No viruses? yes there are viruses...There are not many viruses and a lot are proof of concept but they are there. The rest are macros that attack installed programs again fewer than say what there is for its competition.

Virus.Linux.Alaeda (Kaspersky Lab) is also known as: Linux.Alaeda (Kaspersky Lab), Linux/Alaeda (McAfee), Linux.Alaeda (Symantec), Linux/Alaeda-A (Sophos), Linux/Alaeda.A (Grisoft), Linux.Alaeda.A (SOFTWIN), Linux/Alaeda.A (Panda), Linux/Alaeda.A (Eset)

Alaeda is a non-resident virus. It infects systems running Linux, and is written in Assembler. It infects ELF format files in the current directory.

Virus.Linux.Diesel.962 (Kaspersky Lab) is also known as: Linux.Diesel.962 (Kaspersky Lab), Linux/Diesel.dr.962intd (McAfee), Linux.Diesel (Symantec), Linux/Diesel (Grisoft), Linux/Diesel.B (Panda)

This is a relatively harmless, non-memory resident parasitic virus. It searches for Linux executable files in system directories and subdirectories, then writes itself to the middle of the file. Before searching files, the virus reads its code from the host file. It moves the original bytes to the end of the file and increases the size of the previous section.

As for no Anti Virus programs? there are quite a few even with submit a file features so that htey can be inspected.

http://www.clamav.net/

Here is a list of the main features:

command-line scanner
fast, multi-threaded daemon with support for on-access scanning
milter interface for sendmail
advanced database updater with support for scripted updates and digital signatures
virus scanner C library
on-access scanning (Linux® and FreeBSD®)
virus database updated multiple times per day (see home page for total number of signatures)
built-in support for various archive formats, including Zip, RAR, Tar, Gzip, Bzip2, OLE2, Cabinet, CHM, BinHex, SIS and others
built-in support for almost all mail file formats
built-in support for ELF executables and Portable Executable files compressed with UPX, FSG, Petite, NsPack, wwpack32, MEW, Upack and obfuscated with SUE, Y0da Cryptor and others
built-in support for popular document formats including MS Office and MacOffice files, HTML, RTF and PDF

Viruses do exist in Linux they are mostly Macros though and there are actual and real anti virus software for Linux. There are a ton of proof of concepts....BTW the first major viruses were on UNIX systems in the early 80s

Yeah I hate it when Mac and Linux ppl say how much safer these OS's are as compared to Windows. It just a fact that Windows is on 90% of computers worldwide, thus, it gets nearly all of the attention of the assholes that write viruses. If Mac or Linux was the dominate app it would have the same problems. If you can't see that then you are just ignorant.

Basically, you're not getting shot because no one is aiming at you, not because you're invincible. All you have to do is be smart and not download stupid shit, use good anti-virus software, and use good anti-spam software.

Each OS has its good and bad. Overall Mac is more expensive, sturdy, and harder to find software for. Overall Linux is free, more complicated to use, and harder to find software for. Overall Windows is cheaper, tons of software, and an virtual whore that tries to let everyone get a piece.

As for me, I have to use Windows at work. For home I have thought about two options. One build my next PC as a media center 64 bit. Second choice is go for an iMac. Mac will cost more and I will have to deal with training my family about the differences. I still leaning to build my own media center PC.

Linux is powerful and so is Windows OS. Linux has a lot of opensource and freeware, and so is MS OS. (Openoffice, gimp are all available for windows too) Linux has their users, most linux users won't b*tch about how good linux are compare to windows, cos they know linux has its limit but so is windows. They are both the same OS, they are created to make our life easier. I have linux and windows OS both at home and at work. Linux serve me well cos it revive most of my dead PC and also Mac (I don't use mac, I pick up junked mac from trash and convert them to linux box). I have a Redhat and a Ubuntu (with Beryl! Nice eye candy!) running VMware that also run a windows xp (not as second partition), it serve me very well.

I love both operating system, can't live without any of them. If you are here to convince people to use Linux, forget about it, Linux will always have their faithful user and anyone who like tweaking with computers will step into linux and windows, if one day windows die, this whole world will be in crisis.

But for the fun part, if mac die, only those with ipod and iphone will be in crisis. HAHA! Come on guys, admit it, mac does suck!

 No. You're wrong on that first point. Servers are far more valuable than home PCs, because they deal with large money and information transfers. You would think, then, that virus writers would target Linux servers because they form the majority of all server OSes. However, many more viruses, etc. are written for Windows servers than Linux, BSD or other free operating systems, most likely because they're easier to expoit. 

The reason why viruses are so much easier to write for Windows than Linux is because until Windows XP/Vista, and even than people are idiots, all accounts had root access. With Linux, you have your user account that DOES NOT have root access. So when you have a user account password and HOPEFULLY a different root password, it's that much more difficult for viruses and other shading software to infect a Linux box.

I read the article and I must admit, even for a guy who declares himself a "vista-fan" on the first page it is written from a more or less objective point of view.

But What part of the conclusion do you mean? In the end he just says that the only thing better in windows is a level of "completeness and polish", and "Ubuntu's best strength is handling the ordinary task-based day-to-day stuff."

Well, that's exactly what I need my PC for. Handling ordinary stuff. So if you're willing to pay 600$

(cause that's the price for Vista Ultimate in Switzerland) for a level of polish and a shiny aero surface then that's ok with me.

I only was trying to make a point that Linux (even Ubuntu) is still not as friendly as Windows in every aspect. Maybe if you never plan to do anything outside of the preinstalled apps its just as easy. Also Im sure you are technically savvy and can deal with Linux's annoyances. However most *novices* are not. I still would not want to install Ubuntu on my moms computer since the technical support calls would probably be alot longer than they are now (she uses XP).

In the article conclusion he sums up pretty well what we are debating here. And remember, we are not talking about us (regular Linux users) but were trying to look at Windows vs Ubuntu in terms of the non technical masses. He says

"To be honest, there's a lot about Ubuntu that impresses me. The out-of-the-box software available with the OS is well-chosen, and the Ubuntu community folks have made a good effort to support the vast majority of the things people do with their PCs....But there's at least as much about Ubuntu that I find disheartening or frustrating. There are still too many places where you have to drop to a command line and type in a fairly unintuitive set of commands to get something done, or edit a config file, or -- worst of all -- download and compile source code. For a beginner, this last is the kiss of death, because if compiling code fails, a beginner will almost certainly have no idea what to do next."

 I think you're right, the support calls would be a lot longer. But I think there would be a lot less support calls necessary, so that's equalizing that again ;)

I'd also like to point out that novices cannot deal with the easiest windows tasks, too. I can see that everyday. They know nothing about stuff like drive C: or D:, they don't know what the explorer is and they call for support whenever there's a window popping up that has more than the "OK" option to choose from.

 Concerning the configuration files and compiling code:

Editing a config file is not harder (I'd say even easier) than editing the Windows registry
Since i installed Ubuntu 7.04  (feisty fawn) I never needed to compile one single source. Because of the huge popularity of Ubuntu there is virtually ALWAYS a Ubuntu package which you can install using synaptic. 

Compiling sources in linux IS a task which is quite impossible for novices (even if there's no error occuring), there's no arguing about that. But in Ubuntu it is something you will NEVER need to do, unless you intend to use some very exotic and highly unpopular linux application. 

Distro's like Ubuntu have shown what a long way Linux has become towards becoming a more mainstream home user OS. I mean

I dont think I would ever want to go back to Windows for my own personal home/work laptop, a Vista desktop wll be strictly for gaming. 

Dell even offers it pre-installed now, something unheard of just a few years ago.I wonder how MS must have felt about THAT.

I just happen to need to buy a new laptop soon and i discovered that if you want a windows-free laptop, then you can choose between 2 different models or so.
It's horrible!
It's really amazing that dell steps out of the mainstream there. I hope other manufacturers will follow the example.

I just browsed the dell homepage and it seems to me that in Switzerland they only offer Vista or sometimes XP as OS. No Linux there, only on the US pages :(