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?
Yes. But you didn’t.
Knowing what something does is important.
If you install a piece of software expecting it to do something it actually doesn’t, that can leave a security gap.
I wasn’t just correcting you. I was making sure you knew that if you install a “firewall” it won’t do the thing you’re looking for.
As for an actual answer, most distros will already ask you to confirm if you try to run a random appimage you downloaded.
But you shouldn’t need to do that in the first place. On linux, there’s not really any need to go running random programs downloaded using your web browser, since you can just download software from trusted reposotories that aren’t going to host malware to begin with.
Unlike on windows… You don’t need to risk it in the first place.
Yeah the problem is that I understood the first time it was explained, no need to keep circling it over without answering the actual question I was asking about… what you quoted from my comment was just me clarifying what I was asking about, not clarifying my (lack of) knowledge about firewalls.
Thank you for the actual answer!
I do have occasional need to download random programs from random websites because of my hobbies and profession, the first case being Material Maker from itch.io - that one is clearly safe with all those reviews and the public git, but it is a random program from the internet nevertheless, and the reason why I was asking about the placing of programs that I download manually.
Material Maker is on Flathub, the AUR, and on Snapcraft (not up to date, but you shouldn’t use snap anyway).
No need for a manual install.
You’ll find a lot of software is available via package managers. Linux people don’t like installing anything without it being managed by a package manager so the installation and subsequent updates are automatic and occur alongside system updates. So when people find software they like, they’ll go out of their way to package and distribute it for others as well