knoppix_newbie

Hello everyone:

I am an extreme newbie to Linux, so please be gentle

I am traditionally a Windows user, but have been interested in Linux for a while, though never made the move until Windows XP totally crashed on me. I dowloaded the Knoppix Live CD and I have been using it as my OS ever since. I have not installed it, simply running it from my CD drive. I have now been able to get my Windows XP up and running except that it refuses to detect my IP address for my cable internet connection, which Knoppix does just fine, so I'm continuing to use Knoppix for anything where I need an internet connection. Ideally I'd like to switch to Linux, but I'm finding the learning curve steep, particularly as I'm very busy at work at the moment and have no spare time (or brain cells) to speak of. So, until I can devote some more time to self-education, my makeshift system is basically that I am using the live CD as a temporary OS, but not doing anything in any way advanced. Mostly I'm just visiting websites and accessing email, and occasionally using OpenOffice.

Now that my preamble is over, here is my basic question: when using the Knoppix live CD to surf the internet, am I in any way protected in terms of security, or is there some kind of firewall or other option that I should be enabling? Keep in mind that I have not done any installation, still just running from the CD drive. I've done searches, but they all refer to iptables in the context of an installed version of Knoppix.

Thank you very much for your time!

hpxchan

I don't know about Knoppix's particular security set up, but I can give you a few general tips...

Considering that most viruses today are written for Windows, your chances of encountering a virus that could actually do something bad are extremely slim - perhaps nonexistent!

LiveCDs, by default, are very secure. Nobody can alter the inner workings of the operating system, because they are all stored on and run from a write-protected CD.

Firefox is one of the most secure browsers out there today (I believe Knoppix ships with it).

If your system automagically becomes compromised, you can just reboot - no harm done!

Sorry, that's pretty much all the information I can give you at the moment.

Chandler