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How do I encrypt my drives and get rid of Windows? (beehaw.org)
submitted 3 months ago by to c/linux@programming.dev
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A while ago I decided to get an extra m.2 drive and put Linux Mint on it to try and switch off Windows. I unplugged the original drive, plugged in the new one, put Mint on it, then put the old drive back in. This has allowed me to dual-boot. However, Ive since fully committed to the Linux drive and haven't used the Windows drive in a long time. How do I put Linux on both drives?

I would like to fully encrypt both drives since I dont think I did that when I installed Mint. I would also rather have the original drive as the main drive again because I think it's in a faster slot for the motherboard. Is there a way to make this change without a fresh install? I could probably backup most of my important data to a flash drive but I'd rather not. (I'm fully ok with losing everything on the Windows drive though).

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[–] [S] 3 points 3 months ago (6 children)

Thanks for all the info. The reason I didn't want to do a clean install wasnt because I didn't want to back things up. I just knew I would forget game saves or have program settings revert to default or whatever and spend the next couple weeks slowly running into small issues with my setup.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago

    Pull the current Linux drive. Install Linux with encryption to the current windows drive. Put the other drive back in, copy files and settings over, then wipe it.

    You could also use cryptsetup-reencrypt to encrypt the current Linux drive in place. I've done it, works great. But you should always have a backup of anything you can't afford to lose.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago (4 children)

    You're welcome, and yeah growing pains every time with a new install. But you do it a little better each time.

    One recommendation - when you do reinstall, don't use the default/automatic partitioning. Manually set up your /home directory as a separate partition from /root. This lets you reinstall the OS without having to touch your user files. When you reinstall again, all you have to do is select the existing /home partition to use as the new install's home (and make sure not to format it). This makes your install a lot more flexible, and your OS a lot more disposable.

    If you do manual partition configuration, don't forget to also create a /swap partition that is at least 1.5x the size of your RAM.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    Separating home is unnecessary these days with btrfs, Fedora for example will let you reinstall while preserving /home/.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (1 child)

    I generally feel more comfortable having /home as a separate partition. It makes editing my partitions with external tools like gparted very easy, and I can just wipe /root whenever I like without having to think too much about. Also, are we considering btrfs to be reliable now? Last time I looked at it, it was still in the prototype/unstable phase and I chose ZFS for my server instead.

    Another reason I keep /home separate is that I have systems with multiple Linux versions installed. Each has their own /root, and they share /boot, /swap and /home.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago*

    Also, are we considering btrfs to be reliable now?

    It's the default for fedora, ubuntu, opensuse, cachyos, so i'd say yes, or at least it's feature set is worth it's "unstability".

    Each has their own /root, and they share /boot, /swap and /home.

    This would work just fine with mount points on btrfs, probably not on a regular distro as you can't usually customize them like this, but on a terminal based install like arch? not a problem.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago

    Another benefit of a separate home you can keep is that a lot of linux-native programs store their preferences and other stuff in ~/.config or ~/.share, so you get the added bonus of not having to set these programs up again as well.

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