I’ve just installed 12.2 and I’m a total newby. Apart from some glitches with video drivers and net access it now all seems to be running OK. If I want to protect the machine where can I get hold of a safe download for network security. Now just having a quick snotter around on the forum it would appear that the installation already has antivirus and firewall built in but are there better options out there (free or paid for)? Any advice most welcome?
Should probably add the machine it’s installed on has the option of booting into Windows 7 or SUSE but the SUSE is not running under windows and is properly installed seperately on it own ext4 partition). 
On 2013-01-17 13:56, Devil20 wrote:
>
> I’ve just installed 12.2 and I’m a total newby. Apart from some glitches
> with video drivers and net access it now all seems to be running OK. If
> I want to protect the machine where can I get hold of a safe download
> for network security. Now just having a quick snotter around on the
> forum it would appear that the installation already has antivirus and
> firewall built in but are there better options out there (free or paid
> for)? Any advice most welcome?
Please note that an antivirus in Linux is used to protect other Windows
machines that read/write files on the Linux machine. It is AFAIK useless
to protect the Linux machine.
Thus you can use one to scan a shared folder. Or if you use Linux as a
mail server it is also typical to scan mails, althugh they are harmless
for Linux.
As to a firewall, the one provided by the distribution is fine.
> Should probably add the machine it’s installed on has the option of
> booting into Windows 7 or SUSE but the SUSE is not running under windows
> and is properly installed seperately on it own ext4 partition).
Linux doesn’t ever run under Windows, nor can Windows run under Linux -
unless you consider virtualization.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4, with Evergreen, x86_64 “Celadon” (Minas Tirith))
There is no anti-virus running by deafult on openSUSE. And almost nobody here runs AV software.
There is only one case where AV on Linux is of any use. That is when you want to prevent non-Linux users from virusses that may pass through your system. Main example: you run a mail server for Windows systems and want to check those mails for Windows virusses (as a service to the poor Windows users).
This does not work against Linux virusses because there are no know Linux virusses. Thus even if there exist a Linux virus, no AV softwere can protect you from something that is unknown.
You have a (so called personal) firewall running on your system. That is if you did not switch it off during installation. You can check this in YaST > System > System Service (Runlevel). and look at the SuSEfirrewall2 entries in the list there.
Or, maybe even better, goto YaST > SEcurity and Users > Firewall. There it is very prominent if it is on or off.
Yes. That’s what I meant. IIUI you can run Linux in a virtual machine in Windows. I just wanted to confirm that I wasn’t running it that way.
Thanks Henk. It might be that I do need to scan for potential viruses from incoming email as I may be forwarding them on to Outlook occasionally. However, as the recipient Windows will be running Kaspersky so probably not a problem.
Here’s another question for you whilst I have your attention. If I want to take all my Microsoft office documents (word, excel, powerpoint etc) and transfer them across to Linux, am I able to do this. Will Linux recognise the file extensions in Libre? I’m at work at the moment so can’t try it out until later on this evening.
On 01/17/2013 01:56 PM, Devil20 wrote:
> are there better options out there (free or paid for)?
no.
–
dd
On 2013-01-17 15:36, Devil20 wrote:
> Thanks Henk. It might be that I do need to scan for potential viruses
> from incoming email as I may be forwarding them on to Outlook
> occasionally. However, as the recipient Windows will be running
> Kaspersky so probably not a problem.
It is done by using amavis-new. You also need to configure postfix and
several other services.
> Here’s another question for you whilst I have your attention. If I want
> to take all my Microsoft office documents (word, excel, powerpoint etc)
> and transfer them across to Linux, am I able to do this. Will Linux
> recognise the file extensions in Libre? I’m at work at the moment so
> can’t try it out until later on this evening.
They are recognized, but that doesn’t mean that they work perfect. If
your documents are complex expect problems. Notice that you can also try
with LO in Windows, and that there is no need to transfer the documents
as Linux can read and write Windows “disks”.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4, with Evergreen, x86_64 “Celadon” (Minas Tirith))
In general see Carlos’ answer.
I know that LibreOffice can understand several types of Windows documents because sometimes I get them from others and 99% of the time I get something readable on thee screen by just clicking on them in the desktop".
And about those virusses. As I suggested in my earlier post, let the poor Window users care for themselves. Why should you check for their virusses because you happen to be in between? When they get that mail directly from the sender they must also care or themselves. Thus except when you are providing a paid service, why should they ever complain to you when they use an operating system vulnarable to virusses and they get them? That is naturaly for them.
On 01/17/2013 03:36 PM, Devil20 wrote:
> Will Linux recognise the file extensions in Libre?
unlike Windows, Linux does not depend on file name extensions to know
what application to use…instead the system looks into the file to
learn what should be used…
for example, find a image file (.jpg, .jpeg, .bmp, or other) rename it
to remove the extension and then click it…here ‘example.jpg’ opens in
KDE’s Gwenview, and when renamed to ‘example’ it still opens in
Gwenview…magic.
–
dd
> unlike Windows, Linux does not depend on file name extensions to know what
> application to use…instead the system looks into the file to learn
> what should be used…
>
> for example, find a image file (.jpg, .jpeg, .bmp, or other) rename it to
> remove the extension and then click it…here ‘example.jpg’ opens in
> KDE’s Gwenview, and when renamed to ‘example’ it still opens in
> Gwenview…magic.
Insert cliche quotes about judging books by their cover. Someday the
windows world might catch up to the ancient time period when those quotes
were created and understood by anybody (how many years ago?); until then
that’s their world. Completely bizarre… but whats popular is not always
right.
As long as we’re in a thread about anti-virus software, it may be worth
pointing out that most of it sucks at anything dangerous anyway, including
the paid stuff. It’s a game where the good guys are always chasing the
bad guys, and so by definition the bad guys are ahead of the good guys.
The delta between the bad guys doing something and the good guys learning
about it, studying it, finding a cure, and then pushing that cure out is
where users are in trouble if they just depend on anti-malware software to
protect them. In summary: users who do not have good practices are in
trouble and no amount of anti-evil software will help.
Good luck.