[conspire] Linux has the encryption option, but ...

[Michael Paoli]

Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2018 18:10:48 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: [conspire] making a FlashDrive look like a CD
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Yes Linux has the?encryption option, but I think it covers the
Documents directory only. I used it only once, I got a little tire
of he constant log-in.

One can encrypt everything except the /boot filesystem, ... and the /boot
filesystem needn't reside on the same drive(s) as the encrypted content.

Heck, it's even possible to use (separate) hardware encryption on one's
/boot device ... but that would be a feature of the relevant hardware,
rather than at all Linux specific.

Now, that doesn't necessarily mean all Linux distributions support, or
easily support encrypting everything except /boot ... but some(/many)
make it relatively to quite easy. But some distributions may not offer
that, or what they do easily offer in the way of encryption is
more like "just" the user's HOME directory (e.g. Ubuntu ... though I think
Ubuntu also has options to do much more encryption ... but they may not
be nearly so readily available at install time with just a basic (near)
default installation.) With Ubuntu (and possibly others too), may need to
select "advanced" options, or use the alternative installer. Been several
years since I tried it on Ubuntu, but last I did, encrypting (most)
everything except /boot also had some minor bugs in the boot process ...
or maybe that was Fedora where I bumped into that?

In any case, encrypting most everything with Linux, is quite available,
and at least some, if not many, distributions, support that rather well.

Hints:
LUKS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Unified_Key_Setup
https://lists.balug.org/pipermail/balug-announce/2014-February/000219.html
https://www.archive.balug.org/2014/2014-02-18/luks.odp