After reading this article this morning I decided to try and find a copy of DPRK Red Star, the state issued OS used in North Korea. (It's amazing what distractions I'll come up with when procrastinating!)
Anyway I managed to download a fairly recent version and I thought I'd share it, because it's quite interesting and slightly hilarious.
It's basically a highly modified version of Linux.
The Install Screen... this took quite a bit of random clicking to get past...
Notice the 101 next to the system date and time... as explained in the article this is "the number of years since the birth of Kim Il-sung, the country's former leader whose political theories define policy decisions." Only in North Korea!
Overall it's pretty basic but standard and surprisingly usable. Though some of the icons seem to be "borrowed" from XP or Vista respectively. Not to mention the re-branding and blatant ripoffs of other software.
When I opened the web browser it appeared to be a list of offline links to what I can only assume was state controlled propaganda. Much more like a local intranet than the internet we know. But unlike in North Korea, once past the homepage the net was actually accessible.
All in all I thought it was worth a look?
Anyway I managed to download a fairly recent version and I thought I'd share it, because it's quite interesting and slightly hilarious.
It's basically a highly modified version of Linux.
The Install Screen... this took quite a bit of random clicking to get past...
Notice the 101 next to the system date and time... as explained in the article this is "the number of years since the birth of Kim Il-sung, the country's former leader whose political theories define policy decisions." Only in North Korea!
Overall it's pretty basic but standard and surprisingly usable. Though some of the icons seem to be "borrowed" from XP or Vista respectively. Not to mention the re-branding and blatant ripoffs of other software.
When I opened the web browser it appeared to be a list of offline links to what I can only assume was state controlled propaganda. Much more like a local intranet than the internet we know. But unlike in North Korea, once past the homepage the net was actually accessible.
All in all I thought it was worth a look?
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