I ain’t a super Linux user, but I find it crazy that so many governments aren’t scared to put their data in the hands of US corporations like Microsoft of Apple.
I work for the state in Geneva, Switzerland, and my employers gives me an iPhone and forces me to use Windows at work.
I know that developing your own Linux distribution or any other solution is difficult but my country is even using a foreign cloud service instead of a swiss one😨
People are so shortsighted about this. Spend billions on Microsoft products to prevent spending millions on a safe solution that will never be suddenly deprecated.
you’re ignoring the very large elephant in the room known as “maintenance”. r&d is only the first hurdle.
This way you outsource the fault.
I mean, you guys have all that Nazi gold still so I’m not sure extrapolating that “neutrality” to other countries is necessarily useful
I’m just talking about keeping your data and those of your citizens away from Apple and Microsoft.
I don’t know enough about the nazi gold, but whatever your country is, I’m sure it has a dark history too. Still this is in no way related to the original post.
I mean my country is no longer engaged in active genocide but yours still fights tooth and nail to keep Jewish gold and you don’t even know about it
So yeah, there’s a difference.
Goddamn your right. The Nazi/Jewish gold hoards are… Why they… Use a foreign cloud service?
They outsource the data keep because it’s cheaper… nowdays even family package on Microsoft for onedrive is very cheap…
Degrees of a scale 🤦🏻
Won’t supply ammo for German weapon systems in Ukraine because they are “neutral”
Kinda like they were in world war 2…
How is that about data security/integrity?
The article says this will be “based on Ubuntu” but it will probably actually just be Ubuntu with custom defaults, pre-installed software, and maybe repositories.
This just makes sense in my view. The cost relative to the number of machines they must deploy will be miniscule. If they do not mess with the core system too much, they can outsource almost all the admin and expertise to Canonical in terms of security and packaging. People saying this will blow up. Why? It does not sound like they are really creating a full distro from scratch. Is Ubuntu not viable?
In terms of why crating a custom version instead of just using actual Ubuntu. Again, the cost of customizing a distro can be dramatically less than making even simple configurations on every system after the fact. They can standardize what the desktop will look like and set key defaults. They can choose what applications are installed by default. They can remove applications from the repository that they do not want to be installed. The can ensure that localization is done well, etc.
I remember when Ubuntu was just Debian with custom defaults, pre-installed software, and their own repositories. Basically what every new distro is in the beginning.
And yeah creating dpkg packages isn’t really all that difficult. Don’t know why people are saying this will be a disaster. There’s a lot of technically proficient people in India that could handle doing QA, and putting a dpkg on a server that gets automatically picked up by all the various systems that need it. Hell, they could develop their own applications and package them up and distribute them around much easier on a Linux system than a Windows system.
As an Indian… You mean we can outsource stuff to others? :D
LOL
“home grown” Ubuntu spin, got it
Chalega, it’s a step in the right direction
It’s certainly a step in some direction, I’ll check back in a few years and see if it was the right one, or if it’s just a publicity stunt.
Even if it is, this is an instant attitude switch for uncles who go “open source is not acceptable in the industry” or “open source is not sustainable”
Only if it actually succeeds. If the Indian gov’t gives up on it after a year or two, then maybe it’ll have the opposite impact.
I work with some Indians, so I’m going to ask them their thoughts. I’m genuinely interested in whether there’s a will in India to actually make this a thing. I know it wouldn’t fly in my area (US), but it has worked to some extent in other regions.
Potential is 100% there if they can get some stuff running
If the DE, compatibility layer and the antivirus thing is open source I want to make an openSUSE spin of it with kiwi
‘home-grown’
Well, it was the headline in a National newspaper and I just quoted it.
‘home-grown’ like that Miley Cyrus distro.
Very cool! Always good to see more countries get closer to embracing FOSS. Really helps with the collaborative benefits that FOSS can have, plus allows for organizations to have more control in their digital destinies instead of simply being customers.
Hope the best for the project!
People bitching about it being based on Ubuntu or “just Ubuntu”, I’ll take Ubuntu over windows and macos any day.
Finally something done right by India (just my rough impression, I remember them like banning VLC and then encrypted apps, idk exactly what they do.)
Yeah, they banned encrypted apps thinking that only terrorists require encrypted messaging.
I think they are just stupid lol
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Wait till fascist BJP learns about Whatsapp.
This is 100% a nationalism thing. They want to be able to say we make our own operating system. That’s it. It’s going to be a disaster when they inevitably removed up because they are doing g it for the wrong reasons.
How is controlling the package repo for your gov a bad thing?
Because they aren’t doing it to control the package repo, they are doing it to score nationalism points.
Guess what, nationalism and security go together for all the right reasons.
Hopefully they pull it off for real and it will not get bogged down by bureaucracy and red tapes.
Fingers crossed!
Another fríggin’ Ubuntu distro. Can’t somebody just commit to Debian instead… please?
Meanwhile, in NixOS land:
I don’t think NixOS “hates” Docker, in fact Nix has its own tools to build Docker images. There are some examples at https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/pkgs/build-support/docker/examples.nix
Ultra based India
They’re not that based, they’re banning encryption
Not based anymore 😔👊
My main concern is support and delay b/w security patches the OS will introduce. I’m making a wild guess, but I think they should have lot older hardware devices and from performance pov, they should benefit given latest Windows are not that great on older devices and older win versions have already reached EOL.
If they do get it right, they probably need to retrain their staff to be able to use other apps like Libre Office and more.
A lot of schools and colleges in Kerala (Indian State) use Ubuntu. Kids are taught how to use software like GIMP and Audacity in schools. It has become part of the syllabus in public schools.
12 th standard students have to do maths practical in GeoGebra.
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Kerala has a very good relationship with Free Software Foundation. Here is a video of Stallman speaking in the inauguration function of “Free software foundation of India” in Kerala broadcasted on State television https://youtu.be/ZnlslvE2A9U
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/ZnlslvE2A9U
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Can they do it? Yes. Can they do it with a reasonable level of support for many different desktop hardware so it’s cheap to implement? Probably, though it won’t be as comprehensive as windows. Can they get a 1:1 replacement for windows that has the same level of security as windows? No, because many national governments collaborate on windows security. But! They’ll be safe-ish from NSA back doors in windows (if you think there are any)
The likelihood that windows doesn’t have a back door for the US government is irrelevant.
No windows user can guarantee every part of their OS is clean.
Linux users have the advantage of Open Source.
If you run Linux, you can audit the code. Can’t do that for windows.
For governments, big businesses, etc windows is already open source
Nice… So anyone with any dignity won’t tolerate being spied on. Only cattle and sheep get subjected to this abuse. Checks out.
Switched to Linux due to being treated like cattle by windows.
Ok! I don’t care, that has nothing to do with this post!
U hurt?
You’re description of stripping dignity from the cattle and sheep turned me on, is all
Haha. Alright
Many national governments collaborate on Linux security as well.
Interesting because to airlines, using a Linux-based RTOS is a major security issue to the point where most airlines use homegrown RTOS solutions. But this isn’t the first national government switching to Linux for operations I’d argue are equally if not much more sensitive.
I did not know linux-based RTOS is a security issue for airlines, do tell me why. And ofcourse it will take a toll on the military to maintain the OS. As before this I assume they used enterprise version of windows, so the burden was share between microsoft and the military.
Whatever the reason is, it probably has very little to do with the described use case since RTOS is a very different use case to desktop copmuters. I didn’t even know that people were making an RTOS that is based on the linux kernel. You could never bring the device support the linux kernel has to the RTOS world.
This video from the linux foundation mentions some of the supposed concerns for Linux in aerospace: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=skaj70Qo3FA&t=1228s&pp=ygUbZGViYXRpbmcgbGludXggaW4gYWVyb3NwYWNl
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=skaj70Qo3FA&
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
