Are we truly ready? Whether we are ready to admit it or not, there will come a day when Linux viruses will become more and more common. The problem that I foresee right now is that the world of Linux is not really sure what they would do should a wide spread virus actually hit us really hard.

OK, so obviously we need to have an antivirus in place once it becomes needed. Wait a second now, which one is best though? See, we are so not ready for this sort of thing it is not even funny.

Since there are so few Linux viruses in the wild, who knows if the products actually work?. At best, the Linux antivirus hawkers are jumping the gun — trying to capture a market that isn’t quite there yet. At worst, they’re advancing a cynical ploy to separate Linux newbies from their cash for something they couldn’t possibly need.

Note that I’m not talking about antivirus products that run on Linux to try to detect viruses in files stored on a Linux server. For example, there are a number of companies that store important data on Samba servers. Sometimes, one of their workers might just have an infected file — and it’s a good thing indeed to be able to catch that at the server if possible. No, I’m talking about the products aimed at desktop Linux users and the advertising that tries to convince them that their systems are targets for viruses.