Linux inside VirtualBox :: Saving Machine State??

[Beginner-At]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Hello
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[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]The computer's OS is Windows 8.
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[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]I am aware there are people who say Linux is (relatively) safer from viruses etc than Windows. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]I've just downloaded a couple of distros and I'm trying, not very successfully, to get to know a bit of Linux (inside VirtualBox). [/FONT]


[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]At the end of each VirtualBox/Linux session, I choose—out of the three log-out options—the one that says “Save The Machine State.”
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[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Is it something that could cause problems with viruses, rootkits, Trojans, etc?? Or any other issue?? Should I log-out of the distros normally (“Power Off Machine”)??[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]In advance, thanks for your help.[/FONT]

 

[paperwastage]

basically, "Saving the machine state" = dumping the RAM into a file on the disk. Next time, when you start the machine, it'll re-load the RAM data and whatever was running before will continue running

the benefit of this = you don't have to start the applications manually, your workspace is "saved"... it doesn't really help or hurt with virus/rootkits (inside your linux VM)

you might want to save snapshots too. Snapshots = copy of the disk (with RAM, if the machine is running). If you roll back to a snapshot, you are going back to that point in time, back to whatever data you had at that time. If you somehow got a virus in linux today, you can roll back to your snapshot from yesterday (which doesn't have the virus)

 

[Beginner-At]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Thanks for your reply[/FONT]


[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]I wonder if I understand how that works. [/FONT]


[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Both the “Saving Machine State” and a “Snapshot” would be saved inside VirtualBox?? [/FONT]


[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]By the way, when you mention RAM and disk, are those two the virtual RAM and the disk inside VirtualBox?? [/FONT]


[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Thanks for your help[/FONT]

 

[Scarpozzi]

Those are all functions of Virtualbox ONLY. You cannot typically 'save a machine state' of an operating system. It's the virtualization layer dumping memory to disk and saving it with the virtual machine in a file local to your Windows 8 filesystem.

To answer your original question, if I understand it....

Linux itself has a few options like, "Suspend", "Logout", "Shutdown". Suspend will put your system in a power-save mode. Logout, simply logs the user out. Shutdown will give the halt command to the hardware and tell the system to physically power down. None of these will affect the likelyhood of getting viruses unless your system is normally at risk on your network or unless someone has physical access to the system.

As long as you don't install software from places you don't/can't trust and as long as you don't browse websites that could infect your browser with malware, then you are probably safer on linux than windows.

Windows is typically unsafe because there are so many exploits written specifically for it. Linux is typically safer but still can be infected by many exploits if not patched.