Chinese State media uses new release of local Linux to troll Trump
- Reference: 1597992012
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/08/21/galaxy_kylin_v10/
- Source link:
“Galaxy Kylin Advanced Server Operating System V10” emerged last week with support for locally-designed chips using the MIPS, SPARCv9 and Arm architectures. The OS also supports x86 CPUs flowing from the AMD’s joint venture in China and others derived from Via’s abandoned tilt at the x86 market.
KylinOS developer Kylinsoft, a part of the state-owned China Electronics Corporation, [1]said the new release is ideal for Kunbernetes, Docker and LXC virtualisation. Open-source projects like OpenStack Ceph and GlusterFS are all supported too.
Trusted platform modules are enabled and the OS is recommended for “Cloud environment … government, national defense, finance, education, finance and taxation, public security, auditing, transportation, medical treatment, manufacturing and other fields.”
In other words, a solid cut of Linux that should scale well and can run the stuff needed to get modern computing done.
There’s also a desktop cut of the OS that supports Android apps and has somewhat curiously been [2]trumpeted as compatible with Panasonic printers. Take that, Windows!
Which brings us to State-run organ China Daily and the English-language [3]Editorial about the new release it offered up this week.
After opening with an observation that Huawei’s in trouble outside China thanks to US actions, readers are told that “Kylin V10 operating system no doubt adds to popular confidence that Washington's whole-of-government, worldwide endeavors to suppress Chinese technological progress may not be as successful as anticipated.”
The Editorial singles out the operating system’s ability to bring Android to locally-made kit and says if it works well “it is indeed a major step forward for the domestic information technology sector, which is under tremendous pressure as the White House seeks to throttle Chinese high-tech development in the name of national security.”
The Editorial goes on to say that the fact Kylin powers China’s Yinhe and Tianhe supercomputers, and is present in its space program, “suggests these are the real deal.”
But it also acknowledges that the OS has not led the world.
“However, the fact that the genesis of Kylin dates back to the turn of the century and has taken even longer in terms of research and development by multiple participants under a key tech-breakthrough initiative in itself illustrates the need to focus on indigenous innovation over the long term,” the editorial says. “That there is still an undeniable gap between many domestic and international technologies means these indigenous alternatives are essentially substitutes, and there remains much to do to make them appealing as mainstream international competitors.” ®
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[1] http://www.kylinos.cn/scheme/server/1.html
[2] http://www.kylinos.cn/about/news/232.html
[3] http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202008/18/WS5f3bd201a3108348172611d9.html
[4] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
It's not really Linux
It's Windows CCP. Easy to joke about SlurpOS but Microsoft ain't anywhere near as bad as Xinnie the Pooh.
The US digital policy isn't exactly great on citizen's privacy, either, so what's to be done about it?
Selfhost.
Upstream Linux, and major distributions, have explicit goals to be open and support privacy. Of course, it is always possible that various nation states have compromised parts, but at least I am confident that any compromises discovered will be openly announced, addressed and quickly removed.
I have no such confidence in cloud services. So I don't use cloud services for important personal data (such as email, contacts, calendar, personal files, etc). I selfhost such things (for example using Owncloud/Nextcloud and by running my own email server). And I only use cloud storage for encrypted data (such as backups) or non-confidential files (such as my media library).
"... the genesis of Kylin dates back to the turn of the century"
It's depressing when a phrase like that makes you automatically think of the 1900s. Age - who wants it?
Re: "... the genesis of Kylin dates back to the turn of the century"
Well compared to the alternative...
Re: "... the genesis of Kylin dates back to the turn of the century"
I used to think Doctor Watson was incredibly old (and fictional of course). Because he'd begin a Sherlock Holmes story with, "it was in the year of 82 that myself and Holmes encountered the problem of the politician the lighthouse and the trained cormorant."
And now of course I find myself saying to "young people", "well of course that happened back in 95..." A time before they were born, but worse, in a different century - and full horror of horrors a previous millennium!
Of course it was back in '66 that I remember fighting that bastard Norman the Conqueror at Hastings. It was funny how the place was already called Battle, before we started fighting over it. Talk about nominative determinism. I had a tenner on them winning with Harold, so it was one in the eye for him when he had to pay out...
What we really need to know is whether they've fought off that wicked capitalist attempt to undermine the world's computing systems, systemd?
Are you sure System Substance D isn't a Chinese project in the first place?
Google Translate at its best...
It looks like ElReg used it to translate from Chinese, and they really shouldn't, it sucks at it.
"银河" is not "galaxy", it's specifically the Milky Way, as was properly used in the China Daily article linked in the article (which is odd, didn't they read it? And then, didn't they trust the China Daily translation?).
Not a big deal in that case, fortunately :)
Re: Google Translate at its best...
Maybe the register just have different chocolate preferences to you?
My Mother was adamant that I couldn't eat a Milky Way before dinner without it ruining my appetite, despite my statement that the advert was very specific that this was fine.
Oddly since becoming an adult Mum has told me several times that, despite my expressed cynicism, something on an advert must be true, because they're not allowed to lie. So why wouldn't you let me eat that Milky Way then!
Re: Google Translate at its best...
And to confuse things even further, Milky Bar is know as Galak in France.
Re: Google Translate at its best...
It must be Galakcy, mustn't it?
Re: Google Translate at its best...
"Galaxy" can refer specifically to the Milky Way - it comes from the Greek "galaxios" meaning "milky". It's only in the last hundred years that we have known that there are other similar structures (though it was conjectured before).
If Trump is re-elected in November so the on going trade war between the US and China continues, then maybe next year could be the year of Linux on the desktop for those in China? As who known whether MS can avoid the sanctions and continue to supply to Huawei or maybe the Chinese government will mandate companies to start to use KylinOS over Windows.
The city of Munich (a.k.a. München) spent 15 years trying and failing to replace Windows & MSOffice with Linux & OpenOffice. Let's see whether China can manage it, perhaps with Kylinos and Kingsoft Office.
I did try out Kingsoft Office, and it is clearly designed to support the Chinese language.
OS has not led the world.
I wouldn't say that about Unix or Linux today and it's fairly obvious this China Daily person is very new to Linux and probably writing it on Windows.
I am a little jealous. Privacy concerns aside, just getting people away from Windows will do wonders for productivity.
For whenever Source for the Goose is Sauce from the Gander
Does the West [any Five Eyes member at least] do a Chinese language newspaper in a similar style to a China Daily/Global Times?
Then the surveillance of the citizen's digital activities will be down to the OS level - combined with the password law enacted this year, the state can mandate what you can set as the root/user password of your linux box.
Next move will be a state-regulated bios and state-provided firmwire updates which, combined with state-issued linux distribution, will reflect the amount of control the state want at any given moment.
Why would anyone side with china on their digital policy which erode the citizen's privacy beyond the bedrock is beyond me.
From hong kong, where the freedom and rights is quickly aligning to the standard of the mainland.