What is your opinion about Russian distributions?

tazi_strah

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example: Rosa Linux, Alt Linux, Calculate linux
how do you rate these distributions
 


I don't know about those distros you mentioned - haven't used them - yet :)
But I will say that I was very impressed by KolibriOS.
Tested it out some years ago and I could not believe the array of software included in such a tiny package!
Don't know if it forwarded any 'dossiers' to any 'spy agencies' or not but it is one heck of an interesting distro.
It is worth taking for a test drive just for the fun of it.
It's bloated all the way up to 26MB - I think it was 8 or 12MB when I tested it.
https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=kolibri
@wizardfromoz one to add to your 'collection' :D
 
Until reading this topic, I didn't even know there was such a thing as a "Russian distro". But given that the only familliar name of the three is ROSA (because of ROSA Image Writer which I like a lot), I would test ROSA in a VM first.
 
I haven't tried any Russian distro. If all other things were equal, I would choose the non-Russian distro out of distrust for the Russian government. I would be slightly leery that they might mandate that Linux distros serve the state. (In a communist state, you can't just say no.)

OTOH, I am very pleased with the progress some Russians are making on the monumental task of making a Windows clone, ReactOS. It's not ready for serious use, but I can actually install some windows software on it and use it, a little.
 
I find this whole thing slightly strange.

You have distros based on Mandriva and Gentoo. Are the developers solely in Russia or in different places around the world? What about the non-Russian bits?

Debian was founded by Ian Murdock. He was American. Debian is developed by people all around the world. Is it an American distro or international?

Ubuntu was founded by Mark Shuttleworth. He is South African. The Canonical company is based in the Isle of Man, UK. It is developed by people all around the world. What country is it based in?

Security? Linux is supposed to be totally transparent. People can look at the source code. Has there ever been advice to stop using any Linux version because it is insecure?

Security? Don't get me going about Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Apple...
 
Debian was founded by Ian Murdock. He was American. Debian is developed by people all around the world. Is it an American distro or international?

Ubuntu was founded by Mark Shuttleworth. He is South African. The Canonical company is based in the Isle of Man, UK.
Mint was founded by Clement Lefevre who's French. And one of the main developers is Russian.
 
Security? Linux is supposed to be totally transparent. People can look at the source code. Has there ever been advice to stop using any Linux version because it is insecure?

This is a good point. But regularly, even daily, Linux user the world over enter their root password (or their user password to allow root access through sudo) to turn over control to the distro's update software to make changes as needed. How difficult would it be to hide a secret, non-open module among all that to add spying capability? And maybe delete it on the next update.

They wouldn't find anything of interest to the state on any of my PCs, but they would on some.
 
probably the 'most russian' distro is Astra Linux.

In February 2019 Astra Linux was announced to be implemented at Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant in China

If the chinese run it at a nuclear power plant , I highly doubt whether the 'data collectors' would too interested in knowing any of the data available on meek and mild citizens of the world. ....i mean really....you can already buy that from microsoft or google so why would you bother.
 
Actually, I am a little confused by Ken's statement

(In a communist state, you can't just say no.)

Communists have not been in power since 1991, when the USSR was disbanded

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_parties_in_Russia

Shows the current status.

But back to the Distros -

I use Calculate, which is based on Gentoo (as is Sabayon, which I also use).

Excellent product.

BTW on Clement Lefebvre (sic)

Clem lives in Ireland, (born French) has for at least 10 years or more.

Wizard
 
@wizardfromoz , IDK if this topic is the right place to politicize things but I gotta say you're wrong. There may not be an official communist party in Russia but they are in power. None of the democracy countries around the world has anti-human laws allowing citizens to harm or kill LGBT citizens without punishment. Some time ago I watched a video made by Russians in Moscow. They experimented with this new law shortly after Putin signed it. Two men seemingly fighting in the street, someone called the police. When the cops arrived and found out that one of the fighters is gay which was the reason the other guy was beating him, they just drove off. What does that tell you? Do you think that in a democracy country the cops would be allowed to just leave the scene without arresting the attacker? Or that they would still be cops after, even if they did? That law is the reason many LGBT Russians migrated to other countries, some of them even came to Bulgaria. There's homphobia here as well but it's not as widespread and not as violent as in Russia. But we don't have an official anti-human law to allow homophobia.
 
Yes .......your first thought was correct. This not the place to politicize things.
 
Yes .......your first thought was correct. This not the place to politicize things.
That above was the first and the last offtopic post of mine in this topic but I just had to tell @wizardfromoz he was wrong. Just had to! :D
 
Communists have not been in power since 1991, when the USSR was disbanded
Has there ever been a real Communist government anywhere? Your Wikipedia article surprised me. It sounds brutally honest.
In Russian politics, a "party of power" is a specially established party which unconditionally supports the current president or prime minister in the parliament.

In this thread there seems to be fear of politicizing things. But isn't the very nature of a question about "Russian distributions" political? But fear not, I doubt anyone will get emotional over the Russian government.

I can think of 11 distros (plus 3 BSDs) that I have used or am using. But in each case, it was for the purpose of finding the right distro. Not just trying on a new hat.

But I've never tried any of the ones mentioned here.
 
In this thread there seems to be fear of politicizing things. But isn't the very nature of a question about "Russian distributions" political?

Is it? The OP made no mention of politics, or fear, or mistrust. He simply asked folks to give opinion or rate a few distros. Humans seem to all have fears of one sort or another, many brought on by bias and prejudices... some earned, some taught, and some imagined. If personal fear or mistrust causes one to not use a certain distro, we have no way to alleviate those fears... so don't use that distro. But please try not to instill those same fears into others. Perhaps they might find that distro to be exactly what they are looking for.

Cheers
 
It is.
The OP made no mention of politics, or fear, or mistrust.
Then what's the point of singling out Russian distros? How would Russian distros be any different than any others, except that they presumably are compiled and controlled within the country known for lack of freedom and which therefore presumably might be tempted to abuse a Linux distro for it's state aims?

Seriously. What's the point of singling out Russian distros? What is Russia known for? Dr. Zivago? Cold Steppes? Fur hats? Big missiles on parade? Meddling?
But fear not, I doubt anyone will get emotional over the Russian government.
Maybe I was wrong. Though I think the fear of fear might be driving things here.
 
It is.

Then what's the point of singling out Russian distros? How would Russian distros be any different than any others, except that they presumably are compiled and controlled within the country known for lack of freedom and which therefore presumably might be tempted to abuse a Linux distro for it's state aims?

Seriously. What's the point of singling out Russian distros? What is Russia known for? Dr. Zivago? Cold Steppes? Fur hats? Big missiles on parade? Meddling?

Maybe I was wrong. Though I think the fear of fear might be driving things here.

Isn't there a moderator here?

Russophobic posts, as any other xenophobic ones, shouldn't be allowed.

This thread simply asks about Russian distributions, and anyone has the freedom of being interested in distribution of a particular country for whatever reason such as good support in Russian (that's why DistroWatch actually enables users to browse distributions by countries, in fact), and the above troll comes up with a thread of posts with defamatory remarks towards Russia totally unrelated to the question, which apart from false, are by all means out of place.

Someone please moderate this.
 
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xenophobia isn't always a bad thing. Yep, I said it.

but I do agree we shouldn't single out the Russians.
Still, there have been (almost surely still are) certain distro's with malicious code in them.
(even European, American, and Australian) but as blanket statement...
most of these do tend to come from Asia.

This isn't just a Linux thing. The majority of malicious viruses, apps, and backdoor for Windows
are usually from the same locations.

You can call this prejudism if you want to. But facts are facts, and these things DO exist.
I'm not calling out any particular country or ethnic group, but we do need do be aware
of these things, instead of just brushing them under the rug as xenophobia.

This isn't really anything new. cyber-warfare has been going on for at least a couple of decades.
Sometimes at an official government level, sometimes at a consumer/hobbyist level.
 
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For instance i might have an off topic which includes computers and maybe Linux. I have evidence of falsifying records(regarding wife illness) on NHS Meday/patient database. I was thinking what my approach might be using linux if they tried to delete the entry. I just wrote to Secretary of State UK
 
G'day @Astranaut and welcome to linux.org :)

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