Hey all,

Like I said in the title, I'm new to Linux and I'm loving every second of it! The thing is though, a friend and I got into a little heated debate about the security between Linux and Windows. I said that Linux was more secure because of the root user, while he claimed that Windows is more secure b/c of blah blah blah. We finally agreed to disagree about the whole situation, but can anyone explain to me in detail why Linux is more secure than Windows? Links would be helpful. I'm talking about desktops and servers by the way.

Also, is it hard to set up security on a server using Linux? What would be the best distro to use for servers?

Thanks in advance!

I would say linux is better as it is more rare to find malware, trojans and viruses. Also, with the different standards in linux...paths vary from location to location...who would want to write something over-and-over. For instance the home path is in one place on Ubuntu and another in SUSE, and yet another in Slack, BSD...so forth.

Click on search at the top of this page, do "linux vs windows" and you will get a few days worth of reading.

Good luck on your findings!

System security is mainly dependant on the system administrator. A misconfigured Linux/BSD box could be more vulnerable then a default install of Windows Server 2003 w/o any service packs. Vulnerable third-party programs can also lead to a comprimise of a system regardless if it is Windows or *nix. If you want to learn about Linux security view the sticky Security references thread. IMO, locking down Linux/BSD is much easier then trying to lockdown Windows; I'm refering to using the built-in mechanisms & features here and not third-party apps. Windows Server 2003 is a more secure (that I am aware of) of an OS compared to the previous incarnations of Windows 2K/NT, but would you trust a Windows machine, with a gui & other uneeded services running, to act as a firewall for your network or would you trust in a *nix OS like OpenBSD/Debian which can be stripped down to the bare essentials and include a advance firewall in the box? As for the best distro to use for servers use whatever you are familiar with. If you really want a recommendation try Ubuntu Server or CentOS. Personally I would go with Debian or FreeBSD.

I was in the same situation as you, until I found this great link, I e-mailed it to him and now he just wont talk about it

(link in sig)