Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[Sylvander]

I'd be inclined to:
Ctrl+Alt+backspace
To drop ot a command prompt...
Then:
xwin
To come back into the desktop...
Then:
Restart Firefox...
And choose which of the windows/tabs to restart...
By un-ticking the window/tab with the problem.

Any reason this wouldn't work?

[Bruce B]

Vulnerabilities don't exist anywhere and everywhere.

A vulnerability can only exist if it actually exists. Even at that, it has to be successfully exploited to be of consequence.

We still don't have to my knowledge a verified report on any Puppy users having been exploited.

~

[Bruce B]

[nooby]

[Sky Aisling]

Thank you GCMartin for posting this thread. Thank you Nooby for keeping the 'newbie' voice alive in the discussion. Thanks to all for the thoughtful contributions.

[Bruce B]

Firefox has open about 240 files. Of these files about 20 are open for updating and writing back.

I take the extra time to close it gently so it has a chance to finish writing the files which are intended to be written back. If it is in the middle of a write operation and it is forcibly killed, it will not finish writing. A partially written file is a corrupted file. What else could it be?

~

[nooby]

Bruce if one consider what you just wrote, what am I supposed to do?
What is it you do? I read your words again and again but have no idea.

[James C]

I ran into this a while ago and posted on a different thread.
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=512014#512014

Nothing bad happened, just entertaining to watch.

[Sylvander]

1. Perhaps I should have said...
That my pupsave on the internal HDD...
(a) Is treated as though it's a pupsave on a Flash Drive. [I use this method]
Then...
(b) I use this method so no changes made during the session are auto-saved back to the pupsave during the session.
[I can choose if/when to do it manually, by clicking the "Save" icon on the desktop]
Then...
(c) I use this method to be given the choice at shut-down/reboot "to save or not to save".

2. Hence I can drop to a command prompt with no nasty consequences.

[Bruce B]

[nooby]

If I want a how to close down gently?
Yes that what I asked but maybe failed to express clearly!

[Bruce B]

Nooby,

Here is your how-to practice it on a normal running firefox. Use it in the even firefox hangs loading a page, acts up, or looks like a website is up to mischief.

1) Left-Alt+Left-Ctrl+F2 (drops you to a text mode tty)

2) Enter login name and password

3) Open htop

4) Select the firefox threads, use arrow keys and kill them with signal 15

5) Left-Alt+F3 (or F4 or F5) depends on number of ttys to return to X session

I use this when X locks up because some mal designed web page has brought the browser and all of X to a virtual standstill

~

[gcmartin]

A scenario: this is an hypothetical case for comment
Lets suppose someone has a forum. And, a moderator of that forum chooses to use their power to 'target' a forum member. Invading the member and placing a poison pill that begins to go the work on the member's network PCs. Should this be called a virus if it begin its bad behavior from a Linux machine?

Questions which arise
We all know this is misuse of power, but;

• should a "poison pill" like this be called a virus?
  
• when this is detected, where or how should it be reported?
  
• What would you do if you discovered this?
  
• And, if you found that it was corrupting your filesystems, then what?

[postfs1]

[Sky Aisling]

Here is Wiki's definition of 'Virus' (not that Wiki is the last word in definitions)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_virus