Spending more time with Windows than expected

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bin
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Re: Spending more time with Windows than expected

Post by bin »

Great - thanks guys - just waiting for Monday to roll round for delivery!
wove
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Re: Spending more time with Windows than expected

Post by wove »

A question for a person familiar with Windows. Does Bitlocker encrypt an entire drive, or does it simply encrypt the C: drive? Specifically if you have a Windows partition and a Linux partition can you turn on and use Bitlocker in Windows without losing access to Linux?
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tlmiller
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Re: Spending more time with Windows than expected

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wove wrote: Thu Mar 11, 2021 1:41 am A question for a person familiar with Windows. Does Bitlocker encrypt an entire drive, or does it simply encrypt the C: drive? Specifically if you have a Windows partition and a Linux partition can you turn on and use Bitlocker in Windows without losing access to Linux?
No, bitlocker is much like LUKS, in that it encrypts the desired drives partition, not an entire device, so you can have multiple partitions on a drive and only the one that is used as c:\ will be encrypted if you choose to encrypt your C:\ drive.

I do like Bitlocker though, I wish there was a "turn-key" solution to using TPM for encryption on linux. While it can be done, currently it's kinda a PITA to set up.
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Re: Spending more time with Windows than expected

Post by wove »

Thanks for the answer. Bitlocker is easy and convenient to use. Maybe too easy since you can successfully use it without knowing how it works or what it is doing. I do use encryption on any device that I take out and about. Linux does fall short of making it easy to use. Overall Linux does very poorly with any biometric devices. You can log into most Linux distros with a fingerprint scanner, but the minute you get to the desktop you have to enter a password to open you keychain, not to mention enter it again and again to do anything administrative.
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tlmiller
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Re: Spending more time with Windows than expected

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wove wrote: Fri Mar 12, 2021 12:57 am Thanks for the answer. Bitlocker is easy and convenient to use. Maybe too easy since you can successfully use it without knowing how it works or what it is doing. I do use encryption on any device that I take out and about. Linux does fall short of making it easy to use. Overall Linux does very poorly with any biometric devices. You can log into most Linux distros with a fingerprint scanner, but the minute you get to the desktop you have to enter a password to open you keychain, not to mention enter it again and again to do anything administrative.
This is actually one of the things that's being worked on for KDE & Gnome to make easier and more functional. I think KDE 5.6 is CURRENTLY scheduled to have basically fully functional biometric ability, including the ability to unlock keyring (although Kwallet IMO is utter Garbage, but then so is Gnome-Keyring), unlock, and resume from low power states.
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Re: Spending more time with Windows than expected

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Bitlocker has a lot of issues ranging from minor to major and I no longer use it. Recent Win10 updates have caused severe issues for some users with Bitlocker.
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wove
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Re: Spending more time with Windows than expected

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I arrived at a point where I just will not use an OS for out of the house use that does include encryption. I am not at all familiar with Windows, but I have never had any problems with Bitlocker. There have been a couple times I am glad I had a copy of the drive encryption key. Apple's encryption has a key as well and they recommend that you save it. Linux as far as I know just has the password which you better make sure you remember.

Disk encryption feels like it should be like disk drivers, in that it should never be glitchy or have issues, and if it does it would be time to find a new system.
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Re: Spending more time with Windows than expected

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Even when Im out of the house most of the things I need to protect are on the Cloud. I dont carry anything on my laptop that would be available to anyone who gained access. Not only have I had encryption issues myself but a number of friends, family and clients have had issues recently. Thats one of the reasons I like Chrome OS so much when Im on the move as theres nothing there they can access and if they try Im notified.
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Re: Spending more time with Windows than expected

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Outside of work where Im using Feren OS Im in Win10 most of the time. Im still testing a few Linux distros but its amazing how fast my situation has changed and the influx of people who are wanting Win10 help. During the pandemic many were looking and did move to Linux but for some reason thats changed. Been spending way too much time helping family and friends with Win10 as well.
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Re: Spending more time with Windows than expected

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Lately Ive been socked in as Ive been doing installs for clients and for myself. It gets old when you end up doing so many installs and setups during a short period of time.
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