Is this worth attempting?

fwor

I know what you mean - those bongos don't half make you jump if you accidentally leave the volume turned up!

At the moment you don't ~really~ need AV on a Linux-based PC if you're reasonably security-conscious. However, if you really want to, ClamAV is the most common "native" AV package, which is in the Ubuntu repositories, so you can just get it through add/remove applications. AVG also do/did a Linux variant, though I wasn't impressed when I tried it a year or so ago. I think Avast or Avira also do a variant, but I've tried neither.

There's also the chkrootkit application, which does what the name suggests - I tend to run this occasionally instead of using AV.

All versions of Ubuntu have the well-regarded IPtables firewall built-in - you just need to configure it through a graphical user interface such as Firestarter. Generally I configure it with a fully open outbound rule, and an inbound rule that just allows connections from my internal network, plus an exception for a BT client. If you use a separate router you don't really need it, but it's reputed to be well implemented, so you probably won't waste too much CPU if you decide to use it.

asininity

No firewall or antivirus needed. Theres a firewall built in which you can play with but its fine if you dont want to.

garrydh

Hi Eamon, glad you got it all working.

This was originally longer but I see I've been beaten to it. I agree, no antivirus or firewall required. This site has a good write up of why it's not needed and how to make sure you stay safe on Ubuntu (it'll be true for Xubuntu too):

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/security

Hope you enjoy Linux, I've been using it at home exclusively for many years now (despite using Windows almost exclusively at work) and I think it's great.

eamon

Hello All
Thanks very much for your support and advice. This is the first actual work using Xubuntu. The fonts are a bit strange but in a nice way, reminds me of Oracle. Glad that I don't need anti-virus etc at this stage. As things stand I'm connected via a router and that has firmware firewalls anyway. One thing I noticed is that the shutdown sequence doesn't power down the PC. Not a big issue at the moment, would reinstalling the CD be a good thing to try as it possible that not all the features were installed?

yours

Eamon

S0litaire

You should not need to reinstall, just make sure you have all the repo's turned on. As for it not shutting down it might need a tweek of a config or boot file to enable the autopower off. Check ubuntuforum.org site for your laptop(?) someone should have had the same issue and found a solution...

You'll get to love tweeking files

patman99

Hi,
Some PCs don't power-off properly when Linux shuts down. I'm glad you found Xubuntu to your liking, I loaded Kubuntu on to my laptop & the new menu system in KDE (latest version) is somewhat strange to say the least. Not like anything I have come across before. I might use add/remove to install Gnome to see which one I prefer.

If you haven't done so already (and you have space on your HDD to do it) install wine, The Gimp, Xine & Scribus. The first runs a few older non-directx Windows progs, the 2nd is a brilliant Photoshop clone, the 3rd is a good media player, and the last one is up there with Quark Xpress.