Re: Newbie: Which Dist Linux, Best?
On 8 Feb 2001, at 12:46, Sean Reifschneider wrote: On Wed, Jan 31, 2001 at 11:09:17PM -0500, Phil Barnett wrote: First off, trying to use a .0 release of any Redhat release is,at the very least, foolish. Are you saying that RedHat 7.0 is worse than RedHat 6.1? If so, you either haven't used RedHat 7.0, or haven't used RedHat 6.1... We have a RedHat-based release (KRUD -- http://www.tummy.com/krud/) and it was on the order of 6 months before 6.1+errata was up to a quality where we started basing our distro on it. With 7.0, it was the month after it was released. No matter what the press is saying about it... I find that most people who are bad-mouthing 7.0 have never even used it... What distribution is the best for a newbie? I certainly wouldn't wave you off RedHat 7.0. My recommendation is that you use the distribution that most of your friends or most of the experienced people in your local LUG use. You *WILL* need help, better to not have any reason for your friends not to help you. Well, I'm the president of our local LUG (http://www.leap-cf.org) and I surely do waive newbies off of Redhat 7.0. Today, we steer beginners to Mandrake 7.2 for desktops. If you are going to put up a server and you are a newbie, we suggest Redhat 6.2 only because the hardening scripts from Bastille work on it but the Bastille scripts do not yet work correctly on RH7.0. Also, it takes quite some updating on RH7.0 to get it so it can compile a lot of things. Something a newbie is probably not going to relish. My suggestions are from experience, not guessing. If you are not a newbie, then it's a whole different game. -- Phil Barnett mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] WWW http://www.the-oasis.net/ FTP Site ftp://ftp.the-oasis.net
Re: Newbie: Which Dist Linux, Best?
On Wed, Jan 31, 2001 at 11:09:17PM -0500, Phil Barnett wrote: First off, trying to use a .0 release of any Redhat release is,at the very least, foolish. Are you saying that RedHat 7.0 is worse than RedHat 6.1? If so, you either haven't used RedHat 7.0, or haven't used RedHat 6.1... We have a RedHat-based release (KRUD -- http://www.tummy.com/krud/) and it was on the order of 6 months before 6.1+errata was up to a quality where we started basing our distro on it. With 7.0, it was the month after it was released. No matter what the press is saying about it... I find that most people who are bad-mouthing 7.0 have never even used it... What distribution is the best for a newbie? I certainly wouldn't wave you off RedHat 7.0. My recommendation is that you use the distribution that most of your friends or most of the experienced people in your local LUG use. You *WILL* need help, better to not have any reason for your friends not to help you. Sean -- We have just gotten a wake-up call from the Nintendo Generation. -- _Hackers_ Sean Reifschneider, Inimitably Superfluous [EMAIL PROTECTED] tummy.com - Linux Consulting since 1995. Qmail, KRUD, Firewalls, Python
RE: Newbie: Which Dist Linux, Best?
Moin Felix! Das selbe habe ich auch gedacht. I think you hit the head on the nail - since writing the email - in which I realized how many mistakes I made (i.e. dist vs. *nix flavor, shell, etc) in explaining my question - I have tried out two more linux dists and didn't like them for a number of reasons. I haven't been able to get ahold of Slackware yet because of interruptions in downloading the software. I also am going to take a different approach to this DNS/mail box. DNS will go on another box and mail on its own. Anyway, I think I'm making some progress. The problem I have with RH is that they customize certain things - which I don't think is inherently bad - but make it difficult to follow howto's or guidelines like LWQ - because things don't *necessarily* work like you would expect. I fooled around with FreeBSD a bit, but also had issues. (I think because of my lack of knowledge...) So, I'm getting somewhere, but not where I want to be at this point. Anyway, I'll keep trying. Thanks for all the advice, SF -Original Message- From: Felix von Leitner [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2001 4:26 PM To: SF Subject: Re: Newbie: Which Dist Linux, Best? Thus spake SF ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): I've been working for about 4 weeks now at setting up qmail on my RH 7.0 box. I'm somewhat new to linux (my real sys admin background is in WinNT, etc. - but I lost the desire to deal with their licensing schemes...) and I've given up on the RH dist for a number of reasons including the issues I have had with setting up qmail - dealing with xinitd vs. more typical "boot" scripts and other things I don't understand enough. If you have to ask, don't use Linux. The correct way is to try each one until you are fed up with it. If one does not bother you, stick with it. Felix
[OT] Re: Newbie: Which Dist Linux, Best?
SF writes: I have access to pretty much any dist and wanted to know what the opinion is on the most recommended distribution... I've heard Debian, FreeBSD, etc in other areas, but wasn't sure. I intend this box to be super secure with qmail (for multiple domains) and bind/dns running, thus I don't want the frills of an Xwin sys or any added visual toys, or to run a telnet or ftp server. I have learned how to login remotely using SSH and that's about all I need. Any Linux or FreeBSD system you install is going to suffer from your lack of Un*x systems administration experience. This is not a flame, it is a warning. You *must* be aware that the security of your system ends at the same place your knowledge of the system does. The fact that you appear to think that FreeBSD is a distribution of Linux and (especially this week) think you can run a 'super secure' server with BIND on it are good indicators. Fortunately, you do realize that security is vital for an Internet-connected system. My advice would be to pick a system, and experiment with it in a secure environment (ie: not internet-connected), and read as much as you can (books, online, discussion groups). You should not expose your systems to the world until you're confident that you *know* what the risks are. DJB develops his software on OpenBSD, and for a standard installation (no patches), one of the *BSDs is optimal (because of the filesystem sync issue). You should really be asking this question in a general Un*x newbie forum rather than here. Vince.
Re: Newbie: Which Dist Linux, Best?
You'll get a zillion different answers to this question. I won't answer it directly, but I'll throw in my two cents on a few points. On Wed, Jan 31, 2001 at 04:56:40PM -0600, SF wrote: I've been working for about 4 weeks now at setting up qmail on my RH 7.0 box. I'm somewhat new to linux (my real sys admin background is in WinNT, etc. - but I lost the desire to deal with their licensing schemes...) and I've given up on the RH dist for a number of reasons including the issues I have had with setting up qmail - dealing with xinitd vs. more typical "boot" scripts and other things I don't understand enough. I have access to pretty much any dist and wanted to know what the opinion is on the most recommended distribution... I've heard Debian, FreeBSD, etc in other areas, but wasn't sure. FreeBSD isn't a distribution of Linux. It's a version of Unix all by itself. I intend this box to be super secure with qmail (for multiple domains) and bind/dns running. "Super secure" and "bind/dns" are inconsistent. If you want super secure, try djbdns: http://cr.yp.to/djbdns.html. It's brought to you by the same person who gave you super-secure qmail. I am familiar with the RH shells and the way they (RH) have the sys set up, but I guess I could learn over with a different dist. Red Hat didn't invent the shell. You'll find the same shells available for whatever Unix you use (I believe bash is Red Hat's default shell). I don't know beans about any of the Linux distributions, so I can't make any recommendations. You might look at one of the BSDs instead of Linux though. FreeBSD (http://www.freebsd.org) and OpenBSD (http://www.openbsd.org) would both be good choices. Chris
Newbie: Which Dist Linux, Best?
I've been working for about 4 weeks now at setting up qmail on my RH 7.0 box. I'm somewhat new to linux (my real sys admin background is in WinNT, etc. - but I lost the desire to deal with their licensing schemes...) and I've given up on the RH dist for a number of reasons including the issues I have had with setting up qmail - dealing with xinitd vs. more typical "boot" scripts and other things I don't understand enough. I have access to pretty much any dist and wanted to know what the opinion is on the most recommended distribution... I've heard Debian, FreeBSD, etc in other areas, but wasn't sure. I intend this box to be super secure with qmail (for multiple domains) and bind/dns running, thus I don't want the frills of an Xwin sys or any added visual toys, or to run a telnet or ftp server. I have learned how to login remotely using SSH and that's about all I need. I am familiar with the RH shells and the way they (RH) have the sys set up, but I guess I could learn over with a different dist. I digress... Suggestions? Thanks, SF
Re: Newbie: Which Dist Linux, Best?
On 31 Jan 2001, at 16:56, SF wrote: I've been working for about 4 weeks now at setting up qmail on my RH 7.0 box. I'm somewhat new to linux (my real sys admin background is in WinNT, etc. - but I lost the desire to deal with their licensing schemes...) and I've given up on the RH dist for a number of reasons including the issues I have had with setting up qmail - dealing with xinitd vs. more typical "boot" scripts and other things I don't understand enough. I have access to pretty much any dist and wanted to know what the opinion is on the most recommended distribution... I've heard Debian, FreeBSD, etc in other areas, but wasn't sure. I intend this box to be super secure with qmail (for multiple domains) and bind/dns running, thus I don't want the frills of an Xwin sys or any added visual toys, or to run a telnet or ftp server. I have learned how to login remotely using SSH and that's about all I need. I am familiar with the RH shells and the way they (RH) have the sys set up, but I guess I could learn over with a different dist. I digress... Suggestions? First off, trying to use a .0 release of any Redhat release is,at the very least, foolish. I think you would be quite happy with: Redhat 6.2 Run the Bastille Project scripts Install your SSH tools Turn off any additional unnecessary services (uses inetd, not xinetd) like telnet and ftp. Update BIND to the latest version. Install Qmail using LWQ. Install Tripwire and set it up to report to you by email automatically. Put it on the internet. (don't do this until you've done all of the above) Another options would be to learn FreeBSD, but if you've already learned where stuff is on a Redhat distribution, you'll appreciate not having to relearn where everything is by sticking with a RH distro. And, there are many other ways to do it. I'm just comfortable that the above gives you a mainstream platform that is as secure as you can quickly and easily get. -- Phil Barnett mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] WWW http://www.the-oasis.net/ FTP Site ftp://ftp.the-oasis.net
Re: Newbie: Which Dist Linux, Best?
* Chris Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Wed, Jan 31, 2001 at 04:56:40PM -0600, SF wrote: wanted to know what the opinion is on the most recommended distribution... I've heard Debian, FreeBSD, etc in other areas, but wasn't sure. [...] I intend this box to be super secure with qmail (for multiple domains) and bind/dns running. "Super secure" and "bind/dns" are inconsistent. If you want super secure, try djbdns: http://cr.yp.to/djbdns.html. It's brought to you by the same person who gave you super-secure qmail. Amen. [...] I don't know beans about any of the Linux distributions, so I can't make any recommendations. Jurix, Slackware, Debian. Possibly in this order. Either way, throw in http://www.lids.org/ and if you're running some flavour of RH, check Bastille. You might look at one of the BSDs instead of Linux though. FreeBSD (http://www.freebsd.org) and OpenBSD (http://www.openbsd.org) would both be good choices. I run both, and both come with DJB software and many add-ons for it as ports and packages. I'd go for OpenBSD, dunno why ;-) -- Robin S. Socha http://socha.net/ "The new glue is, unfortunately, ignored by recent versions of the BIND cache; the detailed technical explanation for this is that the BIND company is a bunch of idiots." (DJB)
Re: Newbie: Which Dist Linux, Best?
On Wed Jan 31, 2001 at 11:09:17PM -0500, Phil Barnett wrote: I've been working for about 4 weeks now at setting up qmail on my RH 7.0 box. I'm somewhat new to linux (my real sys admin background is in WinNT, etc. - but I lost the desire to deal with their licensing schemes...) and I've given up on the RH dist for a number of reasons including the issues I [...] First off, trying to use a .0 release of any Redhat release is,at the very least, foolish. I think you would be quite happy with: Redhat 6.2 Run the Bastille Project scripts Install your SSH tools Turn off any additional unnecessary services (uses inetd, not xinetd) like telnet and ftp. Update BIND to the latest version. Install Qmail using LWQ. Install Tripwire and set it up to report to you by email automatically. Another option would be to use Linux-Mandrake. I'd follow the above steps as well (the BIND update is a definate *must* don't use anything below 8.2.3, the current release). You can also go to http://www.freezer-burn.org/qmail.php for help on installing qmail under Linux-Mandrake with pre-built rpms that follow the distribution license (ie. you can further configure/customize qmail with LWQ without any conflicts or problems). -- [EMAIL PROTECTED], OpenPGP key available on www.keyserver.net 1024D/FE6F2AFD 88D8 0D23 8D4B 3407 5BD7 66F9 2043 D0E5 FE6F 2AFD - Danen Consulting Serviceswww.danen.net, www.freezer-burn.org - MandrakeSoft, Inc. Security www.linux-mandrake.com Current Linux kernel 2.4.0-9mdk uptime: 5 days 5 hours 44 minutes.
