According to a Bloomberg report, attributed to China’s Ministry of State Security, the country has ordered some government agencies to drop Windows 10 China Government Edition for Chinese-made Linux distributions.
The Chinese government did not specify which Linux versions would replace Windows 10. However, the stock prices of Chinese Linux suppliers, Kylin Software and Tongxin Software Technology (commonly known as UnionTech), immediately jumped.
These companies’ respective operating systems, Kylin OS (no relation to Ubuntu Kylin) and UnionTech OS (UOS), were already positioned as domestic desktop and server replacements for Windows in government, state-owned enterprise, and critical-infrastructure environments.
This change to Linux doesn’t mean that there will be a nationwide ban on all Windows installations in China. Windows Home China 11, a restricted, factory-locked edition that requires you to use only Chinese, is still available.
The transition also doesn’t mean that every government body has been ordered to abandon Microsoft software. The directive’s scope remains undisclosed. Still, the writing is on the wall: China’s future government desktop will be Linux.
If this is the Chinese century does it make it the century of the linux desktop?
Even better than a year! Let’s fuckin’ go!!!
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桌面Linux之年代
The era of Linux has come
This change to Linux doesn’t mean that there will be a nationwide ban on all Windows installations in China
one day…I saw a news headline that the Taliban had banned Windows. (It turned out to be banning actual glass windows, because they don’t want women even looking outside their homes.) I remember posting it to a Linux forum with a joke about “at least they’re doing one thing absolutely right”.
China banning Microslop Winblows might be slightly better for optics than the fucking Taliban doing it…
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Genuinely we should start talking about America stealing your data and spying on you every time someone mentions windows (I’m allowed to say this, I’m a windows user)
Install Linux
I just accidentally read it as “China joins Europe” and ignored the rest of the headline
china is part of nato now
ChiNATO is my OTP
Guessing your first reaction was
Years of Linux
requires you to use only Chinese
lol suuuuuuuure it does.
It probably only has the Chinese language pack installed per some agreement with Microsoft or something like that.
Yep. Because the cost is negotiated with the government, Microsoft stipulates that only the Chinese language pack can be installed.
Microsoft doesn’t want users in other countries to be able to buy a super cheap windows key from the Chinese market and use the OS. They want to sell you a key for way more money. It’s manufacturer region locking to protect their precious profit margins.
Possible explanation via reddit thread:
I heard that starting with win8 Microsoft made a chinese language only version that was basically free. It was designed to avoid the rampant bootleg situation that was common back in the day. 叉P (ghostXP) was still ubiquitous even in 2008. I guess seeing that people were either going to pirate or switch to another OS, Microsoft decided to keep customers legit loyal and locked in with a nearly free version of Windows. But to make sure that it was useless outside of China they locked it language to mainland Chinese. It’s called Windows China home edition, or something like that.
that makes a lot more sense
rubber_chicken joins China in scrapping Windows for Linux
For real, this is such a coincidence. As I wrote about a few times here, I got a Linux laptop, running the aforementioned UOS, in China. I kept putting off making the switch for several months. I wanted to back up some photos from my phone to my computer and figured I could unplug it and use that usb-c port. The file transfer lasted something like a minute before my computer shut down from low battery. That’s all it take for it to drop from 100% to 5% or wherever that’s set. The manufacturer filed for bankruptcy 5 years ago so I doubt a replacement battery is in the cards, so the time to jump to Linux is now.
I found a guide to backing up a Windows machine to a Linux machine on the same network, so I fired up the linux machine, got on the wifi, found the command prompt and pasted in the very first. It’s balking at a sudo because I don’t have root. I search the error message and find out how to get root and . . . I need a WeChat account.
I’ve never gotten a WeChat account. I know it requires the assistance of somebody who has a WeChat account but I never really looked into how big of a deal that is. Apparently people only have a few verification slots per year. Also I’m seeing the possibility of linking a bank card to bypass that verification. Huh, how about that. It didn’t ask me for verification, even without a bank card. OK, I got to scan the QR code on my computer to “request root access.” I wonder where that request went. Well, it’s been a few minutes so I’m thinking China, where it’s 3 AM.
In the meantime, I used a different usb-c port to back up my documents folder to my phone, so I’m not entirely SOL if the Windows machine dies.
I would never install a Linux distro that doesn’t give me root access by default and makes me ask another party for it. It’s my goddamn computer. That’s some RedStarOS BS.
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For some reason, I thought that China always had a homegrown flavor of Linux. Probably just errantly applied the fact that North Korea has Red Star and thought China was right there beside them. Don’t ask me why. Just did.
Tbf, a socialist state having an Official State Linux Distro is a pretty common thing. Red Star is only really unique in how much surveillance it performs on users.
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They have a few. You’re probably thinking of Red Flag which seems to not be a thing anymore.
Wait. An operational system called Red Star? 🤩🤩🤩🤩
Indeed. North Korea’s OS is called Red Star OS
Was China using Windows?
Even if they trust Microsoft on the end of the day private american companies have to knee for US gov.
The only thing that astounds me more than countries that do trust Amerikkka yelling about software sovereignty and spending resources maintaining an Official State Linux Distro, is countries that don’t trust Amerikkka using Microslop Winblows for government purposes.
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The dominance of Microsoft Windows is the greatest damnation of The Free Market™ the world has seen thus far.
To be fair Windows is awful now if you use it it’s Microsofts computer not yours.
Why is china so based
