Linux @lemmy.ml Pantherina @feddit.de 12 mo. ago

Which Desktop / Window Manager is most secure?

I use KDE. Some use GNOME. Most other options are probably to be left out as X11 is unsafe.

Cosmic is not nearly finished, but will probably be a bit safer, as its in rust, even though not tested.

Then there are window managers like Sway, Hyprland, waymonad, wayfire, etc.

RaspberryPi also has their own Wayland Desktop.

Is every Wayland Desktop / WM equally safe, what are other variables here like language, features, control over permissions, etc?

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46 comments

This is not a very good question. If you are concerned about security you need to think about what specifically you are trying to keep safe? Here are some examples of different security scenarios:

Do you want your computer to be safe when it is stolen?

Do you want to run lots of native apps from untrusted sources?

Do you want it to be used by many people and you don't want them to be able to steal each others secrets?

Each one of those questions has different means of securing the computer. With question 1, it is not so much a matter of desktop environment, rather it has more to do with using full-disk encryption, setting a boot password in UEFI, and always having your lock screen enabled.

With question 2, this is a much more difficult task and you would probably be better off running apps in a VM, or carefully crafting your "Security Enhanced" Linux profile -- or not using Linux at all, but using FreeBSD which allows you to run apps in jails.

With question 3, be more careful with filesystem permissions and access control lists, setup your sudoers file properly, and use a desktop environment with better security auditing like Gnome or KDE Plasma.
- Never heard of these jails, like bubblejail? Its available on Linux too.
  
  I know the question is vague and highly dependend on Threat model etc. Pre-enabled services, distribution adding stuff to it, SELinux confined user (not working with Plasma at all), xwayland support for keylogging chosen keys (Plasma).
  
  Also GTK is widely used for rust apps, this doesnt exist on Plasma at all, not a problem though as Plasma is not Gnome and simply supports GTK normally.
  
  I don't think the DE itself matters, but I can recommend using an immutable OS (makes it harder to install malware) and installing flatpak apps only. You can also use software like flatseal to further lock down permissions
  
  Already doing that :D kinoite-main from ublue
  
  Very good choice :D
  
  What Ublue does you trust them as Fedora? Just curious.
  
  I dont get that scentence
  
  I mean you should trust Ublue guys to install their image. Even if you trust, what exactly the difference? It I understand correctly they just change UI the way they see it cool, but I can do it myself, how I need.
  
  No that is bluefin, their special distro.
  
  Ublue is like rpmfusion but for image-based. Its the addition to fedora, with packages they can't ship. They replace all the libav* with complete ffmpeg which is pretty great as its a great tool and Firefox works ootb.
  
  For example they have -nvidia images for every image, which is the best way to use the proprietary NVIDIA drivers as you can roll back and a broken update simply wont ship to you.
  
  They also have modded kernel images for Razer, Surface and a special Framework image.
  
  Another cool project basing off their "starting point" toolkit to create custom images, is secureblue, a security-optimized Version including
  
  hardened kernel and hardened_malloc
  
  updated Chromium, maybe soon Brave
  
  soon a hardened Chromium (currently as COPR "vanadium") like GrapheneOS
  
  hardened services, firewall
  
  removed unused kernel modules
  
  It is very security focused though, so no Firefox, no Flatpak as its currently broken, Podman (distrobox, toolbox) is currently not working and its unclear if that is actually necessary, ...
  
  Bluefin is their fancy distro with lots of Tools, a custom Desktop, integrated Developer packages and more.
  
  Got it, some preconfigurations, which could be usefull or not. Like for some software to work properly I also layered ffmpeg, which required override remove lbav packages.
  
  For firefox AND video thumbnails and preview to work you can just add libavcodec-freeworld. But full ffmpeg is so much better.
  
  I'm starting to think people misunderstand what an "immutable" distro really does...
  
  Please do share with me what I do not understand.
  
  A mostly read only filesystem built from a limited number of packages, with other files being in a fixed number of locations mean it is harder for malware to hide.
  
  You can achieve the exact same thing with a normal distro if you mount /var and /boot separately of /. And if you get a root exploit it's just as harmful on either approach.
  
  "Immutable" systems are meant for maintainer comfort not for user security.
  
  No, you can't : in an immutable distro I can reasonably trace almost any file in the filesystem back to the package that created it, and know with a reasonable degree of certainty that the installed version of said file has not been tampered with. That isn't possible an a normal distro.
  
  Sure it is, has been for decades. You can use a read-only root partition, there are many tools to ensure the integrity of everything on it, and tracing files back to their package is a very old feature.

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