I was wondering If and antivirus is actually needed in linux right now i have rh 9 and i am somewhat new and did some research and it looked like it was mainly for file servers and mail servers.... but i was wondering if it's worth getting for a workstation set up or a personal computer would you guys say so... If so why?

Honestly, no. You can create a perfectly secure linux box without AV protection. That being said, there are things that you absolutely MUST do.

First turn off any services you don't need. To do this type:
chkconfig --list | grep on
That will show you what you are running. Now go through the list and if you don't need it, turn it off using:
chkconfig 345 <service name> off
service <service name> stop

Ok. That's half the battle right there. If you need to run network services, protect them with a firewall like iptables.

Now install a file system integrity checker like tripwire. This will give you an alert if any files on the system have been altered. If you want to be even more secure, install an Intrusion Detection System (IDS) like Snort or PortSentry.

Anti-Virus software is nice and can be added as an extra layer of security, but isn't really a necessity if you lockdown your system and use smart-computing practices. Why don't you really need it? Because linux viruses are extremely rare. There ARE linux worms out there and plenty of script-kiddies out there scanning for open linux boxes to compromise, so you should be more concerned about having vulnerable network services open to the public
HTH.

Well said Capt_caveman.
If you really want a virus program go to www.f-prot.com. It's free for home use, have to pay for commercial. I use it and it works well. You do need some perl installed for it to work. If you use Mandrake, install Perl IO stringy package. That should do it.
Oh, the command I use is "f-prot /*". Scans everything and reports any problems.

Thank you very much fella's You explained it well.....