[lug] Re: Developing New Linux System

Forgot to add:

I also *highly* recommend at least also playing with Debian (Ubuntu /
Kubuntu are FANTASTIC) in addition to Fedora.

I use Fedora on most of my embedded projects just because I'm so
familiar with Fedora and RHEL from working on it for years. However,
learning *just* with Fedora could teach you some false assumptions.

Debian systems take care to use binaries that produce posix style
output (everything is always in the same place, and no fields are blank
if null) which is really helpful in scripting. You can also count on a
debian system to write to stderr / stdout correctly and exit with
uniform status once a program has terminated.

Fedora .. is mixed. Sometimes a program could write to stderr but exit
with a value indicating success, very very confusing if you're trying
to include that program in some kind of script.

My suggestion : Use Debian + KDE for your learning. If you have
installed Fedora on your personal desktop do take care in securing it
before you get too far. Try googling these topics to see how :

"securing /dev/shm"
"securing /tmp"
"installing APF"

APF (Advanced policy firewall) is a wonderful wrapper for iptables
allowing you a simple way to setup and maintain tcp security inherent
in your new fedora OS. It allows you to easily tweak what ports are
allowed in (ingress) and what ports are allowed out (egress). It also
helps you teach your kernel with plain english configurations how to
deal with mangled packets, how to stop ip spoofing to a very large
degree and even how to import a central list of IP addresses that have
been misbehaving and ban then from accessing your system to begin with.
You'll also see how iptables can be used in a modular or monolithic
kernel.

When you do these searches I encourage you to do them when you have
some time to surf around and read through the results, as you'll happen
on all kinds of useful and interesting information.

It sounds like you're a new Linux hobbyist, and I'm always happy to see
a new one and help get them going.

Hope you found some of this useful. Trial and error is the best way to
learn. Have fun breaking your system over and over again. If all else
fails - wipe, reinstall and try again :D

timtim