Robert Riemann 🇪🇺

#EU_OS: Which #Linux Distribution fits Europe best?

Read my blog post and let me know your thoughts and questions here.

https://blog.riemann.cc/digitalisation/2025/12/21/eu-os-which-linux-distribution-fits-europe-best/

#DigitalSovereignty #Fedora #opensuse #debian #rhel #almalinux #nixos #zorin #EuroStack #DigitalCommons #DPI #DigitalPublicInfrastructure

EU OS: Which Linux Distribution fits Europe best?

This post concerns the requirements of a Linux distribution for Europe in the context of the EU OS project and offers a comparison of Linux distributions.

~rriemann
Dec 22 at 10:47amWeb
Show threads�dDec 22

@rriemann Important conversation! Not sure about the bootc topic. I think NixOS (and Lix, Guix, ...) are a decent candidate for ‘United in Diversity’, especially because of a vibrant community and FOSS.

The #NixOS article linked for "slow to roll out updates" is speculative FUD.

> it’s not a great idea at all to have a package installed with a major CVE.

NixOS wasn't affected by the CVE, 5 days for something you're not affected isn't slow to roll out - that's acceptable to me.

Show threadYann Büchau Dec 30
@pl @rriemann Furthermore, fixing locally is trivial.
Show threadTrisDec 22
@rriemann @alpinelinux is battle-tested in the container space, it wouldn't bad either if it was using systemd. @postmarketOS might be it. @ariadne thoughts?
Show threadRobert Riemann 🇪🇺Dec 22

@tris @alpinelinux @postmarketOS @ariadne

How many people run #KDE on their laptop with #AlpineLinux? How many run Alpine directly on their server? How many people enroll AlpineLinux in FreeIPA or Foreman?

I think the goal of consolidating supply chains with AlpineLinux across different use cases is difficult.

Show threadAriadne Conill 🐰Dec 22

@rriemann @tris @alpinelinux @postmarketOS

all of those things work fine, but it is irrelevant, as alpine is not interested in nationalism of any kind

Show threadTrisDec 22
@rriemann cc: @hipsterelectron
Show threadMartin UeckerDec 22
@rriemann It is perhaps worth pointing out that xz backdoor was *found* by a Debian developer during testing (and that Fedora has also distributed compromised binaries). Overall, I also think that using something deeper rooted in independent community efforts than Fedora is more appropriate. Just my 2 cents.
Show threadKlaus Vink SlottDec 22
Hib @allan_christoffersen this post might interest you, and some of your customers.
@rriemann
Show threadAllan ChristoffersenDec 22

@MrManor
Thank you! Interesting read!

@rriemann

Show threadJerryDec 22
@rriemann @bluebuild we're currently working on getting our bluebuild system to be compatible with bootcrew images. So you should be able to start using other distros soon.
Show threadKhleedrilDec 22

@rriemann ``Which Linux Distribution fits Europe best?'' This is setting off on the wrong foot to start with. You need to get outside of the box and think bigger.

You do not discuss the actual requirements of an EU OS. For example, I suspect that the desktop use-case simply means Libreoffice and the server use-case simply Nginx. I think you should be concentrating on the stack needed to support those, and their provenance, not which distribution to choose.

Show threadRobert Riemann 🇪🇺Dec 22

@khleedril

Indeed, it's also about how to run e.g. LibreOffice without Windows. I don't get what you would do differently in discussing the stack. I would appreciate if you can do some drafting/share your ideas in more words.

Show threadKhleedrilDec 23
@rriemann Thanks for the encouragement. I can't do it here for obvious reasons (word counts!), but I'll think about composing a full online post, time permitting.
Show threadRobert Riemann 🇪🇺Jan 26
@khleedril Please consider this kind reminder.
Show threadidempotentnyDec 23

@rriemann I imagine ideal distro would be something with security of Secureblue (https://secureblue.dev/) but based on community driven distros like Arch/NixOS (secureblue is based on Fedora).

However Arch/NixOS lacks out of the box SELinux and Arch is not immutable, but aside it could be decent base for EU OS. Also for now secureblue feels way too hacky to be used by more wide audience of users.

secureblue: A security-focused desktop and server linux operating system.

A security-focused desktop and server linux operating system.

secureblue
Show threadRobert Riemann 🇪🇺Dec 23

@idempotentny

The distro @secureblue.dev is quite modular and I believe a gradual integration into the @eu_os proof of concept would be possible.

Show threaddavidakDec 28

@rriemann when you want to deploy many systems, how can anything other than nixos even be considered an option?

with it, you can test an exact configuration before deploying, even automatically. nixos does integration tests for it's module system. does any other distro does that? and in case of any issue, you can roll back with one command

you can also deploy the exact same configuration many times. i think it would be a nightmare to be responsible for systems without the control nixos offers

Show threadRobert Riemann 🇪🇺Dec 28

@davidak nothing of this is specific for #nixos

Please read the criteria in my blog post.

Show threaddavidakDec 28

@rriemann that being said, nixos is the opposite of conservative

while the system makes it very effective to maintain the packages and modules, which makes it possible to have the most packages and also the most up-to-date packages of all distros, some (core) packages have no maintainer assigned, which is probably not the case in debian or fedora

https://repology.org/repositories/graphs

to comfortably recommend nixos for such critical and large scale deployment, i think the project needs more resources

Graphs - Repology

Multiple package repositories analyzer

Show threadYann Büchau Dec 30

@rriemann Re: #xz backdoor, you state:

> NixOS: affected and unaffected, slow to roll out updates

But the sources you link don't state that NixOS was vulnerable to exploits, if I'm not mistaken. The backdoored code briefly landed in unstable, but wasn't exploitable due to #NixOS's unique build system. Furthermore, fixing it locally and distributing the fix without relying on the official distro cache/repos is much easier with NixOS, I would argue.

Show threadAlbert CardonaJan 3

@rriemann

Kind of shocked that, in the table "Comparison of Linux Distributions" https://blog.riemann.cc/digitalisation/2025/12/21/eu-os-which-linux-distribution-fits-europe-best/#comparison-of-linux-distributions the revenues of Ubuntu, RedHat, and Suse are listed, and that Suse is ~2x Ubuntu and RedHat ~10x ! These two RPM-based OSes have massive backing.

#linux

Show threadAlbert CardonaMar 16

@rriemann

In light of the (to me surprising) dominance of RedHat and Suse Linux, two thoughts:

1. Scientific microscopy vendors have no excuse to continue to provide their microscope controller software for Microsoft Windows. There are at least two well-established enterprise linux distributions. I am looking at you, #Zeiss #CarlZeissAG and your laser-scanning confocal and scanning electron microscopes. A commercial linux OS would be leaps and bounds better than #Microslop.

2. The recent announcement of Suse Linux being on sale is less surprising, considering it's a company, not a charity, and they sell an open source product, Suse Linux, which I am seeing reports has gone all in with locally integrated LLMs ("AI", for the uninformed) that enables companies to not depend on cloud services, or to do so in a way independent of a specific provider. In addition to providing an integrated office environment, not unlike Microsoft's. The allure to companies seems evident.

#linux