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These notes are as much for me, so when I have to reinvent the wheel I can remember what I did ... as they are for anyone who may be browsing this page. If you have a question, I will be happy to try and answer it. Except, I don't actually know anything about Linux other than to browse the net till I find a "solution."

I'm now using SuSE Linux, which is produced by Novell. I started with SuSE with ver. 8.2, I think. Before that, I tried Mandrake. I like the Mandrake project, but I could not get that version to run in a stable manner on my computer. As far as I could tell, there was some bug in the hardware detection system that ran at start up that would trash the start up files. I tried various Mandrake version from 8.2 forward to 10.0. I also tried a version of Fedora, but I did not find it particularly user friendly or easy to update.

Bugs in my current install (KDE 3.5.1): As mentioned above, I still have the crashing kded problem, and thus, frequent problems with Konqueror web browsing due to lack of cookies. I'm beginning to have a preference for Firefox, anyway, as I like the numerous extensions, ad blocking, selective javascript, etc. Firefox now has ftp, as well. Konqueror still has features I like and is much faster to load than Firefox (esp. firefox loaded with extensions). Other bugs I can think of:

3/4/06 -- The hang-up on starting seems to have been cured in the next update. Or by virtue of "updating" if this was just a glitch in my install.
2/26/06 -- It's always something, n'est-ce pas? Latests updates seem to have created a new problem -- my system hangs when booting when attempting to access the powersave system and/or launching KDE. (I'm not clear which). What I do know is that linux won't boot. Well, it will boot, but not without some monkeying around. It doesn't seem to be mere passage of time, but I can't figure out a key sequence that makes it go either. I type a lot of keys while holding down the control key, and after awhile I get kdm to start. This is annoying. (update--if I wait about 60 secs. and type <ctrl> d, it seems to start.
2/16/06 (or so) -- runaway processes. I'm not precisely clear on what happens. To intercept process that hang up (linux running KDE is not so entirely stable as the linux mystique claims) I run the "runaway process" appelet. This intercepts a lot of process as "slowing down the system" and there are two choices. (a) constantly respond to nag screens or (b) permanently "ignore" the process. I increased the timing and cpu load settings and reduced the amount of nags. The main thing is I want to intercept process that are completely hung up, but allow "slow" processes to continue functioning.
Related to the runaway processes issue is the fact that there seems to be errant processor load frequently. The only reason I believe this to be the case is that my cpu generates a lot of heat, so I can always tell the "load" when the fans step up to higher speed. The fans often run considerably higher in linux than under windows, and I can tell when something has "gone awry" -- I will be doing the exact same task(s) I normally do, and yet the fans are starting to run away.
Quanta 3.5 -- dang! By features, this looks to be a Dreamweaver-like program that would make web project management considerably easier. However, the program (in my install) is so buggy I can't use it. The WYIWYG view has numerous annoying errors and the program itself is prone to crash out completely. So, I'm still using NVU -- which has the added advantage of being simple to use and cross-platform.
The touchpad is way too sensitive and as far as I know, cannot be adjusted. It also has a rather small area that must be used for navigating menus, not the whole pad.
suddenly for no reason, /usr/sbin permanently disappeared from my path. I discovered this when the kwifimanager scanner kept telling me it could not find iwlist in the path. What the heck? After time wasted researching the issue, I edited /etc/.profile and this bug is solved ...
Oh, dang. The stuff you hate -- perfectly good setup suddenly screws up. For whatever reason, wlan0 (wireless) is now not starting. Won't start with YAST configuration of network device either. Works if I run a "modprobe wlan0" command. Why is this? Somehow the startup script must have gotten altered, but I haven't been messing with it. So, in two days, /usr/sbin disappears, then wlan0 startup disappears. This was the sort of instability that made me give up Mandrake linux.

bug update--after some research, I found that I could go to Yast2>system>/etc/sysconfig Editor>system>kernel>MODULES_LOADED_ON_BOOT and add "ndiswrapper". Problem solved. But, why did I have to do this since it was previously working (so this entry was probably already there? Where did it go???) I really hate instability. I don't mind researching how to make something work >once< , but when settings take to simply disappearing, this is serious aggravation. It's much harder to trouble shoot a failed installation than to install the thing in the first place!!!

Fighting spam is really a war that cannot be won. It's pretty much like dealing with ants or cockroaches in your home. You try to minimize the impact without damaging yourself too much with the "solution," either by waste of time or the poisons you bring to the project. Personally, I think a good deal of the spam is intentionally created by people who wish create a public outcry for a more censored/controlled web -- which I do not favor. I would rather deal with the ants and cockroaches. The reason I suspect the spam is intentionally created for this no-good reason is that if you look at the spam, it can't have any other commercial or non-commercial purpose. For instance, there is a particular e-mail address I use that was >only given< to a couple of commercial banking sites. Yet it gets a massive quantity of extraordinarily offensive pornographic spam -- spam that does not come to any of my other addresses. It is the same stuff, 10 copies a day, for months on end. This is not consistent with spammer behavior -- if they are selling a product or trying to generate hits on a site, they change their approach and/or change the target e-mail addresses, since after the first or second salvo, anyone who is going to be seduced into clicking on the links involved has done so. Thus, the only purpose of this spam must be to annoy the recipients. And, I think it's rather telling that the e-mail address was only give to commerical sites that would presumably be running a "secure" db. (And interestingly, the address has not made it's way into the widely
circulated "spam address" databases, since I don't get any of the typical crud addressed to this particular address.)

True or not, in any event, there is just a massive amount of spam clogging the internet, for no good reason. I filter 300+ spams a day -- and that is AFTER my ISP filter kills off all of the "known spam."

Well, I'm sure you are not reading this to find out about my own particular "spam consipracy" theory. But let me make some practical suggestions.

I've tried a number of things, such as spam assassin, bogofilter, POPfile, etc. Here's my current thinking:

new version (3/31/06) Well, the old version, discussed below, never really worked correctly -- and then I ran into another problem! Thunderbird in Linux would let me access the same e-mail account with different "accounts" and therefore different parameters. However, the Windows version of Thunderbird would only allow a single account to access a particular e-mail account. (The importance of this is that you want to access the account with "headers only" and not deleting the pop account e-mail, and then a separate "account" to actually access and download.)

I realize that my explanation here is getting muddled, since I am adding in "updates" in a strange order, so it may not be clear what I am talking about. You sort of have to read the "old version" below first, I guess. But in any event, I remembered that the Mozilla Suite could have multiple profiles, so I thought to try the current version of Mozilla Suite, SeaMonkey.

Well, this worked out much better than the "old version," because as you will read below, my effort with Thunderbird as a pre-filter never quite worked correctly. But SeaMonkey has worked perfectly. The problem with Thunderbird was that I couldn't figure out what was necessary to trigger the delete of spam off the pop account after it was "filtered' in Thunderbird. Some of the spam was still downloading when I used the second account to actually retrieve the good e-mail.

So, here's what's working now and it's working very well. I set up a SeaMonkey e-mail account that checks my pop e-mail, "headers only" and "delete when moved from inbox". I leave this running all the time, with the account checking every five minutes or so. The result is that SeaMonkey retrieves all of the headers and its filters send all the spam to "trash". When it goes to trash, it is deleted from the inbox, so the next time SeaMonkey checks the pop account, everything that was filtered to trash is deleted from the pop account. The SeaMonkey spam filter works pretty good, too, even before you "train it." (At first, you probably should monitor the "spam" manually, rather then send it direct to trash, because otherwise you may trash some good e-mails.)

Then, I set up my main e-mail, Thunderbird, to retrieve my pop account e-mail -- but only on initial startup, not checking every five minutes or whatever. This way, when I want to actually read my e-mail, I run Thunderbird and it downloads the e-mail that has not been killed off by SeaMonkey -- ie., the "good" email. I can also check the headers in SeaMonkey whenever I want, so I can monitor whether there is anything I want to read -- and of course, I can click in SeaMonkey and retrieve the e-mail text if I really want to read it ASAP. Finally, when Thunderbird retrieves the e-mail from the pop server, SeaMonkey updates its inbox to get rid of all the headers that have now "disappeared" from the pop server.

As I said previously (which is actually below), this sounds complicated. But, when it is all set up, you have a pretty good filter system for getting rid of spam without having to read any of it.

old version: Thunderbird incorporates a pretty good spam filtering system, but the really "best" (if you've got the time) filtering system is your own personal reading of the headers. So, I wanted a scanner to read the headers. I found the excellent "Free Antispam Scanner", but while trying to find a similar solution for linux, I realized that I could use Thunderbird itself in the same capacity -- and the Thunderbird spam filters were better than the ones in Antispam Scanner.

Let me explain. What I wanted to do is follow this flow chart: ISP filtering>local header filtering>read remaining headers>kill spam without downloading>download legit email.

And, I wanted to do this in a reasonably efficient manner. The idea is to get the "automatic"/manual ratio as good as possible, which means doing what you can to improve your set of filters.

Now, here's the concept. In Thunderbird, you make two identical accounts for your e-mail. Now, one of them, you set up the way you normally do, but you remove it from the "automatic" checking and you also tell it not to check for e-mail on startup or at intervals. That is, you are going to check your e-mail account only manually.

The second account you name something like "email_cleaner" and you set it to check on startup and at intervals, BUT only download headers, and only clear e-mail when removed from inbox. NOW -- don't set your filters to remove anything from the inbox, because anything that is filtered out of the inbox will be automatically deleted on your ISP server. So, if a legit e-mail is accidentally filtered out of the inbox, it is gone forever.

Okay, let's filter our spam. We start Thunderbird and the "email_cleaner" account checks our email. There is now a bunch of stuff in our inbox.

First, we look and see all the spam with offensive words that tell us we really are not interested in ever seeing these e-mails. And words like viagra. For these, we make a message filter (and you can put them all in one filter) with two actions -- (a) "delete" and (b) "delete from pop server." So now, the next time we start Thunderbird, all of the viagra advertising is going to disappear and we will never see it unless we specifically look for it in the trash.

Now, we have set the "spam filter" of Thunderbird to delete when manually marked as spam. So, we go through the headers and click the spam button on all the stuff with headers like "re: 2 v news". As we click, these are deleted (and the next time, they will automatically be marked as spam).

We've also set the spam filter to not do anything with the items marked as "spam" by the filter. This lets us briefly review any spam that doesn't contain known bad words (eg., viagra), because those spams have been automatically deleted. But, sometimes a "good" e-mail is marked as spam. So, let's say there are 10 e-mails marked as spam and one good one. We unmark the good one, then we select the option to "delete all spam in this folder" and presto, all of the spam disappears. We are left with one e-mail, the one we want to read -- but of course, only the header.

update: I think you have to delete the items that have moved to trash via "message filters." I don't know why this is, the ones that move to trash via manual delete seem to be cleaned off the server on the next check (below) but the ones that were filtered to trash seem to stay on the ISP server until they are emptied from trash. So, unless you delete them manually from the >trash< folder, they will still show up when you check your "real" account, below. (Gad, I wish I could combine the GUI elegance of "Free Anti-spam scanner" and the filtering ability of Thunderbird! Thunderbird programmers, if you happen to read this, could you help automate this spam "prefilter" method? Anyway ...
update 2 (2/26/06). Dang. This doesn't seem to be working. I do not understand the problem, but Thunderbird does not seem to be clearing the deleted messages. Another great idea failed. I will report back when/if I figure this out. It sort of works, but sort of not.

Icepack was the first Linux I tried. The people were helpful and it was a good place to start. However, I'm now using SuSE Linux. Hopefully, you might find some information here that will help you get to know the Linux Operating System. Many things about Linux are getting easier at a rapid pace. (2/26/06 -- it may be that Icepack distro no longer exists ...)

random thoughts/intro	Icepack Linux	useful linux based programs
crashing kded	SuSE ver. 10	bugs in my current install
changing wireless connections	SuSE 10.0 install issues	spam
linux on CD/USB flash drive (Slax)	faster! faster!	Cypress at2lp rc42 hell (not linux)
ndiswrapper	Recording Studio	touchpad
Caller ID (not necessarily linux ...)