Today for the first time I tried to access the Konqueror help center.

The index was building and then a window appeared which said:

Khelpcenter crashed and caused the signal 11 ( SIGSEGV ).

Have any of you nice people heard of this before?

Does my computer freezing up earlier today, as I tried to download TUX magazine, have anything to do with this.

I sure hope my computer has not been hijacked again.

cousinlucky

Difficult to say, I would say unlikely as you have a modem connection

Do not worry to much until you can repeat the crash or bug.
Then note all the details of the error messages and google

One rare thing is possibly a hardware fault (Mobo, memory)
This is always difficult to check
You can get memtest86

Do not worry too much

Nobody took over your pc. You are running a firewalll, arent't you?

I discovered through the Linux maze that I needed to set up an " akregator " account for TUX magazine and then I was able to access it.

However, Mr. Modem's knowledge base also uses a PDF format but Linux will not allow the links through without a password.

I am lost here.

Khelpcenter is partially installed now, though not intentionally, I must have stumbled part of it on.

Linux is not easy for us senior citizens.

Thank You for your help.

That Mr modem you need to pay for probably to access the pdf and get a password
No problem if you are happy top pay and get value for money. That is what commercial sites are for

This is free
http://linmodems.technion.ac.il/ (arleady posted to you

Anyhow I though your modem was now working

Hi Emmanuel,

Mr. Modem's knowledge base is free to the subscibers of his weekly newsletter. When I was using Windows XP I would gain access to his knowledge base by logging in my Email address and password.

I was able to download TUX magazine after I set up an account for it within Linux's " akregator " program.

I did get the modem that DeadPenguin recommended and it works great.

I wish I had something to offer within this forum but I am old and quite a computer neophyte.

I wish I had known about Linux before I ever bought a computer. One thing I do know now is that being on the Internet using Microsoft is like putting to sea in a leaky boat. It is only a matter of time before you sink and have to get your hard drive reformated, again, to get out the hijacking, adware, and spyware programs.

I do not know how to build computers; but I know that if Microsoft did not already put so many holes in its programs to spy on people, others would not be able to get such easy access.

I did an on line update of Linux 10 today and quite a bit was downloaded. Perhaps I wll be able to figure this out.

Thank You for your gracious input!

After downloading my first update I was able to discover a few things.

First although my Linux firewall is always on, there was a hole in it that allowed an outside computer to get into mine. I have had Firefox hijacking programs while using Windows XP so i recognized something familiar.

Second, I Emailed Mr. Modem and when he tried to access his Website's knowledge base with his Linux computer the same thing happened to him that happened to me.

He has promised to get his Linux people to figure it out and get back to me.

Since Mr. Modem's knowledge base and TUX magazine both use the PDF format I am wondering if there must be some special way to set up the Linux " akregator " program to receive partial PDF from a website.

Has anyone else had this kind of akregator problem?

I have been reading some of the posts at LinuxQuestions concerning the holes in the Firefox browser and it is very scary. I am wondering now if that is the source of my problem.

You can use konqueror, links or opera as webbrowser.
If you upgrade firefox most security problems should be sorted

The hole in your firewall is a misconfiguration or lack off ocnfiguration.

You can look at the file /var/log/syslog for anything unusual

Install and run chkrootkit and rkhunter (should be on your dvd)

Install Trojan-scan
http://enterprise.linux.com/article....1539210&tid=89
http://www.derks.it/tools.html

you need to google for nmap and "open port" in LQ
to find out how you can test which port you have which are open

Suse docs should be clear about the firewall setup, this is a must read.

You do not need akgregator necessarily to download pdfs.

It is unlikely you have a problem with your PC, but you will need to post very descriotive info to get any help

Thank You Very Much Emmanuel,

There are so many networking systems within Linux that I had never heard of before. I had to try to figure out how to disable them. I found seven parallel conections including 2 - 127 loopbacks. I deleted them all.

I am in the habit now of clearing the Firefox cache before connecting to the Internet and that helps. At times I feel that my computer has someone or something else running it and when that happens I cut power to my modem.

From past experience I have learned that downloading a newer version of Firefox is useless without first getting rid of every trace of the old one.

I think it would be in my best interest to learn more about Linux and then have my hard drive reformated again. Then I can install Linux again and hopefully avoid my present problems.

Thanks again for your help. I will try what you have suggested.

Best Regards,

cousinlucky

Emmanuel,

I forgot to ask you how to read pdf's without " Akregator ". Thanks - Lucky

install xpdf for example or kpdf
Possibly already installed (start a terminal and type
xpdf nameofpdffile or just xpdf or kpdf
there is also an acrobat reader plug-in

"Slashdot | Adobe Reader 7.0 Coming to Linux"
This is out there, but this version was rumoured to be calling home

If you suspect you had a security problem, reformating is the way forward.
If you are paranoid, install 2 distros (I mean twice the same)
And do net stuffs in only one of them, without mounting all the
partitions (this is quite extreme. It means booting 1 distro for each type of application).
Or have 1 version which is your development, and the other one
you keep improving step by step utnil you are confident it is internet ready.

Lots of reading ahead, yes.
Did you read rute exposition guide or linux newbie admin
(see in LQ bookmark)

Thanks Emmanuel,

I do not think I am paranoid yet. I admit to being old, frustrated, and hurt by spending so much time and money while confined within the Bill Gates Gulag.

I know of many, many people who have given up the Internet entirely because of the suffering it brought them.

I have to learn a lot more about operating Linux before it would make sense for me to have my hard drive reformated again.

Your help and advise is Greatly Appreciated!!

The adage about teaching an old dog new tricks is, in my case, very true.

I am paranoid
I unplug the cable modem when not in use.
And I have 2 firewalls: 1 on the router,
and 1 on the computer. Still the PC firewall see packets that needs
ignoring.

Also I run snortinline (download the snort code and compile from source
with ad-hoc options), and the rootkit hunters from time to time.

Another thing out there to detect intrusion is called tripwire.
There are others. I will post some links when I can

The biggest risk is fishing and social engineering

Let me know of your progress and further questions.
It is interesting to see senior's view and experience with Linux

Hi Emmanuel,

As a senior I can say that the manual that came with my Linux disks as well as the book Linux for Dummies assumes that I already know a lot about UNIX and Linux history but I don't.

If it were not for this forum I would be totally lost.

What my installation lacked was a box I could have clicked that would have disabled all outside access to my computer.

I do not understand why almost all dial up ISP's install spyware programs onto their subscribers computers.

I do not understand why Microsoft builds so many spyware programs into its operating system.

If I knew how to put together an unpenetrable computer operating system, I could corner the market in a year. Oh so many folks have just given up.

I like the Internet too much to just give it up.

May fate smile upon you!

-Lucky

Hi Emmanuel,

After re-installing Suse Linux 10 and using the Gnome desktop I do not have any trouble at all accessing Mr. Modem's website.

Another benefit is I was able to download the Yast update file Open Office ( language ) which I for some unknown reason i could not do in KDE.