Here is some great feedback... Keep it coming... :) -mdf ________________________________________________________________________ Matthew D. Franz [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.trinux.org Trinux: A Linux Security Toolkit http://www.opensec.net OpenSEC: Open Security Solutions http://www.tds.com Trident Data Systems ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1999 10:01:12 -0700 From: Davin Petersen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: 'Matthew Franz' <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, 'Antonio Garcia' <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: RE: A Bigger Trinux release (long) (even longer) I'm not prone to writing "me too" mail, but out of fear that this would be perceived this way I'm responding to the both of you and not the list. I guess you can count this message as the start of a survey. (p.s. this got bigger than I intended, so read this on a fresh brain and over a bowl of cereal/bagel/beer whatever your chosen morning meal is) General comments: I think the potential for Trinux is huge. I first started using it when TrunixHD came out (I had no desire to boot off a dozen floppies). Having some problems with it, mostly because of not understanding how Linux boots off of floppies into a ramdisk, I ended up going to the OpenSEC web site and just trying out the various apps on one of my Linux boxes. My interest in Trinux is primarily its cost, that it's Linux, and for medium to long term analysis of my networks. Comments on packages: Having said that - I really want to affirm Antonio's (Hola!) view. The availability of the package method is significant because it: * keeps the "tradition" of Linux * allows the user to customize based on their individual resources * lets more people extend the system without having to re-build some big install file or wait for another release to come out The first laptop I tried Trinux on only had 16M of memory, so it was important that I only downloaded tcpdump and n/mlog. I had to abandon Trinux for a while because of my lack of resources and the relative "newness" in the .4x system. The laptop I'm using now has 32M and I'm able to attempt even greater things now. Network Analysts/Admins/etc. need this utility (Trinux). I don't think it's something that needs to be watered down for the masses (Windoze only admins) but a certain amount of convenience would be nice. Mostly to allow all admins to receive some value from it. Comments on package distribution/config/loading: In addition to Antonio's view on packages the harddisk method of loading is, currently, about the only way we'll be getting off of floppies. Network loading is a great alternative - for those that understand how to set it up. My NT admin (and most NT admins I know) couldn't do a NFS/FTP setup to facilitate network booting to save their life. I apologize in advance to those NT admins than can - I know you're out there and in more abundance that the people I run across. Another benefit of having fixed disks available is the ability to do long term storage of data or hold large files. Think of all the login/passwords that can be sniffed on a 1G partition (har har). Seriously, I'd like to be doing traffic collection/analysis over 3+ hours or day periods and that begins to take some storage. Taking Trinux the direction of the fixed disk and away from floppies also sets us up for a CDROM distribution. Booting the kernel via loadin off a cdrom and loading packages and having full documentation/man pages/extra bins/extra modules available is something I would relish. Larry Young mentions having Perl. I bet anyone downloading Trinux at this time would like Perl. There are some interface issues to work out later. The convince factor can be increased greatly by asking the user (at boot-up) what style? of Trinux they want. That gets the NT admins some good packet sniffing/port scanning going or lets them choose a firewall instead. Defining the memory requirements further puts the power in the users hands so they know what can be loaded. It's a really great idea to make a "base" distribution of Trinux with some apps already in it. After that it can be increased as mentioned above, TrinuxFW, TrinuxScanner, TrinuxTheWholeBallOfWax, etc... OK, I'm almost done: If I had more time on my hands I'd play with Trinux more and help create some more solid booting/scripting/docs. The problem is I need Trinux right now to help me analyze problems to free up my time to work on Trinux and or Puffin. I'm currently having problems HD booting Trinux from a floppy on v.62. insmod appears to be missing and I can't get my PCMCIA stuff going. Keep rockin' guys! Trinux got me kicked off into _doing_ something about security instead of just reading web sites. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ www.trinux.org hosted by The Vnode Connector Services www.vnode.com *** Special Discounts For Trinux Users *** Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
