this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2024
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Tails like distro but not hyper focused on privacy and anonymity, rather general purpose. (discuss.tchncs.de)
submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by cy_narrator@discuss.tchncs.de to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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I understand the need for something like Tails OS and I am glad it exists. But I am looking for a distro that is not as hyper focused on extreme privacy and anonymity and is designed to be sort of like mobile computing.

I know many(if not all) distros can be live booted. I am also aware the likes of MX Linux and others leave unallocated space that can be formatted and used for this purpose but what I am looking for is this process being stream lined.

In Tails, there is a dedicated "Persistent Volumes Manager" app where you select what information you wish to put in your persistence storage. For example, you can choose to store your settings, installed apps, wifi passwords, app configuration, browser bookmarks and other useful stuff. Persistence storage is optionally encrypted to prevent sensitive data from being extracted from stolen flash drive.

When you boot up, you will be asked whether you wish to unlock persistence volume or not. If you agree, all your settings will be loaded into current live boot session, if not, it wont be.

The distro does not act or try to pretend like Tails but rather acts and feels like a standard linux distro, not hyper focused on anonymity, maximizing user convinience over privacy and security.

Essentially: When you boot, if you choose to use persistence storage by unlocking with password, etc, all your settings, installed app, etc get loaded from it. If you dont, the distro default is set.

When persistence folder is unlocked, there could be a Persistence folder in the live user's home directory where we can store files we wish to persist between reboot. Everything outside is non persistent.

If you have used Tails OS, its exactly that, except not hyper focused on anonymity and security requiring Tor to be running to access the network

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[–] HumanPerson@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

That is an interesting use case. If I have interpreted your post correctly, you want to boot from a flash drive into a generic default OS or a persistent and encrypted / password protected OS. Doing that on one operating system is quite difficult as far as I know. However, you could dual boot two Fedora installs on one drive (I chose it because it's what I use and I remember that you can set up encryption in the install. You could use whatever.). Basically, flash the installer to the drive you want to use, and to a second drive. Boot into the second drive and flash fedora onto the free space in the first drive, and enable encryption when prompted. The installer is a live boot (at least on the KDE spin) and will functions as the amnesic one. The other will be password protected and remember changes.

[–] breadsmasher@lemmy.world 22 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Are you just describing a live boot OS with persistent storage, or am I missing something?

https://www.howtogeek.com/14912/create-a-persistent-bootable-ubuntu-usb-flash-drive/

[–] cy_narrator@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That and making it easy to store settings, passwords, bookmarks, etc, almost how Tails does it

[–] breadsmasher@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

But thats what I seem to be misunderstanding- all of that is specifically the persistent storage?

[–] cy_narrator@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Yes, all of that is persistence storage.

When you boot, if you choose to use persistence storage by unlocking with password, etc, all your settings, installed app, etc get loaded from it. If you dont, the distro default is set.

If you have used Tails OS, its exactly that, except not hyper focused on anonymity and security requiring Tor to be running to access the network

[–] WhiteOakBayou@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I read through your post a few times and it seems like you want the option to use your Persistent storage or just use the stick as a default install live boot medium.

If so, have you thought about using any of the live usbs with persistence and just make multiple users. One where persistence is used and encrypted and one that does not have access to the Persistent partition?

[–] cy_narrator@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Sorry if my writing seems like scribbles, I am not a native English speaker.

Would that work? I will try, thanks

[–] WhiteOakBayou@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

I've never tried it but i don't see why not. Let us know what ends up working for you. Your English reads well to me.

[–] 0x0@programming.dev 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Whonix or Qubes OS?

[–] cy_narrator@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 week ago

Those are like sky and land difference than what I am looking for

[–] lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network 3 points 1 week ago

TinyCore does this, I think; by default files and applications go into session storage (cleared on logout), but they can be moved/writted to persistent storage. I have to say I digged it, and I wish the driver and application support was better (but then it wouldn't be so minimal)

[–] bbbhltz@beehaw.org 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Puppy and Porteux

I've only tried Puppy but PorteuX offers more DEs.

[–] bbbhltz@beehaw.org 1 points 1 week ago

Both of these offer persistence. With Puppy you can choose when you shutdown to save. I think PorteuX works the same way.

[–] sloppy_diffuser@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Soap boxing here but I feel these kinds of use cases is what NixOS is built for.

Declarative config to setup the system, users, and apps.

Declarative and customizable impermanence exactly how you want it.

I use Tails as well but NixOS is my daily driver. Anything not marked explicitly to persist is dropped each reboot. I'm the only user so I keep the last 30 days of non persisted data for like a power outage but that's something I had to go out of my to setup for my use case.

[–] cy_narrator@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yeah but is Nix OS going to provide easy to use persistence volume manager in its live mode?

[–] sloppy_diffuser@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago

No. Its all text file config. You wouldn't use live CD mode. You define your own how you want it to work.

Its a steep learning curve so if looking for off the shelf solutions, don't use nix. If you need something custom but through a single config paradigm, nix is awesome.

[–] DieserTypMatthias@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Any other Linux distribution that has a live image.

[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

They were specific in their post.