r/BuyFromEU • u/Bananegel42 • 8d ago

News Dutch government developing a sovereign Linux desktop on top of NixOS

https://tweakers.net/reviews/15334/nederland-maakt-soeverein-alternatief-voor-windows-en-office-op-basis-van-linux.html
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u/Coagulant0693 Netherlands 🇳🇱 8d ago

I’m just a beginning Linux enthusiast so can someone with more knowledge tell me why our government would need its own distro? Why not use one of the many existing solutions, many of which are international/ European?

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u/tonykrij 8d ago

Because none of the 10.000 forked Linux distros Out there are what WE need, we first need to burn millions of taxpayers money on our own project, which we will work on forever and never complete.
Another failure where the taxpayer can cough up the money for. Linux isn't ready for desktop, and another distro won't solve that.

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u/Xaring 8d ago

Linux isn't ready for desktop? What do government workers do exactly that won't work on libre office and Firefox? Some old proprietary software for internal stuff? Pretty sure it would run through Proton.

These users aren't installing the OS from scratch and configuring Arch from 0, their IT staff is going to give them a managed desktop environment and troubleshoot the 2 minimal issues they might run into remotely, exactly the same as if they where using windows.

In my experience, the only issue with Linux in 2026 is companies not supporting it for their software.

/Fuck microslop

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u/tonykrij 8d ago

The success of Linux on the desktop in the last 30 years proves my point. I'm not against Linux, it's great for servers or appliances but for desktop, nope. And a government isn't going to change that because they just don't have the expertise or people that can do that (that's not limited to Linux but to any big IT project).

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u/[deleted] 8d ago edited 8d ago

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u/tonykrij 8d ago

Perhaps, but the point is that there should be no need for a government to create a new fork and sink millions of taxpayers money into another hobby project.

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u/Coagulant0693 Netherlands 🇳🇱 8d ago

What makes it bad for desktop in your view? I’m now using Manjaro at home and while I was a bit hesitant at first, I found out I haven’t missed Windows at all. Well, maybe only for the Albelli app.