Q I have been looking at (free) antivirus software for Linux and the two that have come to my attention are F-Prot and Panda. I have installed the F-Prot RPM but note that it's command line-only, and try as I may I can't seem to actually get it to load. Panda also seems to be a command line scanner so I suspect that every time I want to scan a file I have to do it manually. Is there such a thing as a GUI-based antivirus scanner for Linux that will just keep running in the background?
A There really is limited demand for a virus scanner under Linux. Most virus scanners for Linux are built for use on mail servers, which filter email destined for Windows systems to protect the users. As there are so few viruses that target Linux applications, there is no need to run a dedicated virus scanner. However, you may want to ensure that you regularly run chkrootkit to verify that the system has not been exploited through a vulnerable service, or an exploited binary. If you're set on a scanner, one of the best we've used is ClamAV, available fromhttp://clamav.sf.net/.