OK Here goes...

[janet loves bill]

Have Slackware 8.0 up and going, It's a PIII box and just want to use it to Surf web and get email. I need opinions of the Guru's here as to what you consider good Linux Security and do I really need a firewall? I am only user of this box and have set root with a 23 character password. he he he just opinions/advice is all, am in the process of reading how-to's and user guides but looking for real world suggestions. will most likely hook my DSL up to it, External Modem. THX much

[Golden_Eternity]

The usual answer is that you should shut down all unnecessary services, replace weak services with stronger ones (e.g., replace telnet with ssh), patch your system for any vulnerabilities, and firewall off anything that the outside shouldn't see.

Running iptables on your system is generally a good idea, and you might want to look into portsentry, I love it when I can use it.