[sf-lug] debian base system (initially without X11)...etc

[Rick Moen]

I wrote:

> > - The Debian Linux User's Guide by Dale Scheetz (Linux Press) [06]
> > is two decades old (going all the way back to the days of Rick M's
> > "hugin.imat.com"[07] maybe??) and covers setting-up the older PPP
> > via 'ifconfig'[08], as opposed to using the current 'ip a' to "show
> > at least two more valid network interfaces" as specifically
> > mentioned above.
> 
> FWIW, I'll wager that ifconfig is still around a decade from now, even
> if only as a wrapper around the 'ip' command.

Also, Dale Scheetz's book, having been published in 1998, missed by
about a year the final year when my main server was _solely_ known as
hugin.imat.com.  ISTR that Penguin Computing CEO Sam Ockman bought the
linuxmafia.com domain for me in 1997, since which time the
hugin.imat.com FQDN has remained valid but the host has been primarily
known as linuxmafia.com or as uncle-enzo.linuxmafia.com.  

I'm actually always astonished that there was ever a market for books
about Linux distributions.  I think people mostly bought them for the
same reason they bought 1200 page books about Lotus 1-2-3: insecurity.
In particular, back in the day, Que and other publishers made enormous
profits out of providing (in effect) substitute documentation to users
who had bootlegged popular application packages, and felt insecure about
that.  Maybe they still do.

I've just never found books on specific Linux software useful (but of
course, tastes differ).  I've always found them both less targeted and
less current than the results of careful use of the Web.

For whatever it's worth, Raphaël Hertzog and Roland Mas's book _The
Debian Administrator's Handbook_, last updated 2015, is available online
and appears pretty good.  https://debian-handbook.info/


Neal Stephenson readers will get the (above) joke about Uncle Enzo (from
_Snow Crash_.  By contrast, the hostname 'hugin' goes back to around
1994 when my landlord and CoffeeNet proprietor said he intended to name
all of the Linux hosts at the soon-to-open CoffeeNet Intenet cafe for
Celtic mythology.  I decided in response to name mine for Norse
mythology.  Conseqently, at one point, I had ymir, hugin, and munin.

> > - The last listed link at [03] entitled 'Woody
> > Non-vulnerabilities'[10] isn't even around anymore.
> 
> Yeah, I'll doubtless just lose that, though the larger point that the
> page makes is still worthwhile.

I've updated the knowledgebase entry to link to the Internet Archive 
snapshot, and added a note that, yes, it's been an obsolete page since
2007, but makes an important point about how you cannot judge a
package's security vulnerabilities merely by the software's release
version,  (This counters the delusional and perenially popular notion
that getting the latest code makes you safer.)