this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2026

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1594

France Launches Government Linux Desktop Plan as Windows Exit Begins (linuxiac.com)

submitted 3 months ago by throws_lemy@lemmy.nz to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] eager_eagle@lemmy.world 267 points 3 months ago (1 children)

year of the french linux desktop

[–] felixwhynot@lemmy.world 82 points 3 months ago (2 children)

But I am le tired

[–] wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world 65 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Well have a nap

ZEN FIRE ZE MISSILES!!!

[–] sparky@lemmy.federate.cc 33 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Well have a nap

ZEN INSTALL ZE GENTOO!!

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[–] OwOarchist@pawb.social 156 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (8 children)

I'd be interested to try their distro when it's done...

I'll just need to remove the french language pack first. Let me look up instructions for that real quick... Oh no...

[–] Atherel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Mandrake reborn? :-D

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[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 121 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

windon't

[–] DanceMomsSavedMe@piefed.social 37 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Reminds me of the old "Genesis does what Nintendon't" ads

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[–] NarrativeBear@lemmy.world 18 points 3 months ago

Windidn't

[–] bearboiblake@pawb.social 105 points 3 months ago (2 children)

C'est l'année de l'ordinateur Linux!

[–] spirinolas@lemmy.world 19 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Super! (j'utilise Arch, au fait)

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[–] locahosr443@lemmy.world 99 points 3 months ago (16 children)

Meanwhile in the UK our government is strengthening ties to palintir. We always have to be the losers of Europe

[–] Teppa@lemmy.world 38 points 3 months ago

You guys literally wrote the book on Orwellian governments.

[–] Krzd@lemmy.world 31 points 3 months ago

Eh, Germany is currently doing the same, so we're both losing

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[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 82 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Combining French snobbery with Linux snobbery could set off some kind of chain reaction.

How soon until Quebec joins the Bloc de L'nux?

[–] BigJohnnyHines@lemmy.ca 11 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Like Tux but with cool sunglasses and cigarettes.

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[–] Smoogs@lemmy.world 76 points 3 months ago

They won’t go back. once you start getting used to having logic that responds to your commands it really is hard to give that up to ai slop.

[–] aesthelete@lemmy.world 71 points 3 months ago

Between this and expedition 33, France is coming up with some Ws these days.

[–] anon_8675309@lemmy.world 54 points 3 months ago (1 children)

This is how you renegotiate with MS.

[–] stormdelay@sh.itjust.works 51 points 3 months ago (5 children)

Hopefully the time for negotiations is past

[–] spizzat2@lemmy.zip 12 points 3 months ago

Yeah, I think/hope this is their "Find Out" era.

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[–] sunbytes@lemmy.world 53 points 3 months ago (3 children)

L'Nux

[–] mr_anny@sopuli.xyz 18 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Le Nux

[–] FG_3479@lemmy.world 13 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Hello, this is Le Nus Torvalds, and I pronounce Le Nux as Le Nux.

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[–] olivier@lemmy.fait.ch 52 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Let's hope they'll use Gendarmerie's almost 20 years of experience on that.

[–] A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip 23 points 3 months ago

Glad I found this comment. It was my first thought when seeing the headline: haven't they already been doing that for decades?

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[–] jestho@lemmy.zip 50 points 3 months ago

J'utilise le Arch de Triomphe, btw

[–] Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club 49 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Zomg, they will not allow you to sudo remove le French language!!!!

[–] MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works 24 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Okay... Fire ze missiles!

[–] MousePotatoDoesStuff@lemmy.world 16 points 3 months ago (1 children)

But I am le tired

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[+] webkitten@piefed.social 49 points 3 months ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (6 children)

[deleted]

[–] bearboiblake@pawb.social 62 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Probably more likely to go for SUSE, since it's European but still Enterprisey.

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[–] OwOarchist@pawb.social 42 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

With the resources they have -- and the goal of having security and control over their digital supply lines -- I don't see why they wouldn't roll their own distro. Maybe heavily based on an existing distro (looking at you, Debian) but something that's completely under their control, so they can choose for themselves exactly what packages are included, what security settings are used as defaults, when and if to update things, etc.

Edit: after (gasp) actually reading the article, it seems that each department within the French government will be responsible for their own implementation, which means they might all end up using different distros in different departments.

[–] Wfh@lemmy.zip 26 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

It's either a political move (nobody wants to be responsible for and/or depend on another ministry), or 4D chess where they would prevent a single vulnerability to expose the entire user base.

Fun fact, Orange (former France Telecom) has developed its own distro for the best part of the last 25 years. It's.. very peculiar.

By who are we kidding. The actual work will be offloaded to the shittiest contractor available (Capgemini/Atos/SopraSteria), it will take 5 years of the planned 2 and will cost 3.5 times the initial budget, for something sensibly shittier than an uBlue script.

[–] Archer@lemmy.world 25 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

That seems odd, that just means higher costs for support. Pick one distro then do custom packages or Ansible for your stuff that you want on top but don’t go a million different ways

[–] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 25 points 3 months ago

Going a millions different ways is more in the FOSS spirit than starting off by saying 'everyone will use this list of software'. They can't know what will be the best fit for everyone so they're approaching it flexibly.

They can iterate in the future or come up with standards as they need, but in the beginning it's better to try a lot of different things to see what people discover.

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[–] AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 43 points 3 months ago

Vive la France

[–] medem@lemmy.wtf 34 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Wexit.

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[–] SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 29 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I use Arch btw

[–] dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net 112 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Coming soon: Arch de triomphe.

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[–] TachyonTele@piefed.social 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Le Arch

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[–] NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml 24 points 3 months ago (2 children)

They should reboot mandrake/mandriva. As I recall it was a french project anyway.

[–] mech@feddit.org 11 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

https://distrowatch.com/table-mobile.php?distribution=mageia
https://distrowatch.com/table-mobile.php?distribution=openmandriva

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[–] nutbutter@discuss.tchncs.de 20 points 3 months ago (2 children)

So I can no longer make the joke about removing french language packs using rm -fr /?

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[–] Melusine@tarte.nuage-libre.fr 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

As a French, I wait before believing it. The DINUM does not really hold authority above the rest of the government and all the other administrations. Our gendarmerie switched to ubuntu more than 10 years ago, but the police planned to change all its computers to accomodate to windows 11, and the DINUM advocated to for dong to stop using american cloud providers, but we have a shit ton of public stuff running on american cloud, including the health data hub.

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