[conspire] linux antivirus?

[Rick Moen]

Supplying the missing footnote:

> Now, I have a question for you:  Why the _hell_ would anyone with an
> ounce of common sense _not only_ turn on a notoriously vulnerable,
> obsoletely designed[1] print daemon....

[1] CUPS (Common Unix Print System) is the general-purpose
standard-bearer that logically should be used on servers.  This was
already the case in April 2001.  

For workstations, a lot of people use CUPS there too, but I would say
that pdq (Print, Don't Queue) would be a slightly better choice for lots
of reasons:  It's a much simpler piece of code, small, fast, which
accordingly has much lower likelihood of security problems -- and zero
chance of network vulnerabilities, since it's reachable only locally.
As the name indicates, you have no local queuing, but you typically
don't really want or need that on a local workstation, anyhow.

Late addition:  Since the last time I looked at the Linux Printing HOWTO
(see below), it seems that pdq has become maintainerless (but so far has
no unfixed problems).  Mild bummer.

The real expert on this matter, Grant Taylor, explains it much better
than I ever could:  http://www.linuxprinting.org/howto/
Especially:  http://www.linuxprinting.org/howto/spoolers.html

-- 
Cheers,     Founding member of the Hyphenation Society, a grassroots-based, 
Rick Moen   not-for-profit, locally-owned-and-operated, cooperatively-managed,
rick at linuxmafia.com     modern-American-English-usage-improvement association.