Clamtk fails to update virus definitions

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clamtk fails to update virus definitions. Need to use terminal

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Hi, @bruce-ott!

Really? Iā€™ve just installed ClamTK to check, but I donā€™t have this problem with Ubuntu 24.04.

Maybe try uninstalling and reinstalling?

sudo apt purge clamtk
sudo apt update && sudo apt install clamtk

:thinking:

3

Iā€™m using Ubuntu 25.10, kernel 6.17.0-14 on an old MacBook Air 5-2 which uses an Intel I5-3427U chip running at 1.8 GHz x 4. I think Ubuntu is sensitive in some way to CPU configuration as I had previously loaded Ubuntu 24.04 LTS on this machine and it failed to load the kernel upgrade which came along about a month after the initial download. No one in the community who replied to my queries had any suggestions to fix the error, so I trashed 24.04 and loaded Ubuntu Budgie 25.10 instead. I think I will just stick with using Terminal command line to load new virus definitions into clamav TK. Iā€™m not a hardware engineer, nor very familiar with Linux and I donā€™t think aspirin is made strong enough for me to try to figure out what is going on at the machine level :).

Thanks for the comment thoughā€“just reinforces my opinion that Linux has some Gordonā€™s knots that are not easily solved, perhaps except by people that donā€™t have time to address specifics of machine interfaces at the CPU level.

Cheers, Bruce

4

Sadly clamtk is no longer actively maintained. So it should be expected over time more and more areas of the interface will no longer work as clamav advances.

There are a couple of other graphical interfaces in the works but these are not in the repositories.

So as you have gathered terminal is currently the way to go.

For our desktops and servers we basically just leave freshclam to do itā€™s stuff and we have written other scripts to-do automated scans etc.

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I know itā€™s a silly question, but is antivirus software important, or is it just a conditioned reflex of former Windows or Mac users?

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For our business itā€™s a condition for service. It is primarily there to check for media inserted by users. They should be using an impex machine but users are usersā€¦ so itā€™s a backstop.

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Thanks for the explanation, David!
By the way I tried the forumā€™s AI, even though Iā€™m not really a fan: after all, we still have human intelligence, donā€™t we?

In this context, an ā€˜impex machineā€™ refers to a specialized, automated system designed to efficiently import and export data or media files while automatically scanning them for threats. The speaker notes that while users should ideally rely on such a dedicated machine for security, human error or workflow constraints often prevent this. Therefore, the current antivirus software (Clamtk) acts as a ā€˜backstop,ā€™ serving as a secondary safety net or last line of defense to catch any malicious media that slips through because the primary, more robust scanning method wasnā€™t used.

Fine, itā€™s clear to me. :+1:

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I know clamTK is no longer supported so the result was not unexpected. Unfortunately for me Iā€™m an instrument operatorā€“either it works or it doesnā€™t and if Iā€™m using a W11machine which I do for work and it quits I hand it to the outfit I purchased it from with a maintenance agreement and just say ā€œfix pleaseā€. I saved the old Mac I have from the electronics recycle e-waste pile by loading Linux. If it works, fine. If it doesnā€™t Iā€™ll just trash the version of the OS and load another version that does work. A bit privative admittedly but the Linux OS is a breeze to load compared even to Windows 11 (unless you want to accept all of MS defaultsā€“which means MS and the rest of the Internet out there are tracking you :slight_smile: ).
Cheers, Bruce