switching help

[vishesh.l]

hi,
we run a small av post/production unit,
never used linux,but we had a major crash a virus attack...
someone suggested that u use one machine for the internet and use linux which is far more secure and will be safer.
so i started looking up on it,and im totally confused...
so i decided to come here instead n ask,

my primary requirements...

1 internet(firefox)
2 media center, the same machine can double up as a demo pc to show our clientelle out work n stuff...music visuals


which will be a very small(file size) lightweight and hasslefree linux distro which can do these 2 things.
one which i can download quickly n get it up n running asap,
of course it'll be better for others(who work with me) if it resembles windows a little...so they dont get lost..

.............

secondary requirement...

i need to make a single storage which all my other machines can access,and we can work on the data directly from this one big harddrive.

someone suggested SAN on a linux box,

i read about it,since im not a programmer,im not sure how to configure such a system,

is there a software package which lets me see this machine's drive as a local harddisk on all systems ?

if possible can this reside on the same internet machine mentioned above ?

help will be appreciated,

[b2bwild]

as you want the multimedia support dont go for small distros..
I suggest you to get OpenSUSE 11.0 or Ubuntu 8.04
they have good package managements so you wont have to worry about it..
You can share a whole partition within linux machines via NFS and anutomount them via autofs, you can use samba to share folders between windows and linux..

[vishesh.l]

so,i got a copy of ubuntu,ran the live cd....whoa...i expected a win95 like os...but wow
it is awesome.

i love it,
but i need some guidance here,

machine 1(linux)
machine2(win)
machine3(win) and so on,

A)
ive heard that viruses generally do not target linux machines...
but since there are windows machines on the lan,im worried

my priority is to keep one machine for net n keep the other windows machines virus free.
is it safe to connect machine1 to the lan ?
will there be a chance of an infection(to the other machines)?


B) since my linux box will be rendered useless if it just has linux,
im contemplating to dual boot.so i can still run my other windows related tasks.
i wont be connecting online from the windows os.
my question is can a virus which typically infects a windows installation,be able to infect it when im connected to internet from linux ?

i know i sound a little paranoid now...but I REALLY GOT SCREWED MAN,im not taking chances again.

[kostasan]

Very few viruses target Linux and i have read in some blogs that each of those viruses can't even target all distributions at once.
But, a file that you download using Linux may have a virus that can infect windows! So you must install an antivirus in Linux to protect the Windows pcs rather than Linux!! Try klamav. In Ubuntu you install it using a program called Synaptic or by opening a terminal and typing
sudo apt-get install klamav
Using Linux to access the internet is the safest thing the average user can do. BSD is said to be even safer but it is harder to use and i haven't tried it yet.

[b2bwild]

My Linux never got infected,
there is a Tip, if you keep '/boot' and '/' partition different chances of getting linux infected are like none.
my friends bring there Windows Harddrive to me, to fix virus issues or file recovery...LOL