Ubuntu is under attack

[Olafur Arason]

I think this proves the point of why not to have postfix, let me explain.
All of these point are important, and even more important then having
to start evolution and read through dosent's of email just to see if
your antivirus has deleted any files. You want notification through
your GUI if that is what you are using see:
http://live.gnome.org/UnixPowerForDesktop

I think it is very important to make a list and you can host it on the
wiki, because Ubuntu isn't about dumbing things down, though the
MenuRevisted is pushing some bounderies. It's about having a
good solution for something, not just a solution. Like telling
people to go to the terminal and typing something or recompiling
the kernel. For people that don't know computer, a relativly simple
task as setting up an email through the phone can be dificault, trust
me. It's important to have as few moving parts.

If you are losing some ability like described in the email below then
it's important to write it down, and by ability I meen I don't know what
my antivirus is doing because there is no postfix, not there is no
postfix by default, then clamscan can depend opon postfix or a better
system.

Olafur Arason
2005/12/18, Mike Bird <mgb-ubuntu at yosemite.net>:
> On Sun, 2005-12-18 at 04:12, Vincent Trouilliez wrote:
> > I can only speak for myself, but as a "normal" Desktop user, I have used
> > Ubuntu very happily for 14 months 24/7 without even knowing that "mailx"
> > and "postfix" existed. As for "MTA", I don't even know what it stands
> > for !
> > So I would say, whatever these things are, they are definitely not
> > essential to a successful Linux experience for "human beings", which I
> > thought was the target audience of Ubuntu ! ;-)
>
> This is frightening.  Do you have any idea what you're missing?
>
> Mail provides your daily report of the anti-virus scan of your
> hard drive.  You do scan your hard drive regularly don't you?
> You do want to have some kind of heads up if viruses are getting
> in to your system?  You don't want to be sharing viruses via
> Samba or FTP or email do you?  You do want to know if clamscan
> accidently deleted something important?
>
> Mail provides your daily report that you forgot to configure
> tmpreaper.  You did install tmpreaper didn't you?  What, you
> reboot when your /tmp is full?
>
> Mail provides your daily report of your backup to tape, to DVD,
> or via rsync.  You do backup your system don't you?  You want
> to know if the backup is too big for the DVD, or if a tape
> write failed?
>
> Mail provides your hourly report of your anti-virus definition
> updates.  You want to know when you're protected against that
> new worm that you just read about.  More importantly, you want
> to know if a firewall or proxy server somewhere is borked and
> preventing your regular anti-virus definition updates.
>
> When one of your hard drive mirrors breaks, mail tells you.  You
> do mirror all your hard drives don't you?  We do, except laptops.
> It's a heck of a lot cheaper to install a second drive than to
> recover from a drive crash.  All drives crash.
>
> I understand that mail can also tell you when a hard drive is
> close to failure, using SMART monitoring.  I confess I haven't
> seen this happen yet.
>
> All those are standard reports from Linux desktops.  Most
> servers generate more.  Some desktops generate more if you
> have particularly applications installed.  If you're not
> setting up mail properly on your Ubuntu installations
> then you're doing a disservice to your clients, family,
> and friends.
>
> Now some people will want those emails delivered to their guru -
> - the guy or gal who installed Ubuntu for them and answers the
> difficult questions for them.  In poorer countries without
> Internet access, people will probably want those emails
> delivered locally.  Most newbies trying Ubuntu on their own
> will probably want their emails sent to "me at myisp.com" so
> that they arrive in their regular message stream without having
> to check a second mail account.  Postfix can do all that very
> easily.
>
> By default, postfix need only listen on 127.0.0.1.  There's no
> security downside to running postfix.  Nor is postfix difficult
> to install - it's pretty much point and click in debconf.  Nor
> is postfix difficult to maintain - it just does its job quietly.
>
> Why was Ubuntu broken?  All we've had thus far on this list
> are a lot of complaints about postfix being removed and a few
> people saying that they didn't know that mail is important.
>
> Now I'm not particularly interested in lynching the culprit.
> What should happen is that one of the Ubuntu leaders should
> get on this list right away and assure us that this will be
> fixed for Dapper and that measures will be put in place so
> that know-nothings cannot again throw out critical functions
> on religious grounds without warning or reasoned discussion.
>
> --Mike Bird
>
>
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