sdf aka freeshell aka super dimensional fortress

Posted: Sat Jul 13, 2002 4:46 pm (22 years, 6 months ago)

sdf.lonestar.org has to be the best service i have ever laid eyes on in my entire small life...

what you get (this isn't advertising, I just luv 'em so much!)

sdf is basically a free unix shell - you telnet to sdf.lonestar.org (:23) and sign up for free.
www.freeshell.org has info on the services you can upgrade to.

for the free account, you get:
20mb, email, user.freeshell.org

i signed up for "ARPA access" which is a ONE-OFF LIFETIME payment of around $40. What do I get now?

ftp, 100mb web, 100mb home directory (this is unix we are talking about...), 100mb email. user.sixbit.org - they have a whole bunch of domain names too.

anywho, it's one dude who runs the whole thing which has been up since 1987, he's very helpful and as he runs the whole thing himself, he knows exactly whats going on.

I won't lie - its a UNIX terminal, which is definetely NOT to the taste of most people. It's NOT good for your e-commerce web site, but if you just want a homepage that won't disappear, then it's a great place.

It's more for the hard-core dedicated unix geeks, it is most definitely not for the geocities.com people as it is pretty confusing if you've been a lifetime windows user.

Anywho, they're great, small, helpful and donation funded.

Anyone else use them?

Amadeus

Posted: Sat Jul 27, 2002 2:55 am (22 years, 6 months ago)

Yes, I signed up with them about six months ago to try them out, but went for the 'free' account, which wasn't very useful for what I was mostly interested in at the time (Web access).

The free account actually costs one dollar, but unfortunately, doesn't provide FTP access, so isn't very useful unless you want to write all your pages from scratch on the terminal. (there's some kind of ancient 'x-y-z-modem-type' access, but it's much more painful to use than FTP (which is what i'm used to), and i was never able to get it to work correctly as far as i could tell. Rolling Eyes

It does look like there's interesting stuff there, and someday i might try out the lifetime service if i get the time. My plan was to try it out first for free, but if you're used to using FTP and don't want to upload files manuallly one at a time, and the Web account is what your main interest is, then I wouldn't recommend the free service at all. Shocked

I did end up using a free tutorial there to learn vi (UNIX text editor), so I probably got my dollar's worth out of it. Smile

Also, I had the POP mail setup so I could check it through a Webmail account for awhile, but I've had trouble with that the last few times I tried it ... will have to check my settings maybe ... maybe I'll ask you for help w/ that amadeus Wink

anyway, I'm glad to hear that they're a good one, and thanks for posting about them amadeus Smile

Posted: Sat Jul 27, 2002 7:35 am (22 years, 6 months ago)

well, nice to see i'm not alone Smile

you can use zmodem to send multiple files if you're using a good terminal program - secureCRT can connect via ssh2 (which sdf supports) and uploading ain't that bad - but I use pine for my emails, which is a bit of a hassle.

Agreed - not for the "XP - Dell - Frontpage" User if ya get my drift Wink

Junior WebHelper Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 1 Location: uk

I paid my money but after only 2 weeks I couldn't login and my account was being used to send spam (the failed return messages were forwarded as I had set that up).

I've tried to get in contact with someone but obviously I can't get into thier forums as this is via the shell.

Any ideas?

Team Member Joined: 06 Jan 2002 Posts: 2564

I guess you could try emailing the address in the whois records:

http://www.4webhelp.net/us/whois/whois.php?domain=freeshell&ext=org&show_raw=1