not that i'm paranoid or anything but...

as i've been downloading open source projects (an for some reason never off the homepages or sourceforge) i want to make sure that i haven't let a virus into my mandrake 9.1 distro; no signs of a virus, just being cautious

what are some good freeware a/v for linux? (also mention a few priced ones, but not too expensive)

You dont really need a anti-virus for linux but heres a listing anyway..
http://linux.tucows.com/antivirus_default.html

y do u say i don't need one?

Linux doesnt work like windows. Every directory and file in linux has permissions so if you download a virus it cant corrupt root files for example. While there are a few linux virii, they have to be run as root and given full permissions, so you'd have to be pretty ignorant to actually get infected.

ah, cool, i c

linux really is cool

thx for the link though

as i know there are many virus that will be active only by reading the mail or by visiting certain websites.
can those viruses harm to linux computer ?
i just installed antivir for protection. but i don't know how it worked. i only can check the status is running.
have someone use it ? how to check virus on specific place, folders, files ?
btw when my computer booting, there are lines :
Starting sendmail MTA daemon : /usr/bin/sendmail -L sm-mta -bd -q25m
Starting sendmail MSP queue runner : /usr/bin/sendmal -L sm-msp-queue -Ac -q25

what is that ? because it took sometimes before i can get to login. how to shutdown the services ?
thanks.

Not really. First, a number of the email viruses exploit weaknesses that are Microsoft specific (like visual basic in Outlook) that don't have counterparts in the Linux world. Second, even if a virus did manage to get into your linux box, it is limited to damaging just the stuff you have access to. So as long as you are not logging in as root, the damage a virus can do is going to be extremely limited and your machine will remain completely functional. In my opinion, that is the single best reason for ALWAYS logging in as a normal user and using su to do the root tasks.

To shut down the sendmail daemon, look in your /etc/rc.d directory. In Slackware there is an rc.sendmail file that is called from rc.M. If you comment out the rc.sendmail call in rc.M, sendmail won't start.

To see how difficult it is to write a virus for Linux, see the The ELF Virus Writing HOWTO. It seems there is a HOWTO for everything in Linux.

Linux Newbie Administrator Guide
Linux Administration Made Easy

On the Windows side if you are running any variant of NT (NT4,2000, XP home and pro) and your not logged on as administrator or an account with admin rights you are fairly safe. Assumong you hav renamed the administrator account and have a decent password. Same idea as not loggin on to linux as root. When I love you hit, the company I was working at had almost 100% of the workstations as NT4 and almost none of the users had admin rights. Beacuse of this I love you failed trying to access the windows reg on all the computers except the ones where users had admin rights. I run a dual boot between XP pro and Mandrake 9.1 and have not had any recent problems with viruses or BSOD's and for as long as I have been using MS OS's (back to DOS 3.0) I have never had a problem with virus's, on my own machines. I am careful about what I download and install and who I get email from. I have had problems with stability all with the 9.x line of OS's and I have managed to crash Mandrake 9.1 a time or three.

and one more thing about open source progs projects everyone can see the code so no one can install a backdoor or a virii to the code since everyone sees it one can notice and report it so it is far more secure than closed source software that installs crap to your machine (kazaa,imesh(and i know there is kazaa lite))

Have to agree there. Installed groakster once on a windows box, so much other crap got installed I just reformated the drive. I am gonna guess kaza for linux does not install all that casino/search engine/buy here/ crap?

You don't really need anti-virus for linux but heres a program. It's a nice one. "Kaspersky Anti-Virus for Linux Workstation 4.0.2.2"

is there any kazaa for linux ? i've been searching in google but can't find one. i've been thinking using kjukebox, but still have problem with installation.
btw, i've installed antivir, how can i uninstall it ?
and is kaspersky anti-virus have a gui interface ?

I'll go with that. You won't really need an anti-virus program if you only run a workstation. On the server side, however, you might want to reconsider the situation. Say, you might want to scan all incomming and outgoing email on the server-side, so that it doesn't reach your users' oh so vulnerable OE clients.

Just for convenience, you might try out www.f-prot.com

You can download limewire which will work same as kazaa. Link is
http://www.limewire.com/english/content/home.shtml
To uninstall: If you installed an rpm, then just do this:
rpm -e name_of_program
else, if you installed from source then cd to the directory where its installed and then:
make uninstall

cheers