How would I know If my Bazzite contracted a virus and how would I get rid of it?
Theoretically could I just reinstall the OS from my flash drive and that would wipe out the virus alongside everything else?
11 Replies
There are no viruses in Linux yet
Enjoy it while it lasts
no widespread examples of such but it's not like the platform is intrinsically immune to malware or that no one has ever targeted it. it's just not a ripe target with the ROI of compromising an average windows machine instead
You could reinstall, but viruses aren't common in Linux and it would be hard to get one if you're relying on official sources for programs like flatpaks.
That said, if you really want something to scan viruses (even Windows ones), you could download and use clamav which is free to scan for files. I downloaded it through brew and use it once in awhile just to be safe
so your odds are better and many of the security barriers are better but again, no immunity
no system is immune to viruses
antivirus software is like an antibiotic, cant block stuff you dont know about, you can only look at patterns
Would VirusTotal be good for this as well?
I didn't say it was immune to viruses
If they find us were screwed
There are no viruses to check for
Clamhv was made for windows viruses
Heard of that and it sounds reputable from what I've seen. Never hurts to check if you're really concerned, but realistically getting a virus is very unlikely (though not impossible).
Even if you only see viruses targeting Windows, getting rid of Windows viruses is still good in case you ever share a file with a Windows user or move files to a Windows machine
When you said "You could reinstall" would that be a definitive way of remove ALL viruses from Bazzite because it removes everything else as well?
from the flash drive assuming you know it's not infected
reinstall and nuke your home folder
or track your
/etc and nuke your home folder
the only places a virus can be put is wherever is writable that is
/var, /etc or /home
and your homefolder is the most likely suspect
since any user has access to write to their home folder
the other 2 locations require sudo permissions
meaning you have to trigger an unpatched privilegie escalation, from experience those tend to not stick around for a long time in linuxI'm a guy who's an amateur that's been using Linux for less than a year, so I'd trust whatever @HikariKnight says lol but again getting a virus seems very challenging in the first place for what peace of mind that's worth