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> Raise your hand if this is how you first got into Linux. _raises hand_ In my case, I had my existing desktop PC and acquired another (used) one. Broadband
by jlgaddis 11y ago
> Raise your hand if this is how you first got into Linux.
_raises hand_
In my case, I had my existing desktop PC and acquired another (used) one. Broadband hadn't yet made it to the rural area I lived and I got tired of moving the phone line back and forth between the two PCs.
I was able to find a pair of (very well supported) 3c509s and a crossover cable and managed to build my first network and get both machines online at the same time.
20+ years later, I'm still doing pretty much the same thing, progressing from ipfwadm to ipchains to iptables (on Linux) to pf (on OpenBSD). And, of course, the little dedicated machine flinging my packets nowadays is much faster than I could have ever imagined back then.
- mwpmaybe 11y agoOh man, ipfwadm, I completely forgot about that. I also now remember an ipmasq command, which google reminds me was kind of a wrapper around ipfwadm or ipchains, and I remember rebuilding my kernel over and over again (overnight!) to get the right combination of networking options. I also remember being very frustrated when I had to drop ipfwadm and learn ipchains for kernel 2.2, and drop ipchains and learn iptables for kernel 2.4!
- jlgaddis 11y agoYep, so much relief when 2.6 came out and retained iptables!
- sneak 11y agoI also recall doing the same sort of dance with linux kernel RAID, (0.90 vs md-style) and also encrypted block devices (cryptoloop to device mapper). It's nice to remember and realize how stable and performant things are these days.