Nova OS is the Cuba’s national OS. Nova is an Ubuntu-based Linux operating system with custom-designed GNOME. Nova OS is a Linux kernel-based operating system developed in Havana, Cuba by students at the University of Computer Sciences and sponsored by the Cuban government.
Nova OS 4.0 is distributed on its official website as Live CD ISO images. It is optimized only for 32-bit (i686) computers and there’s no 64-bit version.
Nova OS uses a custom-designed GNOME’s GNOME-Shell interface instead of (does not use) Ubuntu’s Unity user interface. Nova OS comes with many popular applications such as LibreOffice office, Mozilla Thunderbird, Samba, Nautilus file manager and Wine.
Nova OS 4.0 is distributed in three editions, Escritorio, Ligero, and Servidor. The Nova OS Escritorio edition is the primary OS and is known as the Desktop CD. It provides users with a complete GNOME-based desktop environment. The Novas OS Ligero edition is developed with a lightweight interface for computers with old or semi-old hardware. And finally the Novas OS Servidor is the Server edition of Nova OS.
According to its Wikipedia page, the goal of Nova is to achieve “sovereignty and technological independence” throughout the country. It is planned to get it installed on all computers in Cuba where Microsoft Windows OS still is the most widely. In short, the Novas OS is the Cuban government’s desire to replace Windows OS. Cuba is planning to convert to Nova OS as its main operating system and it will be installed in 90% of all work places.
The first version of Nova, called Baire was released on 20 February 2009 and is based on Gentoo Linux. The Nova 2.1 Desktop Edition is based on Ubuntu.