I don’t believe we will get a good understanding on this forum. Everyone here has the
technical knowledge to install Linux and hop as much as they want.
For a good insight / answer we should be asking Windows users what would be needed
to change their PC from Windows (which is working fine for them) to an unknown OS.
Yes. It takes market research techniques to optimise any product for which potential users will hear about, buy and recommend to others.
The dilemma is that, presently, the projected influence-free replacement(s) for Windows and other Microsoft offerings has no commercial market because it’s expected to be freely available. By way of contrast, local charities that run the foodbank, furniture bank, emergency housing service and so on, ask for a token payment, because that’s how human nature works, and how needs are assessed.
We need a limited set of validated and well-supported Linux distros, for which some worldwide consortium of bankers would be willing to provide a payment mechanism, as a service to the public. There are strong feelings against paid subscription services; a single lifetime payment might be more acceptable. I know nothing about banking, but suppose that an account that anyone can pay small sums into could be established in most countries. In comparison to a television subscription, for example, we would need ways of tolerating subscribers who won’t or can’t pay.
Outside entry to a home machine behind NAT is close to impossible… as long as you dont start opening ports.
There are other ways of warning … eg red coloured prompt, sound, popup
One password at login may be important in stopping remote logins.
looks like I bought an argument here.
There ARE some things important for home computer security
None of those is helped by needless overuse of passwords.
Typing a password at times other than login may even expose it more to the possibility of keyboard sniffing. Typing it once, when you have just powered up the computer is relatively safe.
Yes fingerprint readers or facial recognition are better than typing a password
but
you only need to do it once at logon … checking every time you issue a command is useless overkill at home.
What do you mean by multiplatform software?
Paul’s point about using the wife’s phone is important . Lots of couples have one mobile phone and share it, but Android is a single user OS … not good enough … it could easily be multi-user … it is derived from linux. Good case for Linux on mobiles.
Excellent list Neville. I need to get myself educated on the use of NAT, Firejail, and antivirus program. I thought antivirus programs were not needed for Linux.
NAT, or IP masquerading as it used to be called, is the default in most distros, and is probably required by your ISP.
You will have it in Mint and MX. on your internet connection.
Needed for anything you manually download or get via email.
Not needed for updates from the official repo.
Beware of PPA (Ubuntu) or AUR (Arch) or adding other unofficial repos.
Beware of Python downloads.
Beware of compilers like rustc or julia that keep their libraries in an online repo
Beware of executing downloaded shell scripts
A fingerprint reader that works on any platform–in my linux machine, in my windows machine, etc.
NAT “is the default in most distros” so most users do not need to be concern about it.
What antivirus program do you recommend?
most of us seem to use ClamAV
I have used it several times but never found a problem, is that because they don’t occur often or the virus signature is not wonderful. Usually I see browser issues which clam does not. Generally they are due to user error. But again perhaps 2 or 3 a year.
It is because you are wise and do not download untrusted material
Not just me, I think more about the clients I see. I do instill the need to only get software from the repository No where else.
The issue with the browser tends to be more common as they do tend to say Yes to notifications so get so many and they take time to get rid of. Spent an hour with a guy last week he had hundreds of notifications every second new and more came, almost to a stage unusable. And you cannot simply uninstall and reinstall to get rid, you have to stop each one, of course they appear just where the button is to stop them.
I have not, but I will now, thx. I found out that the Winux on my usb wouldn’t boot, but was actually installed on it, and is on other OS grub, and then runs fast on the flash drive itself, and even on another pc. Maybe it will be even better on my old Intel 8400 cpu Lenovo sff, and even older 2006 Turion Compaq laptop (albeit the hdd replaced with a ssd.)
Maybe useful if you care if your emails have virus when you send it to a win machine. I don’t see a point for an antivirus program when only using Linux.
This is important! If you don’t need unofficial repos don’t enable any. Update the system once for a while.
I agree never bother same on android, if i exchange with windows users that their problem not mine, until they become clients
On my phone you can record three different fingerprints. I do both thumbs and one index finger. You could record one of your fingerprints on her phone.
I make sure that both of us have fingerprints on both phones. I may include our son, who lives close. It’s a similar safeguard to listing them as contacts with an extra first name of ICE. Most paramedics know that means 'In Case of Emergency."
When you’re 78, stuff can happen.
There is malware that works in linux machines. Not common , but it exists.
I dont know how it copes with all the various distros.
My wife (65) fell quite badly 3 weeks back, lucky I was with her and did what was needed. Dont think age chooses who or when or what. Next to us in the hospital was a teenager fell playing tennis. Accidents !
Like the idea of multi access for the phone will look into that
I have Q4OS running on a partition, it’s interesting. Should’ve put it on my 20 year old laptop, but Debian 13’s running fine on it.