Redoing my netbook

[kunkmiester]

I'm looking at wiping my netbook at totally redoing it with linux, instead of the shared setup I have now.

I plan on getting it set up to do Tor and encrypted e-mail and bitcoin and all that stuff, with most of the security bells and whistles.  Challenge is I'm not quite that much of a computer nerd.

I was looking at a setup where the system boots up normally, with access to an innocuous unencrypted shell for normal people, but needs a trick of some kind to get it to call for the password to get to the encrypted side.  Might be a USB or something, I don't know.

One big issue I see is behavioral analysis, I'm not sure that just going dark suddenly would be that good of an idea.  So I'm looking at being able to do most of my normal stuff out in the open, while slowly working my way into the netherworld.  Not sure how all that would work out, but it'd be a start.  I don't know half of what I'm talking about anyway.

Not sure there's a distro setup to just throw everything under the blanket, but I would like to start with a good linux distro, and I can work from there.

[Seth King]

Linux is an excellent choice and any self-respecting anarchist should be using it, or dual boot with a partition for linux.

You've currently got Windows and there are only a couple reasons why I would suggest keeping a Windows partition. If you are a gamer you'll need Windows. If you are a student or your job requires that you use highly specific Windows only programs, then you'll need Windows.

If none of those apply to you, I would suggest backing up all of your important files, like documents, images, music, etc. and then installing Linux without keeping any of your old Windows garbage.

As far as Linux distros go, there are plenty to choose from and if you ask ten different Linux users which distro they use you'll likely get about 7 different answers with Ubuntu being the most popular. It is the one I use and I am very happy with it.

You want your system heavy duty on the safety scale. There is a slight learning curve with Linux, but nothing you can't handle. I wasn't a techie at all until I installed Linux. Then I started learning tons.

Read this article to get started. Good luck and feel free to ask any of your questions in the comment section of the article.

http://dailyanarchist.com/2012/02/20/full-disk-encryption-for-ubuntu-and-fedora/

[Mark Stoval]

... Not sure there's a distro setup to just throw everything under the blanket, but I would like to start with a good linux distro, and I can work from there.

The best site on Linux distros is here: http://distrowatch.com/

As a beginner, or just as a bloke who wants everything to "just work well" without hours of reading and searching I would recommend "Mint Linux".   (based on Debian and Ubuntu) I have taught that to children and grannies. (no really, it is that easy!)

See here: http://linuxmint.com/

By the way, if you set up a separate partition for the /home you can change distros easily if you don't like Mint. (but you will like it)

[kunkmiester]

Mint is actually the distro I have booting right now, beside windows.  I'm looking at Tor, but would also like the encryption.

The dual home folder setup is the trick I think.  That's a complicated one.

[Script]

Take a look at TrueCrypt for your encryption purposes.  You can use it to create encrypted "containers" (folders, essentially) or actual encrypted partitions.  You can use it create visible encrypted files or hidden encrypted files.  Also, you can take a look at PGP encryption for encrypting files and especially for use in emails. 

Basically I have:

Thunderbird + PGP encryption (email security)

TrueCrypt (encrypting sensitive files, partitions, thumb drives, etc.)

Tor (anonymous browsing)

I'm researching Privoxy as another layer of internet security.