Linux:Is it vírus free?

[nbaptista007]

Is it possible Linux beeing infected by a vírus or is impossible?I have plans to install Linux in my PC,together with XP!But if is not free of vírus ,I won´t bother,because most time I´m on line,on Internet,and if is not safe using Linux,who cares,I´ve got a good anti virus on Win XP!
I just don´t want to spend more money in another anti virus!

[Avid6eek]

Any OS can catch a virus. The good thing with OS'es that don't have a large market share is that nobody wants to write a virus for them. This would include Linux and Mac OS X. Viruses are typically written to cause as much damage as possible. Since Windows has 90% of the marketshare, that is the OS that is attacked most often. While you aren't 100% safe with any OS, you shouldn't have any problems with Linux.

[PimpMySystem]

I have used it for several months and offcourse you can but if you enable all security options when you install it or install a other one thats good it should be even thought of. If im not mistaken Avast wich we gladly use over here has a Linux version

[stlouis1]

again, yes, there are viruses that can affect any OS, but in the case of linux where every installation is different, which makes writting a virus for linux very ineffective and really not worth the time. there are some, but not many. and there are antivirus programs for linux, avast is one as mentioned above. i think i had one called bulldog or something as well.

but linux would be safe for just internet use, safer than windows

[yahooadam]

Linux also has the advantage of not using the root account (well you shouldn't be using it)
Because of this viruses are far more limited, and can only mess with your data/personal stuff

Any OS can be hit by a virus, and Linux has virus scanners too, but the risks in Linux are low, and the damage is also low

[stlouis1]

yahooadam mentions a good point about the root account. vista actually does pretty much the same thing. you have a built in administrator account, in linux its called root, and you want to avoid using it at all costs

in linux, and now in vista, you use a normal user account, and whenever you need to do something that requires admin access, you grant your user admin access only temporarily for that task

that way, you dont have full rights on teh machine all the time for just anything to get access

[jiminoregon]

I agree with the others...the answer is, yes, you can get a virus in Linux...that is why the most popular versions of Linux like SuSE, Fedora (Red Hat), etc. have an anti-virus program called CLAM AV. CLAM AV is just like any other anti-virus software.

The imporant thing to know about Linux is the superior hardening of the Linux system using the latest US Govt (NSI or NSA) standards...which is superior in all respects to any Microsoft operating system software {in my opinion}.

I run a dual boot XP Pro/Fedora Core computer. The installer for Fedora Core is Anaconda. During the installation, you are given a choice of how you want the firewall and permissions to be set up based on three security levels. You do not want to enable the highest NIS level or you won't be able to hardly use the computer without it nagging you to death about entering in your password. It's a pretty heavy duty, healthy security system!

Thirdly, you do not want to run Linux as Administrator called "ROOT." You want to set up a separate account which is hardened and at first, as ROOT, give yourself the permissions your hardened account will need, such as internet access, for example...then, go back and use your computer as a separate account from ROOT. This is somewhat equivalent to using an XP account as "Guest" with limited user priviledges, but Linus is a lot more flexible and allows you to set permissions more logically and openly than MS operating systems do...therefore, making a separate user account much more flexible than MS has.

Thirdly, the operating system filestructure in Linux is entirely different from Microsoft's NTFS or FAT32. The filestructures, I prefer, Ext3, because it is a journaled filestructure...is much less friendly to nasty bugs like virus'...it is just a lot more secure than anything Microsoft has to offer. This makes it a lot harder for a virus writer to write a virus that will do anything on a Linux system.

Fourth, Linux systems are split into two kinds of Linux, the BEOS type Linux (the Berkley edition), which includes Ubuntu, and the other kind of Linux in which Fedora and SuSE fall into. This makes it even harder for virus writers to do any kind of damage.

The filesystem is not written to the hard disk in the same manner as MS filesystems are...thus, no defragging of the hard disk is required or necessary in Linux.

In my opinion, Linux is heads and shoulders above Microsoft, in terms of security...while nothing is 100% safe, you don't have to worry nearly as much about Linux as you do MS.

[yahooadam]

Umm, ClamAV is only put in to find viruses that would break windows computers, and is good for file-servers and such

Apparently, it doesn't really do anything for your Linux computer (except slow it down)

(well this is from what i read about Linux & viruses & spyware)