linux distro for cypto/bitcoin?

[cporro]

making my way over to linux finally (i hope). mostly being used for DAW, video in reaper, and web browser-ing.

will also use for some crypto so i though i'd ask about that. i feel (but don't know with absolute certainty) that moving from windows 7 (which is still running fine for me) will be a big leap up in security. and now i'm looking at different distros of linux mostly as related to audio/video production. but is there any significant security difference in distros? thoughts?

i have a trezor hardware wallet. don't expect to be trading much. and one idea that occurred to me is to run a live session (is that what it's called? ) off a usb drive, install the trezor software. buy sell etc. and then restart. pita but if you don't trade much. new to wallet and self custody so maybe being paranoid.

perhaps this is off topic. don't know. but the reaper community seems to be a smart bunch of independent thinkers so thought i'd throw it out. if there is a better place to post i'm open to suggestions. thx.

[Glennbo]

I always boot from a non-persistence Linux flash drive when signing onto sites where I want higher security than normal.

[s wave]

Agreed. Sometimes I 'sandbox' the program going out in the web.

[cporro]

good to hear i'm not the only one. : )

[elektrikkameleon]

I'm not super knowledgeable about crypto, but there's a couple things I'll share:

and one idea that occurred to me is to run a live session (is that what it's called? ) off a usb drive

It is usually called "live booting". You might find yourself wanting to create a "bootable usb" or "bootable media" after you have a "disk image" (.iso) of a bootable disk downloaded from your OS's website.

moving from windows 7 (which is still running fine for me) will be a big leap up in security. and now i'm looking at different distros of linux mostly as related to audio/video production. but is there any significant security difference in distros? thoughts?

Security in Linux is much much better than Windows, typically. There are not many malwares that target Linux systems (though in the last couple years it HAS happened on a broader scale than seen before). A lot of the same sanity-based rules still apply:
1. Take caution when downloading, and especially opening files. Linux itself might not have a vulnerability, but your outdated or open-source programs COULD have a vulnerability exploited by a malicious file.
2. Linux makes it so much easier to install things, for the most part, if it's in your package manager. However, it's up to you to use discretion for which packages you install, and personally auditing the code of any open-source programs that are very security-critical (like the Bitwarden password manager CLI helper I just found. You bet I read through all the code to make sure nothing looked fishy before letting it connect with my password vault.)
3. If you're going to leave your computer for an extended period of time, and don't plan on accessing it remotely, turn it off. It's better for you to be at your computer when it is attacked than only finding out (or never finding out) a week later.

Antivirus on Linux isn't really a big thing. There is https://www.clamav.net , but the vast majority of Linux users don't find AV to be necessary.

About different distros; security-wise, there are distros targeted for security. If you ever want to do something with the highest regard for privacy and security, download and live boot into Tails OS.

You seem to be a beginner, so Ubuntu is a popular option. The good thing about Ubuntu is that it's one of the largest and oldest userbases, so whenever you have a problem and google it, you should get lots of hits and relevant info. Ubuntu is a decent choice for getting comfortable with Linux. Ubuntu is a "Debian"-based distro. This is just the underlying OS, and Ubuntu does extra work and customization on top of that base.

Arch Linux is another popular, albeit more advanced base system. Manjaro Linux is kind of like the Ubuntu of the Arch world, so the same benefits apply. Personally, I'm a fan of Arch; I used Manjaro for a year or so, and after a couple hiccups with the project and their management, I decided to move on to another Arch distro: EndeavourOS. For you, I'd suggest sticking with Manjaro for the larger community and support. However, when googling issues, oftentimes any troubleshooting or fix info for an OS with the same base as yours (eg. Debian or Arch) should be mostly applicable to your situation as well.

One of the things that makes Arch special is the AUR (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_User_Repository). Basically, there are packages that are "officially" maintained that you can install. For anything that's not there, users can create what are essentially installation scripts (called PKGBUILDs) and publish them in the AUR. This vastly expands the amount of packages you can easily install from the command line, especially for more niche things. If something isn't there, you can contribute it yourself. There are security considerations for this, and diligent users are expected to know what they are installing, review the PKGBUILD file, and review the source code of the Git repository that the PKGBUILD specifies to clone. The AUR must be explicitly enabled though, and you can only install officially distributed packages if you wish.

The Arch Wiki (https://wiki.archlinux.org) is an awesome resource if you're on any Arch distro, and even if you aren't, there is still a ton of great info, tutorials, troubleshooting info, and overall system overview content to learn from on the wiki. If you want to learn more about a certain part of the system; the kernel, setting up networking, filesystems, etc. take a look there.

Whatever you choose, document everything you learn, all the steps you take to setup your system, problems that occur and how you resolve them, etc. (Obsidian.md is an awesome notetaking tool; you could essentially build your own personal wiki inside it). You will thank yourself endlessly later on, especially when you decide it's time to reinstall a new OS and you want to remember all the programs and utilities you used, config steps you needed to perform, and just generally understanding what is going on with Linux in your system.

A couple Linux music-production things to know: You can install various LV2 plugins through your package manager. I have quite a few installed from the AUR. Pipewire is the best linux audio server right now; it routes sound from hardware inputs, to programs, between programs, to outputs. It's very flexible, built for low-latency, and compatible with all programs built for the older audio servers (Pulseaudio and JACK). Basically, just make sure you are using Pipewire on your system.

I just recently started getting Reaper working on Linux. Make sure you follow all the steps here: https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=210390 . I missed a step (setting memlimits), and just figured it out after it was causing random crashes.

[cporro]

Originally Posted by elektrikkameleon

I'm not super knowledgeable about crypto, but there's a couple things I'll share:

thanks for the detailed response.

at this point i have tried a few distros. ubuntu, ubuntu studio, and AV Linux. i was initially attracted to AV Linux because of the curated programs. but on my hardware it was a fail several times to install. 8 year old i7 and board. even after a few days of googling and trial and error i gave up.

Ubuntu studio installed fine but when i researched peoples success with WINE i realized i would need to give up several big packages. I did try with no success. i think my izotope stuff was the worst.

So i ran back to mama, err papa gates. it didn't feel good but i could work again.

i am slowly working toward getting off some of my bigger software packages. for example i will not be purchasing anything from native instruments, spectrasonics, BFD, izotope if i can help it. experience has taught me that i don't like paying $500 for packages that i only use 3% of. not to mention the slowness and memory overhead. i like small plugins that load fast and just do what i need and sound cool to my ear.

upgrading my machine left me with what i think is a fully functional second machine. and not too shabby either. this will be my linux machine.

what i learned about linux is you don't want to jump ship unless you have a first ship that you can run back to. i do now. i also realize that hardware compatibility is a thing with linux. my video card on the best settings is flickery on linux and never an issue in windows. i also wonder about my newest build as it's a AMD on ASUS. i dunno.

for security... i boot into a utuntu usb for all my crypto activity. so maybe once a month and then i boot back into windows. it's a permanent install on usb with only one program (trezor) not included with install.

again, thanks for that reply. i am new to linux. i will probably reference it over time.

[elektrikkameleon]

Originally Posted by cporro

thanks for the detailed response.

at this point i have tried a few distros. ubuntu, ubuntu studio, and AV Linux. i was initially attracted to AV Linux because of the curated programs. but on my hardware it was a fail several times to install. 8 year old i7 and board. even after a few days of googling and trial and error i gave up.

Ubuntu studio installed fine but when i researched peoples success with WINE i realized i would need to give up several big packages. I did try with no success. i think my izotope stuff was the worst.

So i ran back to mama, err papa gates. it didn't feel good but i could work again.

i am slowly working toward getting off some of my bigger software packages. for example i will not be purchasing anything from native instruments, spectrasonics, BFD, izotope if i can help it. experience has taught me that i don't like paying $500 for packages that i only use 3% of. not to mention the slowness and memory overhead. i like small plugins that load fast and just do what i need and sound cool to my ear.

upgrading my machine left me with what i think is a fully functional second machine. and not too shabby either. this will be my linux machine.

what i learned about linux is you don't want to jump ship unless you have a first ship that you can run back to. i do now. i also realize that hardware compatibility is a thing with linux. my video card on the best settings is flickery on linux and never an issue in windows. i also wonder about my newest build as it's a AMD on ASUS. i dunno.

for security... i boot into a utuntu usb for all my crypto activity. so maybe once a month and then i boot back into windows. it's a permanent install on usb with only one program (trezor) not included with install.

again, thanks for that reply. i am new to linux. i will probably reference it over time.

Ah I can't believe I forgot to mention the music-specific distros but it's good you found those.

Linux is a lot to take in, and it will absolutely hamper your productivity for a little while. If you didn't know, you can install Linux alongside your Windows installation, instead of replacing it. This is called dual-booting, and you'll have the option to choose which OS to boot into when you turn the computer on. When you're ready to dip your toes back in, I would suggest doing that instead.

About the flickering, AMD has great support in Linux. There's no telling what drivers or settings you might've had set up by default in what you installed, but it probably wasn't ideal for your system. That sort of thing you'll find good info on in the ArchWiki, and it just takes a little bit of time or finding the right helpful person to get through those issues (and then you document it, like I mentioned before lol). It's usually just a matter finding the right couple commands or the right couple configuration files to edit.

If you were trying to solve the flickering issues, here are some search tips I would use:
- "screen flicker <distro name> <graphics card model or brand>
- "screen flicker <distro name> <name of active graphics driver>
If you don't know what one of the things is, then you search "show active graphics driver linux cli" to figure out which command to use to see it.
Also, definitely check ArchWiki for that sort of thing. You should probably be using the AMDGPU driver, and https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/AMDGPU has a good troubleshooting starting point.

It's a little hard to feel at home without all the basic plugins you tend to look for. I've been spending a lot of time lately finding and collecting good free LV2 plugins. The nice thing about that is there's a good bit of LV2 plugins that can be installed right through your package manager, meaning it's easy to install the same thing on all your machines. There's a ton of free and open-source LV2 plugins out there, and I've been sifting through to find some good ones. I'd recommend archiving the installers and any downloads for plugins you find and like, unless it's already in a package manager.

I also have a lot of free VST plugins, which are usable in Linux through Wine and yabridge (there are older VST bridges but this is the currently best one getting developed). I haven't gotten any of it sorted yet as I've focused on everything else first. But I think if I set things up and install things right, I can have all those plugins installed inside one Wine prefix, backup that prefix data, and simply copy that directory to other machines to have the whole setup reinstantiated. I've yet to see if it will work out the way I think it will.

But regardless, one of the best things about investing my time into this Linux-based setup is that I feel very secure in the future of it. I have the power of open-source at my side, more open plugin standards (Clap plugin format is coming out and I think lots of plugins will be ported to the new format), and it's a setup that will be easy to reproduce if I ever lose my computer, get a new one, switch to a laptop, or anything. That's a great feeling to have, but I still have some work to do.

After using Linux for a while, I stopped working on music production just because I couldn't convince myself to boot into Windows for Ableton, and the open-source DAWs like Ardour and LMMS just weren't sparking my motivation. It's hard to give up Ableton, but Reaper has given me hope to rebuild.

[s wave]

Why even think of having an all-in-one pc when involving crypto etc? Run a cheap driver PC made just for that imho. Pick a good secure SECURE distro...https://www.ubuntupit.com/most-secur...-and-security/ get rid of sleep and hibernate and turn off unplug when not in use. Best of luck...

[Amwer]

Congrats on making the switch to Linux! It's definitely a big step, but you'll find that it offers a lot of benefits, particularly in terms of security. With all the recent security breaches and concerns, moving away from Windows 7 is definitely a smart move.

When it comes to distros, there are some differences in terms of security features, but for the most part, any of the major distros will be secure enough for everyday use. That said, some distros are specifically designed with security in mind, such as Tails, which is focused on privacy and anonymity.

Regarding your Trezor wallet, running a live session off a USB drive is a great idea. It's definitely more secure than using an online wallet, and it allows you to keep your cryptocurrency safe and secure and follow info about crypto mixing It may be a bit of a pain to set up, but it's definitely worth it for the added security.

Overall, I think you're on the right track. Linux is a great choice for DAW and video production, and with a bit of setup, you can make it a very secure environment for your cryptocurrency activities. Good luck with your switch to Linux!

[krahosk]

Utlimately, there's Silverblue which is an immutable OS.
https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora-silverblue/
It think it's my next distro hop.

[Proadite]

Originally Posted by elektrikkameleon

I'm not super knowledgeable about crypto, but there's a couple things I'll share:

It is usually called "live booting". You might find yourself wanting to create a "bootable usb" or "bootable media" after you have a "disk image" (.iso) of a bootable disk downloaded from your OS's website.


Security in Linux is much much better than Windows, typically. There are not many malwares that target Linux systems (though in the last couple years it HAS happened on a broader scale than seen before). A lot of the same sanity-based rules still apply:
1. Take caution when downloading, and especially opening files. Linux itself might not have a vulnerability, but your outdated or open-source programs COULD have a vulnerability exploited by a malicious file.
2. Linux makes it so much easier to install things, for the most part, if it's in your package manager. However, it's up to you to use discretion for which packages you install, and personally auditing the code of any open-source programs that are very security-critical (like the Bitwarden password manager CLI helper I just found. You bet I read through all the code to make sure nothing looked fishy before letting it connect with my password vault.)
3. If you're going to leave your computer for an extended period of time, and don't plan on accessing it remotely, turn it off. It's better for you to be at your computer when it is attacked than only finding out (or never finding out) a week later.

Antivirus on Linux isn't really a big thing. There is https://www.clamav.net , but the vast majority of Linux users don't find AV to be necessary. Recently, I began to become more interested in cryptocurrency and decided to introduce it into my business as a means of payment by introducing cryptocurrency payment gateways. As a result, this had a number of advantages, as we received a lot of positive feedback from clients in terms of payment convenience, and also brought our payment business to a new level. Therefore, accept bitcoin payments on your website is the best solution for modern business.

About different distros; security-wise, there are distros targeted for security. If you ever want to do something with the highest regard for privacy and security, download and live boot into Tails OS.

You seem to be a beginner, so Ubuntu is a popular option. The good thing about Ubuntu is that it's one of the largest and oldest userbases, so whenever you have a problem and google it, you should get lots of hits and relevant info. Ubuntu is a decent choice for getting comfortable with Linux. Ubuntu is a "Debian"-based distro. This is just the underlying OS, and Ubuntu does extra work and customization on top of that base.

Arch Linux is another popular, albeit more advanced base system. Manjaro Linux is kind of like the Ubuntu of the Arch world, so the same benefits apply. Personally, I'm a fan of Arch; I used Manjaro for a year or so, and after a couple hiccups with the project and their management, I decided to move on to another Arch distro: EndeavourOS. For you, I'd suggest sticking with Manjaro for the larger community and support. However, when googling issues, oftentimes any troubleshooting or fix info for an OS with the same base as yours (eg. Debian or Arch) should be mostly applicable to your situation as well.

One of the things that makes Arch special is the AUR (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_User_Repository). Basically, there are packages that are "officially" maintained that you can install. For anything that's not there, users can create what are essentially installation scripts (called PKGBUILDs) and publish them in the AUR. This vastly expands the amount of packages you can easily install from the command line, especially for more niche things. If something isn't there, you can contribute it yourself. There are security considerations for this, and diligent users are expected to know what they are installing, review the PKGBUILD file, and review the source code of the Git repository that the PKGBUILD specifies to clone. The AUR must be explicitly enabled though, and you can only install officially distributed packages if you wish.

The Arch Wiki (https://wiki.archlinux.org) is an awesome resource if you're on any Arch distro, and even if you aren't, there is still a ton of great info, tutorials, troubleshooting info, and overall system overview content to learn from on the wiki. If you want to learn more about a certain part of the system; the kernel, setting up networking, filesystems, etc. take a look there.

Whatever you choose, document everything you learn, all the steps you take to setup your system, problems that occur and how you resolve them, etc. (Obsidian.md is an awesome notetaking tool; you could essentially build your own personal wiki inside it). You will thank yourself endlessly later on, especially when you decide it's time to reinstall a new OS and you want to remember all the programs and utilities you used, config steps you needed to perform, and just generally understanding what is going on with Linux in your system.

A couple Linux music-production things to know: You can install various LV2 plugins through your package manager. I have quite a few installed from the AUR. Pipewire is the best linux audio server right now; it routes sound from hardware inputs, to programs, between programs, to outputs. It's very flexible, built for low-latency, and compatible with all programs built for the older audio servers (Pulseaudio and JACK). Basically, just make sure you are using Pipewire on your system.

I just recently started getting Reaper working on Linux. Make sure you follow all the steps here: https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=210390 . I missed a step (setting memlimits), and just figured it out after it was causing random crashes.

It is a fantastic operating system with many benefits, especially in terms of security and customization. Regarding your question about security differences between Linux distributions, while Linux inherently offers stronger security features compared to Windows, some distributions may prioritize security even more. For example, Tails OS is known for its emphasis on privacy and security, making it a great choice if you have high security needs.

When it comes to choosing a Linux distribution, Ubuntu is often recommended for beginners due to its large user base and extensive documentation, making it easy to troubleshoot and search for solutions online. Arch Linux and its derivatives such as Manjaro and EndeavourOS offer more advanced capabilities, and Arch's AUR provides an extensive repository of user-contributed packages.

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