[Captainkewl]

I just installed SUSE on my computer. It's a dual boot with Windows XP being the other O.S. Anyways, I was just wondering first if I should always log in as root, or if that causes security risks. Also, do I need any type of firewall, antivirus etc. for SUSE?? I am planning on running apache webserver on it soon. Any help would be appreciated. I am new to Linux as I have used Windows all my life. Thanks in advance.

[arochester]

I was just wondering first if I should always log in as root, or if that causes security risks.

Don't always log in as root. Create a user account and normally log into that. If you log in as root and go on the internet you leave your system open to attack.

Also, do I need any type of firewall, antivirus etc. for SUSE??

On a standalone computer you should not need an antivirus. "KDE Security Suite" is ClamAV Antivirus and Guarddog Firewall. My wireless router has a hardware firewall and I have always left it at that. An oft mentioned firewall is Firestarter. AVG (Grisoft) have a Linux antivirus version too. You should not need Spyware or similar. For a fairly simple guide see "Why Linux is better" at http://www.whylinuxisbetter.net/
Aparrently you can get Windows viruses it you run Wine - see "Running Windows viruses with Wine" at http://os.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/01/25/1430222

[AggAssault]

Idon't hardly ever log into root.

The only times i log into root are if I am prompted for su -l/su password. In order to make certain changes. I do most things through terminal, which doesn't make you log off. If I were you I would create a user accnt for yourself and use that to log in. Atleast then you can back things up to /tmp on your local machine if you ever need to delete/recreate your profile.

If you are running a web server you will need antivirus. I am not sure as to what repositories are available aas far as that goes, or what program to reccomend.

[Captainkewl]

Thanks for the responses guys, much appreciated. If anyone knows what antivirus is good to run with SUSE please let me know. It's because I have to run apache web server. Thanks.

[gotrootdude]

Doesn't both SUSE enterprise and openSUSE come with a evaluation package of AntiVir? Registering to receive a license is free of charge: http://www.novell.com/products/linux...x/antivir.html

Check Yast2 in software management and do a search for the package.