•

Chinese distro (OpenKylin) made to provide independence from western technologies releses its first stable version

OpenKylin 1.0: First Stable Release of an LFS Distro from China

https://news.itsfoss.com/openkylin-linux-os/

On July 5, 2023, the first stable version (1.0) of OpenKylin has finally been released. An interesting LFS Distro of Chinese origin.

OpenKylin 1.0: First Stable Release of an LFS Distro from China

OpenKylin is already starting to be implemented on government systems and private companies all around China.

Edit: This is what was written on the website.

56 comments

UprisingVoltage

•

Bit of a hot take, but I'm really hoping for china to go windows-free. Even if it's OrwellOS and sends ungoldy amounts of data to the government (pretty sure they already do that on windows too), just make it linux-based.

Compnaies would finally start taking linux in serious consideration to not being left out of the chinese market, we would start seeing laptops sold with linux and all the good stuff.

coderade

•

Yes! Having the worlds largest country run on Linux would do wonders for its adoption. If all the western business partners just stopped accepting windows files and started distributing Linux packages, it would accelerate adoption elsewhere.

Aman9das

•

Largest in what sense?

coderade

•

I was thinking population, and therefore users of the OS. I feel like a lot of western companies are already bending over to tap into the Chinese markets, so if they had to support Linux to do that for software, maybe they would.

maynarkh

•

GDP comes to mind.

There are other metrics as well surely, I wouldn't be surprised if China was amongst the biggest OS user markets as well.

If we'd be talking size as in territory, I doubt anyone cares what the Russian market does.

modulartable

•

I'm surprised the CCP hasn't rolled out their own distro! It's 2023 what are they waiting for!?

vanderbilt

•

This has actually been a long time coming. The first iteration was a FreeBSD-based distro back in 2013. Then an Ubuntu variant replaced it shortly after. The DE is UKUI, and it’s what « makes a Kylan » it seems. openKylin seems to be an all-around improvement over Ubuntu Kylin, and it uses APT as well. It looks pretty, but things still need some serious polish.

KindaABigDyl

•

Lol is it really free of Western technologies if it's running on Linux?

347_is_p69

•

I think it only uses western dependencies if they are open source. Even if linux somehow got weaponised against China (hard to imagine this as it goes against the very basics of Open Source), they could still use the older kernel releases and fork from that.

Linux kernel isn’t western or finnish, because you don’t need to trust westerners of finns to use it. Wherever you live, linux kernel is yours

appel

•

GNU/Linux technologies were founded in the west, but are contributed to by people all over the world. I also feel like the ideology and philosophy behind them are in stark contrast to the "western" ideologies of capitalism and imperialism.

vegai

•

Permanently Deleted

77slevin

•

And the kicker: the config files show 99% were extracted from Debian Linux. Own Chinese distro, my ass.

133arc585

•

the config files show 99% were extracted from Debian Linux

Can you provide a source for that?

wallmenis

•

Well, Achually, Linux is tecnically european...

puts on nerd glasses

BrenoMartins

•

Europe is west.

CodeBlooded

•

Is Europe no longer considered western?

wallmenis

•

Well... Personaly I would not consider it western being in between of the US and Asia...

Edit: better clarification

Blaiz0r

•

Oh mate... You need to get out of America and see the world.

StudioLE

•

This comes to mind:

https://m.xkcd.com/503/

wallmenis

•

I am actually european... I live in greece... It is just that when i picture the map, i picture europe middle-west so i go with middle. Unless what we mean is the culture which by convention, you are correct... Damn... Now i actually feel like the nerd with the glasses... Not in the good way...

derbis

•

So you live in the cradle of Western civilization

wallmenis

•

As much as I am ashamed to admit it, yes...

Delta_44

•

It's commendable how every chinese UI is simply beautiful... It's almost as if they spend the majority of their budget on UI and UX stuff

mfn77

•

It's nearly one to one Windows copy. I am sure it's hard to do it and do it right but at the and of the day it is still a clone.

StudioLE

•

I suspect it's kind of the opposite. You may have just become accustomed to Linux distros that ignore UI until the very end of development

Delta_44

•

Considering that they have cool transparency effects when other distros never implement them, yes

appel

•

if you like the look of windows that is...

Delta_44

•

Hmm, I didn't explain myself so well apparently. The look of windows is "ok" but I like more consistency and simplicity, here I think linux distros shine.

But, this distro seems more "modern" and "flashy", I love new things and you don't see "cool & flashy" design often.

I'm more used to functional design (and I love it), but sometimes the "shiny" style is a welcoming change.

We've all been through the phase when we wanted 200 cool animations for a single window drag 😂

appel

•

True :)

inasaba

•

We've all been through the phase when we wanted 200 cool animations for a single window drag 😂

RIP Compiz

Delta_44

•

When I was a kid I had at least 20 cool effects for the basic stuff in the desktop... They were even well made, not gonna lie.

Functional design is the best, but that doesn't mean that the eyes doesn't want their parts

TCB13

•

At least, unlike GNOME, they got the font rendering, the spacing across icons and the desktop icons right. lol

gaw

•

The article is not very informative. No mentioning about package manager they use, no explanation if UKIP runs on wayland natively, etc. I guess i just have to try it myself.

blackluster117

•

Probably best to not ever touch a Chinese built OS, but just look at it from a distance. At least, for the foreseeable future.

133arc585

•

Xenophobic fearmongering serves nobody.

Should we also avoid the Linux kernel, since it's Finnish, and Finland participates in the largest global surveillance apparatus with the USA? There's absolutely no reason to assume the distribution is any less secure or any more likely to be malicious simply due to it being developed in China or by Chinese.

Moreover, it's open-source. Use the same logic you should apply to open-source software before you accuse it of being malicious: look at the code and prove it.

blackluster117

•

That's fair.

Worked on by over 3,000 developers, 74 SIGs (special interest groups), and over 200 enterprises, openKylin has come a long way since its early releases.

74 SIGs (special interest groups), and over 200 enterprises

This is the only thing from the article that bothers me. My statement above was not meant to come across as xenophobic, but wary considering, historically, how involved China's government is with local tech companies and entities that would contribute to a project like this. Obviously, more data needs to be evaluated, but I think it's fair to be cautious.

133arc585

•

My statement above was not meant to come across as xenophobic, but wary considering, historically, how involved China’s government is with local tech companies and entities that would contribute to a project like this.

This right here is where the problem is though. Simply being associated with the Chinese governement is not sufficient to assume malfeasance. Just as any of the large USA tech giants that take various forms of government funding aren't automatically assumed to be malicious simply by being associated with a "malicious" government. Hell, the Linux Foundation (Linus' employer) is almost entirely funded by really creepy USA-based tech companies that themselves receive government money for various projects or products. I don't assume baselessly that Linus would make the distribution insecure simply because he's funded by people who might want that.

Obviously, more data needs to be evaluated, but I think it’s fair to be cautious.

It is only fair to be exactly as cautious as you would be to run any other random Linux distribution: say, some random person's fork of Debian. Again, unless you have actual reason to treat it differently, doing so baselessly is rather lame and doesn't serve anyone. Of course it's fair to be catious of something as critical as an operating system; but viewing it through a biased lens doesn't make you more secure.

SIGs (special interest groups)

I'm not sure the precise definition for what counts as an SIG here, but it could mean something analagous to the Linux Foundation. It isn't necessarily suspicious. I think, from context, it's used in contrast to "enterprises"; that is, I take it to include any volunteer or not-for-profit contributions.

Cynosure

•

Good to hear! Hopfuly a new generation of kernel contributors comes out of this.

MrPhibb

•

I played with an early version of this 2 years or so ago, and at the time I think it was Debian based, though there's an Arch version available. Neither one worked great, particularly the Arch version, but it was a very beautiful distro, if severely lacking in features. Still, it looked like it had potential, maybe I'll play with it again.

Hexadecimalkink

•

I think Deepin will be a better distro in the long run. OpenKylin is like the class project everyone has to contribute to, but Deepin is a work of passion.

CkrnkFrnchMn

•

Connection is terrible and am not taking down my VPN to d/load that.

sarsaparilyptus

•

It's pretty funny how they're trying to characterize a Linux distro as independence from Western tech. The closest we've gotten to that idea is TempleOS, not a Linux distro with spyware baked into it.