12.29.20
Gemini version available ♊︎Migration to GNU/Linux in China Still Progressing, Just as Planned, in Spite of Ridicule and Misinformation From Microsoft
Earlier this year: Microsoft Propagandist Turns “Years” Into More Than Ten Years to Belittle a Massive Migration to GNU/Linux in China
Summary: China is preinstalling GNU/Linux on laptops; “The [above] laptop,” says an English report, runs “Deepin OS 20,” which is based on Debian GNU/Linux
THE world is changing. South Korea, Russia, and China (sharing a border) plan to move their governments and then their citizens to GNU/Linux (South Korea started this year). This won’t happen overnight (due to legacy workflows and systems), but progress is being made; they moreover make their own chips (processors and beyond) to promote self-reliance. Is this good for North America and Europe? Maybe not. Depending on one’s political orientation and stance on security (including back doors).
“We heard about the MateBook earlier this year; Qingyun L410 shows it must have been a success, as otherwise they would not put GNU/Linux on further and newer models of laptops.”Recently, in Daily Links we mentioned this article citing a Chinese portal (screenshot above; it’s hard to access that site). It spoke of a laptop that comes with GNU/Linux preinstalled. “The laptop itself,” it said, “is named Qingyun L410 and is expected to be a cheaper version of the MateBook 14. There’s also the possibility of the device supporting 5G connectivity given that the SoC itself features an integrated 5G modem.”
We heard about the MateBook earlier this year; Qingyun L410 shows it must have been a success, as otherwise they would not put GNU/Linux on further and newer models of laptops.
Kylin and Deepin are the better known Chinese distributions these days (it changes over time and there’s also UOS). Here’s an article about UOS (from May 2020):
Certainly the decline of Windows worries Microsoft; lobbyists even begged the Trump administration to allow Microsoft to carry on imposing Windows on banned companies (so much for “Microsoft loves Linux”). Did it work? Not really, at least not based on the above. China has other ideas for its future and it rightly views Microsoft as an imperial espionage tool that’s subsidised by the US taxpayer. Not only did Trump pass a lot of military budget to Microsoft (Pentagon budget as Microsoft stimulus); he also helped Microsoft steal a Chinese company (TikTok) even if that did not materialise at the end.
Microsoft is telling us (even confirming) Azure layoffs, in spite of Microsoft pretending to have found an alternative and promising future in Clown Computing. They literally join or come to our primary IRC channel, trying to interject damage-limiting PR.
Let’s hope that in 2021 the mask will slip further (causing more project exoduses in GitHub), Microsoft layoffs will carry on, and nations as large as China (with the largest number of computer users) will migrate to GNU/Linux. █
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