Wow, Thanks! I keep playing with Puppy and a few other Distros myself. I liked that I could fit puppy on a USB drive and boot from there. The problems came when I then tried to configure the rest of my Hardware and other Accessories. But, Each time I go give it another try, (6 months or so), The newer version sees more and more of my system. Thanks again for the lesson and I do hope you come back and maybe give us a Linux primer!! I may copy this post of yours and stick it somewhere visable to all. melbo
I am quite open and honest with myself on this subject, as well as being open to any "government" agency or outlet which may or may not even care. Honestly, if I were ever asked or investigated, I would certainly be honest and just ask the usual questions like: "Is the Federal Reserve REALLY federal, or is it privately owned?", "Is the IRS a privately owned corporation as well, and are income taxes really voluntary?", and "Is it true that secrecy automatically asserts a level of corruption at the top, or are the People just supposed to 'trust' their government?" perhaps, "Isn't Al-Quada just the remnants of the Mujahadeen, who were and still are trained and funded by our very own CIA, members of which have attended many of our Universities?" Maybe I would ask "Why is the fight against 'terror' only a thinly disguised war on dissent?" or "Who profits from the global war on terror, and why?" These are all questions many of us have, and I am not afraid to ask them. I do not care what lists I am on, hell I am just curious -in fact, I am just being responsible and would like to know if there is anything I can do to 'help'. As a government employee, I know that I should not rock the boat, I know how to follow orders and simply do as I am told...but I am an American first, and a soldier second. There is no doubt that the surveillance and cyber-task forces are working overtime. The reality of it all is simple: I do not know the FULL story -at best I get convoluted thoughts and piecemeal news articles to dissemanate and attempt to comprehend. Corporate mindshare propaganda is harmful, the FDA is corruptable and at best, incompetent. The media is biased and completely against outsourcing their news coverage -this alone reeks of conspiracy, and who better to report the news than locals and eyewitnesses? No, only their polls and phony statistics will ever cross your screen. I know that I am standing completely 'naked', open and honest -willing to look them right in the eyes and tell them how it is. I am not afraid, and I am not going to back down until I get some answers.
Well...there are viral/malware threats to linux. Much much more rare than the windows flavor but they are out there. The old adage that linux is less desirable as a target is still true today due to its very small market share but that is slowly changing. The primary concern with the *nix environments are vulnerabilites in each of the individual apps. Be vigilant with updates and keep up with chatter on your distro's primary forum. When you say 'everything else runs off it' do you mean it's role is as an application server? gateway? router? DNS? ActiveDir Domain Controller? web/ftp server? OS? Different levels of snafu to deal with. Sucks but do what you can to isolate it. If it's major hardware you might be looking at a major overhaul of the install. How's your backup plan? My newest install of server 2008 enterprise is just a test bed and is running on crap hardware and only serves as DNS & AD DC. Easily segregated and rebuilt. Of course, I have no data to recover! Byte
Just getting into the AR/AK world, my buddy said this was one of places to start. If you don't wish to start over with a new OS, I would definitely not use IE at the very least. Chrome and Firefox are newer and less prevalant, so harder to hack through typical means. Firefox has various add ons such as no script and adblock plus which can prevent code from running without your explicit permission. Don't rely on antivirus alone! Get some added software such as spybot search and destroy and add a firewall (Avast is freeware and decent). I love ubuntu, great idea and follows along the same idea as not using IE. Windows 7 is also more secure than Vista and XP, but will eventually develop the most virus, worm and trojan horse issues. If you can support a 64 bit system too, use it! 64 bit is harder to crack with an entirely different structure and can support more ram too 32 bit is limited to something like 3.(something) Most any newer system will have a 64 bit cpu. Hope this helps guys, I'll be asking questions as I build up my first AR15, so be gentle.
