I just thought this might be of interest to the community - Rob Dyke and I recently got together to chat about the NHSbuntu project from back in 2017, we recorded an episode of my YouTube channel Everything Digital Health which describes the project, how it came about, what we built, the problems we solved, and how the project ended. (Spoiler: it didn’t end well!)
Lots more information about NHSbuntu’s project is available here on OpenHealthHub in the NHoS/NHSbuntu category
What might have been… smothered by sad bureaucracy, and now we’re still sucked into the Windows 11 vortex, Co-pilot and all. Any wonder I’m back to using my Psion 3a?
Funny you should say this now. We’ve created an Ubuntu build to drop onto old touchscreen hardware (not just ours) that can’t take Win11. Proving rather popular and scratching our itch of not putting otherwise perfectly serviceable kit into landfill. Getting some localities to understand what it is is surprisingly hard, though!
If we were doing it again we would possibly aim at health and care more generally rather than focusing on ‘NHS’ - that would open up the market of private providers (who are possibly in a better position to switch OS) and other care-giving orgs.
HealthyOS? Or similar? The namespace is pretty crowded around that - HealthOS and HealthcareOS are both already taken by projects which are not an OS.
Great stuff @jon - has this been shared more widely in NHS IT circles? Because I recall a conversation on the Digital Health Networks about some massive 80" Microsoft Surface-based screen which couldn’t be upgraded to Win11 so was going to be thrown away. They might be able to use your build.
It seems like a trusted package repository of relevant apps is a necessary component.
Sagemath does something interesting - they have a trusted repository for their domain - but no linux distro.
Was something like this a part of the original project?
Hospital IT depts would probably like to run their own repository of apps - much like the do with MDM solutions. So they can test new/updates against their standard builds to be sure deploying or updating an app wont cause problems. (and schedule updates so they are not disruptive)
Tried to get it out there, but everyone is very heads-in at the minute worried about their own jobs. Doing 300 or so screens in the next couple of weeks, so maybe that’ll get some attention. Will ping the Surface people; thanks for the steer.
That sounds interesting… is it healthcare specific, or just a generic Ubuntu build? I’ve got an old Microsoft Surface tablet I’ve been trying to decide what to do with…!
Very much tailored for role. Essentially a minimal install for 24.04 server LTS with a lightweight desktop manager and Chromium that it starts up into Kiosk mode. The real effort was making it a zero-click unattended install and exposing enough through a touch only interface to allow end users to manage the bits they needed (TCL was awesome for the last bit).
Not tried it on a Surface tbalet, but as chance would have it we’ve just had a handful returned after upgrades. Might have a tinker his afternoon
please do keep it up.
