it’s a fork of another FSF distro And is based on debian but apart from only having free, open software and in the situation of not having a purism device like their laptops which integrate well with the OS, what features does it bring when I install the OS to a random computer? What is so specifically great and unique with it not just from privacy abd security perspective but as a general OS as well?
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Nothing really, pureos was forked with the only goal in mind - privacy and security (and RYF certification as confirmation of the goal achieved). The only other thing which differs it from any other OS stripped of non-free blobs is - it is verified to be working with each consequent release. That is - you can technically write a script which will strip any OS from non-free blobs however you then need to ensure you don’t break dependencies by doing that and after all dependencies are resolved - that it actually runs (boot vector, services, apps). So they just do it for you. If you consider it as non-essential feature (either because you prefer to strip OS yourself or because you don’t want to strip it at all) you can just skip it and go for your favourite distro.
P.S. this is oversimplified of course as they also modified some initialisation vectors, defaults and whatnot to make sure default state respects your freedom - but again this for me is part of standard routine after installation so maybe similar for you.
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I expect so. There’s probably a blog post somewhere that provides more detail.
It is paired with hardware where someone else takes the responsibility of making the combination of hardware and software (and BIOS) work. Of course you are free to mix and match Debian or any other Linux distro but maybe the result doesn’t work. We have seen enough people trying to boot PureOS on randomly chosen hardware and/or people trying to boot randomly chosen distros on Librem hardware, and of course running into weird errors and not knowing how to fix them.
Longer term I expect a trusted boot path involving the Librem Key. Of course you can do the work yourself, and maybe you succeed and maybe you don’t.
Well first of all Pure OS is a great operating system and Purism has made a wonderful community.
Is PureOS great os yes, does it work well on PC and Mobile yes, I tried it on the pinephone and Librem phone, works great on both. is it private oriented yes but not 100% and not sure you can get 100% privacy as much as you can get 100% security, users when they hear security and privacy expect it 100% and that is un real, especially when more them 90% of homes use out of support routers that have not been updated for years if ever, so the reality and expectation of users is a serious problem in general with new Linux users.
But I have few suggestions that might help improve it PureOS especially about the most important part the browser. when I tested the desktop verion around 2019 over 1 year ago, the PureBrowser (I believe it is a firefox mozilla fork or Gnome browser fork) had not extra plugins or services installed to insure security like https everywhere https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/https-everywhere/ no ad blocker or web of trust mywot.com, also Google is the default search engine (Google is a great company and supports open source, but their are other more privacy oriented search engines, also history in the browser is set to remember forever. and the website where you download PureOS, the screenshot has a duckduckgo search engine open in the browser. funny right? The Site Claimed: in the section Privacy and Security: “PureOS helps you surf the web safely, without being tracked by advertisers or marketers”, I hope it is removed from the site cause it is untrue and no RYF certificate can convince me of it.
https://archive.org/details/pureos-8.0-gnome-live_20190210-amd64 it claims DuckDuckGo and HTTPS, but in fact Google is set as default search engine.
“PureOS allows you to easily encrypt your whole operating system and data, with your own encryption keys, whether you download and install it yourself or receive it preloaded.” this is allowed by all Linux as far as I know, if you really want extra security implement ZFS (BSD file system, works under latets ubuntu or debian) it is far more secure and redundant and the encryption is better then EXT4, or many people have new encryption tools, I have worked on a project that encrypts the data using AI, but creating new language and replacing entire words and sentences you need quantum PC to hack it, if you claim custom encryption really make it so.
So in Short “PureOS helps you surf the web safely, without being tracked by advertisers or marketers” is not true, to be 100% honest not sure anyone can claim that since you have router at home with IP address (and 90% of routers are not updated or have no updates) or you use some public wifi that may or may not be tracked etc.
PureOS is based on debian (better then being based on Ubuntu for start), Cannonical had and has questionable actions (the amazon search feature in unity), supporting Mirosfot with Windows for Linux or Linux for Win system.
I hope my post will not be removed or edited, I have great respect for any Linux Community and I hope more companies like Purism exist. I had my posted edited in my other Linux forums, I shared my expeirence using Apps for Research in Linux and “certain” admin in “certain” forum, removed all the other OS except theirs, I said leave the post as it is or just delete the entire post, I have the same post on other forums.
Regards, Alex
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I got a mesh network of routers that all have automatic firmware updates from linksys. I thought pureos was pretty much 100% because that is the whole goal of the company but I guess they couldn’t.
They removed purebrowser in the latest update and just replaced with firefox.
Not sure what you mean by
I’m so confused now. I thought EXT4 was just a filing system and encryption on it was LUKS. Quantum PC stuff interests me as well for encryption hacking and eventually practically predicting the future by not going to war physically with a country but by attacking their currency. I think I saw a video that said China put over 10 billion USD into quantum computer development and the US put less than a tenth.
When I am at a coffee store, I either use hotspot or connect to the stores wifi with a vpn and then forget the network.
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and “they” say aliens built the pyramids in Egypt … why do you believe them if they JUST “say” … also who is “they” ?
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Didn’t understand anything you said but will edit out they because I think it just naturally came up in my speech for some reason. Sorry about that.
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you didn’t do anything wrong by using the word “they” …
i was just checking to see if you are AWARE of what you are typing that’s all …
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Ugh. Please just stop.
edit: Literally getting tired of arguing with you every day.
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+1
To a large extent if you use Full Disk Encryption then it doesn’t matter much what file system you format onto the disk. However there are always a few minor subtleties around the edges.
The real point about the disk encryption is how it integrates with a Librem Key, and how the trusted boot path ensures high integrity in that process. (So for example if you use vanilla FDE and just enter a password at the keyboard to unlock LUKS and you don’t have a trusted boot path then in theory someone could have compromised the computer in the BIOS and grabbed or stored the password for later use when you aren’t using the device.)
This suggestion has been overtaken by events.
Undoubtedly true but perhaps a different topic. Perhaps one day a Purism router running PureOS. 
You can partially mitigate that by using secure protocols between your secure client device and the peer device on the internet. That would include VPN but if not VPN then at least secure traffic e.g. SSL where available.
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My Main point is that what PureOS offers I can get from few other Linux OS what makes PureOS unique, special whys should I recommend it do friends over PopOS by system76?
making your own device is like System76 and PopOS, even dell and hp sell ubuntu OS now,
Pop is by system76 has a custom installer by default he me partition is separate and the installer has reinstall option (if you used recommend partitioning) and you can with one click in the installer pre install the OS and keep all your data and home partition. Unique feature not present in Ubuntu.
Why PureOS as a privacy OS doesn’t offer preinstalled and preconfigured firewall,CentOS offers SELinux Security Enchained Linux (can be added to any RedHat OS like Fedora Workstation or Fedora Labs for example) with add on’s for security, pre configured firewalls etc.
PureOS claimed “PureOS helps you surf the web safely, without being tracked by advertisers or marketers” I hope they are not still doing it since it is basically impossible task and they promised it even forbes wrote a blog on it the privacy OS https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2019/03/25/first-24-hours-purism-librem-15-v4-laptop-pure-os/#179c6191749e in May 2019 and a lot of people took the “PureOS helps you surf the web safely, without being tracked by advertisers or marketers” on their word and invested in the purism project with money.
I believe the same until I installed ZFS on my HomeNAS, the file system makes a difference, maybe 1% but it makes a difference I am speaking from experience, and you are welcome to check performance data etc.
IF it was the same why would many Linux OS try to integrate default support for ZFS as file system, if it was the same they would not try to do that they would just use EXT4, right?
And My main point about encryption was all linux distributions offer that if I am not mistaken.
almost all other Debian based Linux distros offers same as PureOS even the TOR browser again questionable if you are annonimus, it is not installed it is just in the app repository. Fedora for example (I don’t have a default Fedora Workstation more Like custom build Workstation + silverblue immutable OS but …). If some new linux users ask me I would probably recommend it as one of the few options (MX linux or Tails or even PopOS).
I even tested as I said above Purism phone vs pinephone apart from hardware specs being different PureOS works same on both. Ubuntu Touch works much smoother on Librem cause of the better hardware specs.
postmarketOS was about the same on both, I somehow managed to add PureOS on pinephone both works very slow (again difference in hardware), I personally have and will support both projects and I hope 3-th linux phone comes out soon, but as far as Librem Laptop again I see no difference then buying system76 or MintBox or any maybe even Dell
I believe other hardware vendors offer this maybe not DELL or HP, but I have it a similar setup on System76 and on my MintBoxPro3, they just don’t call it Librem Key. this is probably a problem only with Laptops designed for Windows by default and you install Linux, not sure have not used Windows PC in over 10 years.
I used AI based security that can detect if I am not using the PC, typing etc, and can lockdown the system and send me OTP code on my mail to unlock also other more advance setup for security, but I can have them on PureOS or any other Linux so again see no real difference, I only use Fedora cause I have been using it for a while long time and I am used to it and it has superior documentation for developers over other Linux distro’s.
I personally tried Fedora aarch64 on PinePhone and Librem it works better and smoother, faster and better then all the other OSs I have tried, but it might just be my experience, but see no advantage in using PureOS on the Librem or PinePhone over, Fedora aarch64.Fedora has a silberblue concept of immutable OS that is unique https://silverblue.fedoraproject.org
**I respect what Purism is doing like I said above and I hope more FOSS products exits, but for now I see no real advantage of using PureOS over any other Linux, why should I recommend to anyone PureOS + Purism Device over lets say System76 with PopOS, about 99,99% the same even same Desktop env. GNOME.
(I only mentioned security and privacy since the PureOS was advertised as such: *pureos was forked with the only goal in mind - privacy and security") and a lot of people invested in Purism for the promise of privacy **
EDIT: Yesterday I had a 20 or 24h time limited before I can reply to the post as a new user, just an FYI in case it takes me about 1 day to reply again, it might not be by choice and if next day is full of work might be 2 days.
Regards, Alex