I actually really like GNOME and haven’t had problems yet with extensions. I have it the way I like it, and no matter what I do, I haven’t found features that are half-implemented or broken like on KDE (eg. theme search missing/hiding 90% of themes, desktop effects broken after install, weird crashes, freezing when accessing system apps or app menu). I think Qt is ugly (personal preference) and I prefer libadwaita GTK4 apps for their stability. People are going to hate, but there is no such thing as a perfect project that fits everyone’s needs. I am not saying GNOME is perfect or that it isnt opinionated (i wish app status indicators were supported, ability to modify Flatpak app permission in the system settings, and support for dock/panel), but GNOME is solid and (dare I say it) is a good DE.

Btw I love KDE and it is the DE i am currently using. I also love GNOME. There aren’t really any DEs I hate except maybe Deepin. Any DE that doesn’t support Wayland (or doesn’t plan on it) is not something thst I ever plan on using because security and stability are BIG requirements for me, I don’t like technical debt or legacy cruft.

As I mentioned, most security vulnerabilities are not reported because it may not seem security related. The distro maintainers can’t keep up with every package and read all the commits, so as a result security fixes often go unfocused. It is a real big problem that many security researchers acknowledged.

I still would never recommend a “stable release” or LTS distro because the vast majority of security vulnerabilities never receive a CVE, and as a result the a large amount of vulnerabilities go unpatched for months. Also I like distros that take security seriously (Fedora and openSUSE).

Only game I played on Linux before Proton was Minecraft Java (cracked) for Ubuntu in like 2014.

It has to do with LTS kernel (iirc) making it incompatible with certain new(er) hardware. I recommend Fedora KDE.

Why is it better? KDE has more features and first-class Wayland support. If I wanted an X11 DE, I would choose XFCE because of its general clean code and performance.

Redox is UNIX-like, not a BSD flavor. The kernel, init, userland, etc. aren’t BSD related.

Sound like exactly what I have been wanting, though i will never use this fork for something so small and without a Flatpak.

Then that could be used to fingerprint too.

You don’t have to sandbox he browser with Bubblejail if you don’t want. I was only suggesting it and providing instructions in case you wanted an extra layer of isolation.

The browser can’t create unprivileged namespaces because Flatpak blocks access to namespace creation. This DOES interfere with an important method of sandboxing used by browsers on Linux. It makes site isolation weaker, which could allow an attacker from a malicious site to steal information from any open tab, or possibly escape the sandbox. Browser sandboxes are multilayered for a reason, one less layer makes exploitation exponential easier. The Firefox Flatpak is official, but that doesn’t mean it is safe. Flatpak sandboxing is substantially less strong than a browser’s isolation strategy This because Flatpak is a general purpose sandbox mostly meant for making distribution of software easy by providing an identical environment across all Linux distros, not for rigid security. Browser’s provide a more fine grained sandbox that is designed around the threat model that the website is compromised/malicious and is attempting to hack you, since websites are effectively just apps. Don’t use Flatpak’d browsers at all, or the very least not as your default.

Dont install browsers as Flatpaks, very bad for security. Flatpaks use Bubblewrap, but that isnt the reason they degrade browser security. Bubblejail is an app that makes sandboxing with Bubblewrap easy and didn’t integer with the browser’s own sandbox (unlike Flatpak). I don’t know if Firefox supports hardened_malloc now.

To use Firefox, you need to use ujust with-standard-malloc firefox (or something like that). It also needs user namespaces (same with Mullvad VPN/Browser), run ujust set-unconfined-userns on

Follow these steps to make Firefox run with standard malloc:

For Firefox with no sandboxing …

• cp /usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/firefox.desktop
• Edit the newly created file so any line that starts with Exec=firefox to Exec=ujust with-standard-malloc firefox

For Firefox with Bubblejail, assuming you have already created a profile named Firefox and generated the desktop entry. Edit the file ~/.local/share/bubblejail/instances/Firefox/services.toml and add the following snippet:

[debug]
raw_bwrap_args = [
    "--ro-bind",
    "/dev/null",
    "/etc/ld.so.preload",
    ]

I recommend Secureblue.

To install Firefox on Secureblue, run rpm-ostree install firefox To install Mullvad VPN, run ujust install-vpn, select Mullvad, wait for it to complete, and run rpm-ostree install mullvad-browser

For browsers, you obviously are going to install Mullvad and Firefox, but no need to install a Blink-based browser because it comes with Trivalent (significantly security hardened Chromium). Since Trivalent only supports MV3 you will need uBl Lite and NoScript supports MV3.

I recommend sandboxing your browsers (except Trivalent) using Bubblejail. For Mullvad/Firefox, create a Bubblejail instance using the config app, create a profile, give it access to Wayland, PulseAudio (sound), Pipewire (screenshare), and use slirp4netns, then run bubblejail generate-desktop-entry INSTANCE_NAME --desktop-entry /usr/share/applications/INSTANCE_NAME.desktop. I recommend adding access to ~/Downloads for the browsers.

Consult the FAQ for more tips/tricks and security toggles. Also use the ujust command line utility to configure the system.

Personally my favorite distros that I tried this year are the following:

General:

• Secureblue
• openSUSE Slowroll
• Fedora Workstation

Gaming:

• PikaOS
• CachyOS
• Nobara

I am willing to elaborate on my choices.

I have been liking CachyOS as well. I reluctantly switched from Fedora after I kept getting weird problems (definitely a “my PC” thing, I wish I could upgrade).

Features I like about Cachy:

• Auto-setup of snapper btrfs snapshoting (my fav feature of openSUSE) on all bootloaders (I like the simplicity of limine)
• Gaming ready fork of kernel-hardened, with some changes, including allowing use of unprivileged namespaces (needed by Bubblewrap/Flatpak/Firefox/Chromium to avoid the need of a SUID binary)
• AUR (cus it is Arch)
• Update service which updates from all installed sources (pacman, Flatpak, AUR)

What I wish was different:

• Inclusion of a full system Mandatory Access Control policy (SELinux preferably)
• Compatibility with hardened_malloc (idk why but on Cachy, GTK apps crash because glycin bubblwrap commands fail)

The point of my comment wasn’t that OP was in “real danger” if they showed local IPs, just that it doesn’t hurt to censor them. Never give more information than necessary. I censor usernames and filepaths on any screenshots of the terminal, even though if an actor has the kind of access to utilize that information I am probably already fucked. I think it is good practice to always scrutinize the information you give out willingly.

Just block ICMP lol /s

And I dont like GNU even more than systemd lol.

I was taught in my IT Sec classes to avoid sharing any unnecessary information. Information on private IPs can be used to better understand your network, allowing a threat actor to better navigate your network without needing to do ip scans (which are very obvious and should trigger even basic detection). While it is most likely pointless (since OP probably isnt at risk of targeted attacks), it is still good opsec.