But, as we learned, there *are* Linux viruses "out there" and some
have been lingering for years and still affecting people.

The various Linux security updates do not address viruses, worms,
trojans or other nasties for the most part. What they do address are
programming blunders that permit permission elevation (e.g., a user-
level process now with the power of root) and back-doors (e.g., a
firewall bug that lets the bad guys tunnel in and steal your stuff)
and other such errors especially with browsers running Java or other
stuff.

> Two of the advantages of Linux, I thought, was being almost virus
> proof and not the need for frequent updates. A question for those in
> the know, how often do other distrobutions update?

Most of the big distros update frequently. It seems every time I
power-up my Fedora 8 or 9 boxes (about every 2 days) I'll get 16
security updates, 20-30 bug fixes, and 30 or so enhancements.

My SLED10-SP1 (Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop) rarely needs or receives
any updates; same for Solaris and FreeBSD.

With PCLinuxOS, it's a crap shoot -- there's no automatic notification
of any updates and it's the most horrible process in the world to find
out what's new. Since I've already snagged 3D_Mahjongg of it and put
that on my Ubuntu box, PCLOS is the next distro to be zapped and
forgotten forever when I need another test system for another distro.