How virus immune is Linux?

[drdoom]

I have posted several times concerning my gf's screwed up computer. It is finally so screwed up I can't fix it without a complete reinstall. Since I am tired of fixing it and getting yelled at because it "doesn't work", I thought setting up a dual boot with Ubuntu might solve the problem at least in part. If I have them use Linux to surf the net how big of an idiot do you need to be to get a virus? And will Windows be immune while the computer is booted into Linux?

[ImaNihilist]

Let's forget about Windows XP for a moment.

Okay, so you've got four platforms: Windows Vista, Windows 7, Mac OS X and Linux. When you set up a new system, by default, all four create an administrator account as the main user account.

On Windows, when an application wants to do something "dangerous" it asks you with a modal window. You click 'Yes' or 'No' and then the program executes. Most people don't even read the UAC alert.

On Linux and Mac OS X the same thing happens, but when a program wants to do something dangerous it asks for your administrative password. It looks more menacing. You are much more inclined close out of that screen. Why is this video I downloaded asking me for my PASSWORD?

This is, essentially, the difference. Yes, there are a lot of things that happen behind the scenes that we can talk about, but the reality is that everything else has a very marginal impact on security. I can write a script in about 15 minutes that will, if you execute it and type in your password on a Ubuntu install, change your HOSTS file and totally **** up your computer.

The main problem with security on all four platforms is the same: Running as Administrator. If you create a "Standard User" account and run as that, instead of admin, all the major security issues disappear and all the platforms become completely equal. When a program wants to do something dangerous it simply alerts the user that the program is dangerous and it CAN NOT and WILL NOT execute the code unless you log in as an administrator. When you go to play what you think is a movie file on Windows as a Standard User, and a screen pops up and says that the file can not be opened unless you log in as an administrator, type in your administrator password, run the movie and allow the security exception—well, this triggers all the right flags and you kind of know something is up. If you go ahead and do all these things, and the file destroys your file system, well—there is no hope for you. Stop using computers.

Running as admin all the time is like riding a motorcycle with no helmet—only do it if you are willing to accept that one wrong wrist movement can easily kill you.

[drdoom]

I understand what you are saying. The issue is everyone who wanders through the house has access to the computer and to put it bluntly, most of them are low grade morons. Most viruses are written for Windows. Am I correct to assume a Windows virus cannot infect a Linux system?

[Vindir]

99% correct. If you're running stuff through wine it can be affected.

Your biggest protections with either linux or osx will be user privileges and lack of ubiquity. Added bonus for linux would be that typically any issues that are discovered are made widely known and fixed rapidly.

[ImaNihilist]

I understand what you are saying. The issue is everyone who wanders through the house has access to the computer and to put it bluntly, most of them are low grade morons. Most viruses are written for Windows. Am I correct to assume a Windows virus cannot infect a Linux system?

Just reformat and make all accounts except for admin standard user accounts. Set the admin account to auto log out after like 5 minutes.

[drdoom]

99% correct. If you're running stuff through wine it can be affected.

Your biggest protections with either linux or osx will be user privileges and lack of ubiquity. Added bonus for linux would be that typically any issues that are discovered are made widely known and fixed rapidly.

99% is as good as it will get. I appreciate the other suggestions but they are just not practical. The "users" involved are just not capable of any kind of thought. There are two other computers in the house and they are also hopelessly screwed up and in need of complete OS reinstall to give you an idea.

[wh666-666]

Right, to put it in simple figures, there are over 40,000 viruses in the wild for windows, 4,000 for mac (yes they are more easily infected than one thinks) and around 400 for linux.

As a rule of thumb, the main way linux gets screwed up is people typing random things in the terminal, like a newbie being told by a troll on a forum to type in fdisk.

[wh666-666]

Ps: linux will do everything she needs. I only use windows for work because i have to and games. If you do need to virtualise apt-get install sun virtualbox. Far better than wine and a simple vm machine.

Linux will message/Im, play media, do office jobs, browse and much more very quickly.

[vertices]

I'd go Linux Mint over Ubuntu if you are going that route. Mint is basically Ubuntu but better IMO.

[drdoom]

Why do you like Mint better? I kind of just picked Ubuntu because I had to settle on one. I have it on my machines. I only need Windiows for gaming frankly. I know you can play somethings on Linux but I have not had the time to
try it out. I am just learning Linux. Besides half the time I can't get things to run on Windows 7. I would only install Windows 7 to take advantage of DX10/DX11. There is no other reason too as far as I can see.

[SuperSparks]

I like Ubuntu myself. I thought I was really going to like Mint until I discovered how much they'd screwed up printing. What was a simple job of a couple of minutes to install a driver for our network printer, turned out to be a complete impossibility in Mint. Printing wasn't broken in Ubuntu that I can see, and I don't understand why they felt the need to "fix" it

[vertices]

Mint is based on Ubuntu so you can use it the same way, same repos and stuff. Apt-get is all the same. Mint is simply more noob friendly. Sun Java is already installed, codecs for multimedia, etc. Mint is actually about to eclipse Ubuntu in user base size due to so many leaving Ubuntu after Ubuntu started using Unity.

http://www.extremetech.com/computing...the-new-ubuntu

Install the Cinnamon desktop environment with sudo apt-get install cinnamon and then switch to it at your login screen. Very nice.

[vertices]

I like Ubuntu myself. I thought I was really going to like Mint until I discovered how much they'd screwed up printing. What was a simple job of a couple of minutes to install a driver for our network printer, turned out to be a complete impossibility in Mint. Printing wasn't broken in Ubuntu that I can see, and I don't understand why they felt the need to "fix" it

I can't speak for that as I never setup printing. Almost all my installs are VMs that don't need to print. I do have dual boot on one of my laptops but never tried to setup printing.

[vertices]

Ok I checked it out and my VMs automatically have printing through VMware tools which works fine. I just added a Xerox Workcentre network printer directly and it found a driver automatically and printed just fine to it and had no issues. This was on a Mint 11 VM. idk.

[drdoom]

I'm sure there are a lot of opinions on this question but I'll ask anyway. Which version is most Windows like and which is most Apple like? I want to set up the computer to default to Linux when it boots otherwise they will just boot to Windows and that will defeat the purpose of having Linux installed.