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Most distros are somewhat equal when it comes to privacy, anonymity and security; with the likes of Fedora and openSUSE known for taking it more seriously out of the box than the other 'big bois', while some smaller distros like Kicksecure are known for their best-in-class^[1]^ hardening that they offer by default.

As for NixOS, it's really its own thing (together with Guix), and thus very different from any other distros. If you conquer it, you would be delightfully met by a system that enables you to do things unheard of in other distros. However, the learning curve is very steep. And perhaps even hardening it to the level that Fedora or openSUSE provide by default might not be trivial.

1. Qubes OS is technically not a Linux distro. But it's worth mentioning as one generally tends to run Linux within a qube (read: VM), and in regards to security and privacy; Qubes OS is simply unmatched, period.

Thank you!

Not much to say regarding their first paragraph.

As for their second paragraph, perhaps they are rightfully sceptical regarding Privacy Guides. The body of topics they try to cover is substantial, though. And if TheAnonymouseJoker or whosoever disagrees with them, then they're free to challenge their views.

Privacy Guides isn't any kind of Gospel or whatsoever that you'd have to agree with in its entirety. I do believe, however, that they've done a tremendous job at offering a one-stop shop for those that are conscious regarding their security and privacy. Everyone is free to choose and pick whatever they like from there or not.

I would love to hear about other resources that do a similarly great job at providing at least decent information when it comes to security and privacy; FWIW thenewoil.org exists, however I don't recall any VPN overview/guide/recommendations from them.

https://consentomatic.au.dk/

Pop!_OS is definitely worth considering as it's one of the few distros that goes as far as providing a recovery partition and offers one of the best experiences for those with Nvidia GPUs. Furthermore, Pop!_OS' maintainers (read: System76) are actually financially incentivized to make their distro very polished and newbie-friendly as their distro is used on the hardware they sell.

On the flip side, Pop!_OS is currently in a major overhaul to replace GNOME with COSMIC; their own homebuilt Desktop Environment. As the Desktop Environment is arguably the most important contributor to how one experiences their Linux system, the eventual change might disrupt your workflow and you might even be too accustomed to GNOME to consider COSMIC at that point. The ongoing work on COSMIC has even meant that Pop!_OS has missed three major releases and are still clinging on their release from April 2022; thankfully it's based on Ubuntu's LTS (read: Long Term Support) release, so they aren't particularly in rush to get a new release out and can rely on Ubuntu for security updates.

Regardless, COSMIC's unsure future does leave a lot to be desired and does pose the question if perhaps other options should be considered more seriously instead.

Therefore, my personal recommendation would be either one of the following:

• If you just really like what you see from Pop!_OS, then just install its 22.04 release and you should be good until April 2027. As time goes on, you might be deprived from new developments and features; but at least updates etc will not be able to (potentially) corrupt/break your system in the meantime.
• Wait until April next year; when they're supposed to release a new version. If you like what you see and the update and the changes are well-received by the community, then consider installing that one instead. It should be supported for 5 years, which is plenty to not worry about your system in the mean time.
• Go look elsewhere. There are hundreds of actively maintained distros out there. While not all of them are worth considering, there are at least a dozen of them that are worthy contenders. In case you're interested to get the community's help in finding a distro, consider answering the following questions:
  • Do you use an Nvidia GPU?
  • How would you rate your tech savviness on other operating systems?
  • How eager are you to learn and/or invest time to use your Linux system?
  • Do you prefer to have up-to-date software at all times even if that means daily/weekly updates that might potentially break some functionality?
  • Security or convenience?
  • Opinionated or blank slate?

A shortlist of distros worth considering for a beginner (from easiest to hardest): Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Debian/Fedora/openSUSE and Arch.

Do you get like an error or something?

installing Chromium

This wouldn't sit well with most privacy conscious folk out there. Though, I can understand it from a security point of view. Especially, when one notices that Chromium isn't installed from Fedora's repos, but instead the RPM is built to offer a more up-to-date version that should provide improved security compared to the stable version.

removing Flatpak

Probs for the sake of disabling unprivileged user namespaces; as you might have correctly alluded to.

even software stores

I imagine for the sake of minimizing attack surface.

So how am I gonna install software now, layering?

The Nix package manager is installable on Fedora's atomic distros, so perhaps that route is worth exploring.

to my knowledge flatpaks are more secure than RPMs

To my knowledge, Flatpak's sandbox indeed isn't achievable by default with RPMs; unless one knows how to properly utilize SELinux to that effect.

a few commenters pointed out that the highest rated VPN providers in this table just happen to be the ones that advertise most aggressively and are well-known for buying positive reviews from tech blogs, which are pretty clearly designed to be misleading

Exactly. This is unfortunately common practice, so this breakdown can be dismissed as they're obviously biased due to monetary motivations.

Consider to read Privacy Guides' take on the matter instead.

(Perhaps personal) TL;DR would be that Mullvad VPN in combination with Mullvad Browser offers the most private internet browsing experience for people who don't desire to connect to the Tor Network. Furthermore, Proton offers a suite of privacy-friendly services for mail, drive, password manager etc. Therefore, for the sake of trusting the least amount of parties for these services (at the cost of putting all eggs in one basket), one might consider Proton VPN instead; additionally it includes a free tier and some support to port forwarding (read: allows the use of torrent applications).

Very interesting indeed! And thank you for raising awareness!

There's another similar project that's still WIP and that hasn't received a lot of development recently. Though, its maintainer does provide hardening scripts for Fedora's Atomic distros that are worth looking into. Hopefully, we might even expect a collaboration of sorts between these projects early next year 🤞.

I don't own any devices with an Nvidia GPU. Therefore, I can't share my own experiences but only the ones from the community. If my memory serves me right, it should work. However, as usual, expect some strange behavior at times. Thankfully, getting back to a working system shouldn't cause you any troubles on Jovian-NixOS. Nonetheless, it's something to keep in mind.

I’d definitely like to get some of the classic multiplayer games running on emulators as well.

Bazzite does allow easy install of EmuDeck and RetroDECK during first installation, which should cover most of your emulation needs. For completeness' sake; Batocera does exist. However, I'm not sure if it runs e.g. Steam games as good as Bazzite runs retro games.

to use as a media centre and multiplayer gaming system in my living room

Based on this, you're basically looking for the 'game console experience on your couch'. If that's the case, honestly you shouldn't look beyond^[1]^ Bazzite.

If, instead, you actually wanted to play retro games primarily, then please let us know.

1. While ChimeraOS and HoloISO also offer the 'game console experience', they don't support Nvidia GPUs. So you would be on your own at best; which would be a horrible experience for a new user. If you feel particularly adventurous, then Jovian-NixOS is actually another option. But arguably less newbie-friendly compared to Bazzite.