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France Deleted Windows, Now They Use THIS Unpopular OS

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France Deleted Windows, Now They Use THIS Unpopular OS

France is making one of the most ambitious government technology moves in years — replacing Microsoft Windows across its public-sector infrastructure and turning toward NixOS, an unusual Linux distribution built around reproducibility, security, and complete system control.

In April 2026, France's digital administration issued a directive requiring ministries and public operators to map and reduce major technology dependencies, including operating systems. The plan covers an enormous government computing environment involving 2.5 million civil servants.

But France's decision did not happen overnight.

The story goes back more than two decades to the French Gendarmerie, which gradually replaced Microsoft software with open-source alternatives before eventually deploying Ubuntu Linux across tens of thousands of workstations. Its long-term migration became one of the world's largest sustained government open-source deployments.

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19 Comments

@Robert-to9zv 2 weeks ago

Kudos to France for thinking out of the box and for protecting their data.

@tjobse2839 2 weeks ago

Thank you

@stanleyreynolds7800 2 weeks ago

France has been migrating to Linux for a long time, it didn't start recently.

@SamuelMoser-g4r9g 3 days ago

In Windows 11 I miss Live Tiles OS Mode. They could have had it accessable as a seperate feature off the taskbar in addition to the start menu. I want Live Tiles to become a full optional OS mode that supports deep nested folders and support for files. I miss Taskview Timeline also and want them to make it so you can move them entries to the edge or corner of the display to automatically open it and snap the session to your desktop. I also miss Cortana and she could run in addition to Copilot and Cortana and Copilot could even talk to each other. I miss ClipChamp and 3D Paint. Most of all I miss the Mail App. Instead of Microsoft listening to my improvements for the app just removed the app instead. I miss the ability to move a copy of an icon to and from the taskbar to the desktop or a folder. I hope Microsoft does not remove Skype or Maps App. I miss Microsoft Easy Transfer and Microsoft Movie Maker and Face Recognition and Flip 3D and the colorfulness of Windows 7 and its transperancies and liquid glass and Windows 7 and 8 and 10 Themes. I miss the little dog in XP and the paper clip Clippy. I also miss Gadgets on the desktop like clocks and watches. I miss Microsoft Movie Maker and Microsoft Easy Transfer also. I also miss Microsoft Groove. Also bring back wordpad. ... .. ....

@emmanuelbuu7068 2 weeks ago

Just a precision. To my knwoedege, the DINUM did NOT mandate NixOS. It mandated that every ministry provides an inventory on on EU infrastructure software and a plan to migrate it to either open source or EU based software. And the 'gendamerie' runs Genbuntu that is an ubuntu fork.

@jpa_crypto 2 weeks ago

Magnifique! 🇫🇷🍷

@muratyildirimoglu9536 2 weeks ago

Every transition will surely be successful if you force it! The issue is if that successful transition allows users do what they think they should do, instead of things dictated by some central officers.

@ewiem4351 2 weeks ago

NixOS has steep learning curve for an individual. But it takes only a few expert individuals to design an implementation script that can then be installed on thousands of separate computers.