Great to hear you’re willing to move to Linux!

Like other comments pointed, there is no such thing as “most secure”. It’s a deep rabbit hole and it’s better in general to assume that any device connected to the internet is at risk. Hell, any storage can be compromised if the entity interested put enough effort into it.

I recommande reading the page on Privacy Guides, it gives a good overview. In general, you should consider your thread model: what is you situation and why do you want security or privacy for?

• Regarding security, I would say for a general case, any modern, popular Linux distro with full disk encryption is probably good enough and as secure as any other OS. I would recommande going with a Fedora Silverblue or an OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, but the more popular Ubuntu or Mint are great as well for new users.
• If you also want “good enough” privacy, you should focus more on the software you are running, and the situation of your data, especially in your usage of your web browser. But that’s a different topic entirely.
• If you actually want more advanced security though, that’s where it becomes difficult/fun. You need to consider what you are trying to protect yourself from, specifically. Virus? Maybe a compartmentized OS like Qubes might be a solution. Physical access to your device? You can get a dead man switch that kills you system disk if your laptop is taken away from you. You want to hide your OS install from a security inspection? You can set a deniable full disk encryption with a facade OS that protect your from a rubber hose attack. Probably many other things exist I am not aware of.

But anyway, if your question is “Is a Linux distro at least as secure as my previous Windows”, the answer is definitely YES imo. And if you want MOAR, it’s gonna be a fun ride!

[edit: and yes, updates! Update you system plz.]

“ It’ll be fixed in 1h. 30min if you leave the room.”

FIFY

NooooOOoooOooo

Sweet! It’s actually my main language. C mode is built-in so no concern on that side.

Some general advice:

• I leaned it way too late, but you can use M-x compile and then type your build command (make clean && make all) instead of using a terminal to compile your project.
• Try to learn a bit about Makefiles, it’s useful. Avoid cmake like plague.
• C is great for embedded, so you should look up TRAMP if that’s your use case; it basically removes the need for SSH-ing from a shell.

To have Emacs behave like an IDE:

• Install clang17 clang17-extra-tools bear on the host system.
• Configure eglot and company in your Emacs config:

(use-package eglot)
(add-hook 'c-mode-hook 'eglot-ensure)
(with-eval-after-load 'eglot
  (add-to-list 'eglot-server-programs
               '((c-mode c++-mode)
                 . ("clangd"))))

(use-package company)
(add-hook 'after-init-hook 'global-company-mode)

• Use the bear tool (ex. bear --config bear_config.json -- make all) to make the non-trivial project understandable by Emacs. Since it re-uses your Makefile, it even works for cross-compilation!

Good luck!

in only + / - bilions of years!

Sweet, I’m editing the OP. Thanks for the input!

no no McS. et al., PhD is mf actual family name. Trying a bit too hard to get a great academic career.

Best of both worlds

Shameless self-promotion

Emacs btw

Okay so here’s the thing: Emacs runs best on Linux and MacOS (allegedly, bc UNIX-like) but it is more difficult to make it do what you want on Windows (afaik, never tried this). You’ll probably need WSL.

So if you have to stick with Windows, I’d suggest to search specifically for configurations and advice from other people who have done this. It will give you a base for installing and probably running a custom configuration.

From there, that my point 2), you should focus on trying and making YOUR workflow to run in Emacs. I really suggest to focus on one thing at the time and configuring it until it works the way you want. Otherwise you’ll end up with many half-backed systems and that’s frustrating.

What is your main use-case then? Maybe I can give some more precise advice if I’m familiar with it!

Thanks! I just added spaces in the parentheses. It should work better now.

Interesting for sure, but I would not recommend going for most of these packages unless you are already very familiar with Emacs.

Here are the steps I would recommend if you find motivation to learn the editor:

1. Install it, learn the basic use and navigation
2. Focus on learning and configuring it for your main use-case (writing code in a specific language, taking notes, writing papers, playing Tetris, etc.). This might take a while.
3. Question life, re-try VSCode and get instantly grossed out.
4. ???
5. Try weird packages, moving most of you digital life inside Emacs.

Enjoy =)

ofc if you don’t want to edit code with Emacs, you can always run Vim in eshell in Emacs ! =P

or even (god forbid) running VSCode in Emacs in exwm mode

Personally, I’d rather use Python with matplotlib when I need to plot stuff, but Octave is great if you have to deal with Matlab code!

Only Baptists baptize

No, absolutely not. Baptism is arguably the most important sacrament for all christian churches! Where I’m from, the catholique baptism is typically done for babies by gently pouring water on their forehead. Ofc it’s less spectacular than the “full immersion” baptism by the Baptists (also used by the pentcotalists as well btw).

But anyway, none of that make sense to be done in a parking lot. Reading the other comments, I like the idea that the dude got suddenly touched by grace after eating a gross fish meal at Cracker Barrel!

Wtf does « gave my life to Christ » means in that situation? Did mf get baptized in the parking lot??

This.

In my experience, once you have the potential hardware compatibility issue fixed, it’s smooth sailing and simply a matter of getting used to the different tools on Linux!

What? How is this any « woke » even for the MAGA lunatics ??

[edit]: Apparently the company had a diversity / non-discrimination campaign in recent years. It explains.

Material UwU

I can’t even