsplash set SPLASH=no I think this will give you the view you wish during boot. Charles Charlie, Isn't that to remove the gui splash screen if so that is not what I'm trying to do. I want to get back to the B/W full screen width boot script. I want a good screen resolution vga=791 is what I always choose. OK I've attatched dscioo21.jpg which is not a particularly sharp image but does to demonstate what I DO NOT WANT. How do I get back to what I want ? John -- John Richard Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] inline: dsci0021.jpgWant to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Firewalls for Linux
On Sunday 14 December 2003 11:14 pm, JoeHill wrote: Actually, no one recommended an appliance. I recommended that the OP invest about 50 - 100 bucks in a used machine, and for sheer ease of use and features, you simply cannot beat something like Smoothwall. Built in features such as Snort IDS, VPN, Web Proxy, dynamic DNS, *and* it supports forwarding by range, not just by port. All this by simply booting from a CD. One correction. I, in fact recommended a router/firewall appliance. I made that recommendation based on the poster's situation having a single primary machine and currently using MS OS and Kerio or some other type of personal firewall software on the primary target machine. Based upon that situation, I stand by my original recommendation that the easiest/cheapest method to implement security is through a router/firewall appliance. To answer Lyvim's original point, either a Linksys, Dlink, or Netgear appliance will all allow opening up ranges of ports rather than just single ports. I know this positively because my ftp server is setup to allow passive transfers on a range of ports (thanks Anne). Since I was who Lyvim was posting the answer too, some of that venom should have been directed to me. -- Bryan Phinney Software Test Engineer Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] How do I remove the gui boot screen ?
On 12/15/2003 06:05 PM, John Richard Smith wrote: Charlie, Isn't that to remove the gui splash screen if so that is not what I'm trying to do. I want to get back to the B/W full screen width boot script. I want a good screen resolution vga=791 is what I always choose. Did you have a look at drakboot? You can access that through mcc and set all kinds of things in the boot section. The graphical boot sequence is called Aurora (at least upto MDK 9.1), perhaps you can do something with that. Good luck Paul Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Desktop issues, revisited
On Monday 15 December 2003 01:02 pm, Anne Wilson wrote: Bryan, I always respect your views, but I'm not entirely happy with parts of your reply. It seems to me that his line was generally that there are still many things that make linux newbie-unfriendly, and I have to agree. Well, I have a personal peeve about people complaining because Linux doesn't do something that Windows does or especially the way that windows does. I can be disagreeable when I think that someone is suggesting that Linux should conform to the expectation of Window's users especially because I feel that those expectations are impossible to meet, having been corrupted under the marketing lies of MS for too many years. I will try to mollify my postings in the future but I can't promise to be completely inoffensive, so perhaps someone else on the list can simply rap me on the knuckles when I start to channel Joe Hill. ;-} I tried linux several times before discovering Mandrake, and, most importantly, the support that I could get here. I am, though, rather geek-minded, and refuse to let any darned box get the better of me. That is not so for many people who, quite rightly, prefer to see their box as a tool for getting things done. As several people have pointed out, you have to invest a huge amount of time to learning, and that's not always possible. Again, I view that as part of the price that you pay instead of money. There are ways to get what you need that don't involve the time but they will invariably cost money. I don't see any shortcuts here, either the user invests the time or someone else has to and in many cases, the problems themselves are individual enough that no one is going to do it for them, at least not for free. That may not always be the case, and I will be the first one to recommend a solution if I know of one. But, again, complaining because free software didn't work without some effort is probably always going to yank my chain a bit. Good for you. But there are acknowledged gaps in what is available. I would suggest that a graphics app that supports cymk separation, a dtp app with properly ordered booklet printing, and an easy-to-use front end for small but multitable database usage - not on the scale of mysqul - as examples. Many of us reluctantly find we cannot entirely ditch windows - yet. There are some very good php front-ends for MySql that may serve the purposes as an interface. I have found few small database app front-ends that were not available in one form or another, including software catalogs, movie catalogs, etc. If you have a specific need, you might want to mention it as I might be able to suggest a solution. As for the others, I am not currently doing anything with graphics so I am not even familiar with those terms, but I would be happy to look into it if you want to take the trouble to explain your needs to me. As I mentioned, posting to the list a request for instruction on how to do something that you need to do will probably go over much better with a lot of people than a complaint that Linux is deficient because you can't do something that you want to do. I still think that is accurate. And I am not even close to as nasty as some of the replies on places like Slashdot, LinuxQuestions.org, etc. But I will TRY to improve. -- Bryan Phinney Software Test Engineer Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Firewalls for Linux
On Monday 15 December 2003 01:20 pm, JoeHill wrote: I do think you could come pretty close, though, to the price of one of those Linksys things in doing some shopping around for old hardware and using one of the Linux firewall solutions. More work, maybe a few extra bucks, but in the end a more permanent and flexible situation. Hell, I've seen 10/100 NICs for 10 bucks, and that's *Canadian*, LOL! Keeping in mind the experience of many buying cheap LG-CDROMS, I am not sure that I would recommend someone trying to build such a device with Linux, especially if they have to buy possibly dodgy hardware. I recently recommended the purchase of a fairly expensive (in comparison) modem (external real modem) to a friend because cheap Win-modems are simply not the bargain that their price would suggest. For someone unfamiliar with the trials of loading drivers and hardware compatibility with Linux, such an endeavor could prove to be a lengthy experience. Again, I would not suggest that it is impossible to put something together, but I would not recommend that someone inexperienced with doing that kind of stuff attempt to do it out of the gate. The OP *did* say they were into tinkering, IIRC. Yes, but again, considering the strategy of interlocking lines of defense, a hardware router appliance is not a bad idea, IMO, even if you want to run a dedicated firewall. It is, if nothing else, a $50 additional layer of security for a network. Well worth the price as far as I am concerned. Especially since it will keep most of the routine virus/worm/script kiddie traffic out by itself, leaving you with only the dedicated bad actors to worry about. -- Bryan Phinney Software Test Engineer Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Desktop issues, revisited
On Monday 15 Dec 2003 6:21 pm, Bryan Phinney wrote: I can be disagreeable when I think that someone is suggesting that Linux should conform to the expectation of Window's users especially because I feel that those expectations are impossible to meet, having been corrupted under the marketing lies of MS for too many years. M$ marketing apart, it is a fact of life that most programmers have put their effort into M$ compatible apps, because that's where the sales and the money is. Simple economics. Let's hope that before long the message will get through that there are good sales levels to be had outside M$ - but OTOH, so many people believe that linux apps should be free as in beer, that it might never happen. I will try to mollify my postings in the future but I can't promise to be completely inoffensive, so perhaps someone else on the list can simply rap me on the knuckles when I start to channel Joe Hill. ;-} You can't - he patented it g I tried linux several times before discovering Mandrake, and, most importantly, the support that I could get here. I am, though, rather geek-minded, and refuse to let any darned box get the better of me. That is not so for many people who, quite rightly, prefer to see their box as a tool for getting things done. As several people have pointed out, you have to invest a huge amount of time to learning, and that's not always possible. Again, I view that as part of the price that you pay instead of money. Point taken - to a degree, but as my daughter would say, if I want to use a hammer I have to learn which end to hold, but I don't have to learn the physics that dictate how hard I hit. That's the user viewpoint. Good for you. But there are acknowledged gaps in what is available. I would suggest that a graphics app that supports cymk separation, a dtp app with properly ordered booklet printing, and an easy-to-use front end for small but multitable database usage - not on the scale of mysqul - as examples. Many of us reluctantly find we cannot entirely ditch windows - yet. There are some very good php front-ends for MySql that may serve the purposes as an interface. I have found few small database app front-ends that were not available in one form or another, including software catalogs, movie catalogs, etc. If you have a specific need, you might want to mention it as I might be able to suggest a solution. I may well talk to you later on that one, Bryan. I do miss my Lotus Approach databases. I used them for so many things. For the main part I'm living without them, but just occasionally I have to dip into windows to use one. It may seem stupid, but one of the things I most miss is to be able to select the name and address fields and display them in label formats, 21 or 24 to a sheet. It was simple under Approach, but I think there would be no easy answer under Linux. I don't have a problem with paying, Bryan, if I can find the right app. It's not yet a priority, as Mandrake change things so often that I spend too much time learning and not enough time doing g As for the others, I am not currently doing anything with graphics so I am not even familiar with those terms, but I would be happy to look into it if you want to take the trouble to explain your needs to me. This is not a personal need, but it is a need of anyone who needs to send artwork to publishers - cmyk is the 4-colour format required, and The Gimp can't do it. As I mentioned, posting to the list a request for instruction on how to do something that you need to do will probably go over much better with a lot of people than a complaint that Linux is deficient because you can't do something that you want to do. I still think that is accurate. Agreed And I am not even close to as nasty as some of the replies on places like Slashdot, LinuxQuestions.org, etc. Also agreed - and not only those places. But I will TRY to improve. Smile, damn you! We all get our chains pulled sometimes g Anne -- Registered Linux User No.293302 Have you visited http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org yet? Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Scannerdrake doesnt save config
John Richard Smith wrote: amending the line that sets the scanner port, like this, #usb /dev/usbscanner0 usb /dev/usb/scanner0 thanks, unfortunately doesn't work on mine. On Sun, 2003-12-14 at 06:05, Graham Watkins wrote: Hi Y'all, I had the same problem when I first installed 9.2 a week ago. Also my floppy, zip and cd drives all vanished. Yesterday, I booted up with the installation CD and selected the upgrade option. All missing hardware including the scanner was detected and this time, stayed detected. My scanner is still there this morning. (First time my scanner has ever worked with Linux.) The hackers amongst you may consider this a bit of a cop-out but it worked for me. Might be as well to install the updates first as I think it has been mentioned that there is some kind of bug in harddrake as supplied on the disk. Cheers, I've done all the updates to no avail. Will try the installation CD route when I get back from holiday. David Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Firewalls for Linux
On Monday 15 Dec 2003 6:06 pm, Bryan Phinney wrote: To answer Lyvim's original point, either a Linksys, Dlink, or Netgear appliance will all allow opening up ranges of ports rather than just single ports. OTOH be very wary of SMC products. My SMC 7401BBRA can't do that I know this positively because my ftp server is setup to allow passive transfers on a range of ports (thanks Anne). Glad to know I got something right - but I'm not sure what it was g Anne -- Registered Linux User No.293302 Have you visited http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org yet? Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] How do I remove the gui boot screen ?
On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 17:05:57 + John Richard Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Isn't that to remove the gui splash screen if so that is not what I'm trying to do. The bootsplash and theme are all tied in together. If you boot with splash=no all you will get is a b/w screen with the text displayed, well it does also show a small picture of he who shall remain nameless. That is what you want is it not? **small rant** You can call me asshole, bastard, SOB, etc; and I will not mind. But Please, there has never been Nor will there ever be an ie or y on the end of my name. It is Charles Charles -- His eyes were cold. As cold as the bitter winter snow that was falling outside. Yes, cold and therefore difficult to chew... - Mandrake Linux 10.0 on PurpleDragon Kernel-2.6.0-0.4mdkenterprise http://www.eslrahc.com - pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [newbie] How do I remove the gui boot screen ?
John Richard Smith wrote: OK I've attatched dscioo21.jpg which is not a particularly sharp image but does to demonstate what I DO NOT WANT. How do I get back to what I want ? John, thanks for posting the image - I *never* would have understood that was what you were seeing. I just spent an hour trying to make that happen under 9.2, and no matter what combinations I tried, I couldn't get the OK messages to come up in that blue Mandrake graphics window. Sorry! -- Guy Rouillier Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Desktop issues, revisited
On Monday 15 December 2003 01:56 pm, Anne Wilson wrote: M$ marketing apart, it is a fact of life that most programmers have put their effort into M$ compatible apps, because that's where the sales and the money is. Simple economics. Let's hope that before long the message will get through that there are good sales levels to be had outside M$ - but OTOH, so many people believe that linux apps should be free as in beer, that it might never happen. With the GPL, software availability is not likely to ever mimic the Windows world. Again, I think that is a Good Thing, because mirroring variety of software in windows would likely require the same proprietary restrictions. Personally, I think that anyone that is unwilling to make some investment or sacrifices to escape from that world should stay where they are at. Again, I view that as part of the price that you pay instead of money. Point taken - to a degree, but as my daughter would say, if I want to use a hammer I have to learn which end to hold, but I don't have to learn the physics that dictate how hard I hit. That's the user viewpoint. Yes, to a degree, I agree. However, the devil is in the details. I may well talk to you later on that one, Bryan. I do miss my Lotus Approach databases. I used them for so many things. For the main part I'm living without them, but just occasionally I have to dip into windows to use one. It may seem stupid, but one of the things I most miss is to be able to select the name and address fields and display them in label formats, 21 or 24 to a sheet. It was simple under Approach, but I think there would be no easy answer under Linux. I don't have a problem with paying, Bryan, if I can find the right app. Kind of interesting you mention this. I recently printed out Xmas mailing labels to stock label media using OpenOffice with an interface into a Gnome Card address database using mail merge features that pull name, street address, city, state zip, etc. First time I realilzed that OpenOffice could duplicate that particular functionality that I used to use in MS Word. But I will TRY to improve. Smile, damn you! We all get our chains pulled sometimes g Yeah, but I'm of Irish heritage. You should realize that our smiles are widest when the fighting is thickest. g God bless the Gaels of Eire, for the men that God made mad, for all their wars are merry, and all their songs are sad. -- Bryan Phinney Software Test Engineer Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Firewalls for Linux
On Monday 15 December 2003 02:06 pm, Anne Wilson wrote: Glad to know I got something right - but I'm not sure what it was g You helped me test that I got the port assignments rights on the passive transfers. When you were trying to get the HP IJS RPM file. -- Bryan Phinney Software Test Engineer Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Desktop issues, revisited
On Monday 15 Dec 2003 7:45 pm, Bryan Phinney wrote: I may well talk to you later on that one, Bryan. I do miss my Lotus Approach databases. I used them for so many things. For the main part I'm living without them, but just occasionally I have to dip into windows to use one. It may seem stupid, but one of the things I most miss is to be able to select the name and address fields and display them in label formats, 21 or 24 to a sheet. It was simple under Approach, but I think there would be no easy answer under Linux. I don't have a problem with paying, Bryan, if I can find the right app. Kind of interesting you mention this. I recently printed out Xmas mailing labels to stock label media using OpenOffice with an interface into a Gnome Card address database using mail merge features that pull name, street address, city, state zip, etc. First time I realilzed that OpenOffice could duplicate that particular functionality that I used to use in MS Word. Hmm - that sounds interesting. I do use GnomeCard, though I may have to import some .csv records to enlarge it. Truth is that I had real problems with OOo and SO under 9.0 - my documents got trashed if they grew too big (and others were kind enough to verify it for me), so I never really got down to using them under 9.1. Perhaps it's time to look again. But I will TRY to improve. Smile, damn you! We all get our chains pulled sometimes g Yeah, but I'm of Irish heritage. You should realize that our smiles are widest when the fighting is thickest. g God bless the Gaels of Eire, for the men that God made mad, for all their wars are merry, and all their songs are sad. Oh dear - and I can only boast 1/8th Irish heritage - but there's very likely a bit of Viking in me (a lot settled around here), so that should compensate a bit, I think g BTW, an Irish friend of ours used to recite a longish poem, in which the punch lines were for the knife was made of Sheffield steel but the cloth was Irish linen or words to that effect. Do you know it? I'd love to see it if you do. Anne -- Registered Linux User No.293302 Have you visited http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org yet? Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Firewalls for Linux
On Monday 15 Dec 2003 7:46 pm, Bryan Phinney wrote: On Monday 15 December 2003 02:06 pm, Anne Wilson wrote: Glad to know I got something right - but I'm not sure what it was g You helped me test that I got the port assignments rights on the passive transfers. When you were trying to get the HP IJS RPM file. Ah yes - I never got that sorted. Must have another go at it, but probably not until after Christmas. Anne -- Registered Linux User No.293302 Have you visited http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org yet? Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] How do I remove the gui boot screen ?
Charles A Edwards wrote: On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 17:05:57 + John Richard Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Isn't that to remove the gui splash screen if so that is not what I'm trying to do. The bootsplash and theme are all tied in together. If you boot with splash=no all you will get is a b/w screen with the text displayed, well it does also show a small picture of he who shall remain nameless. That is what you want is it not? **small rant** You can call me asshole, bastard, SOB, etc; and I will not mind. But Please, there has never been Nor will there ever be an ie or y on the end of my name. It is Charles Charles OOps sorry charles, Listen for just about as long at I've been with linux, and that is MD7.0 I've had that gui splash screen and a standard B/W full width text boot scrip, believe me . Indeed I still boot M9.0 which I still have on, today , in this guise, it's just M9.1 I am having trouble with, ever since I replaced that the kernel I deleted, and I just cannot get back to the way it was. If you think amending, Edit /etc/sysconfig/bootsplash set SPLASH=no will not interfere with the gui splash screen which is not in my experience part of the boot script as such, or it never has been for me. John PS. I would never call you , asshole, bastard, or SOB, I triffle special, out of this world, highly intelligent, suave, full of wit , kind , patience, knowledgeable, a lover of fine women, appreciated all over the world, but none of those highly inappropriet sobriquets. -- John Richard Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] How do I remove the gui boot screen ?
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Monday 15 December 2003 12:39 pm, Charles A Edwards wrote: On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 17:05:57 + John Richard Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Isn't that to remove the gui splash screen if so that is not what I'm trying to do. The bootsplash and theme are all tied in together. If you boot with splash=no all you will get is a b/w screen with the text displayed, well it does also show a small picture of he who shall remain nameless. That is what you want is it not? **small rant** You can call me asshole, bastard, SOB, etc; and I will not mind. But Please, there has never been Nor will there ever be an ie or y on the end of my name. It is Charles Charles g I feel the way you do, but WRT the nickname Chuck. My birth certificate says Charlie so apparently that would be my actual moniker. (-: I refuse to answer to the other. The main reason I added my surname to my posts was because we were starting to get too many Charles/Charlie posters here, and on the rest of the Mandrake mail lists. Peace; CHARLIE (-; - -- Edmonton,AB,Canada User #244963 at http://counter.li.org Mandrake Linux release 9.2 (FiveStar) for i586 kernel 2.4.22-21.tmb.1mdk 12:51:01 up 1 day, 23 min, 1 user, load average: 0.08, 0.07, 0.06 Guillotine, n.: A French chopping center. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE/3hIAZqvqlrLPr5YRAmmRAJoCeRcHU6tNLKORK9/Dh7q/CBuIWwCbBSPR SrlXHV5b8echhdcQdxiOLvc= =R5N5 -END PGP SIGNATURE- Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] How do I remove the gui boot screen ?
Guy Rouillier wrote: John Richard Smith wrote: OK I've attatched dscioo21.jpg which is not a particularly sharp image but does to demonstate what I DO NOT WANT. How do I get back to what I want ? John, thanks for posting the image - I *never* would have understood that was what you were seeing. I just spent an hour trying to make that happen under 9.2, and no matter what combinations I tried, I couldn't get the OK messages to come up in that blue Mandrake graphics window. Sorry! Yes, well I'm stuck with it for the moment. I have seen it before, and delt with it before, but for the life of me I cannot remember what I did to change it back to what I want. It's some text editor job as far can remember, I guess not many of you here on the list have seen it before then ? John -- John Richard Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] How do I remove the gui boot screen ?
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Monday 15 December 2003 12:43 pm, Guy Rouillier wrote: John Richard Smith wrote: OK I've attatched dscioo21.jpg which is not a particularly sharp image but does to demonstate what I DO NOT WANT. How do I get back to what I want ? John, thanks for posting the image - I *never* would have understood that was what you were seeing. I just spent an hour trying to make that happen under 9.2, and no matter what combinations I tried, I couldn't get the OK messages to come up in that blue Mandrake graphics window. Sorry! Open lilo.conf in the editor of your choice and change the append: splash=quiet to splash=verbose. You'll still get the 'fancy background' but you'll see the messages scroll by. Run lilo -v as super user afterwards. You can also change the splash themes but that's another project for another post. ie.: When someone asks about it. g Alternative, splash=no gives a full console style boot, black background, boot messages. - -- Edmonton,AB,Canada User #244963 at http://counter.li.org Mandrake Linux release 9.2 (FiveStar) for i586 kernel 2.4.22-21.tmb.1mdk 12:57:25 up 1 day, 29 min, 1 user, load average: 0.06, 0.05, 0.05 A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that balances are correct. -- Princess Irulan, Manual of Maud'Dib -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE/3hUNZqvqlrLPr5YRAlXjAJ9z1h/3S3PBhzrE1Krf0zFeq/cKwQCgl7qL 8nFqgGmW5NU8ZguLqFw9vkU= =ZqnS -END PGP SIGNATURE- Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] How do I remove the gui boot screen ?
On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 21:16:01 + Kaj Haulrich [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Charles, here is what I think John wants : That is what I also thought and that is what he will get with splash=no Charles -- I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning. -- Plato - Mandrake Linux 10.0 on PurpleDragon Kernel-2.6.0-0.4mdkenterprise http://www.eslrahc.com - pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [newbie] Mdk 9.2 standalone firewall
Hi Derek, Thanks for a detailed explanation. Johan ** snip Personally I use clamdmail ( in contrib) which I call from procmail. Clamdmail is a neat little utility which will call clamav virus scanner, and spamassassin spam checker. derek -- Johan May this be a good day for learning Registered Linux User #330034 - still learning Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Desktop issues, revisited
On Monday 15 Dec 2003 7:45 pm, Bryan Phinney wrote: Kind of interesting you mention this. I recently printed out Xmas mailing labels to stock label media using OpenOffice with an interface into a Gnome Card address database using mail merge features that pull name, street address, city, state zip, etc. First time I realilzed that OpenOffice could duplicate that particular functionality that I used to use in MS Word. BTW, doing it this way - can you use a code-field to select addresses appropriate to a group? I don't send Christmas cards to everyone I have listed in GnomeCard g Yup - that's how lazy I can get. I loathe writing envelopes. Anne -- Registered Linux User No.293302 Have you visited http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org yet? Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Desktop issues, revisited
On Monday 15 December 2003 02:54 pm, Anne Wilson wrote: BTW, an Irish friend of ours used to recite a longish poem, in which the punch lines were for the knife was made of Sheffield steel but the cloth was Irish linen or words to that effect. Do you know it? I'd love to see it if you do. No, but I do know a cute one about a mouse left alone in a bar one night -- Bryan Phinney Software Test Engineer Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] How do I remove the gui boot screen ?
Kaj Haulrich wrote: On Monday 15 December 2003 19:39, Charles A Edwards wrote: snip That is what you want is it not? /snip Charles, here is what I think John wants : Attached image. Kaj Haulrich. That is the very thing I want, but not in some low resolution screen setting. I use vga=791 John -- John Richard Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Desktop issues, revisited
On Monday 15 December 2003 03:42 pm, Anne Wilson wrote: On Monday 15 Dec 2003 7:45 pm, Bryan Phinney wrote: Kind of interesting you mention this. I recently printed out Xmas mailing labels to stock label media using OpenOffice with an interface into a Gnome Card address database using mail merge features that pull name, street address, city, state zip, etc. First time I realilzed that OpenOffice could duplicate that particular functionality that I used to use in MS Word. BTW, doing it this way - can you use a code-field to select addresses appropriate to a group? I don't send Christmas cards to everyone I have listed in GnomeCard g Yup - that's how lazy I can get. I loathe writing envelopes. Not sure, I didn't delve deeper into it than I needed to. It does have room for custom fields and I imagine that you could separate them out somehow. One quick dirty way would be to try duplicating the Gnome card database and then dumping all the records except the ones you want. Might be the easiest way to do it but certainly not the most elegant. -- Bryan Phinney Software Test Engineer Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] How do I remove the gui boot screen ?
On Monday 15 December 2003 02:43 pm, Guy Rouillier wrote: GR John, thanks for posting the image - I *never* would have understood GR that was what you were seeing. I just spent an hour trying to make that GR happen under 9.2, and no matter what combinations I tried, I couldn't GR get the OK messages to come up in that blue Mandrake graphics window. GR Sorry! But it will - if you just hit escape during the bootup process, right? -- /\ DarkLord \/ Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] How do I remove the gui boot screen ?
On Monday 15 December 2003 02:01 pm, John Richard Smith wrote: JR Yes, well I'm stuck with it for the moment. JR I have seen it before, and delt with it before, but for the life of me I JR cannot remember what I did to change it back to what I want. It's some JR text editor job as far can remember, I guess not many of you here on the JR list have seen it before then ? JR JR John JR Before I added my wife as a user to my personal system, I used to boot up to a login prompt (init 3, right?) with nothing but a black screen with scrolling bootup messages before that. I then started KDE with startx. She of course, coming from a local community colleges windows background preferred some kind of graphical login. The only thing I can ever remember doing was putting vga=791 in lilo, as well as noquiet and removing the bootsplash RPM. It seems you've done all this so I dunno. -- /\ DarkLord \/ Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] incredible: chromium worked fine without drivers
On Monday 15 December 2003 10:11 am, Void lon iXaarii wrote: Vl well .. these are my feelings right now. Waiting and dreaming for a Vl beginner friendly (and gamer friendly) Mandrake. Vl Vl Yep, I think that everyone agrees that was a bit of a mistake. Hopefully it will be addressed in future releases (I hear that they may be going to 4 CDs for the d/l edition?) -- /\ DarkLord \/ Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Open Sylpheed links in background (in Galeon)
On Fri, 12 Dec 2003 18:40:41 +, RichardA [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If I middle-clicked on a URL in Sylpheed with Mandrake 9.0/Gnome 2.2, it would open in a new tab in the background, and Sylpheed would keep focus. With Mandrake 9.2/Gnome 2.4 the link opens in a new tab, but Galeon gets focus. Where do I change this? In Sylpheed (which currently sends galeon --new-tab'%s')? Or about:config in Galeon? Or gconf-editor? No replies to this -- anyone care to take a guess? Also, on a related note, how can I get anti-aliased text in Sylpheed? Would I need a GTK2-enabled Sylpheed? If so, does one exist? Richard Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] How do I remove the gui boot screen ?
On Monday 15 December 2003 04:52 am, John Richard Smith wrote: Has every single one of us on the list forgotten how to do this properly ? John, I just jumped in on this thread, but it *is* the bootsplash that is giving you the blue background. I am not talking about the LILO bootsplash screen, but the bootsplash package that gives you the blue screen during boot. Just urpme bootsplash and you should get what you want. -- /g Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] How do I remove the gui boot screen ?
On Monday 15 December 2003 01:58 pm, John Richard Smith wrote: Indeed I still boot M9.0 which I still have on, today , in this guise, it's just M9.1 I am having trouble with, ever since I replaced that the kernel I deleted, and I just cannot get back to the way it was. If you think amending, Edit /etc/sysconfig/bootsplash set SPLASH=no will not interfere with the gui splash screen which is not in my experience part of the boot script as such, or it never has been for me. I believe you are confusing the LILO graphical menu with the splash screen startup. Removing the splashscreen package will not remove the LILO graphical menu you get at boot. -- /g Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] How do I remove the gui boot screen ?
Ronald J. Hall wrote: On Monday 15 December 2003 02:01 pm, John Richard Smith wrote: JR Yes, well I'm stuck with it for the moment. JR I have seen it before, and delt with it before, but for the life of me I JR cannot remember what I did to change it back to what I want. It's some JR text editor job as far can remember, I guess not many of you here on the JR list have seen it before then ? JR JR John JR Before I added my wife as a user to my personal system, I used to boot up to a login prompt (init 3, right?) with nothing but a black screen with scrolling bootup messages before that. I then started KDE with startx. She of course, coming from a local community colleges windows background preferred some kind of graphical login. The only thing I can ever remember doing was putting vga=791 in lilo, as well as noquiet and removing the bootsplash RPM. It seems you've done all this so I dunno. Well it used to be that during the install procedure while installing lilo you had to choose between install lilo with graphical interface and install lilo with text interface, and not knowing much about the difference, I chose graphical, until I knew better, and from then on I chose lilo-text, and this gives me the nice gui splash screen with the B/W text boot script. I have always chosen vga=791 for all my boot-ups except failsafe and nonFB where I have vga=ask. Nothing special there. Before I knew better and chose gui aurora boot script I could change it back to text boot scrip, but again I cannot remember how. Anyway, Charles, Does, /usr/share/bootsplash/scripts/switch-themes have any bearing on the boot script style do you think ? John -- John Richard Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Mdk 9.2 standalone firewall
On Monday 15 Dec 2003 7:46 pm, Johan wrote:
Hi Derek,
Thanks for a detailed explanation.
Johan
**
snip
Personally I use clamdmail ( in contrib) which I call from procmail.
Clamdmail is a neat little utility which will call clamav virus
scanner, and spamassassin spam checker.
derek
Do you mean you want a detailed explanation?
OK
urpmi clamdmail spamassassin clamav
check spamassassin service is running.
If you also 'urpmi clamd' then clam will run as a continuous service instead
of being called up for each mail. This will be faster, but consume more
resource.
In your ~/.procmailrc config add a recipe like this :-
#Run ClamdMail
:0 fw
| clamdmail [EMAIL PROTECTED] --spam --tnef --quar=~/Maildir/virus
--mta=/usr/sbin/postfix
* ^X-Spam-Flag: YES
$JUNKMAIL
where JUNKMAIL is a mail folder and ~/Maildir/virus is a folder to hold virus
infected mails.
When you install clamav it will automatically run a daily job to update the
virus database. (Make sure anacron is installed) This job will send you an
error email even if it completes successfully. I found this annoying, and so
edited /etc/cron.daily/freshclam like this :-
#!/bin/sh
# A simple update script for the clamav virus database. This could as well
# be replaced by a SysV script.
# fix log file if needed
LOG_FILE=/var/log/clamav/freshclam.log
if [ ! -f ${LOG_FILE} ]; then
touch $LOG_FILE
chmod 644 $LOG_FILE
chown clamav.clamav $LOG_FILE
fi
/usr/bin/freshclam \
--quiet \
--datadir=/var/lib/clamav \
--log=$LOG_FILE \
--log-verbose \
--daemon-notify=/etc/clamav.conf
es=$?
if [ $es=1 ]; then
exit 0
else
exit $es
fi
Useful links
http://clamav.sourceforge.net/
http://clamdmail.sourceforge.net/
derek
Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft?
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] How do I remove the gui boot screen ?
Greg Meyer wrote: On Monday 15 December 2003 04:52 am, John Richard Smith wrote: Has every single one of us on the list forgotten how to do this properly ? John, I just jumped in on this thread, but it *is* the bootsplash that is giving you the blue background. I am not talking about the LILO bootsplash screen, but the bootsplash package that gives you the blue screen during boot. Just urpme bootsplash and you should get what you want. really, just put up a terminal and, urpme bootsplash and all will be restored ? Hell, lets try it Well Greg, Half a success. It has removed the gui blue screen shutdown,and return to B/W , but , not the gui blue screen bootup. Hmm, what man pages governs this ? John -- John Richard Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
[newbie] cumulative network traffic monitoring
Does anyone know of a linux package that will allow me to see a web-based chart which indicates how much data or traffic ( in Gigabytes ) has passed through my Internet connection? I think Webalizer will give me what I want, but I need to install it on Smoothwall, and I'm looking for some options instead of webalizer. Any ideas? Lanman Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
[newbie] Revised - cumulative network traffic monitoring
Does anyone know of a linux package that will allow me to see a web-based chart which indicates how much data or traffic ( in Gigabytes ) has passed through my Internet connection? I think Webalizer will give me what I want, but I need to install it on Smoothwall, and I'm looking for some options instead of webalizer. I need to be able to monitor all traffic (FTP, etc.), and not just web-traffic. Any ideas? Lanman Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] cdrom/floppy drives
On Monday 15 December 2003 09:05 am, Anne Wilson wrote: On Monday 15 Dec 2003 10:18 am, amine grun wrote: --- Message d'origine --- De: Anne Wilson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2003 22:22:01 + Sujet: Re: [newbie] cdrom/floppy drives On Sunday 14 Dec 2003 10:14 pm, John wrote: On Sunday 14 December 2003 04:01 pm, Anne Wilson wrote: On Sunday 14 Dec 2003 3:23 pm, John wrote: On Sunday 14 December 2003 05:31 am, Anne Wilson wrote: On Saturday 13 Dec 2003 10:49 pm, John wrote: Thanks for response. Tried harddrake and noticed the files had changed. Floppy= new devfs device: /dev/floppy/0; old device file:/dev/fd0... Cdrom= new devfs device: /dev/scsi/host0/bus0 /target0/lun0/cd; old device file: /dev/scd0... I'm not sure how or why the change. Error message when trying to access cd says could not enter directory /mnt/cdrom. Thanks for help. John /dev/fd0 is a link to /dev/floppy/0, so it's no problem (see attached). I would guess, though, that your /etc/fstab may need adjusting. Check that you still have the mount points that you want to use, /mnt/floppy, /mnt/cdrom etc.. Then paste a copy of your fstab into your reply, and one of us will check it for you. Anne Anne Thanks again for the response. Here is the copy of /etc/fstab. /dev/hda1 / ext3 defaults 1 1 none /dev/pts devpts mode=0620 0 0 /dev/hda6 /home ext3 defaults 1 2 none /mnt/floppy supermount dev=/dev/fd0,fs=auto,--,iocharset=iso8859-1,sync,codepage=850,u ma sk =0 0 0 none /mnt/scd0 supermount dev=/dev/scd0,fs=auto,--,iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,umask =0 0 0 none /proc proc defaults 0 0 /dev/hda5 swap swap defaults 0 0 I'm learning here so i'm not sure about the mount points. I am using the default setup from the installation process if that helps, but something has changed from that setup. Clearly fstab is still looking for those link files. I assume that they have been lost. I would guess that you could simply change the relevant fstab lines, making dev=/dev/fd0 read dev=/dev/floppy/0 and so on, but I suspect that it would be better to recreate the links. It's time for someone more experienced to jump in on this one. Should he recreate the links? Can you give precise instructions? Anne Hi ! try changing the two lines in fstab like this : /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy vfat,msdos dev=/dev/fd0,fs=auto,--,iocharset=iso8859- 1,sync,users,codepage=850,umask=0 0 0 # the abov for floppy drive, users is to let users mount and unmount it. / dev/scd0 /mnt/scd0 iso9660 dev=/dev/scd0,fs=auto,--,iocharset=iso8859-1,users,codepage=850,uma sk=0 0 0 # iso9660 or iso6990 i don't remember i am not at home to check, you can leave supermount unchanged and try # the others filesystems if it failes. #goodluck !! amine It's always a good idea to copy a config file like fstab first, either by cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.old or by opening it in a text editor then saving to a new name. Once you've done that, the simplest change for you to make is to replace /dev/fd0 with /dev/floppy/0 and replace /dev/scd0 with /dev/scsi/host0/bus0 /target0/lun0/cd I'm pretty sure it would work like that, just didn't know if it was the best way to do it. I agree with amine, though, that adding 'user' will be important for you. Without that only root would be able to access them. Anne Thanks for response amine and Anne. I'll let you know as soon as i get time to try the change if it works. Its a busy week and will probably be the weekend. Thanks again. john Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] How do I remove the gui boot screen ?
Ronald J. Hall wrote: On Monday 15 December 2003 02:43 pm, Guy Rouillier wrote: GR John, thanks for posting the image - I *never* would have understood GR that was what you were seeing. I just spent an hour trying to make that GR happen under 9.2, and no matter what combinations I tried, I couldn't GR get the OK messages to come up in that blue Mandrake graphics window. GR Sorry! But it will - if you just hit escape during the bootup process, right? I switched to LILO graphics for booting. If I hit escape while the LILO graphics menu is up, it simply switches to the LILO text prompt. If I hit escape after the making a selection from the LILO menu and the kernel has started loading, absolutely nothing happens - the kernel just keeps on loading. It definitely doesn't switch to the blue Mandrake window that John showed. -- Guy Rouillier Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] How do I remove the gui boot screen ?
Charlie Mahan wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Monday 15 December 2003 12:43 pm, Guy Rouillier wrote: John Richard Smith wrote: OK I've attatched dscioo21.jpg which is not a particularly sharp image but does to demonstate what I DO NOT WANT. How do I get back to what I want ? John, thanks for posting the image - I *never* would have understood that was what you were seeing. I just spent an hour trying to make that happen under 9.2, and no matter what combinations I tried, I couldn't get the OK messages to come up in that blue Mandrake graphics window. Sorry! Open lilo.conf in the editor of your choice and change the append: splash=quiet to splash=verbose. You'll still get the 'fancy background' but you'll see the messages scroll by. Run lilo -v as super user afterwards. I'm using the version of lilo that comes with 9.2 (22.5.7.2) and it doesn't recognize the splash= option in lilo.conf. The bootsplash package is installed. You can also change the splash themes but that's another project for another post. ie.: When someone asks about it. g Alternative, splash=no gives a full console style boot, black background, boot messages. - -- -- Guy Rouillier Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
[newbie] Autostart in KDE.
HI all. First of all, many thanks for all your help in getting Samba to work. I have it working now, maybe not perfectly, but it does enough. :):) Now, I've managed to figure out how to make KDE start a program for me. My question is, How can I make the program go to another desktop? Currently it starts in Desktop 1 I'd like it to start in Desktop 4 (out of my way) TIA Shaz Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Mdk 9.2 standalone firewall
Hi Derek,
Misunderstanding...I thanked you for what I thought was a detailed
explanation...now it is beyond detailed for me...at the moment some of
it is a foreign language.
OK, some backfeed...shorewall was *not* installed...I went to webmin and
it told me not installed and the linux firewall also not installed.
I urpmi' shorewall and it was on a contrib site registered in MCC.
What the use of the GUI in MCC is for firewall is now beyond
me...configuring a non-existend firewall..ha-ha?
I also downloaded some pages and a one-on-one examples.
Now it is supposed to function...will try it with that site you gave me.
Kindly if possible...how can I switch that GUI in MCC off.just to be
sure it does not interfere.
Again thanks, now a least I trust i got something going.
Johan.
*
On Monday 15 December 2003 23:45, Derek Jennings wrote:
On Monday 15 Dec 2003 7:46 pm, Johan wrote:
Hi Derek,
Thanks for a detailed explanation.
Johan
**
snip
Personally I use clamdmail ( in contrib) which I call from
procmail. Clamdmail is a neat little utility which will call
clamav virus scanner, and spamassassin spam checker.
derek
Do you mean you want a detailed explanation?
OK
urpmi clamdmail spamassassin clamav
check spamassassin service is running.
If you also 'urpmi clamd' then clam will run as a continuous service
instead of being called up for each mail. This will be faster, but
consume more resource.
In your ~/.procmailrc config add a recipe like this :-
#Run ClamdMail
:0 fw
:
| clamdmail [EMAIL PROTECTED] --spam --tnef
| --quar=~/Maildir/virus
--mta=/usr/sbin/postfix
* ^X-Spam-Flag: YES
$JUNKMAIL
where JUNKMAIL is a mail folder and ~/Maildir/virus is a folder to
hold virus infected mails.
When you install clamav it will automatically run a daily job to
update the virus database. (Make sure anacron is installed) This job
will send you an error email even if it completes successfully. I
found this annoying, and so edited /etc/cron.daily/freshclam like
this :-
#!/bin/sh
# A simple update script for the clamav virus database. This could as
well # be replaced by a SysV script.
# fix log file if needed
LOG_FILE=/var/log/clamav/freshclam.log
if [ ! -f ${LOG_FILE} ]; then
touch $LOG_FILE
chmod 644 $LOG_FILE
chown clamav.clamav $LOG_FILE
fi
/usr/bin/freshclam \
--quiet \
--datadir=/var/lib/clamav \
--log=$LOG_FILE \
--log-verbose \
--daemon-notify=/etc/clamav.conf
es=$?
if [ $es=1 ]; then
exit 0
else
exit $es
fi
Useful links
http://clamav.sourceforge.net/
http://clamdmail.sourceforge.net/
derek
--
Johan
May this be a good day for learning
Registered Linux User #330034 - still learning
Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft?
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] incredible: chromium worked fine without drivers
Charlie Mahan wrote: In specific; NVidia, as well as ATI and quite a number of hardware manufacturers; don't necessarily own all of the technology and/or methods used to make their latest toys. What they own in the main is their own technology, and a license and/or contract with the owners of any other included technology, to use that other proprietary technology to make a blended whole. Quite. If nVidia wholly owned their drivers, I imagine they'd make them open source. As a hardware company, they have nothing to lose and a lot to gain (e.g. a bunch of unpaid hackers improving their drivers). Since download editions are usually (always with Mandrake, others?) released under the GPL that means these items are not allowed to be used. It's a matter of licensing and permissions; and has nothing to do with Free as in no cost. It means the owner(s) of the technology or architecture have reserved exclusive rights to their own property or technology under a proprietary Copyright, and if you want to use it you have to agree to their terms. Exactly. If people think Mandrake are a bit prissy about the GPL thing, remember that for years Debian refused to include KDE because the Qt widgets weren't 100% Free Software. Sir Robin -- Certitude is possible for those who only own one encyclopedia. - Robert Anton Wilson Robin Turner IDMYO Bilkent Univeritesi Ankara 06533 Turkey www.bilkent.edu.tr/~robin Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
[newbie] Restarting the internet connection
I have wvdial set up to connect automatically at boot. The only problem is that if something like a powercut happens to kill my connection dead, when I restart it it complains that /dev/tty0 is busy, and all I can do is reboot the computer. Does anyone know of a way I can kill whatever is causing this and restart wvdial? Sir Robin -- Certitude is possible for those who only own one encyclopedia. - Robert Anton Wilson Robin Turner IDMYO Bilkent Univeritesi Ankara 06533 Turkey www.bilkent.edu.tr/~robin Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
