[Full disk encryption] Prompt to unlock with lid closed on external screen

Hello.

I’m using a FW13 11th Gen Intel with Void Linux + XFCE. Until now I didn’t encrypt my disk (which is bothering me a bit considering I am using it also for work and traveling sometimes). As I am changing my SSD, I wanted to encrypt the full disk.
However at home, the laptop is closed and connected to a USB C docking station with a screen connected to the 1st HDMI port of the dock.
Setup is working fine for now but I am not able to have anything displayed on the external screen before the login so I am wondering if it’s possible to get the prompt to unlock the disk displayed on the external screen.

Hi

I think this is dependent on BIOS support.
I have seen reports it works on gen 12, but I don’t know about other versions.
For example, on gen 12 you can see the bios screens on external monitors.
It does not work on my FW16 AMD for example.

Thanks for the feedback!
I’ll have a look at the BIOS options and (out of curiosity) also with the external screen directly connected with USB C to the laptop (I don’t have an HDMI expansion card).

You could also try not-quite FDE using LUKS. In that case I don’t believe the collection and processing of the unlock pass-phrase is handled by the BIOS (but I could be mistaken).

Here’s what my LUKS-encrypted NVMe looks like:

nvme0n1          259:0    0 465.8G  0 disk  
├─nvme0n1p1      259:1    0   768M  0 part  
│ └─boot_crypt   252:6    0   766M  0 crypt /boot
├─nvme0n1p2      259:2    0     2M  0 part  
├─nvme0n1p3      259:3    0   128M  0 part  /boot/efi
└─nvme0n1p5      259:4    0 464.9G  0 part  
  └─lvm2_crypt   252:0    0 464.9G  0 crypt 
    ├─sysvg-swap 252:1    0    36G  0 lvm   [SWAP]
    ├─sysvg-root 252:2    0    24G  0 lvm   /
    ├─sysvg-var  252:3    0    16G  0 lvm   /var
    ├─sysvg-home 252:4    0    48G  0 lvm   /home
    └─sysvg-vbox 252:5    0   336G  0 lvm   /mnt/vbox

Dino

Thanks!
In the end, I went the unencrypted road (as before) for the moment.
As I have a separate root partition, I’ll take some time to see how to encrypt my other partitions.