Encrypting a common data partition between distros
 

Hi fellow linux users;

On my laptop (Dell Studio 1745) w/500GB HD, I have a common data partition shared by openSUSE. Fedora, FreeBSD, and windoze 7 currently. I would like to encrypt this partition (/Common) and have it accessible from all distros either with a passphrase key in /root or on a flash key. I've been researching on the web and there seem to be several possibilities using eCryptfs, Luks, cryptosetup, or any of several methods.

My question is, what have people here used and how well did it work? Also, what was required for setup (I'll probably have to explain/teach it to my wife who is technology challenged-but I still love her anyway) and my daughter who's just getting into linux.

I would like to be able to keep the entire directory on the hard drive but also have the ability to copy it to external USB device for transport.

Looking forward to some good responses and/or links to non-distro specific methods.

Tom

TrueCrypt might be another to look at I think they have linux, windows and mac osx, not sure about the freebsd though.

Just ran across this url, it has a nice table at the bottom for OS support

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compari...ption_software

Also found another article that said truecrypt can be compiled for freebsd but has some issues (was an older article though so might not be as relevant anymore

An interesting article from distrowatch on hard drive encryption

http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20100614#qa

Thank all you gentlemen. Some good study material there and I'm sure to be back with more questions or at least to pass along what I've done.

Tom