[SGVLUG] linux-friendly netbooks

[Sean]

hehe, Sorry Tom/Charles/et all, I didn't mean to cause any disturbance in
the force. =)

--------- Original Message --------
From: SGVLUG Discussion List. <sgvlug at sgvlug.net>
To: 'SGVLUG Discussion List.' <sgvlug at sgvlug.net>
Subject: Re: [SGVLUG] linux-friendly netbooks
Date: 03/09/09 23:28

> OK you two - I don't want to issue a &quot;time out&quot; but I will if I
have to...
> 
> &gt; -----Original Message----- Of Sean
> 
> &gt; &gt; I have the EPC1000HD, which came stocked with Windows XP.
> &gt; &gt; I soon replaced the Windows XP OS after discovering 1
> &gt; &gt; week later that it had
> &gt; &gt; included a Sino rootkit/keylogger, which either came
> &gt; &gt; out of the box [...]
> 
> Ok, flaming, mildly or inherently &quot;heated&quot; discussion, or
anything else of the sort aside, there does exist one or more potential
sources of the presumed rootkit, and as to whether or not it was maliciously
included or unintentional remains to be seen  [anecdotally, I've heard of
cases where major (game) software companies inadvertantly released a virus
when said virus managed to get into either their build or replication
environment(s) without them noticing, and thus &quot;sealed copies&quot; in
the box were already tainted]
> 
> But, back to my point: did you get this shipped &quot;from the
factory&quot;, or via a third-party retailer such as newegg or Fry's?  I
recently purchased a lenovo netbook via newegg, and while the box appeared
to be &quot;factory sealed&quot;, the system came with a 60-day trial
version of MS Office software on it.  During the /initial/ setup of the
device, I had skipped an option (related to wireless networking since I
wasn't near a network) and later couldn't back get to that particular setup
item.  &quot;no problem&quot;, I thought - I hadn't even used it for a full
day yet, I'll just &quot;re-image&quot; it from the included recovery
partition and start over - low and behold, the &quot;recovery&quot;
partition did NOT include the MS Office &quot;trial&quot;!  (nor a couple of
other insignificant items)
> 
> So, &quot;factory sealed&quot; or not, somebody somewhere along the lines
added stuff to the system before it arrived at my door.  I suspect the same
may have been true for you as well.
> 
> Sean continued:
> &gt; &gt; In any event, I installed Debian etch via TFTP.
> 
> To which Charles queried:
> &gt; TFTP? Or FTP?
> 
> While I'm fairly certain Charles is a capable and well informed
individual, there do exist &quot;newbies&quot; on this list who would
benefit from knowing the difference between these two methods. 
Specifically, &quot;T&quot;-ftp would not be a method that &quot;new&quot;
users would be likely to try, and used to depend on hardware support in the
first place (i.e., the pxe-boot rom on the NIC card)  [At least, that was
the case way back when I was taking the Novell CNA/CNE classes - I presume
now this is more or less universally included in modern NICs?]
> 
> (I also see Charles has responded while I was composing this, so skipping
ahead a bit, many, if not all, of the distro's include a method whereby you
create a special &quot;bootdisk&quot;, either floppy or CD, that effectively
does what PXE does.  Netbooks, in particular, are a special case as they
generally don't HAVE a floppy or CD-rom, so you have to rely on other
techniques and/or hope the BIOS has boot-from-USB support, which in turn
allows you to connect a USB floppy, CD/DVD, or even memory stick)
> 
> [and while I wrote that, Sean responded - looks like things have cooled
down a bit - thanks guys, we do like it when folks are civil on our list ;)
]
> 
> Tom
> 
> 

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