I finally bit the bullet and I’m giving Linux a second try, installed with dual boot a few days ago and making Linux Mint my default from now on.

There are a lot of guides and tips about the before and during the transition but not for after, so I was hoping to find some here.

Some example questions but I would like to hear any other things that come to mind:

I read that with Mint if you have a decent computer you don’t need to do a swap partition? So I skipped that, but I’m not sure if I’d want to modify that swap file to make it bigger, is that just for giving extra ram if my hardware one is full? Because I have 48GB of ram and if I look into my System Monitor it says Swap is not available.

Was looking at this other post, and the article shared (about Linux security) seems so daunting, it’s a lot. How much of it do I have to learn as a casual user that’s not interested in meddling with the system much? Is the default firewall good enough to protect me from my own self to at least some degree? I was fine with just Windows Defender and not being too stupid about what I download and what links I click.

I was also reading about how where you install your programs or save your data matters, like in particular partitions or folders, is that just like hardcore min-maxing that’s unnecessary for the average user that doesn’t care to wait half a second extra or is it actually relevant? I’m just putting stuff in my Home folder.

Connected to the last two points: in that Linux Hardening Guide lemmy post I shared the TL;DR includes “Move as much activity outside the core maximum privilege OS as possible”… how do I do that? is that why people have separate partitions?

Downloaded the App Center (Snap Store) and I was surprised there was even a file saying to not allow it… why is that? Is it not recommended? Is it better to download stuff directly from their websites instead?

  • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
    14·
    14 hours ago

    Almost everything you do on desktop linux is already “outside the core os”.

    This is mostly relevant for server software configuration, where you should run services with as few system privileges as possible. Preferably you isolate them entirely with a separate user with access to only the bare minimum it needs.

    This way, if a service is compromised, it can’t be used to access the core system, because it never had such access in the first place. Only what it needed to do its own thing.

    By default, nothing you run (web browser, steam, spotify, whatever) should be “running as admin”.

    The only time you’ll do that on desktop linux, is when doing stuff that requires it. Such as installing a new app, or updating the system. Stuff that modifies the core os and hence needs access.

    Basically, unless you needed to enter you password to run something, then it’s already “outside” the core os.