Hi there,
Win10 is soon not supported. Tbh Linux have been on my radar since I started to break from the US big tech.
But how is security handled in Linux? Linux is pretty open-source, or am I not understanding it correctly. So how can I as a new user make sure to have the most secure machine as possible?
Security is an insanely broad topic. As an average desktop user, keep your system up to date, and don’t run random programs from untrusted sources (most of the internet). This will cover almost everyones needs. For laptops, I’d recommend enabling drive encryption during installation, though note that data recovery is harder with it enabled.
That is good advice, however sadly a lot of install scripts are basically: download this script from us, and pipe it to a root shell.
i personally wouldn’t recommend encrypted drive for a beginner though
Why not? You (usually) just click the check box during install, and you have 1 extra password when you boot up your system. Doesn’t seem too hard but I might be missing something.
when you fuck shit up you can’t really easily boot in from a usb drive and learn the recovery process
Better to lose the data than have it stolen.
They should not us LUkS and instead use veracrypt for folders and files. That way if any repartitioning or modification is needed it’s simple in gparted or GNOME disks on mint.
Source is been there and done that. Luks partitions are not easily resized.
I hear don’t run random stuff from the internet alot but back when i was using windows, if i found something interesting on say github i would just download and run it and i expected windows defender to block any viruses. Is there something similar for linux? Like if I go around installing random Aur packages, is there anything stopping viruses from doing virus things?
Usually that’s called sandboxing. AUR packages do not have any, if you install random AUR packages without reading them, you run the risk of installing malware. Using Flatpaks from Flathub while keeping their permissions in check with a tool like Flatseal can help guard against this.
The main difference is that even with the AUR being completely user submitted content, they’re centralized repositories, unlike random websites. Malware on the AUR is significantly less common, though not impossible. Using packages that have a better reputation will avoid some malware, simply because other people have looked at the same package.
There is no good FOSS Linux antivirus (that also targets Linux). Clamav “is the closest”, though it won’t help much.