An encrypted Linux system that include an unencrypted swap partition may experience all sorts of sensitive information that gets passed to swap that survives a reboot. Best practice is to encrypt the swap partition as well:
@cienmilojos If you are setting up a partition layout manually, its possible to skip encrypting the swap.
I'm not sure ... but I think Alpine Linux installer's default root encryption option creates an unencrypted swap? I'm be doing an Alpine install shortly and will double-check this.
As for even creating swap on systems with 16GB+ RAM ... There are instances where it might prove useful, its easy to disable later if not, and might be tricky to add later depending on existing partition layout.
@danielyrovas My personal experience and understanding is there is little impact on performance vs the very real compromise in security in leaving swap unencrypted.
Of course if your system is making constant, heavy use of swap that is another performance issue entirely.
I've never set up a wipe of swap on power off. That might be another option to consider.
When I decided to install #FreeBSD and stick with it for 30 days, I was motivated by simple curiosity and a question: After years of using Linux, what was this entire parallel *nix universe of BSDs?
FBSD has proven educational and a real treat to use and to continue using.
I've come to appreciate the history of Unix and how these wonderful tools came about, and the community that keeps it going. Thanks to many of YOU for your comments and encouragement.
Going to continue using FreeBSD as a server and maybe at some point on a VPS. I'm thinking I would like to move toward self-hosting my blog in the new year.
On the desktop? Not sure. FBSD has led to a first try at ZFS and second looks at Wayland + Sway. I think knowing the BSD way of doing things will help make me into a more capable Linux user. Might give Void Linux with its Root on ZFS option and non-systemd init another go.
After performing a few installs of FreeBSD, these are my personal notes of steps taken and choices made. A distilled, short and sweet version of Chapter 2 in the FreeBSD Handbook.
Hardware used is a Thinkpad T480s with 24GB RAM, 1TB SSD, and Intel integrated ethernet/wireless/gpu. Architecture is 'amd64'.
There is always more than one way to do it. This is mine. 🙂
I debated a bit about what size to make the dedicated swap partition (on Linux I skip it entirely ... using swap in RAM instead). I ended up with 8GB. Will see how it goes.
Are swapfiles and/or resizing ZFS partitions in FreeBSD a possibility?
Moving over to the Thinkpad T480s running FreeBSD 14.0, I have weird behaviour on the touchpad under Wayland + Sway where a 3-finger tap emulates a middle click correctly, but duplicates the action ... 3-finger tap on a link opens multiple tabs, trying to paste makes multiple copies.
Touchpad works as expected under X11.
Fortunately touchpad has dedicated left/middle/right click buttons which do work OK. Will dig into this a bit more later.
Swaylock has been intermittently - upon unlocking - displaying a "red screen of death" on both my Thinkpad and the attached monitor. No desktop. Its necessary to switch to a vconsole and kill sway to get rid of it.
Doing a bit of search I discovered: 1. Red screen is indicative that swaylock has crashed; 2. I've been using 'swaylock-effects' (i.e fancy version).
Un-installed and installed plain 'swaylock' in its place. Will see if it makes a difference.
@uma I've been making notes these past few weeks on my FreeBSD journey ... and I'm very much the beginner ... so there will definitely be some future 'getting started' posts. 🙂
As you know I'm perfectly happy running #VoidLinux as my daily as it's fantastic and I really love #xbps it's package manager. But just lately I keep getting these voices daring me to go purchase an AX210 WiFi card for my #ThinkPad P14s AMD Gen 1 as it has a Meditek card so it'll run #FreeBSD .
Yes you're going to say that I can't be that happy if I'm willing to take the plunge but I honestly am. Maybe it's just the unknown or even #FOMO ? 🤪
@JustineSmithies After installing Void Linux using BTRFS ... it was the Void documentation that introduced me to ZFS, and indirectly pointed me towards trying FreeBSD.
