Hi,
I've just installed Linux Mandrake 7.2. It's early days yet, but
after years of frustration with that other poor excuse for an OS, I'm
really looking forward to a stable, sensible environment. All is going
well so far, but I do have a couple of concerns, mentioned below. I very
much appreciate any advice from the list.
-- Harddisk Optimise Danger --
During the installation, I selected 'Use harddisk optimisations',
even though there was a warning about possible data corruption in some
cases.
Is there a real risk of data corruption ?
If there is corruption, will it be immediately evident, or might my
file system suddenly disappear 6 months down the track ?
In case its relevant, my system has a Quantum Fireball Plus LM 15GB
disk and a Pentium III 733MHz processor on a Gigabye GA-60XM7E (Intel
815E AGPset) motherboard.
-- Internet Security --
Another concern I have is internet security, an issue I
unfortunately know very
little about. I use the internet throught a dialup connection (PPP) and
browse/download with Netscape. I don't forsee any additional needs in
the near
future.
I simply want to ensure that no one can "snoop/mess with" my system
while I'm online. I've read a couple of earlier mail's on the subject
and I will try the pmfirewall configured with all the defaults (except
external interface which I'll set to ppp0), in conjunction with
portsentry. I hope this will do the job ?
I am not altogether sure what command line arguments I should pass
to portsentry or what mode to start it in. Also, can I automate the
process of starting portsentry, so that it will be running whenever I
make a PPP connection (I understand that pmfirewall does this somehow) ?
-- Wheel Mouse --
I have a Trekker Wheel mouse, but haven't been able to configure my
system to recognise it. The mouse works fine, as a two-button mouse,
under the default configuration, but I've found the wheel/third button
very useful under Windows. Does Linux support the wheel, and if so, how
might I configure the system to use it ?
If there are any other important first steps I should take after a
fresh installation, I'd like to hear of them. I think updating the RPM's
might be something to look
into, but I want to be sure of my internet security before I spend too
much time
downloading.
Thanks for any advice,
regards,
Charlie.
