I decided to join the freeware/shareware world yesterday and installed the Ubuntu 11.10 OS found here: http://www.ubuntu.com/. I didn't want to stray too far from my Windows 7 safety net though, so I went with the duel boot installation option so I can pick which OS I want to go into whenever I start my PC.

Since it's free I thought it would be shit, that's what I've always thought when it came to Linux. But despite the minor bugs that I've encountered, it is a very stable and an aesthetically pleasing system. The freeware programs that came with the self created OS disk are comparable to some of the Window 7 mainstays like LibreOffice Writer(word), LibreOffice Calc(Excel), and LibreOffice Impresss(Power Point), minus the subscription.

A decent looking desktop...




Among the harbored criminals and crazy lawyers in this forum there are also a number of IT guys... So...

Is the built in security enough for this OS? I google searched this first to see what happens and I guess that older versions of Linux programs had problems with Malware and viruses, but perhaps this latest version has better built in features.

Since I am doing a duel boot, if one of my OS's gets infected is the other one safe if I installed it on a different partition? Or would that not even matter because the file types are different? Any recommendations/advice would be appreciated...

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team Mully & Hanley
team Meatpants

I haven't used this newest version of Ubuntu but I have liked their past distros and put them on several home and work machines over the years.

As far as security, the OS itself is fine and no more vulnerable than Windows. In fact less so because they aren't targeted constantly like Windows. Sure there are some exploits to be found but nothing I think you need to be paranoid about.

The best security is being aware of what you are clicking on/installing. If you are really concerned you can do all online transactions (banking/shopping/bills) in a virtual environment that you generate new each time. If you really want to be secure you can check this beta OS out called Qubes. I haven't installed it yet but it is on my soon to do list. I like the concept behind it alot. http://qubes-os.org/Home.html

As for dual booting and a virus or trojan traversing across them, yes it is possible but unlikely. There are easier ways to get info from people nowadays by installing fake AV software and getting people's CC info right away.

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Anyone use Linux's sister program, Lucx?

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

OK, Darkside.

1. Linux is far, far, far more secure than Windows. Primary reason is, applications programs run in a different hardware "ring level" than the operating system. Meaning, its harder for applications to unexpectantly gain "admin access", and start doing bad things.

Its funny, but the Windows emulator, Wine, is vulnerable to viruses because it has to emulate Windows' design. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Antivirus

a. You might get the wrong impression as to security on Linux, by the number of updates you'll receive on certain programs. Understand, a Linux software distribution has more "raw" software on it than Windows combined with Office 10, SQL Server, Visual Studio, and several games, besides. Just to give you a feel, my Linux has 2170 individual software packages on it.

b. There are groups in the Linux "sphere" who do nothing but audit packages' source code, looking for leaks & vulnerabilities. Patching code is not like waiting for a vendor, say Microsoft, to update Word. They keep to a release/publishing schedule.

2. Can your windows partition get zapped while running Linux? Let's see: I'd have to write a program that becomes the admin user, reads your partition table, figure out the sectors where Windows is; I don't yet know which version of Windows it is (but maybe I can read go over to an appropriate sector on the Windows partition, suddenly understanding the NT filesystem, determine where your boot.sys is, and do something nasty.) That's a lot of crap to put into a vulnerability exploit. It *can* be done, but we're talking very hard to do.

3. For security and flexibility: you install a virtual machine environment. Under said environment, you have two "guest" operating systems: Linux and Windows. They don't know about each other; neither is truly "in charge" of the hardware (the virtual machine is,) and you have the added fun of being able to run both simultaneously. Since you're running Ubuntu 10.10, package name in the Software Center is AQEMU

[edit] dumb phpBB was mad at me about too many URLs. So I ended up removing yours

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Middle Aged Crazy, like Uncle Terry

That was the first and only program I have installed thus far because I wanted to run itunes and steam... so damn... thanks for the heads up!

On top of the duel boot I actually did install Ubuntu on the oracle virtualbox for shits and giggles and for future troubleshooting practice... so maybe I'll just run wine through that instead


As I'm not married to Ubuntu, I'm gonna check out that beta os Jackref...


Thanks to both of you guys for the info, it puts my mind at ease.

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team Mully & Hanley
team Meatpants