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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Smallest Security/Privacy Focused Distro Help? (self.linux)

submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by ErrantRoleplayer to c/[email protected]

29 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I've been doing some scouring and my search results are coming back confusing. Usually either incomplete information, or some kind of sales spam, so I'm reaching out in the hopes of recommendations for actual linux users and fans. I am looking for a very small, tiny even, security/privacy focused distro. I don't mind doing some work to set it up (though LFS may kill me!)

Here is what I have.

RAM: 2GB (yep. Seriously. None-upgradable).
HDD: 20GB (say 19GB)
Processor: Intel Celeron N3350 (2334Mhz average)
GPU (hah): Intel HD Graphics 500 (Integrated)

Wishlist

Graphical user interface (I appreciate it's going to be very basic)
Arch based (I love the AUR and pacman)
Base runs on less than 512MB of RAM, Arch Linux is a minimum of 512MB.

The software I plan to run on said device, so to give some kind of guidance of how much RAM we're working with.

Tor Expert and Tor Browser bundles or Mull.
Virtual machine (of some kind) with Whonix
MariaDB
RClone
VLC/Smplayer (which ever is smaller)
VPN client
Rustdesk (I can't find anything smaller than actually works)
ZSnes
SimpleX
Deluge (DelugeD with thin-client)
LibreOffice (until I can find a lighter alternative, but I need the BASIC capabilities).

Solution

https://lemmy.world/comment/10289862

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

If you want a secure system you need Wayland. X11 is extremely insecure, search on the internet and you find why.

But if you just need the VNC client no problem.

If you want a server, have a look at KRFB. But yes, needing static IPs suck. You could use a free DynDNS service like NoIP for that.

Trim down FF, like compile it yourself? That is for sure possible, you might want to use the ESR release to do that. You can leave out some things I suppose.

Just start with Alpine, which uses busybox and musl and is thus security focused and smaller.

Try a DE like LXQt, I will give it another go.

You can use it with X11 for now and replace the compositor in the future.

Some apps if you stick to just Qt (not that useful as Firefox will load in GTK stuff)

qBittorrent / Deluge
Haruna or Dragon
podman container with tor, try torvirt (and just skip the virt-manager profile stuff) (it seems unmaintained though)
SimpleX Appimage? Or instead of Alpine use Debian and then you can use the deb package but it was broken for me
Calligra instead of Libreoffice.

[–] ErrantRoleplayer 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Trim down is perhaps a strong work. I went in to heavily limit it's performance capabilities, limit the amount of cache it could hold, number of threads it could use and so on. I also stripped out a lot of bloat like pocket and other features that if they couldn't be removed I could turn them off.

AntiX uses IceWM which is much lighter than LXQt apparently. I haven't yet tried Alpine so can't compare the two. AntiX (64bit) barely uses 300MB RAM. AntiX by the way is based on Debian.

SimpleX now has a bin in the AUR, which I believe was made from a .deb file. Fk appimage and the horse it rode in on.

Does Calligra have BASIC capabilities?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Yes LXQt is simple the only light DE I know that will have Wayland support very soon. There are many others of course.

But you mentioned security, so that is that. Apart from an actual threat model which you didnt yet mention.

Compiling Firefox minimally vs just disabling it (like Librewolf does) is different.

Same with a custom Kernel with only the needed modules.

Forgot about BASIC, no idea never used it.