http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_adopters#Government
As local governments come under pressure from institutions such as the World Trade Organization and the International Intellectual Property Alliance, some have turned to Linux and other Free Software as an affordable, legal alternative to both pirated software and expensive proprietary computer products from Microsoft, Apple and other commercial companies. The spread of Linux affords some leverage for these countries when companies from the developed world bid for government contracts (since a low-cost option exists), while furnishing an alternative path to development for countries like India and Pakistan that have many citizens skilled in computer applications but cannot afford technological investment at “First World” prices.
The Government of Kerala, India, announced its official support for free/open-source software in its State IT Policy of 2001, which was formulated after the first-ever free software conference in India, “Freedom First!”, held in July 2001 in Trivandrum, the capital of Kerala, where Richard Stallman inaugurated the Free Software Foundation of India. Since then, Kerala’s IT Policy has been significantly influenced by FOSS, with several major initiatives such as IT@School Project, possibly the largest single-purpose deployment of Linux in the world, and leading to the formation of the International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (ICFOSS) in 2009.
In July 2001 the White House started switching their web servers to an operating system based on Red Hat Linux and using the Apache HTTP Server. The installation was completed in February 2009. In October 2009 the White House servers adopted Drupal, an open source content management system software distribution.
Brazil uses PC Conectado, a program utilizing Linux.
The City government of Munich chose in 2003 to start to migrate its 14,000 desktops to Debian-based LiMux. Even though more than 80% of workstations used OpenOffice and 100% used Firefox/Thunderbird five years later (November 2008), an adoption rate of Linux itself of only 20.0% (June 2010) was achieved. The effort was later reorganized, focusing on smaller deployments and winning over staff to the value of the program. By the end of 2011 the program had exceeded its goal and changed over 9000 desktops to Linux. The city of Munich reported at the end of 2012 that the migration to Linux was highly successful and has already saved the city over €11 million (US$14 million).
The United States Department of Defense uses Linux – “the U.S. Army is “the” single largest install base for Red Hat Linux” and the US Navy nuclear submarine fleet runs on Linux.
The city of Vienna has chosen to start migrating its desktop PCs to Debian-based Wienux. However, the idea was largely abandoned, because the necessary software was incompatible with Linux.
Spain was noted as the furthest along the road to Linux adoption in 2003, for example with Linux distribution LinEx
State owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) is installing Linux in all of its 20,000 retail branches as the basis for its web server and a new terminal platform. (2005)
In April 2006, the US Federal Aviation Administration announced that it had completed a migration to Red Hat Enterprise Linux in one third of the scheduled time and saved 15 million dollars.
The Government of Pakistan established a Technology Resource Mobilization Unit in 2002 to enable groups of professionals to exchange views and coordinate activities in their sectors and to educate users about free software alternatives. Linux is an option for poor countries which have little revenue for public investment; Pakistan is using open source software in public schools and colleges, and hopes to run all government services on Linux eventually.
The French Parliament has switched to using Ubuntu on desktop PCs.
The Federal Employment Office of Germany (Bundesagentur für Arbeit) has migrated 13,000 public workstations from Windows NT to OpenSuse.
Czech Post migrated 4000 servers and 12,000 clients to Novell Linux in 2005
Cuba – Students from the Cuban University of Information Science launched its own distribution of Linux called Nova to promote the replacement of Microsoft Windows on civilian and government computers, a project that is now supported by the Cuban Government. By early 2011 the Universidad de Ciencias Informáticas announced that they would migrate more than 8000 PCs to this new operating system.
The Canton of Solothurn in Switzerland decided in 2001 to migrate its computers to Linux, but in 2010 the Swiss authority has made a U-turn by deciding to use Windows 7 for desktop clients.
France’s national police force, the National Gendarmerie started moving their 90,000 desktops from Windows XP to Ubuntu in 2007 over concerns about the additional training costs of moving to Windows Vista, and following the success of OpenOffice.org roll-outs. The migration should be completed by 2015. The force has saved about €50 million on software licensing between 2004 and 2008.
France’s Ministry of Agriculture uses Mandriva Linux.
Macedonia’s Ministry of Education and Science deployed more than 180,000 Ubuntu based classroom desktops, and has encouraged every student in the Republic of Macedonia to use Ubuntu computer workstations.
The People’s Republic of China exclusively uses Linux as the operating system for its Loongson processor family, with the aim of technology independence.
The US National Nuclear Security Administration operates the world’s tenth fastest supercomputer, the IBM Roadrunner, which uses Red Hat Enterprise Linux along with Fedora as its operating systems.
The regional Andalusian Autonomous Government of Andalucía in Spain developed its own Linux distribution, called Guadalinex in 2004.
The South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) deployed Multi-station Linux Desktops to address budget and infrastructure constraints in 50 rural sites.
In 2003, the Turkish government decided to create its own Linux distribution, Pardus, developed by UEKAE (National Research Institute of Electronics and Cryptology). The first version, Pardus 1.0, was officially announced in 27 December 2005.
In 2010 The Philippines fielded an Ubuntu-powered national voting system.
In July 2010 Malaysia had switched 703 of the state’s 724 agencies to Free and Open Source software with a Linux based operating system used. The Chief Secretary to the Government cited, “(the) general acceptance of its promise of better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility and lower cost”.
In late 2010 Vladimir Putin signed a plan to move the Russian Federation government towards free software including Linux in the second quarter of 2012.
The city government of Largo, Florida, USA uses Linux and has won international recognition for their implementation, indicating that it provides “extensive savings over more traditional alternatives in city-wide applications.”
Iceland has announced in March 2012 that it wishes to migrate to open source software in public institutions. Schools have already migrated from Windows to Ubuntu Linux.
In June 2012 the US Navy signed a US$27,883,883 contract with Raytheon to install Linux ground control software for its fleet of vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) Northrup-Grumman MQ8B Fire Scout drones. The contract involves Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, which has already spent $5,175,075 in preparation for the Linux systems.
In 2004 Venezuela’s government approved the 3390 decree, to give preference to using free software in public administration. One result of this policy is the development of Canaima, a Debian-based Linux distribution.
The Dutch Police Internet Research and Investigation Network (iRN) has only used free and open source software based on open standards, publicly developed with the source code available on the Internet for audit, since 2003. They use 2200 Ubuntu workstations.