After the decision that I need a Xen-based virtual private server, it came down to a journey of finding the right provider. What I need is simple —

I have been a Linux user since ‘95. I still remembered my very first Linux distribution — Slackware 2.x on 50+ floppy diskettes, and I still remembered the joy to have it installed on my 486 DX-4 75 with 8Mb of RAM. However I eventually got tired with Slackware, for the next ten or so years there has constantly been a search for “the perfect distribution”. I started with Debian, tried Red Hat, moved to Mandrake, and finally settled down on Gentoo Linux.

Last week (9-15 April). 8,750 failed SSH login attempt, averaging almost one per minute, trying out all kinds of possible user names and left tons of junk in my message log. The recent SSH brute-force attacks (actually it’s not that recent) are rather annoying, and this article at Whitedust.com has useful information on how to prevent this kind of attacks.