Which linux operating system should they migrate to? Linux Mint is commonly recommended, but their support forums block tor. So if anyone wants to get tech support on that distro safely / anonymously, they cannot use tor to do that. What distro do you recommend that is not tails but is willing to support privacy-conscious users on their forums?
Also, looking at the tails documentation, it seems to say that you can boot tails on a usb drive or a virtual machine, but you cannot just run it on the computer like a normal operating system? Also, what is the difference between running tails in a virtual machine and running whonix in a virtual machine?
The fact that you can’t access the forum of Linux Mint from Tor isn’t a standard practice. Although many webmasters block access to Tor exit relays, the vast majority don’t.
Debian offers some of their main pages available as an onion service (make sure to use v3 links, since v2 is deprecated). Despite the forum not having its own onion access, it uses HTTPS, so you should be (almost) good to go.
My operating system of choice is openSUSE, it is VERY stable and has as many flavours as most users may need, they use openQA and BTRFS file system by default, allowing to take snapshots and rollback in case something goes wrong. They don’t have their own onion website as far as I know, but you can still access their clearnet websites from Tor. Furthermore, the community is very active and welcoming (as long as you comply with the Code of Conduct, which pretty much asks you to be nice and do your own research before asking). To sum up, it is a fool proof OS for those who have basic knowledge.
No, and that’s the expected behaviour, since Tails relies on maximum privacy and little-to-no fringerprinting, it is supposed to only be used on demand and not on a regular basis. Tails does NOT write on disks, therefore, no data is stored. Although you can set it up to have persistent storage, which uses the left storage as an encrypted partition, you choose to unlock it or not when the OS boots up.
They are different operating systems, each have their pros and cons but they share the same goal, privacy.
Linux Mint, like many of the Linux distros, have their own (unofficial?) community discussion areas for them on Reddit. For Linux Mint, try: /r/linuxmint - maybe not the best free support but it’s free. IMO it’s kind of a dick move to block Tor users from LM’s website and forums. But that’s their choice, so… They may still have an IRC channel up and going on one or two different networks which may or may not block Tor.
I loveDebian. You may access their mailing lists, separate forum, and IRC channel(s) with Tor.
Four other Reddit areas of discussion, Q&A, etc.:
/r/tails
/r/tor
/r/debian
/r/linuxquestions
Please be aware that even if you can visit support channels regardless of distros, some of the members here and there may not be so happy to help with Tor specific questions. I’m not saying you won’t receive help, but just be aware. Privacy questions? There are other sites for that. One example is /r/privacy on Reddit.
What I strongly recommend is IRC. IIRC, both the Debian and Tor projects are there, on the same network!
You mentioned, “Whonix.” I believe they have their own discussion forums on the web. They may even have a Reddit channel. IRC? IDK.
I hope this helps and may the bastings be with you!
The original post was a response to Richard on https://v236xhqtyullodhf26szyjepvkbv6iitrhjgrqj4avaoukebkk6n6syd.onion/t/tor-legacy-support-for-no-telemetry-winos-users/11879 . The context of that post is that we are talking about people who would be forced to become new linux users because of lack of support for windows xp / windows 7 / etc., both because of needing to use tor and in general. In that context, is debian suitable for beginners, like linux mint is? I was under the impression that debian was considered more suitable for intermediate/advanced users. Similarly, I do not know if openSUSE is beginner-friendly for someone who would be used to windows.
Unfortunately, since my response was split from that thread by a moderator, the context of the conversation is a bit lost.
Yes, openSUSE is easy to use and manage, it offers YaST as a friendly tool, you can see it similar to control panel in Windows but with a broader purpose. Furthermore, you can select KDE Plasma as the desktop environment (or the one you most like) during installation, which by default is conveniently similar to windows.
Turkey likes it. Yes he does!