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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Encrypt whole system? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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My laptop isn't under my supervision most of the time. And I'd hate it if someone were to steal my SSD, or whole laptop even, when I'm not around. Is there a way to encrypt everything, but still keep the device in sleep, and unclock it without much delay. It's a very slow laptop. So decryption on login isn't viable, takes too long. While booting up also takes forever, so it needs to be in a "safe" state when simply logged out. Maybe a way that's decrypt-on-demand?

I'm on Arch with KDE.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

It does give me a result so I do have "aes". How can I use it?

We're talking an Intel i5-8350U. it has 16GBs of ram and 500GB of SSD.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

That's not a slow laptop. I've been daily driving worse for years.

To protect the data from random thief just browsing through the files I still use ecryptfs. It only encrypts the home directory, and the keys are derived from my accounts password, so no extra hassle.

The encryption is weak by the current standards, and wouldn't stop a determined attacker, but it's 100% better than nothing, and I've never noticed any performance problems.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

I'm not planning on putting information on my laptop that I don't have to. Speed for a bit of security sounds good. I'll look into ecryptfs. And also into boot time, lots of you are screaming at me that it's a fast laptop. what how

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

You said you're on Arch, you'll want to go through their docs which are solid: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Dm-crypt/Encrypting_an_entire_system

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

That is absolutely not a slow laptop. If it takes a long time to boot there must be something wrong. I have a similar system that takes about ten seconds to boot.

Anyways, like others said, LVM with LUKS is the simplest. It uses your hardware to quickly decrypt the drive on boot. While it is running access to your data is protected by your login manager or lock screen.