d00phy

Well, not really po-tay-toh/po-tah-toh. They’re 2 different utilities that do 2 different things. If you ask the wrong question, you’re not going to get the answer you’re looking for.

What you’re asking about is an antivirus. It’s been awhile since I messed with this on my Linux systems, but last I looked, ClamAV was most commonly recommended. You can probably search for “Linux antivirus” and find some recommendations.

Generally speaking, the earlier recommendations to stick with official repos is excellent. When you venture outside of that, you increase your administrative overhead because those manually installed apps won’t stay patched with a simple “apt upgrade.” That said, a well written cron job could keep them up to date for you.

As for where to install things, it’s personal preference. I prefer using my home directory. If that doesn’t work, my fallback in /usr/local, which is either its own partition or symlinked to the /home partition). I mention the partitions because having separate /home and possibly /usr/local makes it easy for these customizations you install to survive a reinstall. Backups will also help with this.

You have to ask yourself what this system will be used for. If it’s a daily driver that you want to “just work” I would stick to official repos, and minimize customizations. Windows makes a lot of choices for you. Linux expects you to know what you want to do.

I know autofs will work with nfs. Never used it with SMB. I’ve used it on a share of /home to specifically mount /home/user as needed (e.g., at login).

What distro is the toaster running?

I should probably try going back to it. Saw the first episode and never went back to it.

Dude, they don’t even need the Internet anymore. They just tell lies wherever. Tell them enough and they stop being lies. That’s how it works, right? If enough people believe the lie, it becomes the truth.

You should be sainted.

Oh sites like that are absolutely still useful! Especially for older distros or when you need a specific version that you can’t find for whatever reason.

Remember when packages like RPM were first introduced, and it was like, “cool, I don’t have to compile everything!” Then you were introduced to Red Hat’s version of DLL-Hell when the RPM couldn’t find some obsure library! Before YUM, rpmfind.net was sooo useful!

Guys, they’re not going to be batting 1000…. On anything. They’re going to be breaking A. LOT. of eggs, whilst not even trying to bat anywhere near 1000. That will be them doing their “best.”

This really is the answer. The more services you add, the more of your attention they will require. Granted, for most services already integrated into the distro’s repo, the added admin overhead will likely be minimal, but it can add up. That’s not to say the admin overhead can’t be addressed. That’s why scripting and crons, among some other utilities, exist!

Yeah me too. It goes back to your threat level. How likely is it that someone is going to break into my home to steal my desktop all James Bond-like? The answer is, “not very.” Anything mobile has a significantly higher probability of falling into the wrong hands. These things are encrypted. Even the very old laptop that never leaves my house is encrypted because it could.