EU OS | Community-led Proof-of-Concept for a free Operating System for the EU public sector
Posted by Silvestron@reddit | linux | View on Reddit | 70 comments
Erakleitos@reddit
This isn't official btw, just an idea a single dev had.
EveYogaTech@reddit
That's how Linux itself got started though.
New_Okra5546@reddit
I think an immutable Debian using OSTree would be the best. I use fedora Silverblue since last summer and it is soo good. As written in the article, layering different images is a great idea and can be pretty stable if there are no conflicts between the layers. Containerization is the future. I hope projects like Vanilla OS (Debian based) and this, get the support they deserve.
SNThrailkill@reddit
A Ubuntu bootc system would be my dream
alb2talk@reddit
What if EU it will sink soon, what will they do change the name? Awful! It seems to me like a system by EU bureaucrats.
mimfatz@reddit
Why fedora as base? It could be debian or arch. Fedora had short support cycle. It would change nothing because public administration even today could use open source software, but lobbyst don't want it. Why the hell do we need Microsoft office in public institutions?
xatrekak@reddit
Because there is nothing in the world that remotely compares to the OCI infrastructure that fedora has built.
metux-its@reddit
Which "OCI infrastructure" exactly, and what's to great about it ?
xatrekak@reddit
It's the build infrastructure built around the fedora/silverblue/ublue OpenContainers Image.
It means anyone can just fork ublue on GitHub, define additional packages/changes/tweaks on top ublue and suddenly you have your own atomic image based on silverblue that automatically follows upstream fedora and has built-in testing and build features. This is his Bazzite is built.
It's the reason why they are basing this off of Fedora, no one else has anything like it yet.
metux-its@reddit
What kind of magic build infrastructure do they have ?
My container images are all alpine based. Why should I ever need to build fedora images then ?
No idea why I should need this. I'm very happy package managers and provisioners like ansible. Why should I go back to the Windows way ?
The same can be easily achieved with quite any distro.
In embedded world, we're even compiling whole images from scratch, with exactly what we need for the target machine - using standard tools like ptxdist, buildroot, yocto, etc.
Sometimes I even use that in datacenter space, eg. for building optimized VM/container host images or certain container images.
AnEagleisnotme@reddit
If it's fedora, it will force them to update at a half decent pace, so I'd say it's a +
AmarildoJr@reddit
Isn't this based off of Fedora? xD "EU OS, 100% made in 'MURICA"
They could at least have picked openSUSE!
xatrekak@reddit
The toolchain for fedora is the best in the world, especially their OCI infrastructure. It makes it incredibly easy to setup your own Distro in a secure and scalable way.
siete82@reddit
Yes, but the point of the distro is to avoid tech dependency with the US. Suse is a European company with +25 years of experience, they can definitely do the job.
xatrekak@reddit
I'm sure suse is capable of building it given a team and time but it doesn't exist now and can't be built overnight.
You can't base on something that doesn't exist
metux-its@reddit
You you instead wanna give IBM the money to build that team instead ?
Btw, considering their rascist HR practises, I doubt they'll have an easy trip in trying to get enough experts for the job. And considering the currently mounting up avalanche of lawsuits against their rascism, I wonder how long they will have the money to pay those experts.
xatrekak@reddit
Fedora has already built all of this on their community driven side. IBM/redhat has nothing to do with it.
Anyone can fork ublue and make their own atomic OCI images for free because the infrastructure for this already exist. This is how Bazzite is built.
metux-its@reddit
Why should I fork something I don't need at all. My container images are usually based on alpine.
TeutonJon78@reddit
Universal Blue isn't a Fedora project though. The official ones are SilverBlue for Gnome and Kionote for KDE.
520throwaway@reddit
Suse... doesn't exist now?
Wut?
Suse 100% exists and has been doing what you aim to achieve for a long time
xatrekak@reddit
I was referring to the OCI infrastructure that fedora built to automatically build and test automatic images based off of silverblue/ublue
esmifra@reddit
OpenSuSe might not have an OCI, but its automatic testing and quality control of images is one of the things it excels at and differentiates the distro from others.
Messaiga@reddit
Independence from Microsoft and licensing seems to be implied, it mentions nothing of freedom from tech developed in the US though.
Once more development related to bootc and distributions like Debian/Arch/OpenSUSE/whatever comes to pass, they can use this same philosophy and apply it to any package base they want. For now it's just Fedora and Fedora-based images in this ecosystem.
TeutonJon78@reddit
They could. But MicroOS desktop is way behind Fedora, especially since they went KDE.
There is literally 1 volunteer dev working on Kalpa.
metux-its@reddit
why ? because things like anaconda or even just packaging rpm's is so horribly tedious and compilicated - compared to eg. dpkg world ?
docker ? podman ? k8s ? Everything' pretty distro independent.
I already had my own distro (and been part of various small distro projects). And I'm freqquently doing 3rdparty repos for various distros, for my clients. No, rpm world is exactly what I would NOT pick for my distro.
xatrekak@reddit
Probably why no one uses any of your distros while Bazzite and other fedora based OCI distros are some of the fasting growing ones in the entire Linux ecosystem.
metux-its@reddit
I happend to be chief architect / head of development in an international cloud native corporation that's doings lots of business applications (hosted as well as on-premise), we have installations with >100k users, all running on k8s, using the iron of various different hosters.
We don't ues any rpm based distro.
Ok_Construction_8136@reddit
FOSS devs can’t help but be globalists
esmifra@reddit
Define globalists.
Ok_Construction_8136@reddit
I just meant that FOSS encourages international projects by its nature
crystalchuck@reddit
Man I was afraid you would go off on a tangent how FOSS devs are white-hating Jews
esmifra@reddit
On that I agree, it's very decentralised.
tulpyvow@reddit
Also, high dependency on GitLab and their primary instance
1998marcom@reddit
I think it can be really useful in terms of catching money from the EU
metux-its@reddit
Catching money from the taxpayers, to be precise. Yet some more things the taxpayers are forced to pay for at gunpoint.
taicy5623@reddit
We should tax people more and funnel the funds entirely into FOSS projects that private companies rely on but pretend they don't.
1998marcom@reddit
I am sure you didn't mean to frame it that way, but you said that we should tax the people to finance the software that companies are using but not paying for? I mean, let me open a company, then I am happy if you start taxing people to finance my software costs. I might feel a bit guilty as a freeloader, but if you really insist, I might as well give in.
On a more concrete level, list of famous companies relying on EU OS: ... and many more!
Look, personally I have little to no hope that a bureaucrat in Bruxelles can choose better than me where to put my money on.
metux-its@reddit
That's exactly how it's already working.
Almost. Much of the funding actually goes into weird political activists, who're framing anybody who doesn't like to pay his taxes for weird shit (and at least wants full transparency on where the money is going) as "right-wing extremists".
They usually do the right choice for them - into their own pockets.
Historical-Bar-305@reddit
First one if you want to make good OS first you need to fix glibc (legacy support) second if you want US independent system you may take a fedora as base but in the future you must separate it from original fedora updates or even make your own repository like manjaro did, third EU may ask to make port of popular apps for content making and others.
Silvestron@reddit (OP)
Yeah, I don't understand why they chose Fedora either. My guess would be because they're going for an immutable OS.
whitechocobear@reddit
A question isn’t opensuse micro immutable?
Ethameiz@reddit
It has both stable versioning distribution and distro with rolling release
Silvestron@reddit (OP)
Yes, it is.
Historical-Bar-305@reddit
Yep they want atomic version.
3ndl3zz@reddit
Does it include chat control and disabled encryption? That would make it so much EU
Ethameiz@reddit
Why? Sounds more like China
narvimpere@reddit
https://getaurora.dev - made by me, out of Austria and a bunch of other people :)
yllanos@reddit
It’s just another Linux distro. Move on
CloakTheLurker@reddit
"We're totally not just a Linux distro, we're a Proof-of-Concept™!"
I sighed when reading that part on the website.
tanksalotfrank@reddit
Plenty of free, community-led ones that have already proven themselves..
AnEagleisnotme@reddit
I think the main reason it exists is for state run stuff, which is fair enough
redballooon@reddit
That would be a Linux variant with a “store” for government apps.
Ok_Construction_8136@reddit
OpenSUSE news had a good article arguing this and the need for decentralisation (i.e. some use cases support GNOME, some KDE)
esmifra@reddit
EU OS is based on fedora that is owned by RedHat which is American and in the past showed it has no problems in pulling the plug or taking advantage of a situation because they think it's profitable, centOS is a perfect example.
So ok, as a POC but please use a non US corporation.
johncate73@reddit
It does seem to me if this had anything to do with technological independence from the USA, they would use OpenSUSE, as others have already mentioned. Going with Fedora as a base would be plain silly in that case.
savornicesei@reddit
There is already SuSE / openSUSE. Why not supporting openSUSE (& KDE & LibreOffice) instead of scattering resources as maintainers are hard to find and keep?
Swimming-Marketing20@reddit
Have you ever had to use SUSE?
savornicesei@reddit
I'm using Tumbleweed since i7 2nd gen
Erakleitos@reddit
Exactly and they are enterprise oriented so perfect for the public sector.
PLAYERUNKNOWNMiku01@reddit
X-doubt. Lol.
6gv5@reddit
Good, and moving the project off Gitlab to Codeberg would be a nice and consistent first step.
SnooCats3884@reddit
And also the last one
RudeboyRudolfo@reddit
Manjaro is partly or mostly a german distro as far as I know.
fearless-fossa@reddit
Yeah, but it's Manjaro.
RudeboyRudolfo@reddit
It's a great distro. I used it for a long time. Only switched to Cashy because of mesa 25 and I bought a recent AMD card.
esmifra@reddit
Manjaro has a history of screw ups.
Specialist-Delay-199@reddit
Stick Fedora in it and move on
githman@reddit
As a EU citizen I find the name sort of questionable. German and French products are typically labelled German and French; the things "made in EU" come mostly from Poland or Estonia. Now, there is nothing wrong with these proud countries but why not just say it?
metux-its@reddit
Yet another flavour of an US-based distro, what's the goal ?
And why exactly picking the playground of the rascist IBM/Redhat ? Because IBM has much experience with providing computers to governments - like eg. the Hollerith ?
(those who don't know that, really should study German history of the 30's of last century)
Mezutelni@reddit
This have been posted here before and other Linux related subreddits.
This project is not related to UE and it's stupid in many ways.