I've been a Linux user and Linux Journal subscriber since the mid-1990s. I recently converted our home Internet machine to Linux after one too many virus attacks. Since the conversion, we've had zero problems with viruses and worms. Last week, my wife and I were in Funchal, Madeira, looking for an Internet café so we could e-mail our kids. The place we found had the attached ad in their window. Thought you'd get a chuckle out of it.
The cartoon on page 27 [advertisement for Hentzenwerke
Publishing—Ed.] bothered me because it is just so
blatantly inaccurate. Opera, Firebird, WordPerfect
and RealPlayer all are available for Windows, and
some premiered on that platform.
There are plenty of reasons why Linux is great without
having to make up stuff!
—
Chris Schoenfeld
We use this image for an evangelization campaign in Mexico (cofradia.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7103). It is my son Luis Fernando eating a Tux toy.
I have subscribed to your magazine for about a year and a half, and I love it. I have learned so much from it. I wanted to send you a picture of my son with a Tux shirt my wife embroidered for him. Linux is very popular here and all my kids are getting an early start. Thanks.
I wanted to drop you a line to express my appreciation
for the extra effort you folks appear to be making
relative to the use of proper grammar. The absence
of split infinitives and the correct positioning of
the word only right next to the word or phrase
it is intended to modify (rather than as early as
possible in the sentence, a horribly bad practice that
often thoroughly confuses the author's meaning)
are just two examples of the high standard you are
following. Thank you—some of us out here really do notice
the difference.
—
craig.p
Thanks for the article on Linux in Air Traffic Control in the January 2004 LJ. Tom Brusehaver is quite right—Linux is ready for use in ATC. I'm just back from a tour of EuroControl, Europe's only multinational ATC. Our guide opened up the back of a controller's console so we could see the equipment running the displays, and when I asked him what their upgrade path was going to be from the old Compaq Alpha boxes that currently run the displays, he said that a pilot is now underway and Linux on x86 is scheduled to be deployed next year.
So, in 2005 Tux will be running the displays of the
controllers responsible for airspace through which 19%
of all European flights pass. That penguin's come a
long way.
—
Jim Hague
Oxford, UK
I currently use Mozilla on my Linux desktop. My bank
recently informed me that it will be supporting
only Internet Explorer.
Without an effective counterattack against critical
IE-only Web sites, the Linux Desktop and the Mac are
doomed to extinction.
—
William Mitchell
Check “Online Banking with Konqueror” for compatibility reports from smarter banks (home.in.tum.de/~strutyns/banking.php). —Ed.
Here is a picture of our little girl with Tux wearing her penguin Halloween costume.
If we get you the material, will you make us one too? Photo of the Month gets you a one-year subscription. Photos to info@linuxjournal.com. —Ed.
I enjoyed reading Mick Bauer's “Application Proxying
with Zorp, Part I” in the March 2004 issue.
In the “Firewall Refresher Course” section, Mr Bauer
states that in a stateful packet filtering system “...firewall rules need address only the initiation
of each allowed transaction.” He gives a comparative
example between stateful and non-stateful systems in
Tables 1 and 2.
Although Mr Bauer was referring to stateful packet
filtering systems in general, I'd like to point out
that his explanation is not correct with respect to
the Linux Netfilter package. My understanding of
Netfilter, and the way I've been using it the last two
years, is that a rule is required to permit packets
that are part of an existing session to traverse
the firewall (for example, -m state --state
ESTABLISHED).
This assumes that a default policy of DROP is used.
—
Terry Montgomery
President of Central Valley Area Linux Enthusiasts
(cvale.org)
Mick Bauer's reply: I was generalizing. The point was to explain how stateful packet filtering differs from non-stateful filtering, not to explain how to configure Netfilter/iptables. Given the complexity of Zorp, the real topic of that article, I didn't want to spend more time than I had to on Netfilter basics. Anyhow, you're correct in pointing out that for the stateful magic to work in actual Netfilter/iptables practice, you need a single -m state --state ESTABLISHED rule at the start of each of your chains.
I am enjoying my second year as a subscriber to
Linux Journal. PC Magazine had a really good issue
this month concerning identity theft, spyware and
viruses. This started me thinking. How does Linux
combat these threats? Is it a concern within the Linux
community? How does Linux stack up in this arena?
—
Robert Stewart
All of these problems are commonly spread through forged e-mail, and you can fight forged e-mail with SPF (page 50). If you don't run your own mail server, ask your ISP to use SPF to protect you. —Ed.
Regarding “Manipulating OpenOffice.org Documents with Ruby”, LJ, March 2004—it's come to my attention that I incorrectly attributed REXML, the Ruby XML library, to Sean Chittenden. The actual author of that library is Sean Russell. —James Britt
