[general_ai]

There's security and there's safety. Linux desktop may well be less secure, meaning that it could be successfully attacked by an experienced attacker. At the same time it's far less likely to be attacked, so it's safer, for the same reason as macOS: less marketshare, few people are motivated to learn/research attack vectors.

[rimantas]

Once again: Mac OS in pre-X days had even smaller market share, but many many more viruses in the wild. It's not all about the market share.

[c3833174]

But which kind of virus?

An internet-distributed one would be pretty futile, but a diskette-spreading one aimed at a lab with several macs could be pretty successful.