RE: Must Have apps for the next BDI

["Mike Joyce" <mike-at-sherline.com>]

I think these apps would be essential in my book:
X
blackbox (gnome / kde = blah)
gtk+ libraries
perl
perl/tk
some sort of mail client, sylpheed?
opera (Netscape and other gecko clients = slow)

for my personal desktop I normally also add:
xmms
gaim
quirc
ethereal
nmapfe
aterm
eterm
cvsup --without-gui
mesa
gkrellm
the gimp
I am not sure how Linux deals with mounting smb file systems, I assume
kernel option?
Samba server

There really isn't much that is 'needed'. People who need more will most
likely be able to install it themselves, especially with the debian apt
system.

I think that adding a firewall would be a great idea, I personally
prefer ipfw, if you want I can throw together a simple firewall rule
that would be suited for home use (blocking 135-139 and telnet etc).

I would also suggest, if we start enabling services that we chroot
and/or jail them. There are a lot of people who just scan the net
looking for default redhat installs that are running outdated ssh, or
wuftpd or something. Even if we release code that is known secure, there
are a lot of undocumented sploits floating around out there, that the
normal home user isn't ready to handle.

Also, I think it would be an awesome idea to compile everything using
IBM's gcc patch. It virtually eliminates all stack exploits; it does
this by reorganizing the stack so that pointers are on top of all the
strings. Using it cases a negligible performance hit at runtime, compile
time just takes a bit longer.

Call me paranoid, I understand that this is over the line for this kind
of application, but I think it should be at least looked at before we
start enabling services.

If you do decide to go with blackbox, I have my super duper custom
blackbox-menu that I use; I could easily customize it for our uses.

--
Mike Joyce
Network Administrator
Sherline Products
mike-at-sherline.com

-----Original Message-----
From: emc-at-nist.gov [emc-at-nist.gov] On Behalf Of Paul
Sent: Sunday, May 18, 2003 4:55 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Must Have apps for the next BDI



Hi Folks

Busy working on the next BDI disk - A major departure from previous
versions, 
as it will be based on Debian not Red Hat. With over 12,000 packages to 
choose from, and nearly 1Gig of space left, I'm looking for some
suggestions.
Two categories - Must Have apps, and Would be Nice. 

KDE and Gnome desktops will be left out in favour of a light and fast 
desktop. The support libraries will still be included so some KDE/Gnome
apps 
should still run.

Regards, Paul.

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