North Korea's Home-Grown Operating System Mimics OS X

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North Korea's Home-Grown Operating System Mimics OS X

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday February 5, 2014 @10:05AM from the north-korea-suddenly-very-hip dept.

CambodiaSam sends the latest on "Red Star OS," North Korea's attempt at a home-grown operating system. Previously, it had closely resembled Microsoft Windows, but a new update now strongly mimics Apple's OS X. "Despite living in a country very much shut off from the outside world, many people in North Korea do have access to technology - including mobile phones. However, devices are heavily restricted. Internet access, for instance, is locked down, with most users able to visit only a handful of sites mostly serving up state-sponsored news. The Red Star OS is peppered with North Korean propaganda, and its calendar tells users it is not 2014, but 103 — the number of years since the birth of former North Korean leader Kim Il-sung. An earlier version of Red Star OS was made available worldwide in 2010 after a Russian student posted it online. The latest version is believed to have been released some time in 2013."

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Re:Serious question by AmiMoJo · 2014-02-05 10:20 · Score: 1, Informative

East Asian languages use square characters and don't have spaces between words. Furthermore there is no problem splitting words over more than one line. Kerning for Latin characters tends to stick to the square grid for consistency.
Try the Meiryo font, it looks pretty good.

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Re:There's a solution - at least for now by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-05 10:21 · Score: 4, Informative

http://classic.slashdot.org/ ftw
Re:There's a solution - at least for now by buswolley · 2014-02-05 10:25 · Score: 4, Informative

for a limited time only, per the announcement.

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Re:There's a solution - at least for now by Antipater · 2014-02-05 10:30 · Score: 3, Informative

http://slashdot.org/?nobeta=1 also works, if it bugs out like it did for me and there isn't a sidebar or footer.

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Re:Fuck you, slashdot by buswolley · 2014-02-05 10:43 · Score: 5, Informative

Fuck it a second time for more mod points!

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Re:Fuck you, slashdot by buswolley · 2014-02-05 10:48 · Score: 4, Informative

for now.

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A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
Re:There's a solution - at least for now by buswolley · 2014-02-05 10:55 · Score: 4, Informative

developer on a payroll

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A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
Re:There's a solution - at least for now by BasilBrush · 2014-02-05 11:23 · Score: 2, Informative

Let's not overstate the quality of the "classic" interface. The fact that it still barfs over unicode and HTML is unforgivable. And after you submit a message, you are left in limbo, without a button to get back to where you were. And the browser back button method results in a "are you sure you want to resubmit this form" dialog!
Lets not get misty eyed over an old interface just because it's familiar.
Re:Fuck BEta by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-05 11:36 · Score: 2, Informative

How is this not modded +5, Funny? Slashdot, die? It's been the undead zombie for years, and everyone knows it.
Sounds better than Windows 8 by BenSchuarmer · 2014-02-05 12:54 · Score: 1, Informative

Where can we get a copy?
Re:Slashdot morphing into Kuro5hin? by couchslug · 2014-02-05 13:39 · Score: 3, Informative

That may be for the best.
The answer to a zombie infection is a headshot.

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