linux_learner

IceStorm i think your having trouble with hardware compatibility. step 1) go to the mandrake site and check out your various hardware. X is having to be told to take the lowest possible setting. step 2) assuming then that based on the list provided at the mandrake site, your hardware is compatible, i would take sitor's advice and try 9.2 since it is kernel 2.4.X the reason you keep having trouble with XP is because you let mandrake do it for you. mandrake by default will try to resize the windows partition. once you click "done" it then writes the data to the partition table. this is not a good time for a cold boot. you need to choose the hard drive yourself. in this case hdb.

as john indicated there are many documents on this. the master boot record is partially in the bios and partially on the first sector of the master drive. every DOS disk has the option to repair the MBR. fdisk /mbr . with XP, its the recovery console instead of a DOS disk. the command in that is fixmbr . things that can cause the MBR to become corrupted are antivirus software. since they do guard the MBR. if your using XP, then by defualt XP is in NTFS. NTFS does have a bug that was supposed to have been addressed (fixed) in a service pack for NT. the ntfs.drv can load twice on bootup causing the entire filesystem to be unreadable. the system then wont boot, and the recovery console is useless since the entire filesystem is unreadable. this is a fault that can not be blamed on linux, since by default linux does not and can not write to NTFS.

i havent exactly expeirienced this, but some things to check would be /etc/hosts. do you have the firewall up in mdk? it sounds like its not resolving the domain name serv.

is /usr/share/AbiSuite-2.0/AbiWord/help/en-US/index.html there? cd into /usr/share/AbiSuite-2.0/AbiWord/ and do ls to see what directories you have. if you have the help directory, then cd into that and do ls in the help directory. you should find en-US there. now the question is, did you download the rpm, or did you use urpmi. if you downloaded the rpm, you may have missed the regional support, which would explain this problem.

on rpmfind.net i found several rpm's for acroread, just not for mdk. the non rpm install of acrobat is easy though. http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html it is a gziped file. you can unzip that with out the cli. just right click and select "extract". now you will need the cli at some point, and that would be to actually install it. i believe that to install it, its ./filename. no 'make', 'make install'. then just do your softlinks (ln -s) so that the plugins work in your browser.

IceStorm i have actually done this. mandrake makes it pretty painless. since mandrake has a gui installer its pretty easy. just keep a couple things in mind. harddrive #1 (where XP is) linux will define as hda(#) (where (#) is the partition number. like hda1). harddrive #2 will be defined as hdb(#). for the most part you can go with the defaults. lilo should automatically detect and configure correctly your windows partition, so you can boot into either or. just make sure linux is installed where you want it (hdb(#)) and dont format hda(#) (where windows is). if you have any more questions please ask.

tar would also be a good command to use.

kdiskfree will also tell you how much hard drive space is left, if you like the gui. basically, kdiskfree is a front end to df.

dont forget to update your sources. urpmi.update -a i'd also run rpm -qa perl-Libconf to find out which version you have. then compare what you have to whats available on your ftp sources. and like someone said before, consider adding more sources.

the fixmbr will undo lilo. destroy lilo. it will restore the hard drive to the windows default. dont use fixmbr unless you want to undo lilo. mdk does have a rescue mode in the first cd. select that, then repair (whatever its called) lilo. also make a boot disk. this way if you should (for some insane reason) decide to install windows again, you can still get into linux via the boot disk, then repair lilo. planning ahead is your best friend.

the information i have is that it would work as another package manager. http://forums.suselinuxsupport.de/index.ph...st=0entry5617

This is the bash_history script for installing Portage under SuSE. Just follow the guide and all should be ok. We accept no reponsibility whatsoever for any loss of data caused from using this tutorial. for those who like gui, once portage is installed you could do webportage http://sourceforge.net/projects/webportage/ a webmin type interface for portage.

midas nmi http://midas-nms.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html enjoy

my gosh iphitus, that is way cool!! :o :D how did you find all that? iphitus, man you rock!! B)

2 things must be done. 1) the faq's, tips and tricks, and howto's are great resources 2) when a newbie posts, answer the question in a way in which the newbie can comprehend it, and not to overwhelm them. to do both, would be the solution. thats cool, you can disagree. but how says you need to go to shell, and su? 90% of administration can be done with out the command line. rpmdrake, kpackage, MCC, can all be done with out shell. it automatically promts for the root password. so again, i see command line more as an intermediate/advanced user topic. think of how many windows users know DOS commands. how many know them well. then you have a picture of what i am refering to. most "***** for dummies" books have screen shots all over the place. as far as modem users, 40% of home users, use high speed internet. perhaps we could keep the file size of the pics small. jpg or png. i understand theres now jpg2. there are ways to accomidate both sides. we can do screen shots where the file is small and maybe use like jpg2. so that way the newbie can see what we're talkin about, and it wont take all day on dial-up.

since we are talking about newbies, it should contain lots of screen shots, and little to no command line. the command line should be for intermediate to advanced users. IMHO. most newbies are comming from windows, and are used to gui only.

i do understand that thats what voting is for, but what we have seen lately in courts has not been the result of the voters. the legislator have to create the law, and sometime it goes before the voters. if not before the voters, then the senate must agree by 2/3 majority. lately we have been seeing courts doing their own thing, and M$ is a fine example of the courts bending to those who have the power and the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$. even worse when the court does rule, its rarely upheld.

isnt M$'s reaction a bit juvinile? isnt a bit like a bully getttting a fraction of what he deserves and complaining saying "its not fair!"? yet the media generally portray M$ as a leader, as being a fatherly image to new software companies. is something wrong here? when did the courts even consider public opinion? better yet, why should they consider public opinion? the US courts seem to focus more on public opinion than the law. the EU courts at least aproximate upholding the law. the US court said for M$ to divest. did M$ divest? while the US court ruling was weak, enforcing it has been pathetic. no wonder M$ is whining about the EU court. especially when considering even the US DoJ tried to do what? threaten the EU courts. oh wait, that wasnt a threat, that was a "strong warning". how dare the US "police" other countries, when the US cant even police themselves. who made the US the world police? the US as of late is investigating the UN for fraud. yet M$ walks all over the US courts. thumbing their noses at the governments. have any of you actually read the windows EULA? here it is http://proprietary.clendons.co.nz/licenses...xphome-eula.htm what gets me is this since when did companies ever tell a government/s what rights the government/s had?

i've had some real headaches with NTFS. unfortunately, you don't have alot of choice if you've bought a big honking disk drive -- that is, unless you're willing to format it into a lot of little virtual drives. there are some real problems with NTFS, including differences between the implementations of NTFS on 200 Pro and XP Pro. I've hearned the hard way what it means to have programs that are not "Designed for XP." I have a bunch of technical analysis software for the securities market that was designed for Win95/98. XP views these apps as "legacy" software. unfortunately, when the legacy software is installed on XP under NTFS, user file permisions are not granted to the application to write to its own data files, even on a system that is configured with one user as the administrator. even though XP gives you the illusion that its allowed you manually change user permissions and to manually change the R-O flag on the files, it immediately and transparently resets the R-O flags to read-only. As a result, the "legacy" software can't append to its own data files. this seems to be an NTFS specific problem that occurs under both 2000 Pro and XP Pro. The problem completely disappears on both OS when the disks are formatted in FAT32. This appears to be either a glaring error in NTFS or an intentional effort to induce clients to enter the hardware/software upgrade cycle. My interim solution is to serve the files across the LAN from a 2000 Pro PC formatted under FAT32. My long term solution is to migrate away from Windows. actually its not so much NTFS as it is the NT kernel. M$ deliberately made XP so that it was NOT backwards compatible. 95,and 98 all have 16 bit code. NT 4.0 also has 16 bit code in it, but due to the fact that it is a different kernel on a different filesystem some apps will not run on the NT line up. add to the fact that XP is not backwards compatible and you have the makings for what you just described.

if you really wanna save space......do what i did. i uninstalled......IE, OE, M$ Office, windows media player, activex, VBSscript, IIS,......the list goes on. yes i did actually still have a working version of XP. just defrag dont work, nor does device manager, MCC, antivirus, but then with VBSscript gone that eliminates the probability of getting most viruses. oh. and dont use NTFS. use fat32. NTFS has some bugs. the NTFS driver can load twice on bootup causing the entire filesystem to be unreadable. fat32 doesnt have this issue. NTFS also does take up more space.

i havent played with usermode linux, but the website seems to describe it as like a sandbox and more. sounds quite cool. http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net/uses.html it seems also, like you can run a whole nother ker and distro in usermode linux as well.

thats a good question. the answer isnt that simple. as i stated at the begining of the faq, security is a process not any one thing. if you neglect the updates, then some one could take advantage of buffer overflows and race strings. if permissions arent set right, then some one can gain root access that way. if services are left active, then the same is true. security is a combination of implimentations, and it begins with knowledge. as far as the binaries, your dead right. it might be best to create a "sandbox" for it. maybe chroot jail it. maybe when i learn chroot jail and play arround a bit with it, i'll do an faq on that. thanx for all the feed back.

Browse: [About the FAQ Forum] [Table of Contents] [FAQs] [Contribute] [SE: Security, firewalls...] SE-02: Linux Security Overview The first thing to understand about security, is that it is an on going, ever changing evolution. Security is not about a particular piece of software, it is not an OS, it is not a particular piece of hardware. Security is a process. Security is as much education as implementation. Linux offers great flexibility and power in the area of security, so lets look at how. 1.Permissions: (chmod) Chmod has often been confusing for newbies. Each file has a set of permissions, and each directory also has a set of permissions, these permissions are set through chmod. Whether a file or a directory they all have three (3) groups. Each group has a set of permissions. The groups are broken down as follows: u: the owner user (the one who created the file or directory) g: the owner group (belonging to the same group as the owner of the file or directory) o: others a.k.a world (everybody else) Each group has permissions. The permissions are: r: read w: write x: execute So if I said a file had rwxrwxrwx, that would mean that the owner has read, write and execute abilities. The group would also have read, write and execute abilities, and so would everyone else (others/world). Chmod is expressed in a numerical format called hexadecimal. The above example would be expressed as 777. How did we get that? Each permissions is a binary bit, either 1 or 0. The 0 would indicate the permission is turned off. In the above example, all the permissions are turned on. For the owner we have rwx. Which translates to 111 in binary bits. For the group we have rwx. Which translates to 111 in binary. For the others we have rwx. Which translates to 111 in binary. Maybe you don't know binary. A brief lesson in binary. 0=0 1=1 10=2 11=3 100=4 101=5 110=6 111=7 We'll stop here on binary, since thats all that is relevant. So now we can see how we got to 777. 7 for the owner, which again is read, write and execute (rwx). 7 for the group, which is read, write and execute (rwx). 7 for others/world, which is read, write execute (rwx). These set of permissions may not be what you'd want your files or directories to be set at, but then, i can't determine that for you. Only you can do that. All you have to do is determine who has what permissions. 2.Firewalls: There are many firewalls out there. Some are scripts, which can offer some of the greatest control over a firewall, others are GUI's or frontends. Frontends are great for beginners as it offers a way to quickly and effectively configure your firewall. Some of the firewalls I like are; Firestarter, and Guarddog. Some scripts i like are; Arno's firewall, and IPkungfu. 3.Services: Always, always, always, turn off any unnecessary services. http://www.cae.wisc.edu/fsg/linux/linux-security.html 4.Securetty: This is a file in the /etc directory (/etc/securetty). This should be commented out. It allows a person to remotely login as root. cat /etc/securetty # # This file contains the device names of tty lines (one per line, # without leading /dev/) on which root is allowed to login. # tty1 tty2 tty3 tty4 tty5 tty6 # for devfs: vc/1 vc/2 vc/3 vc/4 vc/5 vc/6 This is what an uncommented securetty file looks like. Simply put a # in front of tty1-6 and vc/1-6. If you want to login in as root just lease tty1 and vc/1 uncommented. 5.Xserver: Xserver is a part of Xwindows and while it has its function and purpose, if you don't absolutely need the server function in X, then you should disable that. cat /etc/X11/xdm/Xservers # $XConsortium: Xserv.ws.cpp,v 1.3 93/09/28 14:30:30 gildea Exp $ # # # $XFree86: xc/programs/xdm/config/Xserv.ws.cpp,v 1.1.1.1.12.2 1998/10/04 15:23:14 hohndel Exp $ # # Xservers file, workstation prototype # # This file should contain an entry to start the server on the # local display; if you have more than one display (not screen), # you can add entries to the list (one per line). If you also # have some X terminals connected which do not support XDMCP, # you can add them here as well. Each X terminal line should # look like: # # XTerminalName:0 foreign # # Note: The vt07 is required to start the local X server on the virtual # console 7. This avoids conflicts with gettys of /etc/inittab. # :0 local /usr/X11R6/bin/X -nolisten tcp This will stop Xserver from acting as a server. By leaving this active anyone with the knowledge and ability can literally see/watch what you are doing. 6.Updates: Regularly keep your system up to date. For further study: http://www.linuxsecurity.com/docs/LDP/Secu...k-security.html http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Security-HOWTO/ Book: "Hacking Linux Exposed 2nd Edition"

on the subject of DRM, there were some articles sometime ago on linux and DRM. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/developer...,2133872,00.htm if linux does do DRM then the policeware would not stop the use of linux.

has anyone thought to put this on slashdot? if this gets slashdot'd then news.google.com would also pick up the story, increasing peoples awareness, and perhaps the number of signatures. i'd do it, but last time i did it, it didnt work.