[PLUG] Windows Viruses and Linux

[MJang]

On Wed, 2011-09-28 at 11:32 -0700, Richard C. Steffens wrote:
> A friend has asked me to help with cleaning off an older computer of 
> theirs. Over the years their son downloaded lots of stuff without 
> knowing too much about the safety of each site he visited.
> 
> The machine is some flavor of Windows -- might be Win98 or XP. They have 
> some data they want to keep. My thought is to network their machine to 
> my laptop and copy those files. Then, I could reload Windows for them. 
> (I don't think I could talk them into Linux.)
> 
> My wife is concerned about contaminating my laptop with viruses. I told 
> her that Windows viruses don't affect Linux, but she isn't convinced. 
> She asked me to ask all of you, and that she'll go along with your 
> recommendations.
> 
> Any thoughts?

One possible risk -- does your Linux laptop run any form of WINE, e.g.
code weavers stuff or anything that includes stuff from a Microsoft code
base? There's an article from linux.com on the subject, ref
http://www.linux.com/feature/42031 , but the site is down at the moment.
(It can be found from the google cache.)

If not, then you can safely tell your wife that Linux is built
differently -- it's like a virus is the big bad wolf, Windows is built
with hay, and Linux is built with bricks.

Thanks,
Mike