[conspire] Laptop with wireless card that needs ndiswrapper

[Rick Moen]

----- Forwarded message from Peregrine <wreaky at heavydrums.com> -----

From: Peregrine <wreaky at heavydrums.com>
To: bofh at linuxmafia.com
Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2005 23:15:54 -0700
Subject: Ahhh, a Register reader for sure (ala Travaglia)

Hi Rick,

I met you at the SF-LUG mtg. last Sunday. I was impressed with your sense of
humor, even temper, and feral gaze - and the way you casually shared your
considerable knowledge. There was mention of you before you showed up, and I
gather that you host some events from time to time. I'd like to be invited
to your next event. Sign me up.

I really enjoyed your linuxmafia/news.html page. Such naked admission of
vulnerability and culpability. The August 28, 2001 post was especially
priceless. No excuses, "Just the facts, ma'am."

I was quite pleased to run into mention of you on the Linux Gazette later on
that day, while I was researching wireless cards for the weedy Sony Vaio I'm
trying to streamline with a Suse install. So little memory, though. I may
have to slim the kernel down - as soon as I figure out how to do that. I
used to work at AutoDesk with Ted Nelson in the early 90's and rub shoulders
with all kinds of kooks and luminaries (Captain Crunch, Douglas Adams, Jaron
Lanier, Mike Nesmith, Timothy Leary, Todd Rundgren, etc.). It's nice to dip
back into the community of digital cognoscenti.

As far as that wireless card goes, I guess I'm going to have to bite the
bullet and give ndiswrapper a try. 

Wish me luck,
Peregrine

http://heavydrums.com



----- End forwarded message -----
----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> -----

Date: Sun, 16 Oct 2005 23:13:53 -0700
To: Peregrine <wreaky at heavydrums.com>
Subject: Re: Ahhh, a Register reader for sure (ala Travaglia)
From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>

Quoting Peregrine (wreaky at heavydrums.com):

> I met you at the SF-LUG mtg. last Sunday. I was impressed with your sense of
> humor, even temper, and feral gaze - and the way you casually shared your
> considerable knowledge. There was mention of you before you showed up, and I
> gather that you host some events from time to time. I'd like to be invited
> to your next event. Sign me up.

Peregrine, thanks!

> I really enjoyed your linuxmafia/news.html page. Such naked admission of
> vulnerability and culpability. The August 28, 2001 post was especially
> priceless. No excuses, "Just the facts, ma'am."

Basically, eating my own dogfood and trying to give people the benefit
of my own lessons.  One of the more valuable long-term ones is that
anything with a publicly accessible programming interface, or that can
be passed raw data from the world at large, is a particular point of
concern for security.  Therefore, as an example of a codebase exposed to
public data, any CGI is such a security concern -- e.g., the one that by
default drives AWstats.  If I'd stopped and pondered that before
mindlessly installing AWstats and not bothering to think about its mode
of operation, I'd have thought:  "Squirrelly Perl script handling public
data input from the URL line?  With no decent input validation?  _No thanks!_"  

I'm amazed that the thing defaults to that mode of operation -- and that
no _real_ writeup about this aspect of the thing emerges from googling 
on the subject.  All you find is "Don't use old versions:  They have
security problems."  _Old_ versions?  Sheesh!  The goddamn thing turns
out to be an ongoing disaster!

What's really needed (if not simply abandoning the thing as a lost
cause) is a mode of operation that does _not_ expose it to the public as
a CGI -- e.g., running it as a batch cronjob to autobuild the stats
page.  Again, I'm amazed that I can't find that written up.  I figure
I'll have to code it and write the article myself.  I just haven't
had time.

> I was quite pleased to run into mention of you on the Linux Gazette
> later on that day, while I was researching wireless cards for the
> weedy Sony Vaio I'm trying to streamline with a Suse install.

Small world moment #1:  I'm actually one of the editors for Linux
Gazette.  ;->

> So little memory, though. I may have to slim the kernel down - as soon
> as I figure out how to do that.

Might help.  Some distributions, such as Debian, have their own software
frameworks to attempt to make crafting your own kernel easy.  (Debian's
is make-kpkg, if memory serves, furnished by package name
"kernel-package".) It's often worthwhile making a kernel that omits
everything you know you don't need, while keeping around exactly the
features you want.  Takes a while to get that right, though.

It will often get you bigger results sooner to look elsewhere, e.g.,
shutting off network services you're starting up by accident and
switching to a more-modest window manager.  My old VAIO PCG-505TX (128MB
RAM) runs Debian with Window Maker as the window manager -- and is
comfortably fast, despite being a P266.

> I used to work at AutoDesk with Ted Nelson in the early 90's....

Heh.  I was at a firm with Ted's successor at Xanadu Project, Roger Gregory.

> As far as that wireless card goes, I guess I'm going to have to bite the
> bullet and give ndiswrapper a try. 

Yes.  You might want to try the latest Kanotix prerelease, 2005-04 RC11.
You can find the download link via the Distrowatch.org page for Kanotix.
(Kanotix is a "live CD" distribution based on Debian & Knoppix that's
very, very good for laptops, defaults to a KDE desktop, and can be
installed to the hard drivce.)

If you come down to CABAL's meeting in Menlo Park this coming Saturday...

r! cal

    October 2005    
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
                   1
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 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20 21 22
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30 31

...Saturday the 22nd, 4 pm to midnight, I have Kanotix already burned to
CD, along with lots of other stuff:
http://linuxmafia.com/cabal/installfest/#distros

----- End forwarded message -----