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The French police uses a custom distro based on Ubuntu 16.04: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu

by 1f60c 7y ago

jeroenhd 7y ago
Why are they using a custom distro? Is it just different graphics or do they have changes significant enough that a customised Ubuntu installer wouldn't suffice?
- notatoad 7y ago
  what's the difference between a custom distro and a customized installer?
- Mikeb85 7y ago
  Likely it's simply Ubuntu + some custom repos + different graphics (because why not).
- kakwa_ 7y ago
  They have some customized parts. For example, IIRC, they use a smart card to authenticate on their workstations, and also on their web applications. For that you need to customize a bit (better out of the box support for pkcs11 devices, integrate the Certificate Authorities needed, drivers). There are a few contributions to open source projects: A few years back, they were contributing to a fork of Thunderbird called Trustedbird for example. There are also a few individual contributors inside the Gendarmerie, for example Xavier Guimard creator and one of the current developers of LemonLdap (SSO portal). Also just as a side note, this distribution is used by the Gendarmerie, which is not exactly the national Police. In France you have both a Police Nationale and the Gendarmerie National. The Gendarmerie is military personel (the Police is civilian). I'm guessing national sovereignty plays a small role in that (VS using MS Windows, which is completely controlled by a US company, bounded to the US government).
- lozenge 7y ago
  When you run Windows you can use GPO to override loads and loads of behaviours, and WSUS to customise which updates get picked up by the computers. When you run Linux you do it by creating custom packages and changing the package manager to point to a different server, at which point you have created a "custom distro".

The French police uses a custom distro based on Ubuntu 16.04: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu

by 1f60c 7y ago

The French police uses a custom distro based on Ubuntu 16.04: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu

jeroenhd 7y ago

Why are they using a custom distro? Is it just different graphics or do they have changes significant enough that a customised Ubuntu installer wouldn't suffice?

notatoad 7y ago
what's the difference between a custom distro and a customized installer?
Mikeb85 7y ago
Likely it's simply Ubuntu + some custom repos + different graphics (because why not).
kakwa_ 7y ago
They have some customized parts. For example, IIRC, they use a smart card to authenticate on their workstations, and also on their web applications. For that you need to customize a bit (better out of the box support for pkcs11 devices, integrate the Certificate Authorities needed, drivers). There are a few contributions to open source projects: A few years back, they were contributing to a fork of Thunderbird called Trustedbird for example. There are also a few individual contributors inside the Gendarmerie, for example Xavier Guimard creator and one of the current developers of LemonLdap (SSO portal). Also just as a side note, this distribution is used by the Gendarmerie, which is not exactly the national Police. In France you have both a Police Nationale and the Gendarmerie National. The Gendarmerie is military personel (the Police is civilian). I'm guessing national sovereignty plays a small role in that (VS using MS Windows, which is completely controlled by a US company, bounded to the US government).
lozenge 7y ago
When you run Windows you can use GPO to override loads and loads of behaviours, and WSUS to customise which updates get picked up by the computers. When you run Linux you do it by creating custom packages and changing the package manager to point to a different server, at which point you have created a "custom distro".