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?
I don’t think security comes from your desktop
Your desktop handles Wayland, Xwayland, preinstalled apps, file management, some services and GUI integration, networking, Printing, Bluetooth, GPS (if available), cell data (if available)… so I would say it does in part come from the Desktop.
The Desktop is software which needs resources, gives access, reads and writes data,…
For example SELinux Confined Users break KDE, but not GNOME afaik
You really should press Ctrl+alt+f3 on your lock screen and get your mind blown.
i don’t really get what people mean when they say this…
when you get tty you still get no access, you need to log in as always. a DE/wm/any x11 session/a wayland session (even though wayland is more secure probs?) should pretty much always be less secure, as depending on what state it is in, what features it has, or what happens when certsin components crash somehow, you can more easily “hack” your way in that way than via doing a “ctrl+alt+F-key”. so i don’t get the whole “get tour mind blown” thing there, i have heard it multiple times.
or am i missing something?
Yeah you’re missing the point that the mind blown is just ironic.
The entire point here was to demonstrate that the “security” features of these DEs are not implemented by the DE but by the underlying components such as PAM, and you can just ignore the DE until you have the basics fixed.
What’s the point in having a super duper secure login screen if I can bypass it by booting from a USB stick for example.
reading your comments, you like to say that someone has “missed the point”.
well, my point is, you should not ignore the DE. i mean, you can, if you can bypass the login as is, sure. but from a user perspective, you should not ignore it, because the DE is a potential security risk. e.g. if your screen lock crashes and whatnot.
sure, yes indeed, your DE can be as secure as you want and it doesn’t matter if your underlying system is not secure. and yes indeed, with any non-encrypted drive, you can just mount the drives on another system (e.g. boot the computer from a USB drive). that almost goes without saying imo, and of course that’s why an encrypted drive is recommended.
the question is, how easy is it to get to the stuff with an encrypted drive when the system is booted and the encrypted drive(s) is (are) mounted? it is not that easy. and there, the quality of your screen lock setup is the biggest risk factor, usually. if you can crash your DE/WM somehow, if it is not setup right with your display manager or something, then you might be able to get into a login (and interactive) shell of that user (maybe because it is the parent process of your WM that you started with startx).
if you “allow” your potential attacker to reboot from a usb stick, then it is obvious that your DE doesn’t matter at all pretty much.
I think you missed the point. Switch the tty to realize your de is irrelevant in regards to security, because you don’t even need one…
Wait until you want to watch a video, look at a photo, play a game or view a PDF lol
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
I see you post a lot about security so I just wanted to chime in and say that maybe just use what works well for you because there’s nothing inherently safe, only stuff that is easier to break and stuff that takes more time. The only real way to be safe is to be prudent with what you download and what you do on the internet.
