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Does anybody have a solution on how I can run Linux (Mint) alongside Truecrypt which needs to be encrypted by truecrypt?

Ideally though I would like both operating systems encrypted by Truecrypt, but that isn't possible as Truecrypt is lacking in these kind of features. And unfortunately the devs legged it away from their software.

Anyways...

Last comment at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1869028 suggests running Linux alongside an encrypted Windows partition is possible.

user138072
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  • Linux has built-in encryption that is way better than dead truecrypt, so basicly you install any linux distro you want and check the full disk encryption checkbox somewhere in the installer. Ubuntu has one, so have most of noobish distros. – cylgalad Oct 12 '15 at 09:09
  • The whole OS encryption is only available when you are installing from scratch and formatting your drive from what I have observed so far. – user138072 Oct 12 '15 at 14:09
  • And what's wrong with that? It's the other way used in windows (both TC and BL) that's wrong. – cylgalad Oct 13 '15 at 08:42
  • Because I can't encrypt Linux if I am dual booting. I can only encrypt Linux if I am formatting the drive first and removing Windows, which I don't want. – user138072 Oct 13 '15 at 14:19
  • I understand what you mean - that by installing Windows first and then encrypting, that the encryption can be cracked by looking at the files that were there before. But that is not what I am referring to. And frankly, as great and open source it is, I trust Truecrypt more than Linuxs' built in encryption. Again, as far as I am aware, it is the only encryption software that hasn't been cracked by even surveillance agencies and doesn't have backdoors. Unless you know something I am not aware of or am overlooking? Cheers – user138072 Oct 13 '15 at 14:20
  • POINT BEING How do I encrypt Linux if I am not formatting the drive first? – user138072 Oct 13 '15 at 14:21
  • You're not very clear. Cryptsetup (which is able to mount TC containers) is way better than Truecrypt. If you want an encrypted Linux, you have to reinstall to an encrypted partition. Encrypting after installation is a waste of time anyway. Truecrypt is dead, has lots of flaws, cryptsetup has no backdoors and hasn't been cracked by the NSA and unlike TC it's fully opensource GPL'd free software. – cylgalad Oct 14 '15 at 09:11
  • Reference: ArchLinux wiki Encrypting an entire system, the "LVM on LUKS" is the usual way. – cylgalad Oct 14 '15 at 09:14
  • I have looked into native encryption in Linux and I can say I trust it now. My only hurdle now is actually managing to encrypt Linux. First though I must get used to the terminal based dm-crypt/cryptsetup.

    Unfortunately there are no clear tutorials I have found on cryptsetup and how to use it. I have spent weeks researching and am still stuck. Granted, most of the time I was ill.

    Anyways, does anyone know of a decent tutorial on how to use CryptSetup via terminal?

     – user138072 Dec 01 '15 at 01:54
  • For now I am and have time to just get used to dm-crypt; I just need a tutorial which explains how to use cryptsetup or more specifically, how the commands are structured. – user138072 Dec 01 '15 at 01:55
  • On major distributions you just have to check a checkbox in the installer to have full disk encryption for the system (including swap). I still don't understand what you find so complicated in cryptsetup. And if you need non-system encryption you use cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/... to prepare the device/partition/whatever and set up your main passphrase, then cryptsetup open /dev/... mappername to "open" it and then you can create an actual usable filesystem. – cylgalad Dec 01 '15 at 09:15

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