this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2023
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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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This is not how this works. The bits are never decrypted on your disk / partition. If that was the case, a power loss would leave your device decrypted as well, and that is something a potential attacker might have control over.
What actually happens is that encrypted data is read from disk by the CPU, decrypted by the CPU and then written to RAM unencrypted. Unencrypted data should NEVER be written to non-volatile memory (the necessary exceptions, like the boot image, apply).
Oh! That makes much more sense! Thanks!
Then I guess there is not much point in encrypting both the full disk and the home dir together then (if I trust gnome login screen cannot be by-passed), since the data is always encrypted when they are on the disk.
In a single user context where the only user is also the administrator, full disk encryption has no disadvantages to home directory encryption AFAIK.