Safety for desktop PC

printf

__Blank__ Fedora is perfect for beginners. Mint shouldn't be recommended.

Blank

printf why not ? What's wrong with the distro ?

gvprtskvni

printf Nobara is also worth mentioning. It's basically Fedora but optimised for gaming out of the box.

Xtreix

DeletedUser637 I use secureblue, the main developer is a GrapheneOS user and community member, keep in mind that the security architecture of desktop Linux is broadly and significantly lacking, so if security is your property, secureblue may not be the best choice and macOS (or hardened macOS) may be more appropriate, secureblue mainly targets Linux users who want to reduce the insecurity of the Linux desktop, I'm very happy with it and recommend you have a look, there's a Discord and Github to ask questions.

printf

Xtreix They don't have a matrix room?

Elgoog

Xtreix I have read that secureblue isn't quite ready for prime time. Are you finding any rough edges?

Xtreix

__Blank__ What's wrong with the distro ?

Debian based, I think, I don't recommend a Debian-based distribution either if you're concerned about security, this is a bad start.

Blank

Xtreix I don't understand why, could you explain please ? Since the stable branche of Debian is usually tested to be safer than other distro. No ?

Xtreix

printf Good question, I don't have an account on matrix and I honestly don't know, I don't see a matrix link on the official website.

printf

Xtreix Is there a reason why they chose discord? I cannot grasp this choice.

Xtreix

printf I think the question would be better ask to the developers of the project rather than to me as a simple user, GrapheneOS also has a Discord room, I think that one reason is that because Discord is widely used and easy to access, I've never used matrix, or not yet, so maybe it's also very easy to use, if you're wondering about privacy, well, for my part, I assume that the use of a social network, even by invitation, is not private by design, unless the service uses E2EE for private messages.

printf

Xtreix Agreed. Although, it would be rare for any social network to go out of their way to hunt down users on public matrix rooms. It's also more than just privacy. With matrix, there is more control and freedom.

Elgoog

__Blank__ Have a look at this: https://privsec.dev/posts/linux/choosing-your-desktop-linux-distribution/

Blank

Elgoog thanks

Xtreix

Elgoog I have read that secureblue isn't quite ready for prime time. Are you finding any rough edges?

Oh ? I wasn't aware of that statement. I use SecureBlue without any problems for work and gaming. Installation is very easy, it's very stable, and it runs like clockwork. In short, there can always be problems, but I haven't encountered any yet.

Note that there is one thing I did after installation, I enabled Xwayland with the command ujust toggle-xwayland, this reduces security, but otherwise some softwares I use doesn't work.

The only thing that caused me problems were VMs, but that's not specific to SecureBlue. I don't understand how to run VMs in immutable Linux distributions. I have Fedora KDE on a second SSD for VMs.

Shendai

I wouldn't be as concerned about Debian based distros as that article (https://privsec.dev/posts/linux/choosing-your-desktop-linux-distribution/) suggests.

They're not wrong, but I would still recommend Mint as the go-to default Linux distro for beginners. The ease of setup & use, the huge community that can help answer questions (for any Debian based distro), and the generally easier transition for Windows users are just some of the positives. Sure, there are better options, but try finding help when your rare Asus sound card in a gaming laptop doesn't work at all (had this happen) and you need to troubleshoot that.

My view is getting anyone off the Windows ecosystem, even if just to try Linux, is a net positive and the better experience they have initially, the more likely they are to branch out and explore more interesting distros like Arch.

LeslieFH

If you're mostly concerned about remote attacks and privacy, look at Whonix :-)

Psyonico

Xtreix I use SecureBlue without any problems for work and gaming.

Out of curiosity, without trying to derail this thread too much, do you happen to run an Nvidia GPU? Is it as straightforward to install the nivida drivers as standard Fedora?

Xtreix

Psyonico I use an AMD GPU but using an Nvidia GPU should not be a problem, when you download your image for installation, choose your desktop environment and then answer whether you use Nvidia or not. If you answer no, it means you use AMD; if you answer yes, you can choose between pre-Turing and Turing.

In fact, the installation method has improved a lot since the first time I installed Secureblue. Before, you first had to install a Fedora Atomic environment.

Lilac6044

Psyonico I use secureblue with nvidia GPU and it has been fine