Developer | Rusbitech-Astra |
---|---|
OS family | Linux (Unix-like) |
Working state | Current |
Marketing target | Russian Armed Forces; Intelligence agencies of Russia; Police of Russia; RZD; Gazprom; Rosatom; Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant; State Institutions; Health Institutions; Educational Institutions and others |
Available in | Russian, English |
Update method | APT |
Package manager | dpkg |
Platforms | x86-64, ARM, Elbrus |
Kernel type | Monolithic |
Default user interface | Fly |
License | various [1] |
Official website | astralinux |
Astra Linux is a Russian Linux-based computer operating system (OS) that is being widely deployed in the Russian Federation in order to replace Microsoft Windows. [2] [3] Initially it was created and developed to meet the needs of the Russian army, other armed forces and intelligence agencies. [4] It provides data protection up to the level of "top secret" in Russian classified information grade by featuring mandatory access control. It has been officially certified by Russian Defense Ministry, Federal Service for Technical and Export Control [5] and Federal Security Service. [6]
In the course of 2010s, as Russian authorities and industry were trying to lower dependence on Western products ("import substitution industrialization"). Aside from army and police, it is now being supplied to educational, healthcare and other state institutions, as well as in industry giants such as RZD, Gazprom, Rosatom and others. [2] [3] Server versions of Astra Linux are certified to work with Huawei equipment.
The creator of the OS is the Scientific/Manufacturing Enterprise Rusbitech which is applying solutions according to Russian Government decree No.2299-р of 17/10/2010 that orders federal authorities and budget institutions to implement Free Software use. [7]
There are two available editions of the OS: the main one is called "Special Edition" and the other one is called "Common Edition". The main differences between the two are the fact that the former is paid, while the latter is free; the former is available for x86-64 architecture, ARM architecture and Elbrus architecture, while the latter is only available for x86-64 architecture; the former has a security certification and provides 3 levels of OS security (which are named after Russian cities and which from the lowest to the highest are: Oryol , Voronezh and Smolensk ), while the latter doesn't have the security certification and only provides the lowest level of OS security (Oryol). [8] [9]
Rusbitech also manufactures a "soft/hardware trusted boot control module" MAKSIM-M1 ("М643М1") with PCI bus. It prevents unauthorized access and offers some other raised digital security features. The module, besides Astra Linux, also supports OSes with Linux kernel 2.6.x up to 5.x.x, as well as several Microsoft Windows OSes. [10]
It is declared the Astra Linux licenses correspond with Russian and international laws and "don't contradict with the spirit and demands of GPL license". [11] The system uses .deb packages. [12]
Astra Linux is a recognized Debian derivative. [13] Rusbitech has partnership relations with The Linux Foundation. [14] It was part of the advisory board of The Document Foundation, [15] but was suspended on 26 February 2022 because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. [16]
The Special Edition version (paid) is used in many Russian state-related organizations. Particularly, it is used in the Russian National Center for Defence Control. [17]
There are talks to deploy mass use of Astra Linux in many state institutions of the Republic of Crimea – legitimate use of other popular OSes is questionable because of international sanctions during the Russo-Ukrainian War. [18]
Also there were plans on cooperation of Rusbitech and Huawei. [19] [20]
In January 2018, it was announced that Astra Linux was going to be deployed to all Russian Army computers, and Microsoft Windows will be dropped. [21]
In February 2018, Rusbitech announced it has ported Astra Linux to Russian-made Elbrus microprocessors. [22]
In February 2019, Astra Linux was announced to be implemented at Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant in China. [23]
Since 2019 "super-protected" tablet computers branded MIG are available with Astra Linux, [24] smartphones are expected. [25]
In 2019 Gazprom national gas/oil holding announced Astra Linux implementation, in 2020 nuclear corporation Rosatom, [26] in early 2021 Russian Railways was reported to do so. [27]
In 2020, Astra Linux sold more than a million copies in licenses and generated 2 billion rubles in sales. [28]
In 2021, several Russian nuclear power plants and subsidiaries of Rosatom are planned to switch to Astra Linux, with a total of 15000 users. [29]
In July 2022 after Microsoft had decided to exit the Russian market, [30] Astra Linux announced that it was planning to be publicly listed on the Moscow Exchange, although it did not supply a date for the planned listing at the time. [31]
Starting with the x.7 update, the Astra Linux Special Edition operating system utilizes a nested package repository structure - and this structure comprises the main repository, the base repository, and the extended repository. [32] [33] [34] The main x.7 repository is generally identical to version 1.6 - and the base repository encompasses all core packages, as well as packages related to development tools. [32] [34]
The extended repository houses versions of software packages that are not found in the primary and base repositories. Such software operates within the Astra Linux environment, remains unaltered to incorporate security features with CSS, may not be compatible with packages from the base and main repositories, and does not undergo certification tests. [32] [34]
The extended repository offers more functionality than a basic and core repository, with extended repository packages capable of modifying basic packages but not core packages. [32] [34]
Additionally, the extended repository includes a backport's component that supplies the latest versions of packages that might not be compatible with packages from the basic and extended repositories, and an "Astra-ce component" that furnishes packages to ensure maximum compatibility with third-party software. [32] [34]
Utilizing an extended repository enables users to install and run software originally designed for other Linux systems, develop their own software, and adapt Astra-Linux to various hardware platforms. [32] [34]
The primary categories of extended repository software packages are packages not included in the base repository, packages that update the base repository (i.e., newer versions of the basic repository packages - if incompatible, they are integrated into the backports component), and packages that substitute packages from the main repository. [32] [34] The latter are consolidated in the Astra-ce component, which includes: PostgreSQL DBMS, Exim (Exim4) email service, MariaDB DBMS packages, Java OpenJDK tools, and LibreOffice office suites. [32] [34]
Version | Release date | Linux kernel |
---|---|---|
1.2 | 28 October 2011 | 2.6.34 |
1.3 | 26 April 2013 | 3.2.0 [35] |
1.4 [36] | 19 December 2014 | 3.16.0 |
1.5 [37] | 8 April 2016 | 4.2.0 |
1.6 | 12 October 2018 | 4.15.0 |
1.7 | 22 October 2021 | 5.4 |
1.7.3 | 29 November 2022 | 5.15 |
1.7.5 | 16 October 2023 | 6.1 |
Version | Release date | Linux kernel |
---|---|---|
1.5 | ending of 2009 | 2.6.31 |
1.6 | 23 November 2010 | — |
1.7 [38] | 3 February 2012 | 2.6.34 |
1.9 | 12 February 2013 | 3.2.0 |
1.10 [39] | 14 November 2014 | 3.16.0 |
1.11 [40] | 17 March 2016 | 4.2.0 |
2.12 | 21 August 2018 | 4.15 |
2.12.29 | 14 May 2020 | 4.15.3-2 |
2.12.40 | 29 December 2020 | 5.4 |
2.12.43 | 8 September 2021 | 5.10 |
2.12.45 | 4 August 2022 | 5.15 |
Debian, also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software and optionally non-free firmware or software developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of Debian (0.01) was released on September 15, 1993, and its first stable version (1.1) was released on June 17, 1996. The Debian Stable branch is the most popular edition for personal computers and servers. Debian is also the basis for many other distributions that have different purposes, like Proxmox for servers, Ubuntu or Linux Mint for desktops, Kali for penetration testing, and Pardus and Astra for government use.
A Linux distribution is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and often a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one of the Linux distributions, which are available for a wide variety of systems ranging from embedded devices and personal computers to powerful supercomputers.
A package manager or package-management system is a collection of software tools that automates the process of installing, upgrading, configuring, and removing computer programs for a computer in a consistent manner.
Advanced package tool, or APT, is a free-software user interface that works with core libraries to handle the installation and removal of software on Debian and Debian-based Linux distributions. APT simplifies the process of managing software on Unix-like computer systems by automating the retrieval, configuration and installation of software packages, either from precompiled files or by compiling source code.
Software versioning is the process of assigning either unique version names or unique version numbers to unique states of computer software. Within a given version number category, these numbers are generally assigned in increasing order and correspond to new developments in the software. At a fine-grained level, revision control is used for keeping track of incrementally-different versions of information, whether or not this information is computer software, in order to be able to roll any changes back.
Ubuntu is a Linux distribution derived from Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in multiple editions: Desktop, Server, and Core for Internet of things devices and robots. The operating system is developed by the British company Canonical, and a community of other developers, under a meritocratic governance model. As of April 2024, the most-recent long-term support release is 24.04.
Technical variations of Linux distributions include support for different hardware devices and systems or software package configurations. Organizational differences may be motivated by historical reasons. Other criteria include security, including how quickly security upgrades are available; ease of package management; and number of packages available.
slapt-get is an APT-like package management system for Slackware. Slapt-get tries to emulate the features of Debian's (apt-get
) as closely as possible.
In 2006, a branding issue developed when Mike Connor, representing the Mozilla Corporation, requested that the Debian Project comply with Mozilla standards for use of the Thunderbird trademark when redistributing the Thunderbird software. At issue were modifications not approved by the Mozilla Foundation, when the name for the software remained the same.
A Debian Pure Blend is a project completely inside of Debian targeting a server or a desktop installation in very broad and general terms.
Software remastering is software development that recreates system software and applications while incorporating customizations, with the intent that it is copied and run elsewhere for "off-label" usage. The term comes from remastering in media production, where it is similarly distinguished from mere copying.
Tkabber is a GPL instant messaging client for the XMPP protocol which uses the Tk toolkit for the GUI. It runs on anything to which Tcl/Tk is ported: almost any X-based system, Microsoft Windows, and Mac OS X.
The Public Type or PT Fonts are a family of free/libre fonts released from 2009 onwards, comprising PT Sans, PT Serif and PT Mono. They were commissioned from the design agency ParaType by Rospechat, a department of the Russian Ministry of Communications, to celebrate the 300th anniversary of Peter the Great's orthography reform and to create a font family that supported all the different variations of Cyrillic script used by the minority languages of Russia, as well as the Latin alphabet.
FreedomBox is a free software home server operating system based on Debian, backed by the FreedomBox Foundation.
A delta update is a software update that requires the user to download only those parts of the software's code that are new, or have been changed from their previous state, in contrast to having to download the entire program. The use of delta updates can save significant amounts of time and computing bandwidth. The name "delta" derives from the mathematical science use of the Greek letter delta, Δ or δ to denote change.
Zim is a graphical text editor designed to maintain a collection of locally stored wiki-pages, a personal wiki. It works as a personal knowledge base and note-taking software application that operates on text files using markdown. Each wiki-page can contain things like text with simple formatting, links to other pages, attachments, and images. Additional plugins, such as an equation editor and spell-checker, are also available. The wiki-pages are stored in a folder structure in plain text files with wiki formatting. Zim can be used with the Getting Things Done method.
Long-term support (LTS) is a product lifecycle management policy in which a stable release of computer software is maintained for a longer period of time than the standard edition. The term is typically reserved for open-source software, where it describes a software edition that is supported for months or years longer than the software's standard edition.
RPA RusBITech JSC is a Russian technology company specializing in production of high technology solutions for Russian state enforcement structures, mainly for the Russian Army. The most known product is the computer operating system called Astra Linux which is nowadays used almost totally throughout Russian military forces. The main Russian Army headquarters, The National Defense Management Center's, information systems are based on Astra Linux. The Director General of RusBITech is Alexei Bocharov.
WINE@Etersoft is a Microsoft Windows compatibility layer available for Linux and FreeBSD. This compatibility layer enables many Windows-based applications to run on Linux operating systems, or FreeBSD.