Privacy

48042 readers

564 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 6 years ago

MODERATORS

Laptop Hardening advice for Windows? (lemmy.today)

submitted 5 days ago by Ksk3829@lemmy.today to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

37 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Keep a super long story short, getting a Laptop from my University as the course starts in September, and the benefit I have applied for which covers my university course in the UK includes a Laptop.

They pay for the majority of the price.

Intel i5 10th generation or AMD Ryzen 5 4000 8 GB 512 SSD graphics Onboard

Onboard graphics Operating system Windows 10 64 Bit 10 64 Bit 2.8 kg

These are the minimum specs it will come with.

As a privacy consciousness individual, and since I will require the Laptop formy course at university, andpotentially a job, one day perhaps, I would like to make the laptop as privacy friendly and hardened as possible.

I want to basically make it a safe device. I need it to be not monitoring me, or watching me.

Potentinally there will be some sort of system or software that can monitor my activities through my.university orbenefitss people.

As it is for studying and for working, I think best to keep the same operating system (OS) Also I have only ever used windows in my life. Never Linux other than a virtual system on my host windows 11 pro edition PC.

My PC has an amd ryzen 55 000 CPU.

Thanks.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] ropatrick@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

You can usually boot from a USB stick as long a sit has enough space and you prepare it properly by writing the correct file to it.

For Mint you have to write the image file (called an ISO) to the USB, restart the machine, go into boot settinhs, choose "Boot from USB", and then away you go.

Further deets here: https://linuxmint-installation-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

[–] birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

I'm considering to dual boot an Intel Macbook, but first a legitimately stupid question: is the dual boot 'undoable'? I sound like a facebook mom right now I feel but I've never dual booted before, and I assume that if you assign the GBs of RAM to your Linux boot, and later want to remove the dual boot, you can reassign it fully?

eg:

Initially: 8 GB Macbook boot
Dual: 4 gb mac & 4 gb Linux distro
Later: 8 GB Macbook OR 8 GB Linux distro (ie., fully shifted to Linux).

is that possible? i assume it is...

[–] ropatrick@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

As far as I know, if you have a dual boot setup, when you choose what OS to go into, it will use the 8GB available. You dont have to split it 4/4. You're only using one OS at a time, so whichever you choose on booting up will use the 8GB you have.

Yes it is "undoable" as such. There won't be a button to undo it just like that, but there will be plenty guides out there I'm sure.

[–] birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Gotcha. And choosing this OS happens on every startup?

[–] ropatrick@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yes indeed.

[–] birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Thanks <3 I will try it out tonight for the first time then! I've never gone for Linux before and now I wanna try it. I think I'll start with Fedora or OpenSUSE, though I considered Arch, but that's not exactly beginner-friendly nor intermediate-ish, iirc.

[–] ropatrick@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

Ireland hopes it goes well for you. 🇮🇪