AnikOS

AnikOS is an open source and completely free Linux kernel-based operating system built entirely from source and derived from the current Hardened Gentoo version. It’s a security-oriented distribution of Linux that tries to be as secure and usable as possible on both desktop and server systems.

The OS is available for download as a dual-arch Live DVD

Powered by a hardened Linux kernel, the AnikOS distribution is available for download as a dual-arch Live DVD ISO image that will load entirely in RAM (system memory) and runs on computers that support both the 32-bit and 64-bit architectures.

Very minimal boot menu

The GRUB-powered boot menu of the Live DVD, which will appear immediately after booting the ISO image from the BIOS of a computer using either a DVD disc or a USB thumb drive of 2GB or higher capacity, allows you to only start the live system with the default kernel.

Features two powerful desktop environments

AnikOS features two powerful desktop environments, Cinnamon and GNOME Classic. The user can cycle between them using the session selector built into the login screen. It includes support for both English and Russian languages.

Contains top-notch open source apps

Among the pre-installed software packages, we can mention top-notch open source apps like the LibreOffice office suite, Mozilla Firefox web browser with support for browsing the Internet anonymous through the Tor network, Mozilla Thunderbird email and news client, Deja Dup backup utility, Ekiga softphone, Transmission torrent downloader, PSAD intrusion detection system and IPTables log analyzer, Wine, as well as TrueCrypt data encryption tool.

Under the hood

Under the hood, we can notice that the distribut includes hardened Glibc and GCC packages, support for the XZ (lzma2) compression method, X.Org Server, Mesa OpenGL environment, the Boost libraries and various encryption utilities like LUKS and GPGme.

What is new in this release:

• Firefox was downgraded to stable 4.0.1 and Xulrunner wad downgraded to stable 2.0.1 versions due to stability issues;
• Hardened Linux Kernel was updated to 2.6.39-r2 Hardened Gentoo version;
• Grub updated to 1.99-r2 Gentoo version;
• Added Rhythmbox 0.13.3 as d default music pleer in Workstation version on distribution;
• Added GRandr 0.1 utility as a frontend for XRandr for changing monitor modes (resolutions and orientation);
• Added testing LDAP authentication feature via OpenLDAP and PAM_LDAP, NSS_LDAP modules;
• Added testing Binary Package Manager support based on Entropy Package Manager 1.0 rc10 (from Sabayon Linux Project);
• IPTables was updated to Gentoo version 1.4.11.1-r2;
• Many other packages updated to the last versions.

What is new in version Alpha 3:

• Linux kernel updated from 2.6.38.6 to 2.6.39 and was built with additional Transparent Hugepage feature support; Google Chromium 12.0.742 has been removed; Sabayonlive-tools updated from 2.3-r5 to 2.3-r6; XFce4-xkb-plugin updated from 0.5.4.0_p20110501 to 0.5.4.1; Transmission-base updated from 2.22 to 2.31; Transmission-gtk+ updated from 2.22 to 2.31; ACPId updated from 2.0.6 to 2.0.9; Pyopenssl updated from 0.11 to 0.12; GStreamer updated from 0.10.31 to 0.10.32-r1; All supported GST-Plugins updated to the latest versions; GST-Python updated from 0.10.20 to 0.10.21 glib-networking updated from 2.28.6.1 to 2.28.7; Calculate-Install and Calculate-Lib updated from 2.2.15 to 2.2.15-r1; XScreensaver updated from 5.13 to 5.14; CryptSetup 1.2.0-r1 was added; GPGme-1.3.0-r1 was added; Tor 0.2.1.30 and TSocks 1.8_beta5-r5 were added.