this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2025
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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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Do you encrypt your drives and why or why not? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 1 day ago by monovergent@lemmy.ml to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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I was recently intrigued to learn that only half of the respondents to a survey said that they used disk encryption. Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows have been increasingly using encryption by default. On the other hand, while most Linux installers I've encountered include the option to encrypt, it is not selected by default.

Whether it's a test bench, beater laptop, NAS, or daily driver, I encrypt for peace of mind. Whatever I end up doing on my machines, I can be pretty confident my data won't end up in the wrong hands if the drive is stolen or lost and can be erased by simply overwriting the LUKS header. Recovering from an unbootable state or copying files out from an encrypted boot drive only takes a couple more commands compared to an unencrypted setup.

But that's just me and I'm curious to hear what other reasons to encrypt or not to encrypt are out there.

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[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Good news, you can use cryptsetup to do it in place! https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/444931/is-there-a-way-to-encrypt-disk-without-formatting-it

[–] monovergent@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 day ago

I wish I found a guide like that back when I first made the move to FDE. Regardless, I was adamantly against reinstalling and painstakingly replicating my customizations, so I came up with a hacky way of tacking on FDE.

It went something along the lines of:

  1. Shrinking the root partition as much as possible
  2. From Live CD, dd root partition to external drive
  3. Perform minimal encrypted install of Debian
  4. From Live CD, open LUKS container of the newly-installed Debian and overwrite the root partition within with my old root partition.
  5. Update fstab, crypttab, initramfs, and grub
  6. Cross my fingers and reboot