Ubuntu Tips n Tricks

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Red Star OS, a Linux Distro Made in North Korea

Posted: 05 Mar 2010 10:11 PM PST

North Korea has been discovered developing its own Linux distro named Red Star OS. To make it even more interesting, it is said to be commissioned by the infamous Kim Jong-il.

A Russian student of Kim Il-sung University at Pyongyang bought the distro for $5 USD at an information centre, and then shared his discovery through his blog.

Based on looking at the screenshot above, Red Star OS is clearly using the K Desktop Environment (KDE) with a theme that is quite similar to that of Windows XP. It is pre-loaded with useful free and open source applications like a word processor (looks like OpenOffice.org Writer), web browser (based on Firefox), e-mail client, and even a few games. Red Star OS is pretty much a standard Linux distro except that it supports only one language, which is Korean.

More screenshots HERE

A few fascinating features of Red Star OS include a system clock with a date based on North Korean calendar that considers 2010 to be year 99 of its Juche ideology, and a readme file that contains words from Kim Jong Il, who says that it's important that the DPRK have an operating system that gels with its values.

Perhaps Red Star OS will be listed at Distrowatch soon and they could give us a download link or two. However, do you trust Kim Jong Il enough for you to download and install his endorsed distro?