Talk:List of security-focused operating systems

Yet Another Question about list inclusion criteria

I noticed this edit with the edit summary black box is a pentesting OS like kali linux, not a hardened system, Are security-focused operating systems limited to hardened systems? Should this list exclude pentesting operating systems? --Guy Macon (talk) 09:59, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Removal of "Replicant" and "BSD"

I have tried to remove both Replicant and BSD, because both are merely General-Purpose OSes. With Replicant, replacing proprietary components with open ones does not make it "security-focused", also I've found the attack at Samsung in the repicant entry to be somewhat dubious. BSD is just an general-purpose OS. I've also found the inclusion of Windows Server in headless mode to be questionable. Sure, there might be less security issues in this mode, but this is highly speculative. Plus, headless mode is very common in almost any server software... --2003:CD:7F0F:A00:58D:F513:E257:D60F (talk) 10:39, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Removal of CalyxOS

CalyxOS it is not a secure operating system. It falls behind Security updates and does not offer any additional hardening upon AOSP despite the misleading marketing.

Removal of various operating systems

The article does not differentiate between offensive penetration testing operating systems and hardened, truly security-focused operating systems. All of these pentesting operating systems have no improvement in security.

Furthermore, it mentions systems that absolutely cannot be described as "security-focused" (e.g. CalyxOS or Silverblue).

The following OSes should be removed:

• CalyxOS (doesn't improve security of the AOSP)
• Kali NetHunter
• Black Arch (and the whole Arch-based section)
• Kali Linux
• Parrot OS
• Pentoo (and the whole Gentoo-based section)
• Alpine Linux
• Fedora Silverblue (Silverblue is not security focused)

Operating Systems that should be added in this article:

• Kicksecure - hardened Debian (https://www.kicksecure.com/#security & https://www.privacyguides.org/en/desktop/#kicksecure)
• Secureblue - hardened Fedora Silverblue

And we should add a paragraph that mentions the security flaws of Linux operation systems such as no verfied boot, no exploit mitigations, kernel with large attack surface, ...(https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/linux.html) 62.218.181.138 (talk) 07:20, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

I removed most of the listed distros and CalyxOS (Special:Diff/1246718073). I left Alpine Linux since its about page (https://alpinelinux.org/about/) seems to imply a security focus.

I didn't add your suggestions, since i don't know much about them. 2601:19E:8380:B570:DA75:FB27:64E6:E4F7 (talk) 17:16, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

We might add references to website privacyguides.org, that elaborates on that matter.

It either contains a page on the current state of linux as a desktop OS, particularly security-wise (deeplink: https://www.privacyguides.org/en/os/linux-overview/#security-notes ). BTW: Which is consistent to the reference to madaidans-insecuritites.

Additionally, it contains references to security-focused (desktop-)Linux distributions (deeplink: https://www.privacyguides.org/en/desktop/#security-focused-distributions ), which again is in line with above argumentation.

To me these look like valuable sources to the article. Viola eremita (talk) 11:06, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Kicksecure?

Mention Kicksecure if it is nótable enough Luhanopi (talk) 13:34, 30 November 2025 (UTC)