The Anonymous Information Computing System (or “ANIX”) is an experimental operating system based on Linux. It is being developed expressly for the infosec market, developers, hobbyists, privacy advocates, and those who value the Unix Philosophy.

Most importantly, ANIX will never ask you for your birthday or identification.

ANIX currently only exists in prototypical “Research ANIX” form. Some components like the GUI are already being distributed, whereas other components are still bound to their owner's local machines. Other parts, such as an installer or RISC-V port, are still completely theoretical.

In order to further the development of ANIX, this wiki currently promoting the Research ANIX program. By following (and field testing) the Single ANIX Specification, you too can build you own “ANIX-Spec” operating system at home.

The only OS guaranteed to help you find gaping holes.

ANIX was the collision of several ongoing projects by myself and a few Anons that I occasionally trade software with. In order to fulfill our myriad job, hacking & security needs, we had all begun independently developing homebrew solutions based on the vast open-source software library of the UNIX/BSD/Linux-world.

By the end of 2024, we all realized that the sum total of our independent efforts comprised nearly an entire operating system, and one which could rival more bloated distros like Kali Linux and Parrot OS. All that remained was to put the pieces together in the storied halls of the investment-friendly Best Point Military Institute - A 501©(3)(pending) non-profit scientific & educational organization, which by this point had acquired the research & insight of all the various short-lived “Anonymous OS” projects from years long past.

Now in 2026, with pending legislation threatening privacy rights across the world, the minimal-dependency ANIX is more relevant than ever.

While ANIX cannot yet be downloaded, you can build your own flavor of Research ANIX - and I encourage you to! When you are done, you will have a lean and mean operating system that is geared for professionals. ANIX is going to make infosec fun again.

“But Captain, how will I build an operating system by myself?” Easier than you think! This is because ANIX is built on Debian, which provides for a clean stable base. It also gives you easy access to the rest of the components, as many of them are in the stock Debian package manager, and many of the others can be poached from the Debian-based Mint, Ubuntu, Kali & Parrot distros. (lmao not for much longer. -capn)

This provides an excellent opportunity for those looking to improve their Linux and command-line skills, as building Research ANIX will take you through the basics of how Linux works. And, by building your own custom Linux install, you will be following in the tradition of America's trade schools which have historically made students build their own toolboxes as a graduating rite-of-passage.

All students and research staff developing their own Research ANIX builds are required to submit their code and ANIX modifictions to Best Point or Novelty Lanterns staff for inspection. Whatever team comes together in the process of this will be responsible for consolidating the best parts of everyone's Research ANIX builds into ANIX Version 1.0.

All participants who complete a Research ANIX build are welcome to fork ANIX at this point and market their own official ANIX-derivative.

Research ANIX is a Linux distribution, and like all Linux distributions it is composed of many tiny software packages. ANIX veers towards simplicity, preferring simple packages with minimal dependencies. Those who have used Linux for a long time may find ANIX is more akin to the “old way” of doing things, though it still takes advantage of a modern Debian base.

As the ANIX spec is about to undergo a total overhaul in order to escape the tyrannical SystemD, we do not have a draft of Version 3 of the specification ready yet. In the meantime you can still try building Version 2. Keep in mind that it is not a complete set of step-by-step instructions! You should be at least somewhat-familiar with Linux before attempting to do this.