
Notes on Red Star OS 3.0 - adamnemecek
http://richardg867.wordpress.com/2015/01/01/notes-on-red-star-os-3-0/
======
sho_hn
As a KDE developer, it's a bizarre feeling to see our code at work there.

I'm very curious to have a closer look at the scope and quality of their
modifications, and what they indicate about how the Red Star developers
interact with the community. Some of their mods may be derived from popular
third-party patches, which would require active exposure to the venues where
they're shared.

~~~
ethbro
If you trace this, I'd be curious if this was modified directly by North
Korea, or if they hired the work out.

Nationalism and security would probably mandate the former, but I'd imagine
even the North Korean government could throw more than enough money at this
problem to buy a high quality customized version.

~~~
mhurron
You might find this interesting -

" Computer Science in the DPRK A view into technology on the other side of the
world "

[http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2014/31c3_-_6253_-_en_-_...](http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2014/31c3_-_6253_-_en_-
_saal_2_-_201412292115_-_computer_science_in_the_dprk_-_will_scott.html)

EDIT - ok, it's already linked in the article. It is interesting.

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drzaiusapelord
Interesting how even China, given its wealth, has given up on building its own
OS and chip infrastructure. The much touted Red Flag linux running the
Godson/Loongson chip never really materialized. They're using Microsoft
products on Intel/AMD instead.

Is a national OS such a non-trivial problem? Interesting how autocratic
regimes and their citizens often attack the US on every level, but are happily
running US developed software/processors and using US discovered patents on a
very important level. I suspect this is further proof that autocracies simply
can't compete with capitalistic democracies regardless of the propaganda they
believe.

~~~
com2kid
> Interesting how even China, given its wealth, has given up on building its
> own OS and chip infrastructure.

I wouldn't say that. I would say that the Chinese Government has allowed the
free market to take over this task. Take a look at
[http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/chinese-arm-soc-
mediatek...](http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/chinese-arm-soc-mediatek-
allwinner-rockchip,3912.html) all high quality ARM SOCs from Chinese
suppliers.

Likewise,
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIUI](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIUI) is a
fork of Android that reportedly runs _faster_ than Google's stock shell. (I
have seen an old version in action on Android 2.2, it was fast, _really_ fast,
from what I have read newer versions are just as zippy) Xiaomi has also built
up a complete separate (successful!) ecosystem outside Google's, something
that Amazon has tried and failed to do.

In another few years you are going to have a Chinese controlled mobile OS
being used throughout the Asia Pacific region, running on hardware designed by
Chinese companies.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
ARM isn't Chinese IP. Its not theirs, its licensed from ARM Holdings which is
a UK company.

Android is a American open source project. That's not chinese either and they
sure as hell can't just get off Windows for Android, yet, if ever. They need a
usable desktop OS.

No one is doubting their ability to copy and refine in a limited fashion, but
their homegrown attempts have all been massive failures.

~~~
com2kid
> ARM isn't Chinese IP. Its not theirs, its licensed from ARM Holdings which
> is a UK company.

The CPU is only one very small part of a chipset. The overall SoC is far more
important.

And of course any company that has an Architectural Licence just has to make
something that is compatible with ARM. (Although I don't see any of the lower
cost SoC manufactures doing this anytime soon!)

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willscott
Great to see this getting played with. In addition to these notes, there's
apparently a custom kernel module doing security stuff that was found on
twitter.

I mostly find this interesting for how much work went into it. Priorities can
be really weird sometimes.

I posted the slides from my CCC talk:
[https://wills.co.tt/bitbucket/dprk/#/](https://wills.co.tt/bitbucket/dprk/#/)
I'm also happy to answer questions about redstar & related technology.

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JonnieCache
The CCC talk comes highly recommended. It's mostly about the time he spent
teaching CS in a pyongyang academy for elite kids. He demos some of the
official android apps too.

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mox1
Crazy, the default language is 'ko'. I thought only South Koreans used that?

[http://marcrogers.org/2014/12/18/why-the-sony-hack-is-
unlike...](http://marcrogers.org/2014/12/18/why-the-sony-hack-is-unlikely-to-
be-the-work-of-north-korea/)

~~~
gpvos
They still speak the same language, although in 60 years of separation the
vocabulary has diverged a bit.

Earlier discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8766411](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8766411)

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danso
Motherboard Vice has a general article about Red Star 3.0's release:

[http://motherboard.vice.com/read/you-can-now-install-the-
nor...](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/you-can-now-install-the-north-korean-
operating-system-redstar-30)

My first thought: I'd want to install it just to get the wallpapers. Maybe
some intrepid soul will do that and release the wallpapers as a separate
distribution.

The Vice article has a few more contextual details, such as how Red Star was
rarely distributed for personal use, and that Windows 7 was still popular
among students according to the American teacher who first spotted Red Star.

~~~
unbudgingprawn
One of the comments in the article had a link to the wallpapers
[http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=706209438639911...](http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=70620943863991181518)

~~~
kbenson
Some of those are surreal. Is it me, or did they photoshop farm machinery into
their fields?

~~~
ceejayoz
They're all photo-illustrations or outright painting/drawings.

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apetresc
So, for someone unversed in North Korea, what does this mean exactly? The
entire country uses this distro exclusively? Or just by government workers?

There's going to be an entire generation out there who've only ever used
Linux?

~~~
steveklabnik
I'm not particularly familiar with how many people use Red Star OS, but as a
small point to help you evaluate advice you may get, those who _are_ versed on
"North Korea" call it "the DPRK."

~~~
ceejayoz
Surely someone versed on North Korea _and_ interested in sharing their
knowledge with the general public in somewhere like the US would use the term
"North Korea" in order to be understood?

~~~
steveklabnik
Sometimes, but if that's a concern, they'll often use it the first time,
mention the actual name is the DPRK, and then go from there.

Calling someone by their chosen name is one of the most human things you can
do. Dale Carnegie and all that. The United State's dehumanization of the
citizens of the DRPK begins with calling them by the name we prefer rather
than the name they've chosen for themselves.

~~~
_delirium
Eh, I don't think it needs that much over-explanation. We also commonly call
the ROK "South Korea", and the ROC "Taiwan". They're both allies, but we still
typically don't use their actual names in anything but formal settings. Going
back to the Cold War, we used geographical terms for both East Germany and
West Germany, which weren't in either of their names. I don't think this was
out of a desire to dehumanize Germans, but rather because referring to a
divided country as if it were not divided, using their official names "Federal
Republic of Germany" and "German Democratic Republic" (which both claimed to
be The Real Germany), is unwieldy bureaucratese.

(It's also not U.S.- or English-specific; you do the same thing in all these
cases in Danish. Except for formal documents, it's _Nordkorea_ and _Sydkorea_
, not _Den Demokratiske Folkerepublik Korea_ / _DDFK_ or _Republikken Korea_ /
_RK_.)

~~~
steveklabnik
We don't have imperialist intentions with any of those countries, nor do we
consider them enemies. The ROK and the DRPK are both shorter than North/South
Korea.

Anyway, words are hard.

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adamnemecek
Here's a wiki link for anyone unfamiliar with this glorious distro
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Star_OS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Star_OS)

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samspenc
Does anyone know what the window manager is? I think it might the same one as
the one Elementary OS uses, but it looks slightly different.

~~~
laumars
It's KDE. Albeit not the standard KDE desktop.

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imissmyjuno
I wonder why they used such an old version of Firefox?

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harunurhan
I haven't used it but it looks slower than common linux distros on Will
Scott's talk.

~~~
tuananh
he runs it in a vm i think.

~~~
harunurhan
I know, but I have better performance on vm. May be hardware limits of vm was
too low.

~~~
willscott
I was running it on a super low powered chromebook, which was the main
problem.

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slipstream-
Ironically, I haven't played with red star desktop 3.0 that much. I really
need to find time to mess around with it properly.

~~~
yellowapple
_It 's like rain on a wedding day!_

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jdubs
There is a surprising lack of Engrish in the included apps.

