Choosing Linux is encouraging a vision where consumers are not forced or trapped. It has a price though: there will be some well known softwares you won't be able to install. It is getting better nowadays, and, one of the ways to encourage companies to make Linux compatible software is by making it part of your workflow. The more people run it, the more developpers will consider making linux versions for their softwares.
Mint is a distribution (call it a “flavour”) made with the idea that it should work out of the box. It is also lightweight, and has a high compatibility rate with all the computers on the market.
I don't like their logo so I go through those extra steps :
Arc theme : https://pastebin.com/ndGcRJ3e
Icon pack https://github.com/PapirusDevelopmentTeam/papirus-icon-theme
I go to Appearance, select “Arc”, and under icons, “Papirus”. Then in Window Manager, select “Arc-Darker”.
I like to keep all my files constantly synced to the cloud, so if my computer is broken or lost, everything is backed up already. We could use dropbox or any other service, but you don't know what they do with your data. It is good pratice to encrypt anything you upload to the cloud, but we want something easy that isn't a hassle. It's kind of like before giving a letter to the postman, you put it inside an envelope. Not that you don't trust him, just good practice. As of today, i choosed :
Cloud : yandex.disk. 10GB free, rock solid and fast, no icon in tray, command line interface (CLI).
Encryption : Cryptkeeper using Encfs, super simple, discreet.
sudo apt install encfs
sudo apt install cryptkeeper
Run cryptkeeper, click on the tiny key in the tray, choose “New encrypted folder”, choose a name and where you want to install it. For this exemple I will call it “Nuage” and create it in /home/username/
to continue…
Download info : https://yandex.com/support/disk/cli-clients.html
If it looks daunting, just download the 64bits .deb version and install it.
Once installed, type : yandex-disk setup. Follow the instructions. They ask you to create an account, do it, and while you are there, delete everything they put inside.
Continue the setup. When it asks for the path to the Yandesk disk folder, in our case, we select the .Nuage_encfs created with cryptkeeper earlier. Would you like to start Yandesk disk on startup? Yes.
It's done! To test, click on the key in the tray and /home/username/Nuage. It's gonna ask for you phrase, type it, and your unencrypted folder appears as a mounted volume in your file browser. Drop a file in there, and observe the result on the yandex.disk web platform : it automatically uploads an encrypted version.
Basically I put all my personnal files, work, everything i want to be backed up in real time in case my computer gets lost or damaged. All you need to do now is everytime you turn on your computer you need to click on the key in the tray, select the path, and type your phrase, and you can start working.
You can optinnaly install a GUI https://github.com/slytomcat/yandex-disk-indicator/wiki/Yandex-disk-indicator
If you want to remove Yandex-disk, just go into Software manager to do so.
