What have you considered or looked at already? Fedora, ubuntu, windows
In brief, tell us about your privacy threat model?
I’m an extremely paranoid person, but i need to make something work.
Every week i am switching os, even daily sometimes as of recent. I need help choosing one where i can game, but also have very good privacy & security. i am used to having different virtual machines for everything i do, but then i need to game. Is it safe to use windows as my host? i can harden it to the max and i follow a lot of the stuff provided by privacyguides, privacytools, anonymousplanet, michael bazzell and others.
I don’t know why but i can’t stop switching, it’s making me go insane. Please help me make up my mind i’ve been doing this for months.
I assume windows is my best option, i veracrypt it with a hidden partition, keepass files in a vult. vms for everything & they’re stored in vults.
You could use Debian upgraded with Kicksecure, it has a lot of security features, but it is not more complex than standard Debian.
It has hardened mallac similar to GrapheneOS, the kernel is hardened and has the added option to use runtime guard, apparmor is enabled by default, and it also has the option to run user applications in a sandbox.
I don’t use it for gaming, but you should be able to use Lutris to play Windows games.
I think privacy, security and convenience can not be found in one OS. Windows is secure and convenient, linux is private and somewhat secure.
For me, windows security comes from antivirus software. Linux cant compete here with windows (not talking about zero days).
Full disk encryption with bitlocker is more thn enough.
windows, ggole, apple are never good. never ok.
ever.
if you switch to linux distro you will have to forfit some game titels.
free info, more links then you can handle.
if you CAN buildKDE, then that is what you should use. 2 , 2tb ssd in raid, 1 5tb ssd for backup. raid 10,
you will never run out of space.
if you can not use kde (probobly on amd system)
then use mint linux (never use xfce with multiple monitors)
cinimen is the best
using steam for games is installing malishious software, but it is the ONLY basic aproach to gamin on linux.
they do all the work for you by a thing they call proton. run (some) microsoft games nativly on linux
use portmaster fire wall. use 3 diffrent web browsers (waterfox, firefox, librewolf)
with plugins (umatrix+noscript+ublockorigin)
use a vpn with .9.9.9.9 or the https://www.ivpn.net/ that henry just taught us all about.
this is beginner start.
even when u set up your machine fresh before you connect to internet you will have to search hard drive and sudo deleat google spybloat such as “goa” and other garbage.
welcome to the real world. keep your guard up and never take advice without learning it first.
not even from me.
no apple. no microsoft. no google. noamazon. no facebook.
Just depends on what you’re looking for. You can solely use Windows and attempt to reduce its privacy-invasive feature-set, and it’ll probably be overall the easiest & most convenient option with everything in a single place.
I’m not familiar with gaming on Linux (or just in general) so I can’t add much perspective there, though I do know a lot of gamers who dual-boot Linux x Windows, and if that’s an option for you - I personally would gravitate towards Fedora x Windows dual boot. The nice thing about this is I assume as Linux gaming improves, it’s easy to slowly transition to only use Linux as time goes on. You can over time reduce your reliance on Windows.
Try not to overthink it, I’d personally stick with more established players for the best chance of using something that’ll be consistent and still be around in 3+ years. Personally a big fan of Fedora, and from there it’s just finding a config that works with your needs. There’s no perfect OS for you that will solve all of your issues at this moment
You hear a lot of stripped down windows systems which once you strip them down to a relative safe system they are broke.
I just made a post asking about Tiny 11 a stripped down Win11 sys. It does not work with some windows Xbox games.
When I try to imagine a gaming rig for myself, I would look at hardware that would meet most gaming needs. In USD I am talking $500 to $1000. I understand that can be a huge investment, but for non gaming a $200 computer meets my needs.
I’m suggesting hardware isolate your gaming and build a system that works for that want. With your experience you might be able to use a virtual machine for the rest of your activities.
Thank you everyone for the opinions, i’m gonna do a lot of work on this later.
For now i am wanting to setup my laptop with windows + hidden os, does anyone have a good guide on that? I tried to follow some but got very confused, i made 2 partitions with one having 100gb and the other having 1.6Tb when i tried to use hidden it was greyed out, let me know thanks
Dual booting Windows and Linux can be a challenge even without the special partitions. Do you have any reason to use a hidden os? It may sound like a cool idea, but generally speaking, it’s beyond most threat models and don’t actually provide that much benefit, anyway. I could be wrong, but I recall reading that there are ways to discover the presence of hidden partitions (not what’s on them).
Judging by the original post, you may want to go back to your threat model if you’ve thought about it before. I also sometimes feel a little paranoid or crazy about what options are the ones I should be using, so I think back on what I’m actually trying to protect against. It reminds me that for the most part I’m doing more than enough to regain privacy and be reasonably secure.
For the OSes you mentioned, all three are fine depending on your threat model. If you land on Windows, harden it to the best of your ability and let it ride. Same for Fedora or Ubuntu (though my preference would be Fedora). It’s not like you’re choosing between dramatically insecure options.
from my experiance you absolutly HAVE to use seperate hard dives. install w!nd0w$ on your first. UNPLUG THAT DRIVE. plug in your second drive & install it using your flavor of linux. kde for function, mint cinamin for usability. after you have both drives installed @ boot you chose wich h.d. you want by using f-11 to chose your boot device.
this is easy if your laptop has multiple m.2 slots, or one sata slot and 1 m.2 slot.
just do NOT break the screw holding the m.2
that is bad. trust me.
