Re: Chapter one *Securing and optimizing Linix*
Ted Nackad wrote:
>
> Dear friend:
>
Hi
Well, I like your book very much, but it has more to offer than I was
looking for. So I have concluded 'to do it my way'.
Background:
I have been using Linux exclusively for three years, but in a very
restricted manner. Mainly LyX, XFig and scilab for my thinking and note
taking. Every day I use Netscape to surf the net and to fetch my mail.
I sit on a local LAN with an Ethernet connection, called broadband here,
but doesn't say anything about the total throughput to the net. My
perceived problem is, that this is partly a student LAN, with students
from a technological high school, studying IT and that stuff. The city
is nicknamed 'telecom city' due to its earlier strong links with
Ericsson and others.
One of my sons, one of these geeks-students, was one day visiting a
fellow student, who was looking into the hard drives of other computers
on the LAN. These were mostly Microsoft computers fully open. My son
asked for a view of the whole LAN, and my computer could not be seen.
And that is my goal.
I had a Coyote router, on an old 486 &c, when I was on a two weeks
holiday, up all the time - but when I came home, most on it was trashed
and the floppy drive broken. I don't know what had caused this but I
have planned to change my way of life - thus the download of your book,
which might give a possible clue for a special chapter.
I have earlier been working as a science teacher for many years, and
have been frightened, by the 'jewish- or muslim- fundamentalistic' way
of thinking or mostly inclination to think, i.e. "give me the right way
to do it, and to hell with the rest". The only thing I believe in, and I
am not fully sure of that in all its pieces, is evolution, and that
means explicitly that no one can with absolute security say what is
right unless the question is of religious nature. So I like 'the jungle
out there' and I will try to live in it.
So here is my plan: I have loads of room on my hard drives so I will use
it in this scheme. Net activity as a user on a minimalistic Debian, only
accessing one partition. The root on this Debian will have access to one
more partition mounted as /mnt/garage. I may use garage as a 'railway
changing yard' to dump, what I may use on my real workstation. My
workstation is at the moment a Mandrake 7.2, with KDE2. Only root on
Mandrake has access to the former /mnt/garage. So I wanted your book to
be sure of how to 'strip off Debbie all her clothing, and to be prepared
for the real stuff'.
One final line of thought, the american society seems to have forgotten
the route of evolution, as designed in the 'Boston tea party'. By
holding on to all that have been useful and keeping it alive, your
culture have amish sides, like a Christmas tree. Example, Fahrenheit,
inch and gallon, causing the dump of a Mars lander, and in Linux old
style of programs and terminals and ridicules off 'fonting' in reverse
video, acting as if modern CRT's still may be burnt out. You seem to
dress your computer like a Hot Rod with all bells and whistles open and
shining, I more prefer a kayak and a quiet 'stroll' among the islands.
regards
guran
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