Very interesting article in the Register regarding the various Kylin OS’s: https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/30/kylin_the_multiple_semiofficial_chinese/
It’s worth reading in full, but it’s interesting that Kylin can run Android apps with “KMRE runtime”. It seems however this functionality is missing from Ubuntu Kylin, which is strange.
It would be a huge win for Linux if it could run Android apps natively IMO. Any thoughts on this?
Update: China has published a list of approved chipsets and operating systems according to the Register:
A December 26, 2023 document lists 18 CPUs Beijing has signed off as suitable for use by locals. The x86 architecture does make the list, but only in chips made by Shanghai Zhaoxin Integrated Circuit Co., Ltd – which is minority-owned by Taiwan’s Via Technologies and holds a license to produce x86 processors. Zhaoxin’s CPUs are no match for Intel’s Xeons or AMD’s Epycs, but can power modest desktops.
The other approved chip shops make processors powered by Arm cores or, in the case of Loongson Technologies, the RISC-V architecture.
The list also mentions approved desktop and server operating systems. Only Chinese code is present, namely:
- The Galaxy Kirin Linux derivative developed by China’s National University of Defense Technology;
- The Tongxin OS, a Debian variant developed by Shanghai-based UnionTech;
- Fangde OS, another domestic Linux.
What does this mean in practice you ask?
The FT chatted to some IT shops inside China and they confirmed that they’re phasing out items like PCs running Windows, because shop-at-home mandates have taken force.
Those mandates were first floated in around 2014, and bobbed up again in May 2022, when a two year deadline to get the job done was mooted.
Which means Chinese orgs may have about five weeks left to switch to locally made hardware and software.
That’s where things could get very interesting – because many Middle Kingdom businesses will have built apps and automations around Western tech. Rebuilding those tools won’t be a quick or easy task.
Or maybe they don’t need to, given that past edicts to shift to Chinese tech have been repeated several times.
So we’re either on the verge of a major shift in China away from Windows and towards Linux-based operating systems, or we are not. Only time will tell…
what could go wrong? 
I was listening to a news story yesterday about ai, and how it s code is basically just numbers with no real patterns, or layers like code of today. It s literally undecipherable. If that s true then my guess is; source code may very well go the way of the dodo, and the internet will be one big virus.
Going DEEPin on Linux.
It’s likely that Chinese CPUs and GPUs will soon be banned in the west as part of Cold War 2.0, so I am neither excited nor scared by that.
On the Linux front, I wonder how much of the code in these Chinese distributions will be open source. It would be cool if some western forks/spins on Chinese noob friendly distributions and applications came out of this. But my guess is that a lot of the important apps will be cloud-based (because this gives the central government more control) and the ability to censor speech etc.
Out of those listed above only military one is closed…
And for the open-soruce ones - Deepin is a great example, it’s phenomenal in everything it does…except buggy as hell and…well…trust issues, since as anything else in China they’re overlooked from above, unfortunately. 
So you never know if it will get jiatanned or something 
I still would welcome a well-maintained western fork of Deepin DDE maybe slapped onto an Ubuntu/Debian base if the code was reviewed for security vulnerabities/backdoors. Normies want their system to look MacOS-y, and Deepin is giving them that.
If a larger percentage of normies have a bloated Linux-based system, that’s still an improvement on bloated Windoze/MacOS. Also it means I can expect better hardware and software compatibility…
“jiatanned” is a great nomination for the “word of the year” election.
Yeah…i wish it weren’t though, but… 
P.S. And it’s only start of the year!
In the case of CCP China, I think it’s more a matter of when, and not if. I won’t get too political here, but there are two considerations at play:
• CCP China is notorious for intellectual property (IP) theft; when they can, they will attempt to steal and reverse engineer anything proprietary/closed source that they find (potentially) useful to them. There’s no doubt in my mind that they have targeted Micro$oft many times over the years in this regard, and I’m sure they’ve often been successful there. But as M$ continues to innovate (at least to the extent that it suits their own interests), the CCP doesn’t want to have to constantly play catch-up with newer and more sophisticated technology they can’t/don’t fully control… which leads me to my second point
• The totalitarian CCP desires full control and ownership over everything within their jurisdiction, as well as some key foreign assets. ANY technology produced in China, or at least produced with the blessing of the CCP, must be assumed to have a backdoor that they can exploit* (including hardware). With any Linux-based OS they push out in China, there are bound to be closed-source components in it that contain spyware and data harvesting tools (not much different from how Google uses a Linux base for their proprietary Android/ChromeOS implementations)
There is no such thing as the CCP, that’s like me saying the AUS instead of the USA it’s childish. It’s called the Communist Party of China (CPC), get your facts straight.
There’s no doubt in my mind that you’re full of sh*t.
Allegation after allegation after allegation. Just be honest and say that you for whatever reason hate China and the fact that they are surpassing the west in nearly all technologies and soon in all.
China leads in 37 of 44 technologies tracked in a year-long project by thinktank the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. But but but they stole the technologies they lead in…whatever dude.
@L00P - just another troll, probably on the payroll of the CCP or one of their sockpuppet entities.
There is this teeny tiny small problem with those articles…there isn’t any proof.
It’s like me writing an article claiming that you are the source of all evil, every hack in the past 20 years it’s you!
Again all these allegations but no basis in facts. Just admit it you hate China.
Are there things to love China for, though? I honestly don’t like either the US, nor China.
Well their cities are clean, they have great public transportation and you won’t get mugged when you are out and about nearly as often compared to a western country. Schooling is affordable, healthcare is affordable and they lifted hundreds of millions from poverty in the past 20 years. Furthermore they invested trillions, yes trillions with a t, in the road and belt initiative.
Take your pick.
Okay, that’s nice. What about other places in the world, though? I don’t think what you said is unique to China specifically and considering what the other side of the coin looks like, I would personally not feel all that good being in China.
Most likely.
I like to believe that’s unlikely.
