ROSA Linux

ROSA Linux is a Linux operating system distribution, developed by the Russian company 'AO NTC IT ROSA' (Russian: АО «НТЦ ИТ РОСА»). It is available in three different editions: ROSA Desktop Fresh, ROSA Enterprise Desktop, and ROSA Enterprise Linux Server, with the latter two aiming at commercial users. Its desktop computer editions come bundled with closed-source software such as Adobe Flash Player, multimedia codecs, NVIDIA drivers, and Steam.

ROSA Desktop Fresh 13.0, the latest desktop version, was released on 28 February 2025, is available with four different desktop environments: KDE Plasma 6, GNOME, LXQt and Xfce. It also contains open source software developed in-house by ROSA, such as ROSA Image Writer or ROSA Media Player. ROSA Linux has been certified by the Ministry of Defence of Russia.

Although its main popularity is in the Russian language market, ROSA Desktop also received favorable reviews by several non-Russian online publications. German technology website Golem.de praised ROSA for its stability and hardware support, while LinuxInsider.com called ROSA "a real Powerhouse".

History

ROSA originated as a fork of now defunct French distribution Mandriva Linux and has since then been developed independently. The ROSA company was founded in early 2010 and released the first version of its operating system in December 2010. It initially targeted enterprise users only, but in late 2012, ROSA started its end-user oriented distribution, Desktop Fresh. Before its bankruptcy, Mandriva developed its last releases jointly with ROSA. Mandriva 2011 was also based on ROSA. Also MagOS Linux, is based on ROSA.

Version history

ROSA

ROSA Chrome

ROSA Mobile

Reception

LinuxBSDos.com reviewed ROSA Desktop Fresh R2 with GNOME. He wrote:

ROSA Desktop Fresh is supposed to be the line that ships with the latest and greatest (read: bleeding edge software versions), but ROSA Desktop Fresh R2 GNOME did not live up to that billing. Instead of GNOME 3.10, the latest stable version of the GNOME 3 desktop, you get GNOME 3.8.4.

LinuxBSDos.com also reviewed same version with KDE, and have the review about earlier version — Fresh and Marathon 2012.

In October 2012, Dedoimedo wrote review about ROSA Marathon 2012:

ROSA is a fairly elegant distribution, with a simple, clean layout, a handful of posh icons, windows-like decorations, and a classy menu. All in all, you would be tempted to guess what desktop environment you're working in, as the customized KDE leans toward more Gnome-like features.

Dedoimedo also wrote review about ROSA Desktop Fresh R7.

Jesse Smith reviewed ROSA Desktop Fresh 2012 R1 for DistroWatch Weekly:

Booting from the disc brings up a menu asking if we would like to launch the ROSA live environment or run the distribution's system installer. There is a third option which is to boot from the local hard drive and I was surprised to find booting from the local drive is the default option. This makes a good deal of sense as it means if we install the distribution and forget to eject the disc (or USB thumb drive) that we will still boot into the local installation of ROSA. Opting to run the live desktop brings us to a series of screens asking us to read the distribution's license agreement, set our time zone, and confirm our keyboard's layout. From there we are brought to the KDE desktop. The theme is bright and the background is a nice, light blue. At the bottom of the display, we find the application menu, some quick-launch icons, and the task switcher. One of the first things I did was seek out the system installer and attempt to launch it. When I clicked on the system installer icon a pop-up appeared which simply said: "password invalid" and the installer closed. Given this reception, I decided to reboot the machine and try running the system installer from the live disc's boot menu.

Smith also reviewed Fresh R9 version.

External links

• (in Russian)