this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2025
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To add to the other comments: it's "full-disk" to distinguish it from "per-file" encryption. And "full-partition" didn't catch on, probably because functionally an unencrypted boot partition makes little practical difference.
And also because "disk" is already too hard for most people. "Partition" would be way way too complicated a concept for most users.
I think FDE is different to full partition. If your home partition is encrypted but not your root partition, that's not FDE. I would say FDE is when the partition that you mount to / is encrypted.
This is more nitpicking. Yes, there's a difference between partition and disk. But if we want to get technical, it's not disk encryption unless you're using a HDD. SSDs don't have disks.
At the end of the day, FDE would generally imply that all partitions with user data on them are encrypted. So it would generally include root and home partitions, and generally not include the boot partition, and would likely include partitions like /var and /opt, though not necessarily.
I didn't mean it as nitpicking. I was just responding to you?