I used North Korea's leaked Linux distribution, and it still has secrets a decade later

Red Star OS 3 is a weird (and old) operating system, but it has some pretty interesting tech inside.

Jun 21, 2025 - 17:36
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I used North Korea's leaked Linux distribution, and it still has secrets a decade later

North Korea is an interesting country to look at from a technology perspective. Under the regime, its citizens are entirely cut off from the outside world, and entry to the country is severely restricted; all that we know is essentially pieced together from a combination of satellite imagery, defectors from the nation, and reports that can often be contradictory. That's why Red Star OS 3, a Fedora-based Linux distribution developed by North Korea, is especially fascinating. It's a rare glimpse into an otherwise largely unknown world, and I set it up in a virtual machine.