Red Star

From WE Computers Museum
Red Star logo.png
Red Star
Developer Korea Computer Center
Publisher Korea Computer Center
Platforms IA-32, x86-64, ARM
Released 1.0: 2008
2.0: June 3, 2009
3.0: April 15, 2012
Added to
Museum
2.0 and 3.0: July 6, 2022

Red Star (붉은별, Pulgŭnbyŏl), is a North Korean operating system based on the Linux distribution Fedora. It began development at the Korea Computer Center around 1998.

Prior to the release of the first version of the operating system in 2008, computers in North Korea ran on Windows XP and Red Hat Linux.

Applications included

North Korea has an intranet service which is known as Kwangmyong. The development of a walled intranet system on a national scale began in 1997, and Kwangmyong went online in the early 2000s. It is available to North Korean citizens who own computers, and since the launch of a Wi-Fi service known as Mirae in 2018, it can also be connected to by mobile phones.

Naenara, a web browser based on Firefox, is included. It can be used to access between 1,000 to 5,500 websites on the national Kwangmyong walled intranet. Naenara is configured to use Sam Hueg, a search engine based on Chromium.

Releases

Red Star 1.0

Red Star 1.0 was released in 2008. Its interface was based on Windows XP.

Red Star 2.0

Development of Red Star 2.0 began in March 2008 and it was released on June 3, 2009. Like the initial version, its interface was based on Windows XP.

Red Star 3.0

Red Star 3.0 was released on April 15, 2012. Unlike the previous versions, its interface was based on macOS.

Red Star 4.0

Red Star 4.0 was available in 2019 according to a report in The Pyongyang Times, a state-owned newspape. Like the version before it, its interface was based on macOS.