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@linux

Hello all! I recently got an old Dell laptop that had been repurposed as a Linux Mint machine. I was setting it up and fell at the first hurdle.

I tried to install ExpressVPN. The install package downloaded fine, but took two hours to extract and failed for "bad characters". I fiddled with it for a while and couldn't do better.

First, it's the VPN software for Linux desktop, since they didn't have one for laptops. Could this be the problem?

Second, do I really need a VPN if I don't torrent stuff? I just think of a VPN as a basic part of my security, but I don't really know.

And, third, speaking of basic security: do I need an antivirus on this?

Thanks for any help!

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[-] laprice@beige.party 5 points 5 days ago

@Uair @linux
There are multiple different types of Linux operating system that are different in different ways.

The way to find out what you have is to open a terminal and type "uname -a"

It will show you what version of the Linux kernel you are running and cpu architecture you are running on.

If your expressvpn package was built for a different cpu architecture that would be the problem, or if it was packaged for a different distribution.

There are sophisticated vpn facilities built in to Linux kernels greater than 5.0 so user facing software that sets it up for you should not be that complex.

this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2026
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