Ubuntu Question

[GoneReefing]

very good advice

welcome to maast gonereefing

thanks glad to find a community like this.

[cbianco]

best way to learn it is to break it and have to fix it

Yeah... No kidding.

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/

http://ubuntuguide.org

^ two great sites beside the ubuntu forums of course

Been windows free since 2003 and not missing a second of it.

Thanks for the sites! I'm going lurkin now.

Christopher

[cbianco]

I've enjoyed UBUNTU for the past couple of days. It has everything that Windows has, only free.

Question, How important is it to run an antivirus? I know that linux doesn't have many viruses but is it important to protect myself?

[danny]

I've enjoyed UBUNTU for the past couple of days. It has everything that Windows has, only free.

Question, How important is it to run an antivirus? I know that linux doesn't have many viruses but is it important to protect myself?

This would primarily depend on your browsing habits and what kind of info you plan to keep. I switch between distros so much that I don't ever load av but if I do load it, I'll run clam av. I've had it running on my laptop (fedora) for a year now and it's been fine. It's purposed more for email gateways but it does the job without much resource consumption.

[tony]

i wouldnt bother with av on linux

[GoneReefing]

Primarily most virus/spyware/trojan is windows based, as that is the biggest population of operating systems out right now. In addition to that, linux has better security because your user does not run as root normally.

Currently I run a hardware firewall(router w/NAT) and iptables (software based firewall), I also perform regular checking with some security tools since I am running a couple of servers.

Check out https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Security for information related to security and linux/ubuntu.

Have a good one.

[cbianco]

Thanks for the responses guys.

Since I rely so heavily on the Internet on this computer, I was wondering if it would be worth finding an AV for Linux.

This would primarily depend on your browsing habits and what kind of info you plan to keep...

The computer I installed Ubuntu on is my laptop. It is my "take everywhere" computer. I do mainly web type activities such as surfing, email and video/music stuff.

i wouldnt bother with av on linux

This is how I originally felt.

Primarily most virus/spyware/trojan is windows based, as that is the biggest population of operating systems out right now. In addition to that, linux has better security because your user does not run as root normally...

Yes, this is what I've read. I still thought it would be a good idea to discuss it. Although most viruses are primarily Windows based, does that mean a Linux based computer is immune?

...Currently I run a hardware firewall(router w/NAT) and iptables (software based firewall), I also perform regular checking with some security tools since I am running a couple of servers...

What software AV are you running?

...Check out https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Security for information related to security and linux/ubuntu.

Have a good one.

I'm there now.

Christopher

[brewercm]

I remember back in the late 90's when I was working heavily on SunOS systems we'd get emails in every once in a while on the windows based systems that contained viruses. We'd put them on the Unix boxes to open them up and look at the source code, never infected any of those machines

[tony]

i believe clamav is the only linux av (could be wrong though)

if you are insistent about protecting yourself i would just use firefox and lock it down with addons instead of a full blown av. adblock and noscript will probly serve you well.

[tony]

i stand corrected clamav isnt the only rodeo anymore