this post was submitted on 13 Apr 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Fuck yeah. Biggest employer in Europe NHS England needs to wake up and do this too. In one single licensing agreement they handed Microsoft £163.1 million. Imagine what that could do if spent on linux development instead, or heaven forbid on actual healthcare. It actually boggles my mind that the NHS doesn't have it's own distro and do its own development.
They don't need a new distro, unless they hire a lot of highly skilled packagers. I'd take say Ubuntu or OpenSuSE ... but it would be RedHat with Oracle for the NHS - they just can't help losing money.
For my tiny company, I'm going Kubuntu ... bear with ... Ubuntu means:
Those boxes ticked gets you on the way in the rather naff enterprise security word of tick boxes. Without those - give up now.
The K(DE) bit gets you a lot of configurability and its reasonably easy to get an environment out of the box that Windows users can get to grips with. Besides, I like KDE/Plasma.
I then tack on this rather fine project: https://cid-doc.github.io/ for AD, SYSVOL, "Drive letter" etc integration. Evolution with EWS does email.
My test machine is my desktop (it used to run Arch (actually), my laptop still does) - I started off with Kubuntu 22.04 and wired up all the above and then whilst in a Teams meeting kicked off the upgrade to 23.04 for a laugh. Sound stopped after a while because the kernel modules switched out. Anyway, all good after a reboot.
Seeing as I am competing with something that has GPO, I'll allow myself to use Ansible.
PS - I should point out that an Arch box can run one of the ESET for Linux products OK (I have). You can get it to do secure boot and it can do FDE. So can Gentoo but I spent 15 years constantly fixing my Gentoo pets too.
From what I've heard, the problem with IT in the health industry is with equipment manufacturers. MRIs, x-ray machines and other equipment that have control software that's written not just for windows, but a particular version of windows, and won't work without it. So you end up with a patchwork of different OSes that need to be updated and secure. Unifying that into one OS, even if it was to a pre-rolled Linux distro would be a nightmare, if not impossible.
It breaks my brain every day of the week thinking about how much money could be put to better use in so many industries if they just switched to Linux, but big organisations are like big ships; they move slowly and are hard to steer. And they regard software licences as the cost of doing business 🤷♂️
Yeah it's a shame about that. I wonder if a customer the size of the NHS could make it worth releasing Linux versions of the software though. I mean, if I can get an appimage or flatpak of some small open source cross-platform project surely someone like Canon could release one for their new ultrasound stuff. Especially if they're being offered an order to roll it out across an entire nations health service?
It would be pretty funny if they just ran it using Wine though!
bro you need to wake up. this is not how software works with government. NHS is not going to write their own Linux distro. that's crazy even for a company to do. its gonna take them a recurring budget every year just for maintaining the system. it'll balloon way past the Microsoft number easily. 163mm pound is a tiny TINY budget for an undertaking like building a healthcare OS that they plan to maintain forever. they'll have money to hire contractors once, then they'll pass it to their internal teams that are staffed with people trying to pass time until they collect pension.
also no way will any agency take the liability of building a custom OS for their health infra. health tech is honestly one of the hardest, most expensive things to dev just due to all the regulation and red tape behind it. you can't just build health tech for the hell of it, even if you're the NHS. it takes years and years and crazy money to have your systems certified to handle health data even if you're building internally.