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Requesting Linux Help Please.

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9 replies

by mrafrohead

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Alright. I've been doing more and more reading about Windows 2003 products. And it's just continuing in a direction that I deeply loathe. I've decided a few years ago, that I was not going to be upgrading beyond Windoze 2000 for my computers at home. Well I'm finally down to where I don't really want to install any of the other software that MS has been putting out either. I have finally seriously started to implement Linux in my home network.

I wiped out a box and installed Red Hat 9 on it. I know, it's a newbie Linux program. But I'm a recovering MS junkie so I had to start somewhere ;)

Newho - when I began to implement this, I failed to think of a few important things that I always took for granted with MS products. MS products have support EVERYWHERE and I know where to look. For Linux though, I haven't the foggiest.

I am requesting some personal opinions for Linux supported AV software and software firewalls please. I don't really know where to start. I am googling, but I was also hoping that some of my peers would be willing to help nudge me in the right direction if possible ;)

I really appreciate the help!!!

Mrafrohead

9 replies

by mrafrohead

I also was wondering:

Lilo or Grub and why please.

Gnome or KDE and why again please.

I keep finding references to differences, but they aren't really telling me what they are other than, I like Lilo best, or I like KDE because it's cooler.

Thanks again ;)

by vncoder

G'day,
I am using RH 9/WinXP dual boot on a desktop and a laptop with GNOME and Grub.
Grub is easier to use (e.g. don't have to reload the config file everytime you made a change to it, like lilo).
I find more softwares support Gnome than KDE (at least the softwares that I use anyway).
I use ClarkConnect 1.2 (based on Redhat 7.3) on another desktop (P 350Mhz) as a firewall. I've also used Smoothwall before, however I need more that what Smoothwall got to offer so I used ClarkConnect.
Gimp has AV plugin (haven't tried it myself).

by lordinfidel

Ok..... You want books and sites and some programs... But first.

Welcome to the world of the Penguin.

First, Red Hat is not the wimps way out, that is reserved for Lindows, TurboLinux and Knoppix.

I have switched from BSD to Red Hat just because of driver support. BSD is cool and all, but RH is getting it's act together on default security.

Plus if you plan out your install right, (Always use custom and deselect mostly everything and then select individual packages). You can have a tight little box.

But your in GUI mode.... First things first, Screw the built in firewall. I always select NO firewall and then build my own. Much easier that way.

Before I suggest a cool GUI based firewall builder. Let's get into books and sites.

1. http://www.linuxnewbie.org/
2. http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~dranch/LINUX/TrinityOS/cHTML/TrinityOS-c.html

3. http://www.kernel.org/links.html

4. freshmeat.org

5. (you will definetely need this)
http://www.rpmfind.net/linux/RPM/

Now for books: look to the god O'reilly.
Running Linux and
Linux Network Administrators guide

by lordinfidel

1st get these books.

Building Internet Firewalls - o'reilly and
Linux Firewalls from New Riders

The first one is theory, and the second is learning iptables/chains and some scripts.

also http://www.linuxcommand.org/ is a great place to learn the makeup of our beloved OS.

Next.... fwbuilder.org If you are familiar with checkpoint and like the drag and drop concept. This is a great gui based tool that will help you build very complex to simple firewalls. And it will compile the firewall for most distro's and kernel version. Plus it will outut it in ipfwadm, ipchains or iptables.

by mrafrohead

I've got a lot of reading to do now, so I'll be back after I get it in.

Thank you very much for the replies, I appreciate it.

Here's a few quick questions though regarding your posts LordInfidel.

First is, fwbuilder.org - you say that you can get a tool that will compile a firewall for most distro's and kernel's. Does that mean that I can install the tool on one computer, design a software firewall specific to a machine and it will build it. Then design another for a different machine with different features that could be running a different flavor of Linux and they'll all work together???

The other is a quicky that I spent over two hours unsuccessfully to answer. How do I restart Xserver??? I changed my resolution, I'm then told to apply the change, I need to log out of the machine then restart the xserver. Best I could come up with was press ctr-alt-f1 but that just puts me to a terminal type thing like a dos prompt. The other was ctr-alt-bkspc - and that just makes my whole machine just reboot. I know how to start xserver, but I don't know how to stop it or restart it...

;)

Thanks again.

Mrafrohead

btw - i'm just excited to be able to change over my WinDrops to actual 100% Eggs ;)

by lordinfidel

Question 1- Yes, this is where fwbuilder is awsome. It saves your "rules and objects" in xml format. So you can actually create many different firewall scripts on one box, and use them on other machines.

I'll post a quick info about where to put the script and how to activate it.

Question 2-
1. Change the display setting
2. open a terminal, type shutdown now
(this goes into single user mode)
3. when you get the command prompt
type exit
4. it will start you back up into runlevel 5
and your resolution will have changed.

by mrafrohead

Alright, now i've got my resolution to 1024/768. So I'm starting in on linuxcommand.org.

Thank you very much for these pointers. This is just what I needed!!!

Mrafrohead

by cactus pete

You should be able to drop out of X [log out to shell]. Log in at the shell, and run the startx command.

Too late now, I know, but you almost never have to go through a shutdown to change anything in linux...

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