[brlug-newbies] [CCCC-General] Dell Linux

[EdsLinuxBox]

On 03/01/2007 10:49 am, Walter M. Scott III wrote:

>
> Question: Are other operating systems (Linux, Mac, et al) immune to
> malware, 

Immune? No. Highly impervious? Yes! Wikipedia lists only 14 known Linux 
viruses. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_computer_viruses


> or is it that the writers of malware ignore these systems 
> because of their small market share? If Linux had the popularity of
> Windows, wouldn't we have the same problems?

As much as the folks in Redmond would like for us the believe that the lack of 
Linux/Mac viri/malware stems from market dominance, that just really isn't 
true. Here is a very good article regarding why Windows systems are plagued 
by such things where Linux and Mac OS X are not. 

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/10/06/linux_vs_windows_viruses/

Keep in mind that OS X is based upon BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) 
which is another Unix variant that is structured very similarly to Linux. In 
fact, many programs written for Linux can and do run on BSD and Mac OS X. 

The author of the above referenced article opines: "To mess up a Linux box, 
you need to work at it; to mess up your Windows box, you just need to work on 
it." 

Additionally, since most Linux/BSD software is open source, it is subject to 
almost instantaneous peer review which results is very fast patching of 
security problems when they are identified. This is not the case with closed 
source proprietary software. 

Finally, the tools are in place to deal with such challenges, should they 
every become a real problem. The "for pay" versions of Xandros, which is my 
Linux distribution of choice, come with what they call the "Xandros Security 
Suite", which includes a virus scanner, malware scanner, firewall and 
software update tool, all nicely integrated into a unified graphical user 
interface. 

I have been running Linux for a bit over 4 years now and exclusively, i.e. no 
Windows installed at all, here at home for about 3 years now. In that period 
of time, I have yet to have any kind of virus, trojan, spyware, or malware 
infestation on any of my Linux machines. I run this desktop machine plus two 
laptops, all running Xandros Linux. 

We recently had an infestation of some sort on our corporate computers at work 
that was erasing entire hard drives on Windows machines. We were instructed 
by IT to literally disconnect our computers from our network to stop further 
infection, and do our work locally. The problem with this is that all of our 
data files, drawings, specifications, etc are stored on our Windows based 
file servers. I plugged in my laptop running Xandros Linux Professional 
edition, authenticated my user name and password against the Windows Primary 
Domain Controller and was able to copy files from the servers to several USB 
flash drives and hard drives, copy the files to the local computer hard 
drives and get the employees back up and running with no concern for 
contamination of my laptop. Additionally, since I was logged into the 
corporate network and Xandros has wide support for a variety of current 
production printers, both home and professional, I was able to add several of 
the network printers to my laptop and print documents for the employees as 
they were doing their work. As I am sure you are aware, OpenOffice has a very 
high degree of compatibility with MS Office files. Additionally, had I had a 
compatibility problem with OO, I could have installed and run MS Office on my 
Linux laptop because Xandros installs CrossOver Office by default. I was a 
busy guy, but we got it all accomplished. 

Ed