The government of the Spanish autonomous region of Extremadura published Linex 2013 on Monday last week. This tailored version of the Debian GNU/Linux distribution was unveiled in the city of Mérida by Sergio Velázquez, secretary general for the regions department for Employment, Entrepreneurship and Technological Innovation and Manuel Velardo, director of Cenatic, Spain's open source resource centre.
According to a report by Gaceta Technologia, Velázquez aims to make free software more available in the region. He introduced Linux 2013 as an "evolutionary improvement to programming and design of software."
The secretary general added that the government has made a clear commitment to free software. He said hthe public administration is working on a second tailored version of Debian, called LinGobex. This is already being put to use in several governmental departments.
Cenatic's director Velardo praises Linex 2013 for its interoperability with other operating systems. He said the distribution contains several converters to open documents stored in proprietary formats.
Special features built-in
Linex 2013 is built by the Spanish free software firm Emergya. Special features to the distribution include changes to the Firefox web browser, to make it compatible with the national electronic identity system.
The distro comes pre-configured with applications that are written for non-governmental organisations. It includes for instance Gong, an application that combines project management with technical and financial management. Gong (Gestión para ONGs, management for NGOs) is written by software developers working for the Madrid-based development organisation Iepala and Cenatic. The software is also available on Joinup.
The distribution also comes with software for users with visual or motor impairments. Examples include Dots, a braille transcriber and Caribou, offering an on-screen keyboard.
Gaceta Technologia reports that the distribution comes complete with a simple installer. Citizens can download, install and use Linex 2013 easily and 100 percent legally. Users that need help installing or using the distribution, are pointed to Linex's public forum.
More information:
Gaceta Technologia news item (in Spanish)
Audio recording of the press conference (mp3)
Download 2013 LinEx (ISO)
Public forum on 2013 LinEx