Two things missing from Ubuntu - Backup and Firewall - can we have them in Horay

[Ben Edwards]

I have to say Ubuntu is almost the perfect Desktop distro, apart from
two ommisions - User Friendly Firewall and a User friendly Backup
solution.  so lets deal with each.

Backup 

I recently put a backup system in place to copy /home to a DVD-RW
every nite.  I used a series of DVDs with eatch day of the week
written on them.  The backup run at 4am and eatch morning they would
come in, remove the disk from last nite (which is ejected) and replace
it with the relevant disk.  Every week the Friday disk is taken off
site and kept - and replaced with a new dist.  I am emailed the
results.

This is a very simple effective solution but fiddly to set up (I use
dar, cdrecord and makeiso and set up a cron job).  What we really need
is a GUI which allows the user to select a backup strategy, gives them
instructions and just works.  Douse such a thing exist and can we have
one in Ubuntu?

This may be a desktop distro but lots of people are using it as such
stand alone - dragging/drooping /home onto the window that popes up
when you insert a DVD is hardly a elegant solution, for a start the
DVD may need to be blanked.

Firewall

Antivirus may not be necessary but a firewall is.  A lot of people
have them built into there router but not all.  My very cheap wireless
router (£35) has one and it comes set up in a sensible way by default.
 It would be great if Ubuntu had one by default.  Again as a stand
alone desktop distro people may connect it to a cable modem or DSL
router which douse not have a Firewall.  Myself I use Telewest in the
UK and it comes with RJ45 cable modem without a firewall and I own a
budget DSL router without one.

Ben

-- 
Ben Edwards - Poole, UK, England
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