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China Operating Systems

Meet the Chinese OS That's Trying To Shift the Country Off Windows (abacusnews.com) 96

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
China's homegrown operating systems haven't made much of a dent on the global stage. Now there's a Linux-based system that's aimed at weaning the country off Windows. From a report: UOS, or Unified Operating System, hit a new milestone after its first stable release in January: Union Tech's OS can now boot in 30 seconds on China-made chips. It's an important step as Chinese tech companies look to reduce their dependence on US-made software and hardware. The struggles of ZTE and Huawei illustrate this clearly: The former was reliant on chips made in the US to produce smartphones, while the latter has the difficult task of selling Android handsets outside China without Google apps or services. The "current international climate" has made it imperative for China to have its own foundational software to avoid being cut off by the US, said the general manager of Union Tech, Liu Wenhan. While Chinese operating systems currently account for less than 1% of the market, Liu said he expects them to grow to 20% to 30% in the future. Integrating homegrown Chinese chips could be the biggest accomplishment of UOS if it pans out. Although Chinese computer chips still don't approach the sophistication of those created by US-based companies, Union Tech said that it is actively working with Chinese chipmakers like Loongson and Sunway to facilitate the gradual replacement of American technology in the Chinese government and pillar industries. In December, Beijing ordered all government offices and public institutions to remove foreign computer equipment and software within three years.
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Meet the Chinese OS That's Trying To Shift the Country Off Windows More

Meet the Chinese OS That's Trying To Shift the Country Off Windows

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  • Why is a 30 second boot time remarkable for a Linux system?
    • You did notice that boot time was on less powerful Chinese designed and built chips not intel or AMD designs right?
      • Well, I'm running MX Linux on a potato Celeron Chromebook I repurposed (not my only machine, no shame), and it beats 30 seconds handily. But, point taken.

        • Bootup bottlenecks were always all about storage speed, so I'm not surprised something with solid state drive boots quickly. Pretty sure Windows ME on a Pentium Pro would boot up about that fast if it had an ssd sitting on whatever the hell the fastest bus was for the period.

          • Bootup bottlenecks were always all about storage speed,

            On a modern OS where things can be started in parallel: Yes.
            On older piece of crap, where everything is started one single task at a time and some device drivers and some services have long initialization time or have to wait for timeouts: not so much.

            Pretty sure Windows ME on a Pentium Pro would boot up about that fast if it had an ssd sitting on whatever the hell the fastest bus was for the period

            Specialized SSD for IDE/ATAPI connectors used to be a thing (mostly in the intdustrial world) and more modern compact flash cards (basically the same bus but in a much tinier form factor) exist with decent UDMA speeds.

            Still fat chance of getting that much out

            • It's also _vastly_ more efficient to use LinuxBIOS, which discards obsolete scans and activation for hardware that simply does not exist anymore or that is not part of that motherboard's chipset. ISA cards? IDE? Floppy drives? PS/2 ports? Serial ports? They don't exist on most modern motherboards. SAS is found on some higher end motherboards, but OK. Use the publicly available LinuxBIOS tools to tune the BIOS for boot-time speed.

    • Because clueless Windows-natives ... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Tuesday March 24, 2020 @02:45PM (#59867714)

      ... think computers need to be (re)booted constantly, and apparently can't tell hibernation/sleep from a proper boot procedure anyway. (Windows 10 hibernates by default, when you say "shut down". It just closes the session.)

      The only reason anyone should ever feel it necessary to reboot a Linux/Unix system, is to start a new kernel when it can't be done by only unloading and reloading certain parts of it.
      Everything else is a bug.
      Just like with your smartphone, actually.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by innocent_white_lamb ( 151825 )

        And glibc. Or do you know of a way to reinitialize everything that uses glibc (which is everything) without rebooting?

        • Hmm, I don't think Gentoo has a problem running two versions of glibc side by side. Any application that still runs, will keep using the old version. Even if you delete the .so.

          It only accesses kernel services and kernel space state anyway, doesn't it? I don't think it maintains any global multi-application user space state.
          So I guess it depends on if glibc can still talk to those kernel interfaces after it has been updated. (In pretty much all real-world cases, I'm certain it does. Ther may be the odd one

    • Why is a 30 second boot time remarkable for a Linux system?

      "on China-made chips", " Chinese computer chips still don't approach the sophistication of those created by US-based companies."
      Unfortunately I am not able to provide a source for the claims.

    • Also curious if they asked whether an OS kernel written by a Finnish student living in the US while studying at a US University, with code and commenting written entirely of code and commenting in languages foreign to China, isn't foreign to China. And the CPU is just one thing they need to work on, they haven't even gotten to the southbridge or the GPU yet. They possibly have the northbridge covered, depending on whether Taiwan counts.

  • Chinese chips (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Alain Williams ( 2972 ) <addw@phcomp.co.uk> on Tuesday March 24, 2020 @02:24PM (#59867644) Homepage

    Although Chinese computer chips still don't approach the sophistication of those created by US-based companies,

    They don't need to be as good - just good enough. As good will come with time.

    • Re:Chinese chips (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Jerrry ( 43027 ) on Tuesday March 24, 2020 @02:34PM (#59867668)

      "They don't need to be as good - just good enough. As good will come as they steal more of our technology."

      Fixed that for ya...

      • They don't have to steal it - we send people back and forth to train them.

      • "They don't need to be as good - just good enough. As good will come as they buy more of our technology."

        Fixed that for ya...

        Fixed that for ya...

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      • "They don't need to be as good - just good enough. As good will come as they steal more of our technology."

        Fixed that for ya...

        Cue a launched femur turning end over end approaching stillness in its gravitational arc tranformed to an orbital station...

        “Nature does not know extinction; all it knows is transformation."
        ~Wernher Von Braun
        Epigraph, Part 1, Episode 1, Gravity's Rainbow

      • Used to be the case. China built their tech industry on blatant and legally-dubious copying, yes. Often with a bit of industrial espionage thrown in. But that was the China ten years ago - they have the engineers and scientists now to innovate and improve on their own now. Their processor tech is a few years behind Intel or AMD, but it's rapidly catching up.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        They don't steal it, they licence it. For example China is making AMD Epyc CPUs under licence, only with some parts disabled for security reasons. They don't trust US designed random number generators, for example.

        They also have ARM chips licenced from ARM (formerly British, now Japanese) and some MIPS based parts also made under licence.

  • with some desktop customization.

    I'm guessing the real stand-out difference in this distro is probably all the scanning and reporting to a central server it does.

    • Re:Looks like any other distro (Score:5, Funny)

      by Insanity Defense ( 1232008 ) on Tuesday March 24, 2020 @02:43PM (#59867700)

      I'm guessing the real stand-out difference in this distro is probably all the scanning and reporting to a central server it does.

      A true Windows competitor.

    • I don't really understand how it's a "Chinese OS" when it's just a Linux distro. Shouldn't it be a "Chinese distro" ?

      I was hoping for a ground up OS.

      • Yeah, like ReactOS, only actually working, or I don't know, another attempt at BeOS.....

      • Re:Looks like any other distro (Score:4, Informative)

        by Toonol ( 1057698 ) on Tuesday March 24, 2020 @04:40PM (#59868032)
        Watch your language. It should be 'novel distro-19', not 'Chinese distro',

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        It will be 'the' Chinese distro of Linux. Clearly the government is behind it and three years deadline (they mean business) for agencies to replace M$ windows and M$ Office. So when will Linux win on the desktop, well, apparently in three years time. Others countries will be competing not with M$ on this but with China, so you can expect for example India to come up with it's core Linux distribution and so it will spread, Indonesia also, anything country worth anything will be wanting it's Linux distro, a m

  • I bet it has wonderful security features. . . (Score:5, Funny)

    by darth_borehd ( 644166 ) on Tuesday March 24, 2020 @02:26PM (#59867656)

    Like the Communist Party always has root on every system.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Can't be worse than Windows, surely... Remember NSA_KEY? Well, it was kinda redundant given how many exploits the US government has for Windows.

    • And you don't think the US Govt doesn't?

  • What about security? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dgatwood ( 11270 ) on Tuesday March 24, 2020 @02:33PM (#59867666) Homepage Journal

    Notwithstanding the obvious virus jokes, why would anyone outside of China (and, if given a choice, inside of China) trust an operating system coming out of a country with such a long history of civil rights abuses, privacy violations, intellectual property theft, etc.?

    If this is China trying to have their own tech so that they can monitor their citizens more easily, well then whatever, but then the question becomes how far they will fall behind the rest of the world as a result of incompatibility issues, and to what extent American companies will put up with dealing with vendors that don't use whatever software is needed to do the job.

    From pretty much any perspective, this makes very little sense, and it seems likely that this will basically end up being used by the Chinese government, and no one else. That's a lot of effort for not a lot of use.

    • Notwithstanding the obvious virus jokes, why would anyone outside of China (and, if given a choice, inside of China) trust an operating system coming out of a country with such a long history of civil rights abuses, privacy violations, intellectual property theft, etc.?

      That was my first thought too...why would anyone trust this distro? I'm not saying that other distros are inherently more trustworthy, but a Chinese distro seems like an obvious target for implanted malware, spyware, shut-it-down-ware, etc etc.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cusco ( 717999 )

        But not everyone is like you or I. Most people use whatever OS is on the computer they have. If a Chinese company starts selling capable laptops for $100 people will buy them and then use Red Flag or Kylin or whatever is on it. Apparently Kylin has an XP clone interface, so it's something people would already be used to (and if it crashed they'd probably blame Microsoft).

        • If a Chinese company starts selling capable laptops for $100 people will buy them and then use Red Flag or Kylin or whatever is on it.

          It probably has malware/spyware baked into the firmware as well.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by cusco ( 717999 )

            Yep, and they will neither know, nor care. It was $100 and runs Facebook and plays porn, so it does what they want.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ClarkMills ( 515300 )

      > Notwithstanding the obvious virus jokes, why would anyone outside of China (and, if given a choice,
      > inside of China) trust an operating system coming out of a country with such a long history of civil rights abuses,
      > privacy violations, intellectual property theft, etc.?

      Which is why they don't want an American O/S, obviously...

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by znrt ( 2424692 )

      Notwithstanding the obvious virus jokes, why would anyone outside of China (and, if given a choice, inside of China) trust an operating system coming out of a country with such a long history of civil rights abuses, privacy violations, intellectual property theft, etc.?

      well, people seem to do trust facebook, apple and google. turns out people isn't at all that picky when you give them something that just works and is convenient for them.

      If this is China trying to have their own tech so that they can monitor their citizens more easily,

      as the abstract says, this is china trying to get around us sanctions. they need to produce their own chips and oses now, this will be an important hurdle in their expansion. once they do and have them in full production, though, i'd wager to predict that the situation will flip around quickly. that will be fun to watch, and many will real

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cusco ( 717999 )

        people isn't at all that picky when you give them something that just works and is convenient for them.

        This is what won the OS Wars for Microsoft, while everyone was trying to create the perfect OS/GUI/Productivity Apps Bill Gates realized "good enough and available now" really was good enough for most people and businesses.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )

      Notwithstanding the obvious virus jokes, why would anyone outside of China (and, if given a choice, inside of China) trust an operating system coming out of a country with such a long history of civil rights abuses, privacy violations, intellectual property theft, etc.?

      Swap US proprietary software for Chinese proprietary software? No. But if China wants to pour money and resources into open source so they aren't dependent on US licenses to sell to the world market? Fine with me, bring on the YotLD. Duke Nuke'm Fornever shipped, why can't that happen?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      why would anyone outside of China (and, if given a choice, inside of China) trust an operating system coming out of a country with such a long history of civil rights abuses, privacy violations, intellectual property theft, etc.?

      You just described Microsoft.

    • why would anyone outside of China (and, if given a choice, inside of China) trust an operating system coming out of a country with such a long history of civil rights abuses, privacy violations, intellectual property theft, etc.?

      Profit, ergo, capitalism; scum of the earth promoting anything for a fast buck.

    • Re:What about security? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Wednesday March 25, 2020 @12:38AM (#59869164)

      Simple:
      a) Linux (unlike Windows) does not make network connections to phone home. If it suddenly does these are blatantly obvious and it is quite a bit easier to analyze them too.
      b) Linux comes with source code. That means that (unlike Windows), you can actually analyze what it does with reasonable effort and also prevent it.

      If you are willing to trust opaque spyware like Windows 10, then you should have absolutely no problem with the far smaller risk from a "Chinese" Linux distribution.

    • So far, China is displaying no leadership on this trade boycott initiative. They need to supply western and EU markets with drop in drivers that work, and disable backdoor collection services. If they sulk over UUID or plug and pray usb codes, they they come out with a clever adaptive patcher. A carrot needs a stick to defuse market ownership.
    • Not sure why this is modded insightful. It makes a lot of sense. They don't need the rest of the world to adopt this OS. It's a hedge for them when we inevitably ban Microsoft from sending them copies of Windows. If they have an entirely Chinese stack from hardware up to the user-interface then they're completely independent and their infrastructure doesn't tumble during future trade wars.

  • So... (Score:5, Funny)

    by PhrostyMcByte ( 589271 ) <phrosty@gmail.com> on Tuesday March 24, 2020 @02:38PM (#59867680) Homepage

    2020 - Year of the rat.
    2021 - Year of the ox.
    2022 - Year of the tiger.
    2023 - Year of Linux on the desktop! It's finally happening guys! Time to learn Mandarin!

    • No such thing as Linux on the desktop.
      It is either Linux, a professional US for computer users.
      Or a desktop, for application user.
      Those two are mostly mutually exclusive, and only on the same system at the same time because of a lack of choice. (No professional GUI shell & too library.)

      • There are plenty of professional GUIs for Linux, lets start with a simple XServer. And obviously you use the same favourite shell on the desktop like on a server ... no idea what your point is.

        • A graphical actual shell!
          Not a CLI in in X.
          And not colorful clickables like radio buttons and dropdowns and tiny buttons and similar stupid crap.

          Ok, it might be hard to imagine, but I'm already working on it. Until then, mybe this example helps you get what I mean:

          In Autodesk Maya, everything you do in the GUI is at the same time a line in the CLI at the bottom. And you can just select those lines, drag em up on the shelf and you got a new button. You can then edit it add properties/paremeters panels, make

      • We seriously need a proper GUI shell for pro users. That isn't condescending, limited, "simple" and cumbersome.

        Yes, tiling window managers are a start.
        But we could do so much more!
        Like not using monolithic "applications" that you can't even script or use parts of elsewhere, but modular libraries of tools and interfaces with full, no compromises, scriptability.

        K.I.S.S. can kiss my ass. I want a Hilti, not an powered IKEA screwdriver!

    • Yes! Perhaps their calendar will substitute Penguin for Rat. Who would want to be born in the Year of the Rat (which we're in right now; see https://chinesenewyear.net/zodiac/rat/ [chinesenewyear.net] for relevant folklore. :)
  • We need a new operating system that runs Windows programs.

    Microsoft managers lack social ability. Apparently they have not realized the enormous damage they have done to the Microsoft brand by the management of Windows 10, management which is both amazingly sloppy and extremely negative toward customers. Part of the damage to the Microsoft brand is easily discovered by reading comments here on Slashdot.

    Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made. [networkworld.com] "Buried in the service agreement is permission

    • Well it still seems to be a DEC kernel ported to a windows shiny gui.

      Has anyone ever tried DCL commands on Windows? Just kidding
      SET DEFAULT [.PORN]

      With linux tools for Windows, and other linux features being added, it's probably only a matter of time until they change to a linux kernel, hidden behind 40 or so layers of obfuscation.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        With linux tools for Windows, and other linux features being added, it's probably only a matter of time until they change to a linux kernel, hidden behind 40 or so layers of obfuscation.

        May still take a while, but they are obviously considering that. As MS makes most of its revenue from the cloud these days, there is no real need for a "native" windows anymore. It would have a ton of advantages for security, reliability, maintenance, drivers, etc.

    • Good luck with that. If such an operating system sucks, it can be allowed to exist - that's where ReactOS is. But should it ever become useful and widespread enough to actually pose a threat to Microsoft, then they will sue it into oblivion - even if the whole OS is made with cleanroom development practices to ensure no copyright infringement, patents alone would be enough for that.

  • Merely due to Play store apps not being available.

    Nobody gives a shit about the rest of Google's crapware.
    As long as they can install everything their friends can, everyone's happy.
    Which actually is already the case for most people, from what I can tell.

  • Does it come with antivirus protection? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Baleet ( 4705757 ) on Tuesday March 24, 2020 @02:44PM (#59867708)
    Too soon? I'll show myself out.

  • Win10 had a ton of spyware...excuse me, "telemetry" built-in...I can't wait to see what UOS has hidden within its codebase.

  • Dont like the current security libraries? Roll your own. Dont like the current secure OS? Roll your own. China is doing the exact opposite of the norm of "Dont roll your own security".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      That's because they're not targeting the very small audience who know what "roll your own" means. They're targeting the vast majority of people who want it to "just work".

  • There's a huge number of people who will likely be mandated to use it like the Uighurs, dissidents, or anyone else that should be monitored. For their own good of course.

  • Look at the benefit here (Score:5, Interesting)

    by solardesalination ( 6463838 ) on Tuesday March 24, 2020 @03:40PM (#59867876)
    Americans will likely not use this distribution because of privacy concerns. But regardless. UOS is based on Deepin, which is based on Debian. If they actually reached 20% penetration in the Chinese market, (what, half the population of China uses a desktop?) that's at least 100 million Debian linux desktop users. If 1% of those people start hacking the software like they did for making pirated Windows XP, the upstream contributions are going to increase substantially. I think this could lead to Debian being the new desktop operating system of choice in 5 or 10 years. Shame Ian isn't around to see it happen. :\

    • Americans will likely not use this distribution because of privacy concerns. But regardless. UOS is based on Deepin, which is based on Debian. If they actually reached 20% penetration in the Chinese market, (what, half the population of China uses a desktop?) that's at least 100 million Debian linux desktop users. If 1% of those people start hacking the software like they did for making pirated Windows XP, the upstream contributions are going to increase substantially. I think this could lead to Debian being the new desktop operating system of choice in 5 or 10 years. Shame Ian isn't around to see it happen. :\

      American diehard Linux enthusiasts are eagerly awaiting this distribution. We had a taste of Deepin 15, it was great. Certainly the interface is better than Gnome 3. What is not to like?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sad_ ( 7868 )

      Not only that, but it should also be a big boon for other softwares to work on or with linux.
      As linux users we can only win by increased marketshare.

  • If a Chinese made chip is a counterfeit of an Intel or AMD chip, is it still a "Chinese chip"?
  • Don't call it a Chinese OS, that is racist. Anyone can install and us an OS.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • ...M$. So conflicted here.

    • Just be pro- or anti- ideas and behaviours, not companies or countries, and life will simplify itself :-)

  • You think Windows 10 spies on you? This Chinese OS will inventory your underwear drawer every night while you're sleeping, it's going to be so nosy. Literally the antithesis of 'secure'.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      It is Linux. It does not phone home. If it suddenly does, you have a direct link to what does the call and can analyze. You have source, so you can do that and you can patch it out. It also has a real firewall in the kernel.

      I do appreciate paranoia like the next security expert, but please keep it within reason. The Chinese do not have any magic powers.

      • Tell you what: if you're a security expert, and you can get your hands on the sourcecode for this Chinese version of Linux, go through it, and verify that it's not full of spyware and backdoors for the Chinese government to use, then I'll retract the statement, but the fact of the matter is they can build whatever they want into it, they're a total surveillance authoritarian state, and it's highly likely the ability for the government to access any computer running it at any time is baked right into it, and

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          That is BS. You cannot really send things over the network without that being blatantly obvious. Also, if you install a Linux distro, you have root access, there is no way to prevent that. Sure, if a Chinese user is forced to use an installation that somebody else has done, that may be something else. But we are not talking about that scenario, obviously.

          I have no love for the Chinese Government and share your assessment of them. But as I said, they do not have magical powers. They are limited by what techn

          • I don't claim to be a linux expert, I used to have an MCSE before having had enough of Microsoft and their crap, and I have to learn linux from scratch, but not knowing all the details and knowing the general character (or lack thereof) of the Chinese government, I really feel I have to assume there's alterior motives involved, especially since they're so totally authoritarian and draconic.
            Tell you what: I'll reserve my judgement until I have more details, but I have little hope that it's just going to be

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by gweihir ( 88907 )

              Quite fine by me. My take is that they will probably compromise user-space by some surveillance application that you have to install when in China, but that is optional outside. I share your conviction that they have ulterior motives. We will eventually see what actually is in there, because it will at least be hard to hide.

          • Sure, if a Chinese user is forced to use an installation that somebody else has done, that may be something else. But we are not talking about that scenario, obviously.

            Stop right there with your 'obviously'. Given that it's China, we quite likely *are* talking about exactly that scenario. In fact, with the initial wave being government computers, that might even be justified; but it's naive to think that it wouldn't extend to non-government computers.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by gweihir ( 88907 )

              Ok, let me rephrase: For use _outside_ of China, we are not talking about that scenario. For uses _inside_ of China, we are. Inside of China, they can simply mandate everybody to install some surveillance application that runs with root or (worse) kernel privileges. Anybody messing with this then gets a nice government-sponsored re-education.

  • Red Flag (Score:4, Funny)

    by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Tuesday March 24, 2020 @04:50PM (#59868054)

    >"Now there's a Linux-based system that's aimed at weaning the country off Windows. "

    And, so, what happened to Red Flag Linux?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    Whatever is old, is new again. Take a Linux distro, cram it full of spyware and controlware, and "viola" a new Chinese OS!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by _merlin ( 160982 )

      Any evidence of spyware in Red Flag? It seemed to die out just because no-one was interested in moving off (often pirated) Windows. Also, if you want to be taken seriously, some literacy helps ("voila", not "viola" - it looks really stupid when you try dropping a loanword and use a completely different word).

      • >"Also, if you want to be taken seriously, some literacy helps"

        Excuse me, but a typo (especially a simple accidental swapping of two letters) does not constitute being illiterate. I am quite aware of the difference between voila and a viola.

        If YOU want to be taken more seriously, perhaps you should give people the 'benefit of the doubt' before mocking/labeling them...

  • Sounds like all the fun things on Aliexpress.com will now be Linux Compatible!
  • With 50% More Spyware!
  • A UNIX like OS called Linux poised to overtake Microsoft products with different values with OpenSource code. I heard this news 30 years ago when I was installing my first Slackware on floppies... Still waiting for the install to finish.
  • Wasn't this a Jon Katz article from 20 years ago?
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

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