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Is there some kind of pwd generator for Linux that has a nice GUI and options like this one for Windows? I know that there is pwgen, but as far as I know it does not support mouse/keyboard entropy and it does not have any kind of front end GUI's... or does it?

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Well, pwgen for Linux uses /dev/urandom (which is a fine cryptographic-quality random source). The Linux kernel accumulates entropy internally (it used to use mouse and keyboard movements, though recent versions have discarded this in favor of better entropy sources); it does a better job of it than a program that merely asks the user to wriggle the mouse.

An better one is APG that optionally uses /dev/random and asks for keyboard input (in principle, to randomize even more, though isn't actually useful on modern operating systems that collect entropy internally).

If you want a GUI, there's jpasswordgen in Java, so it works everywhere.

IMHO, I don't see the usefulness of using a GUI for this. The goal is to get passwords, and pwgen/apg can even generate nicely formatted lists of passwords.

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KeePass (and KeePassX) are password safes but also allow you to generate passwords using keyboard and mouse entropy.

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You could also give Duckduckgo a try. It is basically a search engine with many nice features, i.e. generating passwords: strong password with 17 chars. The best thing is: You can use it with any operating system. :-)

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    well, I wouldn't exactly trust generating passwords to an online app. thanks for your reply tho'
    – tkit
    Aug 20, 2010 at 12:26
  • @pootzko: why not?
    – David Z
    Aug 21, 2010 at 0:14
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    @David - because most of the time you don't have the whole source code in front of you and you can never be completely sure about what's inside the online app... there is one other reaseon - most of the time the traffic between you and an app like that would be unencrpyted which means anyone could see the password... there are more reasons, but I find these two to be the most important reason not to use online pwd generators...
    – tkit
    Aug 21, 2010 at 7:58
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    @pootzko: Right, but a little common sense can deal with that: just generate a bunch of passwords and mix and match pieces from a couple of them. No matter what's in the webapp's source code or who's sniffing the network, they can't tell what you do with the passwords after you read them.
    – David Z
    Aug 21, 2010 at 8:02
  • @David - ok I agree, but i'd still have them not knowing even the parts of the password... it's not humans who try all the combinations anymore... you just insert everything you've found and with your computer generate all the permutations with what you've sniffed up and there you go...
    – tkit
    Aug 21, 2010 at 8:13

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