I'm planning on building my next some, and am about to the point with all this "big brother" crap to make my system as close to bullet-proof as possible.
I'm thinking, OS wise, of going Slack/Debian (Thinking Slack, if the install isn't as unrully as I have heard), but outside that:

Force the OS to require a floppy/CD/USB to boot
Use removable storage media for anything I wouldn't want someone else to get their hands on
Using my old comp inline before the DSL router as a firewall system (the router has 2 firewalls in it, a hardware and a software firewall)

Anything else that someone could suggest? Before you ask, I don't have anything seriously private on my comp, just don't like people (or governments, or just others in general), poking their noses into my crap.

one thing i could suggest is patching your kernel with grsecurity... as for the usb booting thing, check out this article, it walks you through creating an encrypted root filesystem that needs to be booted with a usb key and stuff... BTW, the slackware install isn't really complicated at all (it's actually very simple and straight-forward)... just make sure you do some reading beforehand to know what to expect...

You should take a look at Bastille:

BASTILLE-LINUX If you use Debian , Bastille and the Harden packages will do a great job of locking your system down.

Securing Debian Manual
http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/se...owto/#contents

A good article is:
Securing Linux, Part 1: Introduction
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerwork...l-seclnx1.html

I would then suggest removing the HD, booting with only LIVE Linux Distro's... Saving all data on Thumbdrives, and unplugging computer after use.

Easy as that...

KC

Makes sense to me. I'll check more into Slackware (unless I'm mistaken, I think its the harder of the two between Slack and Deb, isn't it?)

that would depend on the user... i think that, generally speaking, slackware is actually simpler than debian... but then again, it's all relative to the user - i'm pretty used to slackware so debian would be kinda weird for me... the same would be true for a long-time debian user getting his feet wet with slackware...

but yeah, i know what you mean... slackware does have this reputation for being "hard" and stuff like that, but it's just a myth IMHO... i believe one of the main reasons it gets labeled like this (besides the FUD reason) is the command-line based system configuration... so if one considers a distro "hard" because configuration is done from the command line, then yes, it would be "hard" for said person...

Alright. I've looked into both Slack and Deb, and personally I'm still getting my feet wet, per say, in Linux, and Debian seems, for the stable release, out of date, and Slack is a bit, well, mean looking, for lack of a better term. I've reinstalled SuSe several times (I've got nothing major on my comp that I need to save, but what I do, my CD burner wouldn't work for, and the files were too big for floppys, even if I could mount them) to try and get everything where I like it, and trying to figure where to put 30GB+ of HDD space when you only need like, 5 is a bit of an over-the-top task.

Thanks for the feedback everyone

if you're still getting your feet wet i would suggest you wait a while before busting-out the heavy armor for your install... using light armor such as the bastille which was suggested above should be enough to quench your thirst for a hardened install i think, plus bastille is an educational tool as it explains everything that it's doing and stuff...

have you thought about ubuntu?? you'd be getting a solid debian base, and even though it comes with GUI tools to do basically everything, you still have the ability to to use the command-line to do anything you want if you're looking to gain more knowledge and stuff... and probably something like 99% of that knowledge you will be able to use on a debian box later...

it's normal for the debian stable release to seem "out of date"... that's part of what making a stable distro is about... in fact, debian stable is "out of date" even before it is released... stability comes at a price, but the price is well worth it on a server, specially if it's mission-critical...

of course on a desktop you might not want so much stability... but of course you probably don't wanna be bleeding-edge either... ubuntu hits the spot, as the distro is created using pretty modern software, while maintaing most of the elements of stability which have made debian great...

personally, even though i do have some debian experience (not much), i've never installed ubuntu... but i've been trying-out all the testing CDs for the dapper release and i think it's one hell of a distro...

when dapper is released, i will be switching my desktop to ubuntu... i will of course still be using slackware for all kinds of stuff (once a slacker, always a slacker), but it looks like ubuntu will become my new choice for desktop/laptop distro on June 1st...

http://www.ubuntu.com/