Macs don't need an antivirus?

[caravel]

What about kernel level exploits? [etc]

An anti-virus software is not going to help much in the case of a kernel level exploit - patching and rebuilding the kernel will certainly help...

//edit:

You are right, and I do plan to use it in the near future.

If you need any advice on a distro there's always this forum - there's also linuxquestions.org and linuxforums,org. Contrary to popular belief, buntu and mint are not always the best choice for noobs, but debian package management (which both use) is one of the best and easiest to deal with.

 

[Archean]

Exactly, not something you'd expect a normal user to be able to do.

In fact I will take it a little further, as far as I understand AVs run at Ring 0, so does the rootkits (and the likes), so there isn't any clear winner, in fact it is more like a draw. Though IMO malware usually wins in the short-term, which is horrible anyway, as for malware, it just need to survive a few weeks (or days) to do its job.

Edit:
Oops sorry I forgot to link you guys to Qubes.

 

[superty12]

-If you need any advice on a distro there's always this forum-

Did you forget to include a link there?

 

[caravel]

Did you forget to include a link there?

I mean this forum: https://www.techspot.com/vb/menu16.html

//edit: There are of course others - but they tend to be distro specific and will of course tend to advise you to you use their distro...

Exactly, not something you'd expect a normal user to be able to do.

It's actually not the most complex thing ever... but it's usually unnecessary for the fabled "average user" as distro maintainers patch their kernels - backporting bug fixes from the mainline kernel.