Firestarter is the standard firewall in Debian

[bodhi.zazen]

yes, the firewall itself is iptables. Firestarter, ufw, guarddog, gufw, shorewall, these are configuration tools.

iptables is difficult as you need to understand at least the basics of networking ...

but , with that said, some people, myself included, find iptables is easy to use. Once you understand the basic rules, it is easy to modify.

After learning to use these tools, I still advise anyone who wants to understand how these thing swork, learn iptables.

With what you have posted it seems you are interested in a Graphical tool, and there is nothing wrong with that. When you say "internet sharing" does that mean you are using your computer as a router ?

If so I suggest guarddog and / or shorewall.

If not, try gufw.

[pbpersson]

When you say "internet sharing" does that mean you are using your computer as a router ?

If so I suggest guarddog and / or shorewall.

Yes, one computer to hand out IP addresses to all network machines and do Network Address Translation

GuardDog looked good, Shorewall looked like it had WAY more features than what I needed.

I will wait for Firestarter to go "belly up" on me, install a temporary Windows 2000 machine to keep the network running, and then investigate GuardDog if that day ever arrives.

[Tipped OuT]

I'm surprised this thread wasn't closed. Great job keeping your cool bodhi.zazen. Wait, I think I spoke to soon...

[bodhi.zazen]

One thing that I should probably add to this thread ...

The firewall itself is iptables. These other applications are configuration tools (ufw, gufw, firestarter, guarddog, shorewall, etc).

The default tool used to configure your firewall (iptables) in Ubuntu is ufw, gufw if you want a gui.

If you wish to install an alternate tool, you should remove and purge ufw and gufw first (if gufw is installed).

sudo apt-get remove --purge ufw gufw

If you have more then one configuration tool installed at the same time they are likely to conflict as they fight to configure iptables and give you unpredictable results.

So try or use only one configuration tool at a time and remove the others.