TrueCrypt is one of the best solution for file encryption in general and is open source. The team in charge of TrueCrypt released TrueCrypt for Linux with a GUI for easy use, previously the only way to use it was via CLI. If have used TrueCrypt for Windows you might notice that some of the features are missing in Linux, some of them are
The move to make TrueCrypt cross platform brings the ability of mounting a TrueCrypt volume between platforms with out any major limitations. I am currently using Ubuntu 8.04, at the time of the tutorial version 5.1a was available
wget http://www.truecrypt.org/downloads/truecrypt-5.1a-ubuntu-x86.tar.gz tar zxvf truecrypt-5.1a-ubuntu-x86.tar.gz cd truecrypt-5.1a/ sudo dpkg -i truecrypt_5.1a-0_i386.deb
TrueCrypt is now installed, open the terminal or ALT-F2 and type “truecrypt”. If you want to create a launcher for easy access go to:
Right click in a blank area of your desktop > choose “Create Launcher” > for name use “TrueCrypt” and for command use “truecrypt” > Click “OK”
The installation should work with most distributions, if you have any question just ask me.
truecrypt, ubuntu — May 15, 2008