Guardian Angel Linux (G.A.L.)
Enhances and Protects Your Digital Life Style!
Overview
What is Guardian Angel Linux?
The purpose of Guardian Angel Linux (G.A.L) is to provide a portable full featured operating system with a complete set of Applications including an office suite, web browser, email client, calendar/scheduler, instant messaging client, music player, antivirus protection, VoIP clients, drawing applications, Personal Organizer Suite, Photo Viewing software all on a Portable Flash Drive. To give you extra protection, G.A.L. also includes encryption applications and utilities that protects a person's personal data and communications and maintains their anonymity while surfing. In addition, a Virtual Machine and ProjectBlackDog support is supplied. This allows for maximum flexibility since all resources may not be available at all times.
Why use Guardian Angel Linux?
In today's world, Identity Theft, Government Domestic Spying and ISP monitoring, are very serious issues. When your data is freely accessible and sold to anyone who is willing to spend the money, Privacy is a REAL necessity. Anonymity is paramount to protect you from those who would steal your identity, misuse your personal data, your surfing habits, and your purchasing habits. In addition to criminal intentions, in the name, "law enforcement", "anti-terrorism", and similar excuses, your privacy is being exploited by many groups of people. DON'T STAND FOR IT!
Since Guardian Angel Linux is based on the outstanding Linux Live framework called SLAX (http://www.slax.org), it allows for drop-in upgrades and expansion. When new tools become available or new versions or fixes are needed, it is a snap to install them... even on a CDRom.
Philosophy
The developers of Guardian Angel Linux are dedicated to protecting your privacy by supplying easy to use technologies which are industry standard and open source. We are strong believers in cross-platform compatibility as well. We understand that there are other Operating Systems and Computer Architectures in the world and we a dedicated to allowing usage and communication to those platforms. Sure you can protect yourself by locking yourself in a room and not communicating to anyone but what kind of life is that. Life is about communication- G.A.L. strives to make sure the communication is safe and secure.
We assure privacy though Openness
Open Source is one way to assure privacy since the code that provides privacy and anonymity are available for scrutiny. We do not believe strongly in security through obscurity model. We feel if the security can stand up to the planets best minds then that's the type of security we want.
Portable
Guardian Angel Linux (G.A.L.) is a portable OS based on SLAX Linux - a Linux Live derivative of Slackware Linux. Since G.A.L. is a Linux Live distribution, it can be used from a CDRom, DVD, or USB Key. This gives you the ability to take your personal files with you as well as the entire environment needed to work.
Secure
By utilizing encryption technologies G.A.L. provides a secure computing environment that is easy to use. Saving personal settings, cache area, bookmarks, and documents to "plausibly deniable" encrypted areas allows your private files to be protected from prying eyes. Supplying industry standard encrypted facilities for E-Mail, Instant Messenger, Web Browsing, and File Storage, gives you the ability to use the Internet in a secure and safe way. Anonymous facilities such as Tor (and we continue to evaluate other options as well), gives you the protection you need to surf without being tracked by people with hostile intent as well as help facilitate freedom of expression.
Utilizing encryption can be complex and confusing. Encryption technologies should be ubiquitous and transparent but they rarely are. When you use a service such as Instant Messenger or E-Mail, you should not have to continuously jump through hoops to use encryption or to know that you are protected. G.A.L. makes specific effort to make these protective technologies easy, ubiquitous, and transparent.
Part of security is providing for file integrity. With G.A.L., the system is loaded from a read only file system in memory. When you reboot, the system reverts to what should be from the protected read only archive. Also, since G.A.L. is based on Linux, it is not vulnerable to the virus problems you see on other Operating System such as MS Windows and Macintosh.
Upgradable
G.A.L. allows for easy upgrades. Currently, upgrades are accomplished by simply replacing the modules with the latest version module. A future wizard shall allow configurations and upgrades from the Internet directly.
Configurable
Portable Computing can be sometimes complicated. Every time you go to a new computer, the hardware is different and the options for each network are different. One of G.A.L.'s goals is to make configuration on each computer and network a snap to accomplish. There are some custom Wizards included to step you through Network configuration. In the future, additional Wizards for Audio and Video Assistance shall also be included.
Flexible
Flexibility is a key quality of G.A.L. You can pick and choose from a wide array of Applications, Utilities, and Facilities. This flexibility is directly related to G.A.L.'s configurable nature- pick and choose what you want.
Compatible
G.A.L. works with almost any computer with USB or CD/DVDRom. USB 1.1 also works but booting takes about 5x longer than USB 2.0. You can boot directly off of your PC or you can run from within Microsoft Windows or Apple MacOSX. The applications we provide are Open Source and picked to be as cross platform compatible with MSWindows and MacOSX enabling you to share documents with friends, family and co-workers.
Proprietary drivers and applications should be available. We strive to include Video, Audio, and other hardware drivers so that your computing experience is the best it can be. Free Proprietary applications (like GoogleEarth) and Browser plug-ins (like Flash, Shockwave, and Java) are an essential part of the Web experience and G.A.L. makes it easy to install these resources.
What about Open Source Software (OSS) for MacOS and Windows?
In our opinion, OSS is a great choice... and we try to always pick cross-platform software as our solutions for G.A.L. in order to give the maximum cross-platform compatibility. For MS Windows, there is a great project called PortableApps, which includes some of the same OSS projects that G.A.L. uses (The Gimp, Thunderbird, Firefox, etc.). For Mac OS, there are quite a few OSS applications available as well. The above costs for an MS Windows and Mac OS configuration can be reduced if OSS software is substituted for Commercial Packages.
So why not just do that? Well, G.A.L. is designed to BOOT and RUN from the USB Flash Drive in a very secure configuration. This type of self contained and secure scenario is not available on either of those platforms. Also, by using Emulators or Virtual Machines, you can run G.A.L. as a guest OS. While possible and a great solution, we don't recommend Emulators or VM to be done on computers that you don't have full control over, due to security concerns.
As a solution, G.A.L. is a much better, more secure, self-contained, cheaper solution then either MacOS and MSWindows.
MS Windows is a trademark of Microsoft Corp. Mac OS is a trademark of Apple Corp. Any other mentioned trademark is owned by their respective owners.Guardian Angel Linux Features
| Feature | Windows OS | Apple OS | G.A.L. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Desktop OS | XP Pro ($199) | Family Edition ($199) | G.A.L.(Free) |
| Virus Protection | Not Included | Not Included | ClamAV, VirusHammer4 |
| Site Blocker | Not Included | Not Included | MoBlock |
| Firewall | Included | Included | GuardDog, Kmyfirewall, IPTables |
| Multimedia Player | Windows Media Player | QuickTime | Mplayer1, Xine, VLC1, mmm1, gstreamer |
| Productivity | MS Office | AppleWorks | OpenOffice1 and Koffice |
| Web Browser | Internet Explorer | Safari | Firefox1 |
| Mail Client | Outlook Express | Apple Mail | Thunderbird1, Enigmail1 |
| PDF Viewer & Creator | Not Included | Included | XPDF |
| Compression Utility | WinZip/Included | gzip | gzip, zip, p7zip (lzma) |
| Instant Messenger | MSN Messenger | iChat | Pidgin1,3, Kopete2 |
| Photo Retouching Application | Not Included | iPhoto | The Gimp1 |
| Music Player | Windows Media Player | iTunes (TM) | Kplayer, Mplayer, Juk, Amarok, Totem, Xine, Songbird1 |
| Sound Editor | Not included | Not included | Audacity1 |
| Virtual Machine | Not Included | Not Included | VMPlayer5, qemu1 |
| Vector based Drawing Program | Not Included | Not Included | Inkscape1 |
| Calendaring Program | Not Included | iCalendar | Sunbird1 |
| Web Development Suite | Not Included | Not Included | Quanta, KompoZer1 |
| 100's of free programs available by installer | Not Included | Not Included | Included via Kommando-Installer |
| Encryption | Not Included | Not Included | PGP1, TrueCrypt3, bcrypt |
| Secure IM, VoIP, File Containers, Teleconferencing | Not Included | Not Included | Pidgin/OTR3, Kopete/OTR, zfone1, Skype1,5, x-lite1,5, Ekiga1, Linphone, Twinkle, kphone, sjphone1,5, GizmoProject1,5 |
| Anonymous Networks | Not Included | Not Included | Tor, I2P,Tork, Vidalia |
| Remote and Encrypted Storage | Not Included | Not Included | sshfs, encfs, truecrypt3 |
| Downloader | Not Included | Not Included | Retriever4, Phex4, aria2, Azureus4 |
| Price | $527 | $219 | Free |
Guardian Angel Linux Features Comparison Chart
1 Cross Platform compatible with Windows and Macintosh.2 Instant Messenger is compatible with MSN Messenger, Yahoo IM, AIM, ICQ, Napster, and more.
3 Windows Compatible.
4 Java Applet.
5 Free Commercial. Available via Kommando-Installer
Requirements
There are many video adapters, audio adapters, network adapters, and for the most part, anything Linux compatible should work with GAL. The best approach to checking out your system is to download the Slim GAL version and boot it off CD (*coming soon*). The boot process should find and configure your hardware automatically and it should be apparent if your audio, video, and networking are supported out of the box. Wireless support is more difficult to ascertain but is straightforward to check. Users can use the 'hwd' command and send us the output and we can help to check compatibility.
The GAL-Kit was specifically designed to lessen the configuration issues by supplying compatible hardware.
Bare Minimum System Requirements
| Component | LiveDVD Version | USB Flash Drive Version |
|---|---|---|
| CD/DVD | DVD Drive *faster the better* | CD Drive *faster the better* (in case you do not have USB boot support) |
| USB | USB 1.1 (to save settings) | USB 1.1 (to save settings) |
| RAM | 512MB *VERY CRITICAL* | 512MB *VERY CRITICAL* |
| Video Adapter | VESA or FB compatible | VESA or FB compatible |
| Audio Card | Sound Blaster compatible | Sound Blaster compatible |
| Network | Ethernet Adapter | Ethernet Adapter |
Recommended System Requirements
| Component | LiveDVD Version | USB Flash Drive Version |
|---|---|---|
| CD/DVD | DVD Drive *faster the better* | CD Drive *faster the better* (in case you do not have USB boot support) |
| USB | USB 2.0 (to save settings) | USB 2.0 (to save settings) |
| RAM | 1GB or more | 1GB or more |
| Video Adapter | VESA or FB compatible | VESA or FB compatible |
| Audio Card | Sound Blaster compatible | Sound Blaster compatible |
| Network | Ethernet Adapter | Ethernet Adapter |