Predrag's Config of 2017

[Predrag Radjenovic]

Well, it finally happened. Got fed up with M$/Windows policy.. no, upda... no, sys... no, everything and went Linux as my main system, with existing Windows 10 in dual boot. Not wanting to type again here, I'll just paste a part of my post form Level1techs (Also a great community, btw):

Well, I finally stopped reading about this or that distro, and jumped into it by installing OpenSUSE Leap 42.2. I actually know nothing about Linux except what I read on different distros' websites, DE's, etc. I know I will still need my Windows system for the time being, but I want to see how much of it will remain in Windows. If I manage to get 90% of things working in Linux, I'll dump Windows for good. Why OpenSUSE?

• Main reasons: It's an rpm distro. I work a lot with 3D & vfx - Maya, Houdini, Foundry (Modo, Nuke) which all work on Linux. Maya's and Foundry's official supported distros are CentOS/RHEL, but I've read that it can be a pain to utilize properly (nvidia drivers etc.), and it uses way too old kernel, but, people say it's rock solid. Anyway, I thought OpenSUSE is as close to it as possible.
• It's one of the major distributions, stable (well, that's what people say, I actually have no idea, but being used as a server OS also, I tend to believe that) and well documented. It's unlikely to disappear any time soon.
• Versatile. OK, again, being a noob at Linux, I have no idea in what way it is versatile, but I'll go with it.
• I reckon it's a medium difficulty Linux to start with - Ubuntu is beginner friendly, and Arch is not for a beginner. I don't mind rolling up a sleeve and diving into it, but I'd like to avoid distro hopping. I have some trust issues with Ubuntu (I'm probably wrong, though), but I also read it's not that stable. Manjaro - read some good stuff, but felt safer with OpenSUSE, don't know why.

Full post HERE.

As stated above, I'm new to Linux, although I managed to set it up so far, and got a few of my programs up and running. Unfortunately, I still need my W10 system because of Adobe. Knowing that we'll not get any open source equivalent of Photoshop, Illustrator, Premier and AE, I'll have to keep using Windows for that. The ultimate goal is to do a HW GPU pass-through, so I can use W10 inside a VM for that... It'll have to wait, though, as I lack the knowledge to do that, and also because of nvidia driver issue. Nvm, it will do the job this way as well...

So, any security tips for Linux?

Thanks in advance,
Predrag

EDIT: Link to my old Security Configuration

 

[Cohen]

Nice and secure config as long as you make sure brain.exe is up-to-date and doesn't make bad decisions.

Linux is very secure by default. The biggest point of attack for most Linux users would probably have to do with the browser.
Five Things to Know About Linux Security

 

[Exterminator]

Very nice dual boot config! Thanks for sharing it with us

 

[JM Safe]

Good config, all layers are covered.

You are protected.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[Predrag Radjenovic]

Thanks everyone for great feedback. Brain.exe was doing fine so far lol (unless I'm dead tired from work, then I try hard to keep myself from touching a PC).
These couple of days with Linux - WOW! I really like how some things are handled:
- Mind blown: centrally managed updates for any part of the system, be it an app, plugin, kernel, browser, whatever. And you choose what you want updated (I keep GPU drivers from updating often)
- Mind blown: multiple clipboards where you can see, select and delete items.
- Mind blown: Pining - setting ANY windows/programs always on top (where have you been all my life!?)
- Mind blown: 20+ chrome tabs, 5 Firefox tabs, 5 dolphin windows, running updates = 1.5 GB RAM usage!!

I really like the font rendering, but only when I fixed an odd issue with it, though. And this amazes me, really - you find an issue, do some googling, find a someone with the same or similar issue and work it out directly in the system, which in windows was either: a) you live with it and wait for m$ or company X to release a fix, if ever; b) you install yet ANOTHER program to fix; c) you try to change/find an alternative for the entire problematic program; d) you'r screwed.

So far, I found a bunch of guides to harden the Linux, but man.... I put those to the side for now, and decided just to start learning Linux from the beginning. Found a decent tutorial on Udemy yesterday for a mere 10$ deal, so I will be doing that for an hour or two every day after work. I probably could do everything the guides say, but I'd have no idea why I was doing any of it. So, let the basics begin.

 

[Cohen]

@Predrag Radjenovic If you haven't already, you should take a look at Noto Fonts (fonts by Google); one problem I had with Manjaro Xfce was the default fonts not being very nice to look at, installed and set Noto Sans as the default font and the text on my system looks beautiful now.

 

[Predrag Radjenovic]

I just added a VPN to my config, although there is no field for it in the thread. I bought a NORD VPN 3 year licence for 99$ on Cyber Monday deal. Privacy- and security-wise it's, imo, only second to Mullvad VPN, but I never saw any deal for it. I chose this one after analysing a VPN chart HERE - a great site and a lot of useful data in one place, as well as HERE. So far speed is great - it's unnoticeable while surfing or downloading. I haven't tested P2P performance yet, but supposedly it's good...