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As a complete newbie to Linux I have to say how impressed i am with ubuntu.
So much, so quick, so easy to use, lots of it and free!
Some say don't bother with an anti-virus and some say just have a firewall. Any pointers either way. I have only had a quick play with it so far. Is there a firewall built in?

 

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just y'r regular iptables. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/IptablesHowTo

 

An easy to configure firewall is fiaif. It's just a script that you configure in a .conf file, but it works well and takes very few system resources. It configures IP tables, but is much easier to learn and work with. You can also use it for configuring masquerading.

As to antivirus, well, I don't have any antivirus on my Linux systems. However, there is a free one that I've used just to see how it works. It's called clamav and you should be able to install it using apt-get in Ubuntu. Not positive about that though. The negative about clamav is that if you use it to do real-time system protection it eats up a lot of system resources as it wasn't designed to do that. It was designed to work on an email server. What you'll find though is that it is designed to catch Windows viruses, as are the other AV products out there, and Window viruses won't affect a Linux machine.

 

The general consensus is that while it is possible to write a virus specifically for Linux, they are still pretty rare. Opinions vary on whether or not we will see in increase in Linux viruses as the OS becomes more popular. A brief Google search on "linux viruses" turned up these articles:

http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/skoll/anti-virus.php

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/10/06/linux_vs_windows_viruses/

http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT3307459975.html

 

Good links, trip.

 

Thanks for the input guys

 

Thanks for posting this Boyce, it inspired me to download it myself, which is the largest download to date for me

I too am more than impressed with Ubuntu so far. It is packed to the hilt with software and the software looks really good from my limited playing around yesterday.

I also was on the net using Firefox within a minute of the OS loading for the first time. Impressive!

It does seem slow to open apps for the first time but I presume things will speed up once everything has been opened at least once

I have loaded it on a Celleron 800 with 128MB RAM, I presume that is sufficient. I have a lot of research to do before I know what I am doing. It took a while to understand the volume mounting process during the install routine but got there in the end.

Pete

 

If you like ubuntu? youll love this ubuntu forums

I pessonally use Kubuntu wich is ubuntu using KDE and not Gnome.

 

Fig,

Do you mean http://www.ubuntuforums.org/ ?

 

Pete,

Glad you like it too! Being able to use a computer for what it is intented rather than spend half the time worrying about spyware, virus' sounds good to me.

 

Well I wont knock Microsoft Boycy, I am sure it is not allowed in the MCSE EULA or NDA but I remain impressed. I have now loaded Simply MEPIS which has the KDE GUI and so far I prefer that. Loads more icons to click on and wonder

You can download the bootable CD, test it out and if you like it click on the install icon and bobs your uncle

Pete

 

sorry yep .org it was late last night tho

 

No probs!

 

Just tried the link and got this: