Greetings from Malaysia

[goldwave84]

Hi everyone!

 

My name is ashley and I am a linux noob! I started thinking real hard about changing from Windows after my recent virus attack. Then I heard that XP will be stopped by June. I do not know of the consequences, but surely hope that I would not have to switch to Vista. I considered moving to Apple, but just can't afford their laptops. Then I read about Linux and Ubuntu. Thing is, I am quiet confused with all this tech jargon. I do not want to be constantly fixing Ubuntu (aside from updating programs and adding some cool features) because frankly, I do not have the time. I hope to learn all there is to know so I can make an informed decision.

 

My main PC is 5 years old

768 mb of RAM

Pentium 2 processor

60GB hard disk space.

 

Able to run XP with no problems.

 

One question, does the Ubuntu software easily get infected with viruses and trojans/malware?

 

Ashley frm Malaysia

[anyweb]

welcome to the forums and no, ubuntu doesnt easily get infected with viruses and trojans/malware, so don't worry,

 

however you could try other distros too like Fedora 8 or PCLinuxOS, OpenSuse or.... (there are many ! - check out the distros section for some ideas/screenshots or if you'd like to read detailed reviews then have a look here in the reviews section of linux-noob.com

 

or for a bigger overview of all linux distros checkout distrowatch.com)

 

cheers

anyweb

[znx]

Hello Ashley, welcome to our forums!

 

A lot of people are just like you, fed up of virus/malware and therefore switching over to Linux.

 

Windows XP will not be stopped as such, sales of XP will be stopped but updates will continue for sometime, indeed SP3 is just about to come out.

 

Ubuntu is definitely a good choice, it is very much aimed at new users. Most of the time you will find that stuff "just works". Another good thing about Linux is that it works REALLY well on older hardware. Your machine would not take Vista or Apple, you would need to buy a new machine to install one of those but Ubuntu will run easily under that specifications!

 

Ubuntu (and indeed all Linux) do not suffer from viruses, trojans or malware in the same manner that XP does. Ubuntu is safe by default, you won't need to do anything to make it safe.

 

You can run Linux without any anti-virus software because their is basically no active viruses, trojans or malware for Linux. You normally just run an anti-virus software to clean the Windows files you copy across your Linux machine (hehe!).

 

Ask all the questions you have, we will try our best to provide you with the answer :)

[kirbychip]

not really far from here. i'm from SG. :)

 

i am really happy to know that this forum exist, i love the tutorial/howTos and stuff.