Due to increasing concerns over cyberattacks and malware, India’s Defence Ministry has decided to replace Microsoft’s OS with a locally made Ubuntu fork named Maya (meaning ‘deception’ in Sanskrit). Maya will have an interface similar to Windows to ease the transition, and an end-point detection and protection system called Chakravyuh. The three armed services are also expected to follow suit, with the Navy already having cleared the OS for deployment.

The Indian government has long had a policy to transfer all government systems to open-source software, with the Railways and the Bombay Stock Exchange having switched to Red Hat and educational institutions using distributions such as Debian-based BOSS and Ubuntu-based KITE.

  • Ducks@ducks.dev
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    1 year ago

    I wonder if a government can actually do better at security. Not that corporations are amazing and infallible, but it isn’t like governments are known for creating the best software systems either.

  • Cybermass@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    This is incredible news. Windows 11 is a fucking travesty filled with bloatware, I recently had to reinstall windows due to a driver corrupting my nvme and switched back to windows 10 and my god the performance boost was actually insane. I run dual boot Ubuntu on my main laptop, and straight Ubuntu on my server host laptop and my work desktop.

    • u/lukmly013 💾 (lemmy.sdf.org)@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      I don’t like Windows either, but my experience with 11 was not as bad. I ran it on now dead 16 year old laptop (Compal FL90). It worked better than Windows 10, although it’s possible that it was old enough to not support some background services. I also disabled BITS and SuperFetch which gave it a huge boost.

      But compared to Linux Mint 20.3, Windows 8.1 or the officially supported Windows XP, that was a snail.

  • LennethBright@artemis.camp
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    1 year ago

    An Ubuntu fork meant to ease transfer from Windows? Sounds like they are making their own flavor of Linux Mint.

    Maya is a cool name to use too, but I associate it with the 3D graphics software first.

  • SheeEttin@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    It’s been tried in a bunch of places in Germany. Usually they never fully transition, or give up and switch back. Windows is really entrenched for the desktop.

    • CoLa666@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      The then mayor of Munich Christian Ude had to essentially endure bribing attempts by Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates in person to switch back to Windows. After 14 years the return to Microsoft happend after MS miraculously decided to move its German headquarters to the city and pay their juicy taxes there.

      In the meantime, Munich had saved millions upon millions in licence fees. Fuck Microsoft and fuck corrupt politicians.

    • appel
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      1 year ago

      On the one hand I agree, it’s not just the OS that’s replaced, it’s also the programs that run on it (unless they use cloud based apps, of course).

      On the other hand, the Germany example you mentioned was 15 or so years ago. I imagine Linux has matured a lot since then.

    • emergencyfood@sh.itjust.worksOP
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      1 year ago

      Yes, the previous departments that shifted were mostly servers (Railways, Stock Exchange), tech-savvy people (unis) or light users (schools). This time a lot of normal desktop users are being asked to shift. So we’ll have to see where it goes.

  • 𝐘Ⓞz҉@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    All countries should use American products. Countries like India and China should be banned from using American chips ans hardware immediately.