Huawei To Pivot To Linux, HarmonyOS as Microsoft Windows License Expires 34
Huawei will no longer be able to produce or sell Windows-based PCs as Microsoft's supply license to the Chinese tech company expires this month, according to Chinese tech site MyDrivers. The restriction comes as Huawei remains on the U.S. Department of Commerce's Entity List, requiring American companies to obtain special export licenses to conduct business with the firm.
Richard Yu, executive director of Huawei's consumer business unit, said the company is preparing to pivot to alternative operating systems. Huawei had previously announced plans to abandon Windows for future PC generations. The Chinese tech giant will introduce a new "AI PC" laptop in April running its own Kunpeng CPU and HarmonyOS, alongside a MateBook D16 Linux Edition, its first Linux-based laptop.
Richard Yu, executive director of Huawei's consumer business unit, said the company is preparing to pivot to alternative operating systems. Huawei had previously announced plans to abandon Windows for future PC generations. The Chinese tech giant will introduce a new "AI PC" laptop in April running its own Kunpeng CPU and HarmonyOS, alongside a MateBook D16 Linux Edition, its first Linux-based laptop.
Finally ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Finally ... The year of linux on the desktop ? (Score:3)
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And will they choose vi or emacs.
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And will they choose vi or emacs.
It depends on if they are evil or not...
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Real Unix gurus use sed to edit files, even when they're starting from scratch:
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I actually did that once, admittedly for a very short script. (I forget WHY I did it that way, but there were then some conditions where that was the best approach.)
OTOH, I edited those scripts ONCE, and saved them. I didn't do it repeatedly. (But I was never a Unix guru, I was just the only one in the office that was willing to deal with it. Everybody else used either mainframes or CP/M...except graphics which used Apples.)
Re: Finally ... The year of linux on the desktop ? (Score:3)
It's very common to use sed -e to edit specific things in conf files automatically
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That sounds about right...except that I sure didn't do it automatically!
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You can't spell "vile" without "vi". -- Someone on Usenet long ago
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Why, is there any other ?
*ducks*
Re:Finally ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, it's the (obviously) required joke, but this is likely the way it'll happen. Not necessarily this as in this actual event, but something like this. Sanctions, or some other Western chest-thumping. It's an open secret that it wasn't the presence of backdoors that Huawei was blacklisted for, but for refusing to add back doors in their equipment (same reason that TikTok is black listed for refusing to allow western intel into the accounts). At some point the rest of the world is going to wonder why they are paying Microsoft for the privilege of having Microsoft push them around with lacklustre offerings and high handed "YOU WILL MAKE A MICROSOFT ACCOUNT TO USE YOUR PC" mandates. And some other round of "sanctions" or just general American Trumpeting will happen at just the right time and it'll shift almost overnight. Microsoft will fall, or be reduced to only a game console company, and Intel will be next as everyone realizes that Risc-V will run Linux just as well as x86 does.
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but... as much as you make a good logical argument for dumping MS and Risc-V... soooo... the year 2099 with be the year of linux on the desktop?
People, businesses, seem paralyzed in the Microsoft headlights.
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I expect the same. At some point the offering by Microsoft will get too bad, too expensive or too unvavailable and then people will find out that you do not need it after all. Some critical mass is required. This event here may supply that or not. But at some time it will happen.
Also remember that Huawei is in the $100 Billion revenue class and has about 200k employees. That is not a small enterprise.
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Sounds like it might be in China, anyway. Maybe Huawei can do something that Slashdot fans have failed to do for the past 25 years, and pick a standardized GUI and text editor for us?
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Bad idea. Different workflows are better handled with different editors. (OTOH, I'd almost always pick geany and mate.)
They'll learn eventually (Score:3)
There would have most certainly been no DeepSeek without export controls.
Nvidia lost $600 billion, with a B, in market cap, in one day.
Now we have what will very likely be, by a huge margin, the biggest Linux laptop ever made.
It won't be a single day, but there's no way Microsoft is happy to see it.
The chip export controls just motivated the development of models that work with less chips, they only made sense to policy makers who were oblivious to how doable that really was. Now this only makes sense, if it isn't very doable to quickly make Linux a very viable alternative to Windows . . .
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Now we have what will very likely be, by a huge margin, the biggest Linux laptop ever made.
Not really, there are plenty of actors selling Linux laptops in china, either with NeoKylin or Ubuntu Kylin. Lenovo and HP in particular, make a killing in china selling LAptops with Linux. You see, china's govt has a mandate for govt agencies to use as much "indigenous tech" as possible, and Kylin is a big part of that push. And the private sector is "strongly encouraged" to do so. Doubly so if you deal a lot witgh the govt (say, the govt is your client, provider, or you develop apps for them).
So no, Those
Re: They'll learn eventually (Score:2)
Nvidia is down 15% in the last year. But still up 1800% over the last 5 years. Seems like more of a blip in the bubble, not a pop just yet
Very Nice (Score:3)
I may know where my next laptop comes from. Hopefully others follow.
Plus with this maybe China will fully dump Microsoft, making Linux the largest Desktop System due to China's population.
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This always seemed like an inevitability to me.
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Crack down on Linux (Score:2)
Linux is used by our enemies (China and Canada), and they aren't even paying us for it. They owe us a lot of money. Linux is clearly unamerican and should be fully banned, and anyone caught working on it in the US should be in prison.
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I thought that Linux was Finnish? Crazy European socialists are trying to corrupt our youth. Someone should pass a resolution forcing us to go back to a REAL Capitalist UNIX distribution, like SCO!
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You're obviously joking, but...
With the way Trump is alienating the classic US allies, they are indeed turning away from everything american. We've seen the signs in Canada, e.g. with US Whisky being pulled from the shelves, I also see it over here in Europe. Now, both Apple and MS are american too, so they'll also end up in the crosshairs. I do see more GNU/Linux in our future - and I'll say, good riddance for the proprietary vendors.
I can see Germany retracting the contract for F35 in favour of Eurofighte
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I may know where my next laptop comes from. Hopefully others follow.
Plus with this maybe China will fully dump Microsoft, making Linux the largest Desktop System due to China's population.
As long as I can DualBoot Windows and Linux on these Huawei Laptops, I may give them a go. No one is preventing Huawei from developing suitable drivers (making microsoft sign the drivers is another thing entierly).
I currently use MacOS as Main, dual booting to Windows. I may as well use Linux as main, dualBooting to windows for my next upgrade cycle in 2 years.
PS: Windows in '91, BSD in '95, Linux in '96, Windows in '98, MacOS x in '09... OS agnostic, use the best tool for the task at hand is my motto.
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Who dual boots these days? If you need to run Windows then run it in a VM. Remember, Windows requires reboots all the time but Linux uptimes are measured in months or years. So with Windows in a VM you let the VM reboot and your Linux system stays up and online.
Year of the Linux Desktop jokes aside: (Score:2)
The Chinese Govt. has had a Linux desktop version for year now. They are called Neo Kylin and Ubuntu Kylin (this one comes from an agreement between Canonical and the Chinese govt).
Just by selling Neo (as I doubt uncle sam will allow cannonical to sell to Huawei) to a fraction of Govt agencies will be enough for Huawei to get a decent volume, on top of whatever they can get from consumers. Doubly so because the chinese govt has a mandate for govt agencies to buy as much "chinese stuff" as possible.
Probably
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I doubt uncle sam will allow cannonical to sell to Huawei
Canonical is not a US company. HQ is in the UK.
Re: Year of the Linux Desktop jokes aside: (Score:1)
That sounds similar to ASML's situation.
The USA doesn't recognise judicial independence of foreign countries.