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Re: [Alug] Virus on Linux?
by MJ Ray 22 Jun '01

22 Jun '01

Vanisa Surapipith <V.Surapipith(a)uea.ac.uk> writes: > Can virus attact a linux system? People with MSWindows are constantly > affected and need to update their Norton or McAfee virus scanner. Is there > a similar thing in linux world? Viruses could exist on Linux, but they would have trouble infecting other users on the same system, assuming most of your programs are installed as root and you log in as another user. That's why people say you should be very cautious about doing anything other than the bare minimum as root. Worms and intrusions are more common. That's why everyone says to keep up to date with patches and security updates. As your machine was professionally installed, I assume they installed all known security updates? With RedHat, I don't know if there's an automated tool with it, but you can keep safe by reading either the "Security" page of LWN, http://lwn.net/ (out every Thursday), or the regular Security newsletter (out most Saturdays) from http://www.linuxsecurity.com/ -- MJR

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Re: [Alug] Documentation, network cards and printers
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 22 Jun '01

22 Jun '01

David Freeman wrote: >Network cards: This was what was stopping me getting my printer to >work, my FA311 is dud, the 3Com card works fine, but only at 10Mbps :o( I ought to be an expert on 3com card configuration by now. Is it a 509? have you tried either using the debian 3c5x9utils or the 3c5x9config dos batch file where you can change the card settings? Or more simply, isn't there a config file hanging round somewhere where you specify whether the card will use 10Mbps or 100 or whatever? Jenny

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RE: Microsoft FUD
by Earl Brannigan 22 Jun '01

22 Jun '01

Hi all, Had to download that article .... fantastic! (Literally.... pure fantasy). Just a comment, the output from running strings on it is actually visible via the document properties if you have MS WORD -file->properties->custom (I'm writing this at work.) Just for clarity , the line "our latest anti-linux paper" is actually the _EmailSubject property. Huh? Well, that means it was the working title used whenever the document was emailed internally. Thus (presumably) it wasn't meant to remain with the article, ... M$ are quite adept at this 'small oversite' completely destroying their arguments thing, ie. No need to read the article, you can see where its coming from. But it will be intersting to check back in a week or so and see if this line has been removed.... cheers Earl

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Its interesting that M$ now appear to be getting very worried about
by tom potts 22 Jun '01

22 Jun '01

Seems to have found a good way to stop penguins doing anything useful... Do we need to preach to the converted? TOm ____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie

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Re: [Alug] Re: Microsoft FUD
by MJ Ray 22 Jun '01

22 Jun '01

"John Seago" <john.seago(a)btinternet.com> writes: > Railing against the defensive manoeuvres of Microsoft does little for your > stress levels and nothing to defeat their public relations drive. Talking about it inside groups like this releases the stress of having this sort of thing waved in our faces by the pointy haired ones, reminds us just *why* it's flawed and does less damage than talking about it in public. Then we can go out and put together some good pro-Linux material, right? (Hey, where's the stuff for the web site that people said they would do?... hrm, where's the piece I'm supposed to write, too? ;-) ) -- MJR

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Re: Microsoft FUD
by John Seago 22 Jun '01

22 Jun '01

Having read the comments on the Microsoft 'Press Release', May I make a comment? It appears to me that the way to deal with such matters is, as the Americans put it, 'not to get mad but to get even', the way to combat such propaganda is to counter it in public, not to execrate it in private. Promotion of an operating system with which you are all so obviously involved will do more good than venting your ire to each other. I finally took the plunge having read many of the 'Linux' web sites and installed a linux operating system on my computer. At the same time I managed to convince my daughter's boyfriend to do so on his. Each time you gather a new convert you are making another ally for the Free source/Open source movement which will, in time, I am sure become the prevailing operating system. Railing against the defensive manoeuvres of Microsoft does little for your stress levels and nothing to defeat their public relations drive. John Seago

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Re: [Alug] Microsoft FUD
by MJ Ray 22 Jun '01

22 Jun '01

David Freeman <david_freeman(a)rocketmail.com> writes: > The point is people will beleive him, why should they listen to a group > of geeks? What linux lacks is the marketing machine which can put out > the reverse FUD on MS and thus balance things? I've been quite impressed with the recent xinit and DNUK efforts, but they're still focusing on preaching to the choir in order to sell more of their machines. Hopefully one or both will start in the mainstream Real Soon Now. > [...] Will the mac > with linux/BSD/OS X be able to compete finally on the open market? No. > Apple have got the Ease of use thing down to an art, linux and the FS > communitee have power and reliability down to a tee, so why not mix > both together and we could then really rock the planet? Apple make some quite fundamental user interface errors in the more recent versions of their interface (it's a long time since 1984). I think that looking at all interfaces which have gone before and mixing bits up, picking the best from each, but focusing on simplicity, is the way to heaven. It's what I'm trying to do, anyway. I'll let you know if I succeed... ;-) -- MJR

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Re: Microsoft is right Re: [Alug] Microsoft FUD
by MJ Ray 22 Jun '01

22 Jun '01

Adam Bower <abower(a)thebowery.co.uk> writes: > I find it very amusing, to think that a few years ago M$ had their head in > the sand and issued statements along the lines of "Linux is for niche > markets" and "specialist applications" now they have to resort to lies. First they ignore you, etc. I like that phrase this week, don't I? -- MJR

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Re: [Alug] Microsoft FUD
by MJ Ray 22 Jun '01

22 Jun '01

Steve Fosdick <fozzy(a)pelvoux.demon.co.uk> writes: > Yes, there is more than one GUI toolkit, as it GNOME/KDE, and > though applications written for one toolkit are hard to port to the > other, each environment can run applications written for the other > one by installing the necessary libraries. Interesting. Isn't there also more than one interface library to the Windows toolkit? Is that significantly different from having a few different widget libraries? I only seem to use three with any regularity, anyway: GTK, Xaw and Tk. -- MJR

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pppd problem
by A Glover 22 Jun '01

22 Jun '01

Hi, (Im new to the list too!) After over a year away from Linux I decided to install it again, unfortunatly Ive forgotten how to fix small problems. The current one and im having no success finding an answer for is disconnecting straight away with pppd. Distribution is Debian, using the script pon.

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