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If you'd like to play with solving simple substitution ciphers using both dictionary attacks and hill-climbing methods (similar to the method described in the paper), try Decrypto. It's open source, too.

http://www.blisstonia.com/software/Decrypto

Either you're trolling about Slackware or you simply don't know which program you're looking for with regards to partitioning (And I -thought- the Slackware login message specifically mentions what you do to get started). Here's a guide to partitioning when installing Slackware (Ignore that it talks about booting off a diskette, unless you don't burn CDs). In short, you use the very simple and easy to understand fdisk program, and from that point on the setup process is a relatively simple curses-based install. I would not and do not recommend Slackware as a Linux entry point unless help is there to get it installed and updated.

For the SuSE problem, I have no doubt personally that it did happen because I've had the SuSE FTP install freak out on me too before, but it always comes around somehow sometime the next time I decide to give the distro a whirl on a spare partition.

And, finally, for Ubuntu, either you got a bunk CD (It's a very, very good idea to md5sum any ISO you download because it could very well be that you had a problem during the download) or you need to take a look at the kernel boot parameters for the CD if you even got past the very first screen that introduces those options. If you are in Linux, most distributions come with the md5sum program so you can verify these ISOs. If you are in Windows, I highly recommend the program WinMD5, found here. I've ended up with a few coasters myself over not verifying these downloads are what I was supposed to be getting.

And for the record, aside from Ubuntu, none of the distributions you mentioned are aimed at newbies (SuSE is to an extent, but be real, FTP/network installs are -not- for newbies, in my opinion). Please choose some more sensible starting points, such as Fedora (Really slow, I don't like it, personally) or Mandrake, or even playing with a KNOPPIX (Or derivitive) CD to get the hang of the Linux desktop before you make the switch. If you have as much RAM as I have, the copy2ram boot option makes the distro faster than many harddisk based ones.

I just learned how to create a second loopback interface on Windows. By binding the SSH port forwarding to this address you can use regular windows file sharing at the same time you're attached to your secure machine, so that solves that problem (that's what was holding me back from trying it right now.) (If anyone's interested, go here to read how.)

Once I get that working, I might try out port knocking so I can allow an arbitrary IP address through the firewall when I'm out and about and want to use my machine.

I'm not the originator of these types of complaints. I heard these complaints from TiVo owners themselves. I was part of the distributed computing approach to crack the key in the 3.2 release of TiVo, including working on software updates just before the project was cancelled. Read the posts on the site for yourself. I helped even though I'd didn't have a TiVo.

ReplayTV owners believe they have a better system and are often irritated that TiVo gets all the attention. It seems like its Betamax vs VHS again.

Here is a WinMD5 for Windows:
http://www.blisstonia.com/shareware/WinM D5/
WinMD5

This works very well and it's simple.

If you check the stats, it says that the current batch of work units will be done in about 3 days at the time of this post.

80.67 % done as of Sat, 2 Nov 2002 09:40:00 -0500. From the Linux client's page of Real-time stats.