just installed Kubuntu onto an old laptop to give it a try, but even after searching through numerous google results cant seem to find a decent answer: Does Kubuntu (Linux) need a sort of anti-virus like windows does and does this distro come with a firewall, i know fedora does but not sure if this one does. Thanks in advance!!
Linux distros aren't targeted by malware authors anywhere to the extent that Windows is, but Linux malware certainly does exist. It is however, more likely to turn up due to your machine having been compromised from outside by say, a brute-force password attack. You may wish to check out something like ClamAV for malware scanning, but best advice would be to read up on Linux/Unix security (Linux Security for Beginners is one good place to start), make sure you have chosen strong passwords (with letters, numbers and symbols) that can't be guessed or brute-forced easily and to ensure you are not making anything accessible online that you don't need to (the less you expose, the less leverage any potential attacker has). Similar points apply to Windows setups as well.
The *buntus use a firewall named ufw as default. You can configure this yourself using cli or find a frontent for it. I use (and recommend) firestarter. In terms of antiviruses, some would argue that they're not needed on any OS that is properly configured and protected. Does it need a constant, running, vigilant AV such as Norton like Windows doeas? Probably not. A good compromise is to have an AV used in certain cirsumstances though. I use ClamTK to scan emails and removeable devices. Say I harbour a totally harmless Windows virus on my pc, which I transfer to a usb stick, which I take to work. Bad.
See The Linux Threat: Rootkits and how to remove them for details on a couple of (perhaps more relevant) security tools.
