UNIX HowTo: Using Linux / UNIX And SSH
Silence is Defeat (SD) UNIX Shells offers free accounts to the general public. We help people to learn about open source Linux / UNIX operating systems, and use them to exercise and protect their rights online and offline.
'Server' is just a word for a computer on the Internet that you can connect to. Web servers send web pages to your browser, email servers send email to and from you.
Shell servers let you log in from anywhere, and do anything you would do on your home computer, as well as anything you would do on a server.
A shell server gives you a login account, and a way to log in and use the shell server just like you would use your computer.
- Emails you send come from and to the shell server, not your computer.
- Web pages you browse to are sent to the shell server, not your computer.
- Chat programs run on the shell server, and don't reveal your information.
- Scripts you write and run are running on the shell server, not your computer.
Control your own information
You can set your computer up to run all of these programs - Linux or UNIX running a web server, an email server, secure chat programs, and custom scripts. To secure your your own privacy and online rights, you should do exactly this.
- Gmail reads every one of your emails, and shows ads based on them. You can run your own email server.
- Web hosts log and store everything you do, and charge fees for simple services. You can run your own web server.
- Chat services can read everything you send over them. You can run your own secure chat programs.
- Scripting skills let you automate and simplify the things you do every day on your computer. You can learn how to script.
How do you get started?
Buying a computer is expensive, and learning how to set up Ubuntu Linux on your computer could destroy data and be overwhelming at first.
You can start by getting a free shell account to learn how to use UNIX / Linux before putting it on your own computer.
SD offers free accounts on a UNIX server to the public. Learn how to use UNIX / Linux - you can connect and get started right away with help files on the system (in the 'help' directory in your home directory) and chatting with admins and programmers. Securely use this UNIX system for web browsing, email, chatting and scripting.
Join up and get started.