Whatever you decide to do, make sure to keep backups. You don't want to lose years of work because of a hard drive failure.
this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2025
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Oh yes, absolutely. Already covered. I have two beautiful sandisk external hard drives. I got two, because the first one did in fact stop working in 2023 when one day I accidentally knocked it over. The replacements have silicone armour on them....might be safer but I'm also handling them like crystal. Losing everything on the first hard drive was devastating.
I'm sure you'll hear this elsewhere, but hard drives degrade over time no matter how nice you are to them. Make sure you rotate your backups and potentially keep some up in the cloud as a tertiary measure.
(Or also print them out to something that'll last)
Yes, definitely. I've heard of disc rot. There's some cloud alternatives mentioned here that I will check out.
Any of the big distros from North America/Europe/Africa/Australia/Japan should be trustworthy. I don’t know about the Chinese/Russian distros (I’ve never tried them, and have no desire to). The smaller distros and hobby project distros may be safe, but haven’t proven it imho.
There’s nothing in a default Linux distro that will share anything in your disk with anyone. If you enable crash reporting or telemetry, system crashes and/or system specs will be shared with the distro’s devs. You should just disable them.
If you enable any sort of online account syncing (like Google Drive), then certain things will be shared with the account provider. If you want to be absolutely secure, don’t enable these things.
When you install something through Flatpaks, their permissions are shown to you in the installer. By default, they only have access to files you choose through the file picker, unless they have the full disk access permission. And by default, you can only successfully pick files from your Downloads folder. So, for something like VS Code, it can access your whole disk, but for something like Discord, the file has to be in your Downloads directory and you have to pick it before Discord can access it.
You should make sure you’re using Wayland, because it has strict permissions for how apps can access your screen (you have to pick an app or screen before it can see it). On X11/X.org, every app has full access to see your entire screen and all your keyboard/mouse input.
Don’t use Wine, Proton, or AppImages if you’re worried about safety, because apps running in those systems haven’t been verified and have full access to all of your files. Stick to your Distro’s software installation app. Flatpaks and Snaps are generally safe.
So, after all of that, these are the distros I would recommend, in order of my recommendation:
- Fedora
- Mint
- Pop OS
- Ubuntu
- Debian
- OpenSUSE
- Arch
(My order is not based solely on how trustworthy an OS is, but also how friendly it is to beginners.)
Only install the official versions from the official source. (No community “spins”.)
Either Gnome, KDE, or Cinnamon would be great for you, so just try each of them out and see which one you like. I personally use both Gnome and KDE on different systems.
I’ve been using Linux since 2008, and I’ve gone through several distros. Linux is a lot safer and more private than Windows. There’s huge community backlash when distros introduce anything that compromises user privacy.
Pretty sure Linux apps have "Save" functions, and as of 2025, they even have "Save As"!
People are answering the technical side already, so I just want to say: you are valued and valuable, and I hope you're talking to a health care professional sometimes.
That's really kind of you. Thank you. I will be honest it's been a rough year but I'm happy to have found this place. I hope you're doing okay too.
Linux is perfect for that.
Mint is great, I use it myself.
They collect no secret data, but do obviously know, line, when you download an update from their servers, etc.
They don't keep track of anything as part of the OS itself. Mint doesn't "phone home" like windows phones home to Microsoft, just to keep tabs on you. Any time any data would be sent to them, it has a clear purpose, and is stated upfront, and it never includes user files, anyway. They don't want or use your files and would actually prefer not to have them, based on this.
https://www.linuxmint.com/privacy.php
Other distros have similar policies, too. Linux is open, so a given distro COULD do this kind of thing, so if you go another direction besides Mint, double-check, but I'd honestly need to try to find a distro that did snoop.
Linux source code can be checked, and shitty behaviors can be noticed.
Linux is safe. Linux minds its own business.
That is amazing. That's all I needed to hear, thank you. I'm feeling a lot better about this!
If literally all you want to do is write, with no distractions.
There's a Linux distro for that, this is an article about it.
And here's a direct link to their site.
This is awsome. Thank you! :)
No worries my dude! 👍
Yes, linux is a great OS for writers. For writing applications, you'll have access to LibreOffice, NovelWriter, and even an old free Linux version of Scrivener if you prefer it.
Omg that is awesome. Yes, all the writing apps. I can't wait. ^_^ I currently do use Scrivener on this device and I love it. I am down to try the older Scrivener app for linux. I saw a video on how it was installed, a bit of a finicky process but I'd say it's worth it. Thank you!
This particular version is in an app image package, which requires no install, it just works after double clicking it :)
Aw that's great. Yay! ^-^
Check out Tails.net
Its a privacy focused Linux that can be installed on a thumb drive. You can enable persistent storage which is encrypted and password protected.
Tails is a bit overkill, even for this. It's not just privacy focused, it's for the same people who need to use TOR (Tails even routes all traffic through TOR by default IIRC, no?), i.e. those who are sharing classified government intel or running large darknet drug markets. Unless OP is that paranoid, they can probably start off with a basic Debian or something, which is already leagues ahead of Windows in terms of privacy.
Oh yes, I got Tor, but I was thinking maybe I don't need it as it works a little too well. I'm curious about librewolf browser though. I may give that a shot as well. If only I was interesting enough to have classified government intel. Or a darknet drug lord. I am pretty paranoid, but not The Borne Supremacy levels of paranoid hehe. I'm learning about the different browser alternatives. I only know about Tor, Librewolf, and I was today years old when I learned about Debian. So I will check that out. Thanks so much! :)
Alright, awesome. Thank you. I'm grateful for all the feedback here, everyone is really helpful. I'm a complete novice, so any info is appreciated! ^_^
I'd say it's probably a safer alternative, but your mileage is going to depend on how you use Linux to write.
For instance if you use an encrypted partition, and only save your writing locally, then yes it's likely safer.
However if you install Chrome and post your writings on Facebook... well, you get the idea.
Oh no man, I won't go on there. No Chrome, no Facebook, none of that. I spit in their general direction. They are unworthy. Yes, I'll likely be using it to write in a regular word processor. I have Scrivener on this device, and it's absolutely amazing, however I hear it's a bit finicky to install on linux but not impossible. So I'm up to the challenge of that. If you write stories and like to world build, I highly recommend it. It's amazing. You know what I'm going to miss though is Livejournal. I hear not even they are safe anymore. That is awful. The whole internet is being ripped up. Fuck this year.
Join the smolnet movement. We hang out on IRC, and write/share our blogs on the gopher and gemini protocols. You can still have a community.
Heck yes I want to join smolnet. - Making the migration slowly but surely. Oh that's what they're called. I did not know about the gopher and gemini protocols. Thank you!
I'm a little late to the party, I've written and edited four books, plus numerous short stories on Linux mint. Libreoffice does the job just fine, as others already mentioned.
The great thing about starting out is that it's pretty easy to try whatever distributions you want, piddle around a little, and choose what you like best. You're leaning towards mint, and that's actually what I use, and have used.
It's also a great beginner's distro because it's essentially plug and play. You install, open up, and you can jump right into basic activities with minimum effort. Which means that the Linux learning curve is much lighter than you'd think because you'll be working while you learn.
No bullshit, my mom transitioned to mint in one day. Only hurdles were installing chrome, because that's what she likes, and the five hours she took tweaking the theme. She's a low needs user: browser, email, pictures. Her PC was choking on Windows 10 after the "upgrade" years ago, and wanted to try something else just for the hell of it. Now she does her own updates, doesn't even bother to call me.
As a side note, I feel you. The last few years have been brutal. We're all feeling some degree of stress from it, but those of us with preexisting issues end up a notch higher than we should be. It ain't easy, but none of us are really alone in the struggle.
That's okay, my reply is also late! ^_^ It's all good. I'm grateful to hear from a writer on these topics. This is very encouraging to hear. Forgive me that I can't say it more effectively, but I'm truly grateful. Oh then this is perfect. I'm a low needs user as well. I care only about the browser, email, pictures, word documents and music files. The fact your Mom has no issues with it is fantastic. I feel good hearing this!
As a side note, I feel you. The last few years have been brutal. We’re all feeling some degree of stress from it, but those of us with preexisting issues end up a notch higher than we should be. It ain’t easy, but none of us are really alone in the struggle.
That means a lot, you know. It's just nice to have any sort of regular human contact. It feels real here. And you're right, we're all going through it. We will get through this.
In a pure technical standpoint, directly answering your question: yes, Linux is a free and open source kernel, and most(looking at you Ubuntu.... Damn you) Linux distros are privacy respecting, so it is a good choice.
Going a bit more beyond: it depends. Do you want full privacy? Or just peace from Windows?
If you want peace from Windows, yeah, Linux is a big step-up, but it works and once you get the hang of it, it's a bit hard to go back.
If you want privacy, just switching to Linux will help, but not solve. That's a entire separate journey you'll have to take alongside your Linux escapade.
What softwares do you use? What services do you use?
If you use Microsoft Office, you'll have to switch as that both doesn't exist in Linux, but also is kept by Microsoft which.... You know how Windows is.
If you use Google anything, you gotta seek to de-google. Replace Google Docs with Nextcloud, replace Google with some other search engine, switch to a privacy respecting browser, etc.
Do you use some password manager? How safe are those? And what accounts do you have? What's your mail provider?
There are thousands of little questions you'll have to make yourself about what you use and what you do. And then, privacy nowadays sadly is a balance.
The more privacy you have, the more convoluted and less practical it ends up being. Setting up and using something like KeePassXC is a lot less practical than just hitting save in Google Chrome to save into your Google account.
Full 100% privacy isn't feasible for a normal person, and that's okay. The small percentage that "leaks" out is so small, it gets lost in the bulk collecting of data. At one point you'll need to figure out how much convenience and practicality you want to give up on for privacy.
And without loosing much of it, having just a few small tweaks, boy you can go far. I have de-googled completely, switched 99% of my services and softwares to privacy ones, even rock Alpine Linux. And it still feels extremely practical and easy for me. You just gotta weight and figure out what works for you.
EDIT: cuz my wording was a bit off, this isn't to discourage you, by opposite. It is more of a informative for you to study exactly your use case and how you want your privacy to be. Privacy is subjective and depends on the context, so there's a bit of homework involved with it
What softwares do you use? What services do you use?
I use Apple devices right now. I've heard the stories about Windows as of late. Damn. But Apple is not much better.
If you use Google anything, you gotta seek to de-google. Replace Google Docs with Nextcloud, replace Google with some other search engine, switch to a privacy respecting browser, etc.
Oh absolutely degoogling. I'm on it. For now I'm using ecosia search engine but I just found out they are still kind of sketchy, so I will keep looking for a good search engine. As for the browser, I got Tor. It's great but only problem is when I try to go on some online spaces with Tor, I get blocked because they think I'm an intruder. So, it works VERY well, perhaps too well. But that is reassuring! I got a tutamail account. I still have gmail but have plans to ditch it soon and go all in on tutamail. I will definitely check out nextcloud, this is the first time I've heard about it. Not discouraged at all, this is great. :)Thank you!
What are your issues with Apple currently? Have you turned on Advanced Data Protection? Might not be possible anymore if you’re in the UK, but I’m wondering what reason you think you are being surveilled with the OS you’re currently using? It’s much more likely you’re being surveilled with the programs you are using than the OS, though Microsoft is pretty scummy about it.
I’m wondering what reason you think you are being surveilled with the OS you’re currently using?
It's a fairly safe bet using either Windows or MacOS that they're collecting a not insignificant amount of data.
It’s much more likely you’re being surveilled with the programs you are using than the OS, though Microsoft is pretty scummy about it.
Absolutely, M$ with their forced OneDrive integration with everything, collect much more even using just 365 on say MacOS or android/iOS. Other alternative products do the same, especially if they're "free".
All this said....unless OP is writing battle plans or something that an alphabet organisation is taking an interest in, I think surveilled is probably the wrong word. Data collection is pretty wide spread, and you'd have to be doing something out of the norm to be actively under surveillance. Unless you live in, or send your data through, American owned servers. Well known for a while now that the NSA collects everything they can so it's on hand should they need it. Still wouldn't really call that surveillance though.
You're probably right. I have a feeling my paranoia is more amplified and it's not quite as bad as I'm making it out to be. I got incogni to clear my data from being used by advertisers. I was sad to have to do it but I left Youtube as well because they are tied with google and it was getting unsettling. Every video I clicked on seemed to make intimate references to me, my interests, everything, and it was awful. It felt like watching someone read a page torn out from my journal or something. However I have a mental disorder that runs in my family and this may not have been how I perceived it. It can be frustrating to not know what's real and what's not. And now with how the tech companies are behaving, it's even harder to know at times.
....I'm ashamed to admit I only recently learned what data encryption is. :')
The reason I worry about being surveilled is because I draw and write, and I'm hearing more incidents of people's work being stolen without their knowing. AI art theft is a huge problem. It's stealing not just art but people's identities, people's writing, everything. It's not okay.
I use Fadein for screenplay writing but you can use LibreOffice and alike
If you’re worried about hard drive failure then it’s a dangerous on anything and keeping back ups is always good practice
Absolutely. There are a thousand text editors and even a 10 year old ThinkPad can handle simple text entry with ease. Encrypt the computer with a strong password and you can be confident your writing is only seen by you.
That's amazing! Okay, will do. I can't wait to try it. Thank you. :)
Linux mint is a fantastic choice, and to be quite honest, there isn’t much you’ll need to learn. The software center allows you to install anything you need securely, updates are applied with a click and a password prompt, and day to day navigation of your system is not so different from windows.
If I may make one hardware suggestion. It doesn’t sound like gaming is a big priority for you, but I would avoid laptops or desktops that have an Nvidia GPU. They can work fine, but while AMD and intel have open source drivers built into the Linux kernel, Nvidia unfortunately refuses to open source their drivers, and their driver as a result doesn’t always play nice.
If you do run into any issues, forums and search engines will usually provide you with plenty of advice, and the community is very supportive.
Thank you so much for the tip about Nvidia. I didn't know this. And I'm really glad to hear Mint is so easy! That's perfect. I have a fear of pressing the wrong button and accidentally breaking something. I'm sure that's a common anxiety for beginners. So Mint seems like a perfect starter then. Yay! Yes, it's true, I'm not much of a gamer. I wish I could play games more. There's a ton from different genres that intrigue me and I love watching playthroughs and reviews, but it's just not feasible for me right now. In the future hopefully.
I will most certainly check in online if ever an issue crops up. Everyone here has been really helpful and I'm deeply grateful. Thank you so much! :)
A good thing to keep in mind is, is Linux asking me for a password right now? It will ask for a password whenever changes to the system are made. It’ll ask when you update, it’ll ask when you mount a drive, etc. basically what it’s asking you, is “do you know what you’re doing?
If all you’re doing is something like an update, installing a new piece of software, yeah, it’s fine, type the password for authorization and you’re good to go. But if you’re tinkering, just make sure you know what changes you’re making and why. Mint actually guides you through setting up a utility called Timeshift that creates restore points to revert to if something gets messed up.
What if something does get messed up? Well, keep backups of important files. Either in your cloud storage of choice, or physically on something like a thumb drive. Also keep a thumb drive with a Linux mint install bootable (also called an ISO). That way if something does go wrong, you can just wipe the system and reinstall mint, and not lose anything important.
Once you get a little more comfortable with Linux, there’s some cool things you can do, such as convert an old laptop into a 100% pure writing-only device using a couple pieces of software, a simple startup script, and a barebones Debian installation. One such project has been created to help automate that process: tinkerwriterdeck What’s cool about something like this is that it doesn’t have a typical desktop experience, it’s exclusively used for writing and nothing else. Use a USB drive to save / load files, and it becomes a modern typewriter appliance with no internet to distract.
Holy crap, I'm sorry if I sound over-enthused but that is genuinely awesome to hear. I didn't know this either. I'm learning a ton here. I'm saving this information. This is something I would absolutely love to do.
I wanted a word processor so badly that I got an alphasmart neo word processor 2 this year. It's great. However, I would prefer if I could write on something more familiar. Turning a laptop into a writer's deck would be amazing.
I've watched videos of people build their own writer's decks. They were small computers though but it was really cool. And I have also seen a video where a guy took an old macbook and overhauled it so that it was all new hardware and only ran linux. It was incredible stuff. I want to try that myself as I do also have an old macbook just sitting untouched and I actually kind of love that old thing. It was great and seems like a shame to have to toss it. So it's definitely something I dream of doing one day. Only thing is I cannot for the life of me access tools to open up a computer. I tried looking on ifixit but they don't have all the tools needed. So, it will be a slow journey to get to that but I look forward to tinkering.
Linux is where I did most of my writing :3
That's awesome. Omg that is great. ^_^
Get a typewriter?
Thought about it it. I do have a neosmart word processor but I still want to save it onto a computer, not just have it on the machine. I decided against getting an oldschool type writer for now because it requires maintenance I may not be able to keep up with. Like you need to replace the ribbon sometimes and other parts. But I have no issue with computer maintenance.