The Italian Linux Distro Nobody Outside Italy Talks About — And Why

Added: 2026-05-14

[00:00:00]This month I was supposed to review Open Mandrea. Along the way though, I felt the urge to finally say what I think about Uficho Zero, an Italian distribution that part of our local community, YouTubers included, promotes with an enthusiasm that honestly has touched me. As someone whose main field is the Linux world, I think it's only fair to give back something more than a polite round of applause, a reasoned reading, even an uncomfortable one.

[00:00:28]Consider this review an act of respect, not an offense. You're a small project with limited resources putting in real passion. That's exactly why I'm taking the liberty of speaking to you seriously as a peer, not as a polite guest.

[00:00:42]Lufichio Zero Linux OS is an Italian project that was reborn on April 16th, 2020 during lockdown under the leadership of Julian Delvecio.

[00:00:52]The historic domain was acquired by Seite SRLS, a small IT company based in the Loi area which provides the development infrastructure.

[00:01:00]Promotion, outreach, and several side initiatives are run by the nonprofit association Boost MediaPS.

[00:01:07]While the project is endorsed by the Italian Linux Society and benefits from sponsorships, Infoomaniac first and foremost and from a respectable mirror network, GAR, the University of Cree, the University of Warsaw, Yandex, Arnet, and others. Public figures speak of more than 2 million downloads since the project's revival, which, let's say it upfront, is no trivial achievement for a niche distribution.

[00:01:33]The stated target audience is clear and entirely legitimate. Freelancers, soul traders, small and medium businesses, public institutions, schools. In other words, the average Italian user who needs digital signature support, electronic civil court filings, CNSCIE smart card readers, multi-function printers that work out of the box. On this terrain, Ufichio Zero has identified a real and underserved need and that deserves to be acknowledged without reservation. The first impression of any distribution almost always comes through the website. That's where the user decides whether to trust it or not. And here, I'll say it openly, it doesn't work. The Uficho Zero website is cluttered, dated in its aesthetics, and not professional enough by the standards we have to measure against if we want to be taken seriously on the international stage. This isn't a matter of taste. It's a matter of information hierarchy, message clarity, and visual coherence. But the biggest problem on the website isn't graphical, it's structural. How many versions of Uicho Zero exist? Try counting them. There's Anna, based on Linux Mint 22.2, available in three desktop managers, Cinnamon, Mate, and XFCE. Then there's Lorena, based on PC Linux OS, a rolling release with XFC 4 and a Mac-like look and feel. Then minimal based on DevWin datalus with XFC designed for older hardware. Then EDU based on Linux Mint 21.X with XFCE dedicated to Italian schools. Then 11.X in its 32-bit edition based on LMD6. And 11.x in its 64-bit edition based on Linux Mint2.x.

[00:03:12]Then 10 plus based on LMD6 with Mate.

[00:03:15]Then Anamac T2 for certain MacBook models. And we haven't even counted the historic releases with geographical code names Roma, Viesta, Mantova, Tropea, Sienna, Cayari, Bergamo, Portoino, Erbino that still linger in references across the site and only add to the confusion. You are not Debian. Deian has thousands of developers, governance built up over decades in a global community. You, from what one can tell, are a small team, Julian, Ricardo, Adriano, a handful of volunteers, the Boost Media Association with limited resources. The fragmentation you've imposed on yourselves is unsustainable for a structure of your size, and worse, it works against the user. There's a comment I found on your Source Forge page written by a tester, not someone with an axe to grind, that essentially says, "The information on your website is hard to read. desktop base packages and features aren't presented clearly and he suggests dropping the legacy versions to focus efforts on a single main release in 32 and 64-bit. That feedback is spoton. So my first piece of advice is radical but constructive.

[00:04:23]Redesign the website. Pick one. One main version, one download page, one visual identity, one promise to the reader.

[00:04:32]The special editions edu minimal can stay as declared variations of the main line, not as parallel products competing for the user's attention. The problem with so many small projects is exactly this. In trying to offer something for everyone, they end up offering nothing to anyone with enough clarity. The more variance you add, the more perceived chaos you create, the more your work looks disorganized even when it isn't.

[00:04:58]on the distribution itself. My impression, and I hand it to you with all the caution of someone who knows he might be wrong, is that there are too many hands and too many ideas in there layered over different periods without a visible thread. I don't see coherence. I say this as an attentive user. The control center, the default applications, the way system language is handled, which in some releases doesn't apply on reboot, forcing the user to manually reselect it after installation.

[00:05:28]and a series of small frictions that taken together give the feeling of a system stitched together rather than designed. But the deeper question is another one and it's the most important.

[00:05:39]Why base a distribution aimed at the Italian public? Accountants, lawyers, soul traders, people who have never touched Linux on PC Linux OS in the case of the Lorena release. PC Linux OS is a respectable project, but it's a niche within a niche with a packaging model and a philosophy that don't naturally suit a user looking for simplicity.

[00:06:01]And then why pair Lorenna with a mainline Anna 11 based on Linux Mint and a minimal on DevU? You have three different distribution philosophies. RPM rolling release, AP on iuntu LTS, Devian without systemd funneled under a single label. To the newcomer, the difference is invisible until they get burned. To the experienced user, it's a red flag. I understand the temptation, wanting to be present everywhere, to intercept every need, to show the breadth of your work.

[00:06:30]But the result, in communication terms, is the opposite. What comes across is a fluid, almost opportunistic technical identity where the choice of bass seems driven more by the historic legacy of old releases or by what's available at the moment than by an architectural vision. You cannot be Windows, Mac OS, Minimalist, XFCE, Rolling RPM, and Devian without systemd all at once. Not because it isn't technically possible, but because doing it well requires resources you don't have today. And doing it badly is worse than not doing it at all. If I were in your shoes, and let me be clear, this is your project and your call, not mine, I would seriously consider building everything on a single base, Devuan. And I'll tell you why this isn't just a technical preference. It's a strategic one. DevO is solid, tested, mature, and above all, it's independent. It carries no corporate gravity behind it, unlike Ubuntu with canonical or indirectly mint. It's a project born precisely out of the desire to keep a Linux base free from decisions imposed from above. And this fits perfectly, almost too perfectly, with the message you're trying to convey. digital sovereignty, privacy, freedom from big tech, an honest tool in the hands of the user.

[00:07:48]Right now, when you talk about independence and ethics on the website, and then offer the user a system that under the hood is Ubuntu through Mint, there's a small cognitive dissonance.

[00:07:59]Choosing Devon as your single foundation would close that gap completely. Image and Substance would finally say the same thing.

[00:08:08]There's also a second reason, and it's a strategic one. The world of systemd free distributions is a real and growing community, but it's underserved. There aren't many polished, professional, readytouse distributions on a divoan base. By positioning yourselves there with a clean, well-designed product, you wouldn't just be one more Italian derivative among many. You'd be filling a real gap, and you'd attract users who today have very few credible options.

[00:08:36]users who, by the way, tend to be loyal, vocal, and engaged precisely because they care about what's under the hood.

[00:08:43]Again, this is your project, and these are your choices. But if you ask me where the most coherent and most defensible technical positioning is, given everything else you stand for, the answer is right there in front of you.

[00:08:56]I'm not here to kick a project when it's down.

[00:08:59]Uficio Zero has solid foundations to build something important on, and I want to be just as explicit about that.

[00:09:06]Your additional repository for printer and scanner drivers is probably the smartest thing you've done. It addresses your target audience's real need with surgical precision. The professional office that needs to print, scan, send certified mail, sign digitally without having to become CIS admins. It's concrete value that the upstream distributions don't offer at the same level. And it's exactly the kind of legitimate differentiation that justifies the existence of a derivative.

[00:09:36]The same goes for the integration of Aruba, Ferma 4NG, Gossign, and now Nurial Sign through your post install.

[00:09:44]The support for CNS and CIE smart cards, the tools for the Italian civil court process, the attention to Italian digital signature requirements. All of this is gold for anyone working in a professional studio. It's your real competitive advantage and it's what should be at the center of your message, not on a subpage. The idea of an honest commercial offering, paid guided installation, support, assistance formemes is healthy and worthy. It's exactly the model Italian free software should be exploring more without apologizing for it. Even the partnerships you've been building, Italian Linux Society, GAR, Infomomaniac, Devol for Fedverse Services are signs that the project behind the rough edges has a real network and a non-trivial weight. And finally, there's your enthusiasm, which can be seen and felt. That's not a detail. In a landscape saturated with projects that die after two releases, 6 years after your revival, you're still here with 2 million downloads behind you. That counts. My final piece of advice as an outside observer who genuinely wishes you well is to sit down around a table the team the association the collaborators and set clear non-negotiable lines to start fresh from define who you are sel media APS the relationship between the two how any income is reinvested or distributed where the boundary lies between commercial activity and association work today this part of the website is ambiguous and ambig uity in a project pitching itself to public bodies and schools is a break. Define who you're talking to. Pick a primary target. The Italian professional is the obvious one. And design everything around them. Educational and minimal can be declared derivatives, not parallel products. Define a single flagship technical identity. One base, one main desktop manager, one coherent aesthetic.

[00:11:40]The other options, if they really must remain, can live on a secondary documentation level. Define your real competitive advantage and put it on the front page. Not yet another Windows-like theme. Zoran, Wubuntu, Q4 OS, and 10 others already do that, but Italian digital sovereignty, privacy, native digital signature, printer support, infomiac integration, the Italian fetverse, the chance to work seriously without big tech. Now that is a positioning and nobody else has it with your specificity. A note on method.

[00:12:12]Finally, a project can legitimately be born Italian at heart, but if it's too nationcentric, it tends to remain provincial. Linux is global. Open Mandrea is French, but collaborates with French, Spanish, and yes, Italian public institutions. And it's solid precisely because it has a clear identity that travels across borders.

[00:12:32]Red Star Linux is an interesting North Korean case study, but it remains an isolated curiosity, not a model. You started well, you have respectable numbers. You have international partners. The Greek, Polish, and Australian university mirrors prove it.

[00:12:47]The leap to make is from Italian DRO for Italians to Italian DRO that works so well that an English or German user would install it, too. It's a question of standards, not language. I follow you. I appreciate what you do and I genuinely regret that some of you have a smaller audience than your work deserves. That's exactly why the criticisms I've raised aren't an attempt to diminish you. They're an attempt to take you seriously. Focus on doing little but doing it well. Linearity, coherence, recognizability, solidity.

[00:13:21]Those are the four words I leave with you. If you keep them as a compass, 2 or 3 years from now, uficho zero can stop being one of the many Italian derivatives and become a reference point. You have all the foundations.

[00:13:33]What's missing is the discipline to cut.

[00:13:36]Genuinely, good luck. See you in the next video. And as always, may Linux be with you.