Zone alarm is great for windows, which firewall is great for linux?

[mangoluvr]

I need a firewall as good as zone alarm what do u think of "Smoothwall"? I'm also looking for antivirus and anti-spyware.

Im using Ubuntu if that matters

Thanks

 

[jwhitt]

well zone alarm is a personal firewall, to be installed on a workstation Smoothwall is a stand alone setup where as you set a box up as a ghetto router (kinda like a linksys cable router etx) smoothwall is a great setup, ive used it currently though im using Monowall http://www.m0n0.ch/wall/ i like this setup a little better i had an old p2 400 that i got a ide to cf adapter, so besides the small cpu fan... no moving parts. It all really depends what you want to do if your talking about a firewall on a linux workstation well the standard firewall is iptables which is actually what these two solutions use anyway im rambling
but thats just my oppinion i could be wrong

 

[jwhitt]

ok so your setting up a computer for your dad do you want to go with a linux based workstation just to do internet mp3's e-mail etc...even still id just do a windows box and depending on how your network is setup ie if you already have a cable router inplace then there would be almost no real need for a software firewall solution, in my oppinion because your already behind a nat if hes connecting straight to the internet ether via dial-up, or through a cablemodem then your going to ened a firewall solution hell if only the one that is built into xp works ok you know and if your not too familer with linux you may want to setup a windows box, the downside with doing computer work for family members is you are tech support