this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2025
165 points (98.8% liked)

Linux

49051 readers
447 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] savvywolf@pawb.social 2 points 1 day ago

Android backs up data to the cloud. If the phone breaks or gets stolen, you don't need to recover data from it - you can just pull it from Google's servers.

In addition, people tend to not treat their phones as "permanent storage". The concept of losing or breaking their phone is probably more clear, so they make sure to back it up in some way to the cloud or their desktop.

Also, it's much more likely for a phone to be stolen than a laptop or desktop.