how is linux safer than windows?
 

I hear that Linux is safer than Windows in terms of viruses.
However, in learning Linux, I see that scripting seems to be
a very central functionality (a richer batch environment, many
languages available) and everything seems to be lying
around in text files (e.g. you have the /etc directory for configuration
files instead of Windows registry for instance).

How is it that Linux is inherently safer than Windows if you can
pretty much destroy the machine with a couple lines of batch, similar
to what you can do wiht vbscript?

Thanks.

try it... "rm -fr /"
access DENIED !

linux works on privilages, only root user has access to make system wide changes. so if a script or virus finds its way onto your computer, it will run with the access privilages of the person who ran it. not enough access to effect the system.

aslong as you dont abbuse the root acount, nomatter how stupid you are, the worst that a virus could to is delete your personal files.

Yep, on windows any idiot can do what they like to the system by default. With linux you have to be root to do any damage and you can even set it up so that certain programs run as the underpriveliged user 'nobody' which doesn't even have read access to most of the system!

All those text files in /etc are easy to backup and easy to selectively restore. For example, if /X11/XF86Config is messed up, you can easily just copy a working backup of XF86Config over it without messing with any other configuration files.

With Windows's Registry...I can tell you haven't had a borked Registry yet (lucky bastard). The Registry is easily my least favorite feature of Windows. There simply isn't a single thing good about it, compared to plain old text files, and a whole lot bad about it.