A Firewall and an anti-virus program
 

I am using Mandrake Linux 10.0 ; it works fine. I don't have either a firewall or a anti-virus program.

It seems people don't interfere with Linux users.

This is not the case with my Windows partition. Without an anti-virus program, you can't do anything. However, I rarely uses Windows partition.

I bought the F-Secure anti-virus for Windows.

When I start the computer, I can select either Linux or Windows. My default is Linux.

I just want some advise from you all to install a firewall and an anti-virus program.

Would you recommend me a freeware firewall and anti-virus program for my Linux?

Linux has a firewall built into the kernel, it's called iptables. You may need to install software to use it, but it probably came with your distro.

It's a great firewall, take a look at a few howto guides to find out how to set it up.

Anti-virus? Forget it. Viruses are a Windows problem.

actually, I'd recommend using anti-virus anyways; just don't waste all your cpu's time on it :p

seriously, a monthly scan or so, just to stay aware that some things are not as safe as they look. I think I have 2 phishing mails and a badly sized .rar archive, and that's it. But it's nice to know that they are present, and where they are.

my $0.02,

Jonas Kölker

How do I find this iptables? There is no program called iptables.

Well, for starters, are you looking as root, or as a normal user? Only root can use iptables

I am the only user. So I always go to root when installing new programs.

How do I start?

Install the iptables RPM, read the man pages, configure the firewall rules, load them, and off you go.

oneandoneis2

I will do so. Not today. I am busy with some other things right now. I am studying networking in Cisco. There are some exams in the offing.

I will come back again.

Use programs with GUI like guarddog (kde) or firestarter (gnome) for easy iptable configuration =)