Well, it looks like from Ubuntu 12.10, due in late October, Ubiquity will have support for full disk encryption and LVM. The test build that I installed in a virtual machine shows that the implementation is still in the early stages, but it also shows how easy it will be to configure both features when the final release hits the digital shelves.

Disk encryption is one method you may use to enhance the physical security rating of your computer. From my experience, it is rarely used, which is a shame because it is one of the most effective safeguards against unauthorized physical access to data stored on a computer.

One of those applications, is the installer. While I will not necessarily describe it as an “excellent application”, it is one of the very few graphical installation programs with support for disk encryption, which is a very important feature to have and configure if you want to boost the physical security profile of your computer.

No distribution’s installer makes setting up disk encryption as easy as Anaconda, the Fedora system installer. And that has not changed in Fedora 16, the latest stable release. On previous versions of Fedora, those released before Fedora 16, the only automated disk partitioning option was one based on LVM, the Linux Logical Volume Manager.

It's time all of us made a commitment to this basic data security. With full disk encryption all data is protected by default and prying officials at least have to jump through legal hoops before they can start casually thumbing through all your private data.

What happens if someone gains unauthorized, physical access to your computer? Even with all the fancy firewall and other network security tools running, If the disk is not encrypted, check mate! Your data is now shared. This short tutorial shows you how Fedora implements disk encryption and how that protects your computer if it ever falls into the wrong hands.

Full disk encryption and LVM configuration in Ubuntu’s graphical installer showed that two very important features that were missing in Ubiquity, the installation program of Ubuntu Desktop, will finally be incorporated into the version that will ship in Ubuntu 12.10.

CentOS 5.3 now comes with disk encryption. When you install the operating system you have the option to encrypt block devices, partitions that you create. Block device encryption requires a passphrase or key as authentication in order to access the data on that partition.

Today, I took another look at a daily build of Ubuntu 12.10 to see how far the coders have come in implementing manual LVM and disk encryption.

Here is what I found: