I have no idea what or how to get the WPA Supplicant. I go to the page it tells me to http://hostap.epitest.fi/wpa_supplicant v.0.5.8 so i can install the WPA supplicant Free edition development from website HTTP://hostap.epitest.fi/wpa_supplicant/

I tried for quite some time to resolve this issue myself but no luck.

I am running linux mint debian gnome i386.iso
RT73 USB Wireles LAN Adapter

I tried to check the forums but ended up still not being able to find the supplicant.

Please and Thank you For the help!

I'm not sure. I was thinking about possibly whole disk encryption in case the box was ever stolen. Its not really something I'm concerned with but I want to practice some theoretical situations. Also standard file encryption. Shutting down unnecessary ports, basically anything in the realm of securing the box minus physically locking it to the house :)

I just installed Linux-Debian-Gnome-i386.iso on an old Windows XP desktop. Its my first Linux experience and among other things I'd like to lock it down. I'm not sure at this point what I'm going to do with it, I might throw backtrack on a partition and use that... but who knows. Regardless I am not sure how to lock down anything Linux. Tips, Advice, Warnings, all is accepted thanks for the help!

Ya I'm basically a newbie. I have taken the CCNA courses in a crash course style over a month about a year or two ago and lightly looked into CCNP routing course. I understood most of what was discussed. I look forward to digging into the computer industry and learning a lot in the next 3-8 months. I just recently switched from a Pre-pharmacy major to a network security major so I need some tinker toys. Last Night I tried to install Ubuntu 10.10 from a disk but it didn't work. I was heading to bed when it told me it didn't finish correctly and i've been busy at school all day so I won't be back to the computer until around 5 hours from now. The first time I tried it I had to take out the battery because the BIOS had a password on it. After that I tried to create a single partition with only linux on it. When it got to the error part it said that the cd might need to be written at a slower speed or that maybe my cd/dvd drive is dusty/broken. Like I said I was just heading to bed when it told me this so I didn't exactly log the details mentally or T-shoot.
Thanks for your help. I'll be sure to post more when I get a chance to look at it again.

I have recently acquired a hunk of junk(XP Comp) from the basement.

The box currently has
BIOS: Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
Processor: AMD Sempron(tm) 2400+, MMX, 3DNow, 1.67GHz
Memory: 512MB RAM

Let me know if there is anything else you might need to know.

I want to completely erase the old settings and start fresh because I don't need any of the files on this computer. Let me know which version you think would work best for this computer.