Help making a Secure Undisclose Compact Kernel (Linux USB)

[Mr.Muffins]

An all-time Windows user, a curious soul I might say. The one wanting to make a big change in his life and be able to rest in peace without the feeling of insecure which is Windows. Please have patience with thy as I'm but an inexperienced young lad when it comes to all things Linux. That is why this project must succeed! Project S.U.C... (*cough cough*). Anyway, back to reality.

 

So, I have Windows 10 installed on my main SSD and I've been trying to install different distros in a USB with little to no success in getting my laptop to fully work (missing/broken/incompatible drivers).

I wanted a secure/private distro to keep my files locked in such a way that my great-great FBI grandfather or super nerdy cousin will have a really bad time breaking into. Also learned a couple-o'-things-o'-two (tried distros like; Qubes, Tails, Parrot, Whonix, etc.).

 

[More info about the laptop I use here.]

 

I started off with Linux Mint; Nice, elegant and compact. The easiest distro I've used. It was working fine after some hours of surfing the web. After rebooting, a black screen came up with a bunch of errors.

I couldn't get Ubuntu to boot at all. (Probably have to re-install on USB using RUFUS or UUSBI instead of etcher. GRUB problems maybe?)

 

All the other distros I've had to install had these similar errors/problems when trying to boot up from the main USB:

• amdgpu error dc number of connectors is zero
• amdgpu voltage value looks like a leakage ID
• failed to change power setting
• bug soft lockup cpu stuck
• f keys don't work
• touchpad doesn't work (touchscreen does though)

Things I've done:

• I have 2 USB flash drives (16GB for live & 128GB for OS) 
• I use fat32format (guiformat) & etcher to flash my distros.
• I've tried re-downloading & re-installing some distros 2-3 times
• amdgpu.dc=0 doesn't do anything

The only distro close enough to work was parrot, which I had to disable something called "ACPI". Made it to the desktop and everything, but my touchpad and dedicated graphics weren't working.

 

Should I just give up installing Linux? Should I try every distro even though is not the one I want? How much "security" am I sacrificing if I go with other non-security distros? Is it possible to just use the most compatible distro and make it more secure?

 

Thanks and sorry for the TL;DR. There could be muffins at the end of this tunnel.

[2FA]

If you're only worried about local access, then any distro with disk encryption is plenty of security.

 

I really find the idea of forcing all traffic through TOR, like Tails or Whonix does, to be terribly inconvenient (due to zero javascript and long load times) if you want a secure amount of hops let alone the fact that it only provides in-line privacy, because once it leaves the TOR network, it will still have a lot of your information if you want to use any online services. That and everyone knows you're using TOR. Qubes (which is not Linux btw) is a mix of strong local and online security due to a lot of sandboxing.

 

As for the problems, try using Rufus. Also, you're trying to install onto a second USB drive?

[Mr.Muffins]

@2FA

Thanks for the reply!

 

I understand your view on Tails and Whonix. (I though Qubes was Fedora-based, I guess I was wrong). I wish there was a distro that offers great security without sacrificing speed and compatibility. Is there anything out there similar to the Tor Browser?

 

Yeah, I install the live OS on the 16GB drive, I then boot it up from there and install it thru my second 128GB USB drive.

 

Also, how hard is it to make a distro? I've been reading some articles and I'm a little curious, how long will it take me to make one? (I heard javascript is a no-no when it comes to security, any alternatives?

[Mr.Muffins]

Installed Lubuntu 19.04

 

So far everything seems to be working except the graphics card. I've noticed while searching thru google, I found out that hybrid Intel/AMD graphics seems to have problems with Linux.

 

My computer has Intel HD Graphics 620/Radeon RX540. It seems to recognize that it belongs to the 500 series, but it stutters and I can see some screen tearing when scrolling up or down on the web. (The voltage and amdgpu errors still pop out from time to time when I turn the computer back on.)

 

Going to try PopOs later and see if it can solve the problem.

[Lukyp]

So sadly that configuration is very very rare and it's not totally supported, your best luck is to try Manjaro Linux or a development version of Ubuntu which has the latest kernel avaiable

[elsandosgrande]

Strange, I have never had any troubles when using Etcher. Anyway, I second that which @Chunchunmaru_ said. I do have one question though. Did you install vgaswitcheroo?

[SilverSoul]

Please be more specific, and only post what happens in a distro with a newer kernel. Also blacklist the AMDGPU kernel module for now with module_blacklist=amdgpu.