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Topic: DSL change suggestions, A PC technicians POV

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Guest
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Posted: Jan. 25 2006,17:00

First off, let me begin by stating that I really like DSL. It's a great OS that runs really well on my Fujitsu laptop (Frugal installed).

However, I did wish to make some suggestions and an offer.

My suggestions are:

(1): Get rid of Beaver. As a web developer and as a Perl programmer I find Beaver' s use of /r carriage returns to be very annoying. Besides if us DSL users don't care for VI (Which I actually like VI and Gvim) there's always apps like Nedit which can be grabbed at the myDSL repository.

(2): DSL needs a simple way (either through a shell or a GUI app) to restart eth0. I had this problem on some machines at the college where I work in running the live CD on a DELL GX620 with the Ethernet.

(3): JWM is neat, and nice to have a choice, but I personally see it as a waste of space in the DSL core OS. Us folks who use DSL most likely enjoy Fluxbox and I think that JWM's space could be used for other applications.

(4): Integrate an HTTP server replacement for Monkey. Apache is a good choice, has better support than Monkey, and can be made to fit.

Overall DSL is superb! I just want to help, and to that end I am (studying) Linux system administration and am familiar with Perl. As such I would like to offer my service to help DSL improvements.

xlthlx
Unregistered

Posted: Jan. 26 2006,04:58

Hello,
I'd like to second that server suggestion. A Google search for Monkey Webserver turns up a good deal of security advisories.

The lightweight server, lighthttpd, while 100 times bigger than Monkey is as performant as apache in some benchmarks, but still pretty slim, weighing in under 800 kb. The Kepler Web development platform for Lua also has a bundled webserver Xavante, which I believe is only 2 or 3 times bigger than Monkey, but handles some newer technology like Fast-cgi, and has native support for server-side Lua scripting.

Please consider these options, if a replacement of Monkey Webserver is feasible.

Regards,
xlthlx

cbagger01

Group: Members
Posts: 4264
Joined: Oct. 2003

Posted: Jan. 26 2006,06:36

1) I like NEdit better, but it is too big for the base iso. Beaver is a good compromise between size and functionality. You can still choose to not use it.

2)
ifdown eth0
ifup eth0

3) JWM is really small and the developers have taken pains to optimize it for DSL and also to optimize DSL scripts for JWM. So I doubt that it is going away soon. FYI, I like flux better. JWM also uses less resources than flux, believe it or not.

4) I would not use Monkey for a public webserver. But it is fine for Intranet use. I assume that the security issues are being addressed in the newer versions? It is very small and for the most part usable, so why change? If it was changed, it would probably be for another lightweight http server so you would still be in the same boat.

What would be nice is to get a tiny FTP server that supports user account/security configuration better than betaFTP. It is difficult to set up betaFTP as a public ftp server. I am sure that there must be a tiny alternative out there somewhere.

Grim

Group: Members
Posts: 284
Joined: Mar. 2004

Posted: Jan. 26 2006,07:49

1.) Don't we still have nvi? I'll have to check

2.) cbagger is my hero

3.) I don't care which we standardise on, but I am of the opinion that we only need one for the base iso. If it were up to me it'd be Window Maker, but I realize it is much too huge (and yet I love it!)

4.) What's wrong with Monkey if you're running from a LiveCD? Seriously?

As for betaFTPd, why not drop it altogether. There's a SSH server in DSL--use that instead.

SSH is secure, effectively eliminates eavesdropping, connection hijacking, and provides a myriad of secure tunneling capabilities.

There are GUI SSH clients that behave exactly like traditional FTP clients and dropping a (imho) worthless FTP server would free up some space.

SSH is smarter, sexier, better and prolongs sexual intimacy--I vote we nuke beatFTPd!

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