Ubuntu
gui-ufw package

To start Gufw, choose System → Administration → Firewall configuration.

Asked by Jaydee Wye

Ok, so I am a noob to Ubuntu and trying to set up a firewall in version 11.10 that I have installed.
I see no 'System' anywhere so I am stuck. There is a 'System Settings' but that seems unhelpful as there is no 'Administration' to found there. This is one of the pages I have turned to for help;

https://help.ubuntu.com/10.10/keeping-safe/C/firewall.html

I know my way around Windows and like the look of Ubuntu but find making a transition to be extremely frustrating. It seems everywhere I turn I find people talking about "simple commands" to do this or that but much of the time it actually involves knowing a rather not so simple text command that may be dozens of characters long. I hate to spoil anyone's party but there is nothing simple about that sort of thing and the days of DOS box style entries are an archaic geek system that should have went out with Windows 95, lol. I'd love to kiss Windows goodbye but finding my way around Ubuntu is really proving to be a pain. As long as I'm griping, what's up with being automatically logged out of the desktop after a period of time only to have the desktop become visible for a few seconds before the login box is presented? Not much security there when a stranger could have the contents of your desktop flashed before his eyes.

Anyway, I thank anyone for help answering the original question.
-Jay

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Sam_ (and-sam) said : 		#1

Help page is for 10.10 not 11.10.
Please open the dash with [Win-key] also called meta-key, super-key.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/File:KB_United_States-NoAltGr.svg

Start typing gufw, or firewall.
https://help.ubuntu.com/11.10/ubuntu-help/index.html

http://askubuntu.com/questions/10228/whats-the-right-terminology-for-unitys-ui-elements/19166#19166

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Sam_ (and-sam) said : 		#2

Unity shortcuts.
http://askubuntu.com/questions/28086/unity-keyboard-mouse-shortcuts

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Chris (fabricator4) said : 		#3

If you've installed gufw, just run it.

Press the 'super' key (same as 'windows' key on some keyboards), type gufw into the search box, then click on gufw when it finds it.

Alternately it can be found under the 'system' section in the dash, called 'firewall settings'.

You could also just open a terminal and type:
gufw

Since we know the command we want to run it can also be run from the "run application" dialogue. Just press <alt><F2> and type 'gufw' into the run application dialogue when it pops up.

Don't worry, Ubuntu may seem overwhelming at first but you'll soon get the hang of things. You don't have to type the program name into the search box in the dash - typing 'firewall' would also have found it, and anything else you've installed regarding firewall software or configuration.

We often prefer to give command line solutions to questions asked here because it's the most direct method to solve a problem or get more information quickly. The user can just cut and paste the command into a terminal window and the job is done (usually). Trying to communicate the correct steps to the achieve the same thing in the GUI can be quite tedious, and frustrating when they are misinterpreted. Compare the above descriptions of running gufw from the dash or from the command line, even though it's a rather simple example.

Command line is also extremely powerful, and if you hang around LInux long enough you will get to appreciate it very much. For example if you've just installed Ubuntu and found that the GUI won't run, it can be very helpful to fully update the system to see if there was a known problem that has since been fixed with an update. In this case you would just have to get to one of the TTY consoles <ctrl><alt><F2> to log in and type:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

This means that apt-get should update the module lists available and if there are not errors at that point (&&) perform a full update of everything available. Any of the commands and keypresses I've given here are perfectly safe - you can try them out and experiment if you wish.

Chris.

Chris

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