Yes. Theoretically, that's possible. However, you should not worry about that if you are using a GOG installer. It'll run in its own environment. Also, even if it does have windows virus (which is highly unlikely for a gog insatller), that would not affect your linux system since windows viruses do not work in linux. Please someone correct me if that information is false.

You're too concerned with security risks and viruses. It's not like they just pop out of nowhere the moment you connect online. It takes actual effort or extreme negligence to get one.

Just install WINE and enjoy your damn games.

Linux is also 'theoretically' vulnerable.

I think you are misinformed about what wine is; WINE means Wine is NOT an Emulator (just a "wrapper"), meaning viruses/trojans is not going to act like its on a normal windows system, in nearly every cases you're going to be just fine.

Windows through a real emulator (virtualbox et al) on the other hand DOES actually represents a security risk as it creates a virtual hardware environment for a full windows system. Wine is just a 'wrapper' that acts like a middle man that translates between your software and your linux system, thus the inevitable latency that comes with it.

Just use common sense and enjoy the games on Linux ;-)

No. They do not.
What they say is that if you run a malicious Windows executable through Wine, it could execute its payload, which may or may not work. Installing Wine on your machine does not make your machine vulnerable to Windows viruses, unless you habitually run any weird program you find.
Wine is not sandboxed, nor is it there to provide a safe place to run questionable executables. But Wine by itself is no more or less vulnerable to exploits than any other program you can install.

P.S. Do feel free to post any sources about Wine and security vulnerabilities btw, I may have missed a discussion or two.

but you want to use wine to execute Deux Ex, not a virus.
computer viruses are not like real viruses that you can catch accidentally, you actually have to execute them on your computer. If you use wine only to launch the Deux Ex game that you downloaded from GOG, there is zero chance of you getting a virus.

Now if you have the bad habit of opening every email attachment from every weird email that ended up in your SPAM folder with wine, than yes, that will put you definitely at risk. (and not doing that would be a good idea ;))

Said site rubs me the wrong way for some reason, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to be sure if it's just me or not. The fact that it contradicts itself (9th item in the "avoid 10 fatal mistakes" article and the part you linked) along with it calling Wine an emulator. So while it may be a decent site to use as guidelines, I wouldn't take it as gospel.
I'm sure someone more comfortable with Linux could give better reasons for or against said site though.

Read what you've posted. It says exactly the same thing you've been told here. WINE may make your system vulnerable to Windows malware. The only way that happens though, is if you, the user, makes a bad choice and executes the malware. And even then, it's no guarantee that the malware actually works in a WINE environment.

Here's another interwebz newsflash: living is inherently dangerous, so experts are now advising people to stay home and do absolutely nothing -- ever. o.O

Actually, that article looks like written by someone who does not know what s/he is talking about. Read the 2nd paragraph.

Those emulators are used to run Windows software in Linux. It's better not to install such Windows emulators, because they make your Linux partially vulnerable to Windows malware.

He obviously does not know that Wine Is Not an Emulator. However, wait for it. He suggests VirtualBox as a solution, which is an "actual security risk" for a linux computer.

Besides all of those ignorant comments, the article does not provide a single meaningful reason to any of his comments. I would suggest you ignore that article completely, written by God knows who and enjoy the benefits of WINE.

I thought I would ask a couple questions



1) Could this trick

"1.3. Starting with Linux Mint
18.2, the root password is
unfortunately no longer set by
default.
This means that a malicious
person with physical access to
your computer, can simply boot
it into Recovery mode. In the
recovery menu he can then
select to launch a root shell,
without having to enter any
password. After which your
system is fully his."



in any way be used to bypass any encryption or bios? or the normal admin user password?



2) I uninstalled mono using a terminal command "sudo apt-get remove mono-runtime-common"

and got

"Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
libappindicator0.1-cil libdbus-glib2.0-cil libdbus2.0-cil libgconf2.0-cil
libglib2.0-cil libgmime2.6-cil libgtk2.0-cil libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil
libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo4.0-cil libmono-corlib4.5-cil
libmono-i18n-west4.0-cil libmono-i18n4.0-cil libmono-posix4.0-cil
libmono-security4.0-cil libmono-sharpzip4.84-cil
libmono-system-configuration4.0-cil libmono-system-core4.0-cil
libmono-system-drawing4.0-cil libmono-system-security4.0-cil
libmono-system-xml4.0-cil libmono-system4.0-cil mono-4.0-gac mono-gac
mono-runtime mono-runtime-common mono-runtime-sgen tomboy
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 28 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
After this operation, 31.4 MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Y
(Reading database ... 232909 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing tomboy (1.15.4-0ubuntu3) ...
Removing libappindicator0.1-cil (12.10.1+16.04.20170215-0ubuntu1) ...
Removing libappindicator0.1-cil from Mono
Removing libdbus-glib2.0-cil (0.6.0-1build1) ...
Removing libdbus-glib2.0-cil from Mono
Removing libdbus2.0-cil (0.8.1-2) ...
Removing libdbus2.0-cil from Mono
Removing libgconf2.0-cil (2.24.2-4) ...
Removing libgconf2.0-cil from Mono
Removing libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil (1.0+git20130406.adcd75b-4) ...
Removing libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil from Mono
Removing libgtk2.0-cil (2.12.10-6) ...
Removing libgtk2.0-cil from Mono
Removing libgmime2.6-cil (2.6.20-1) ...
Removing libgmime2.6-cil from Mono
Removing libmono-addins0.2-cil (1.0+git20130406.adcd75b-4) ...
Removing libmono-addins0.2-cil from Mono
Removing libmono-cairo4.0-cil (4.2.1.102+dfsg2-7ubuntu4) ...
Removing libmono-i18n-west4.0-cil (4.2.1.102+dfsg2-7ubuntu4) ...
Removing libmono-i18n4.0-cil (4.2.1.102+dfsg2-7ubuntu4) ...
Removing libmono-system-core4.0-cil (4.2.1.102+dfsg2-7ubuntu4) ...
Removing libmono-posix4.0-cil (4.2.1.102+dfsg2-7ubuntu4) ...
Removing libmono-sharpzip4.84-cil (4.2.1.102+dfsg2-7ubuntu4) ...
Removing libmono-system-drawing4.0-cil (4.2.1.102+dfsg2-7ubuntu4) ...
Removing libglib2.0-cil (2.12.10-6) ...
Removing libglib2.0-cil from Mono
Removing libmono-system-configuration4.0-cil (4.2.1.102+dfsg2-7ubuntu4) ...
Removing libmono-system-security4.0-cil (4.2.1.102+dfsg2-7ubuntu4) ...
Removing libmono-system4.0-cil (4.2.1.102+dfsg2-7ubuntu4) ...
Removing libmono-system-xml4.0-cil (4.2.1.102+dfsg2-7ubuntu4) ...
Removing libmono-corlib4.5-cil (4.2.1.102+dfsg2-7ubuntu4) ...
Removing mono-runtime (4.2.1.102+dfsg2-7ubuntu4) ...
Removing mono-runtime-sgen (4.2.1.102+dfsg2-7ubuntu4) ...
Removing mono-runtime-common (4.2.1.102+dfsg2-7ubuntu4) ...
update-binfmts: warning: no executable /usr/bin/cli found, but continuing anyway as you request
Removing mono-gac (4.2.1.102+dfsg2-7ubuntu4) ...
* Removing packages from mono
* Removing packages from mono's framework paths
Removing mono-4.0-gac (4.2.1.102+dfsg2-7ubuntu4) ...
Removing libmono-security4.0-cil (4.2.1.102+dfsg2-7ubuntu4) ...
dpkg: warning: while removing libmono-security4.0-cil, directory '/usr/lib/mono' not empty so not removed
Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.13.3-6ubuntu3.1) ...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.22+linuxmint1) ...
Processing triggers for mime-support (3.59ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.7.5-1) ...
Processing triggers for shared-mime-info (1.5-2ubuntu0.1) ...
Processing triggers for gconf2 (3.2.6-3ubuntu6) ...
Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme (0.15-0ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.23-0ubuntu9) ..."





Why does it say

"update-binfmts: warning: no executable /usr/bin/cli found, but continuing anyway as you request"

and

"dpkg: warning: while removing libmono-security4.0-cil, directory '/usr/lib/mono' not empty so not removed"

I second this.