The Basalt SPO company announced the release of a new version of the Alt Workstation K 10 operating system, designed for use both on home computers and in a corporate environment.

The software platform “Alt Workstation K” 10 is built on the basis of Linux using the KDE Plasma graphical environment, the style design of which is in many respects similar to the Windows interface and allows the user to easily adapt to the operating system. The OS distribution kit includes all the necessary applications for working on the Internet, with office documents of various formats, archives, media files. For corporate users, support for group policies and the ability to integrate the system into the Active Directory infrastructure have been implemented. The platform is registered in the register of Russian programs of the Ministry of Digital Development of Russia and is recommended for use in organizations implementing projects in the field of software import substitution.

What’s new in Alt Workstation K OS 10

• The operating system is based on the current Linux 5.15 LTS kernel (long-term support). The transition to the new kernel provided many new features. In particular, work with Intel 12th generation Alder Lake processors has been improved, support for AMD video cards based on the RDNA 2 architecture has been added, a new driver for the NTFS file system has been included (increase in the speed of data transfer between file systems). Optimized work with the classic ext4 file system for Linux, increased performance of the Btrfs file system.
• Updated graphical interface. The new version of KDE Plasma 5.23 includes support for the Wayland graphics subsystem, which makes it possible to work on tablet computers. Alt Workstation K 10 supports four generations of drivers for NVIDIA 340, 390 and 470, 510 series graphics processors. When you install the OS on a computer with an NVIDIA graphics card, the required driver version is installed automatically.
• Changed the Secure Boot signature scheme. The distribution still installs without disabling Secure Boot.
• The functionality of group policies has been expanded, new templates have been added. Using the ADMC development tool “Basalt SPO”, you can manage the Active Directory domain and group policies.
• Added a package with domestic encryption root certificates.
• Packages are included to support two-factor authentication using hardware tokens (Rutoken, JaCarta, ESMART).
• Added packages for installing compatible domestic software: ViPNet, 1C:Enterprise, Yandex.Browser and others. On the Basalt SPO website, you can see the complete list of software compatible with the Alt OS (both requiring additional packages for installation and not requiring it).
• Improved support for OKI, Brother, Epson printers and scanners.
• Support for the Flathub repository has been added to the OS Application Center for installing third-party applications in the flatpak format. The user can work with the software he needs without the risk of adversely affecting the operating system.
• Added support for SNAP applications.
• Useful utilities included: clinfo (get information about OpenCL acceleration status), glxinfo, vulkan-tools (for checking 3D acceleration settings) and many others.
• Now you can take screenshots during installation.
• Implemented secure system update. When updates appear, a reboot is suggested, during which the system is updated.
• The Qt 5.15 cross-platform long term support (LTS) framework is included. It has many new features. The most significant changes have occurred in the graphical part and have affected, in particular, support for three-dimensional graphics.

For the convenience of users, Basalt SPO specialists have also significantly updated the packages.altlinux.org portal with information about software packages available for installation into the operating system.

“We are improving the Alt Workstation K 10 OS, ensuring its effectiveness for both home and professional use, ” said Anton Farygin, Deputy General Director of Basalt SPO. “ Today it is especially important. Millions of Russian organizations and private users were left without support by manufacturers of foreign systems due to sanctions. Our solutions help solve this problem by providing Russian consumers with a functional and convenient operating system that has the functionality familiar to users and system administrators. In the tenth version of Alt Workstation K, we paid special attention to usability, interface design and integration into the existing IT infrastructure of the enterprise.

You can evaluate the listed innovations of the Alt Workstation K 10 OS by downloading the installation image from the Basalt SPO website . For home use, the operating system is offered completely free of charge, and organizations need to purchase a license. Along with the platform, users will receive a set of desktop backgrounds — photo landscapes of Russia. These shots by Russian photographers have been recognized as winners of 35AWARDS, a major international award from the professional photography community 35photo.pro.

There are two types of LiveCD mode still available. The first is that the installation image contains the option to boot a “live” system – you can test the compatibility of the OS with the user’s equipment or use the system recovery utilities. The second is that a “live” system is placed on a separate image, with which you can work without installing it on a hard disk, but with the ability to save data.

All users who have purchased “Alt Workstation K” 9 after 09/01/2021 are provided with an upgrade for 10% of the cost of “Alt Workstation K” 10. The same preferential upgrade is available to everyone who has purchased annual (standard or extended) support on ” Alt Workstation”. A technical upgrade from version 9.2 to 10 is possible. Organizations using “Alt Workstation K” version 9 with basic support, when switching to version 10, must separately purchase support for version 10. Detailed information on purchasing the software product can be obtained from the Basalt SPO sales department ( sales@basealt.ru ) .