Fortress Linux?

Fortress Linux

https://www.fortresslinux.org/

Can someone tell me more about it?

 

https://www.fortresslinux.org/Fortress_Linux.php

Code:

Desktop, laptop, netbook and media centers
•  Gnome, XFCE, LXDE and Openbox desktop/window managers
•  Configuration wizards
•  Hardened version of the Firefox webbrowser
•  Open Office, Media Players, CD/DVD burning, Image manipulation, networking, development and much more software for everyday use
•  Support for all sound cards, video cards, game controllers, touch screens, remote controls, wireless devices etc.
•  Full support for Windows software

Sounds too good?

 

Hi

Heuuh...pushed here last year without articles (time time time!)
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=308227

Certainly the most serious and maintained security focused distribution.
But its development is quite slow, and the price is a real drawback.

As it is possible to build a kind of read only OS for infrequent critical tasks, it appears that a fully hardened distro like this one is not necessary for daily desktop use.

rgds

 

Thanks for the info, does anyone know how much it costs? Is there source code available?

 

Hi
All prices versions and services are available on the doc file of the order form menu.
The standard version, called premium, is about 40 euros, which is not excessive.
But as it ismainly designed for server use, the prices rapidely increase with all included various service.
The browser and USB version are available here
https://www.fortresslinux.org/download.php

Fortress is for instance more interesting that some other security distro like the recent ADHD
http://sourceforge.net/projects/adhd/
More over the dev. is open for discussion for extra features of Fortress.

rgds

 

Thanks for the info again, question is can you look at the source code? Or is it closed.

I'd really like to know what they are doing with Grsecurity/Pax/SElinux and how they harden the system.

I'd be interested in compiling my own Fortress, would this be hard?

& besides ADHD (downloading now) are there any other free distro's that do what Fortress does out of the box?

 

Fortress takes the best part of some major distro without being a fork of one of them, and by the way can be considered as an indpendent distribution.
If we take into consideration the definition of Open source from the GNU fundation, Fortress is not open source.
And then it is up to any motivated user to decompile it from Z to A...

After experimenting Arch a very few years ago, compiling is a a fastidious task.

Except military grade OS like Polyxene ( http://www.polyxene.fr/hypervisor-security-architecture.aspx ), i know no more interesting security linux based OS.
Of course there is Whonix or Qubes, but they used different architecture.
I have also not been fully convinced by Magian systems distro
Mandragora and Tabula Rasa
http://sourceforge.net/p/mandragoralinux/wiki/Home/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/tabularasa/

Most popular security distro are mainly designed for offensive tasks, like BackTrack for instance.
Defensive distributions are quite rare, and not often documented.

I was looking myself for the ULTIMATE OS five years ago, and of course this Graal is a dead end.
I ve been waiting for instance for the release of iXRIOS, the Lockness/Nessie OS...that has never seen the sun.
http://www.osnews.com/story/22081/A_New_Secure_Operating_System_

In fact, an European Union sponsored OS like Minix can also be recommended as a very secure system
http://www.minix3.org/index.html
As most threats mostly concerns Windows platform, risks are already mitigated by using an alternative OS.
And in this case, the paranoia that rises sometimes in this board is a symptom of Insecurity experience...

For other questions, Palatinux will be glad to answer on Fortress linux forums.

Rgds

 

Thanks, I've got a few questions to fire at Fortresslinux I'll head over to there forum... Forum seems dead, though it's only new I guess.

I'm really interested in this project.