is this secure without a firewall?
 

I have a recently installed gentoo box. It seems to have no services turned on by default. The only port that shows up on a scan(nmap 127.0.0.1) is for cups, port 631. When I scan myself at shields up with my firewall turned off, it shows all my ports(first 1055) as closed and a few stealthed. Assuming I changes nothing in my system, is this fairly secure without a firewall.

One's thinking would believe its secure with no services running but anything connected and exposed to the internet is never truly secure. I'd suggest putting a firewall in place for security measures.

I'd raher be really secure than mostly secure. A firewall shouldn't even be a question. And, with no services running other than cups, setup should not be a hassle...