According to a Bloomberg report, attributed to China’s Ministry of State Security, the country has ordered some government agencies to drop Windows 10 China Government Edition for Chinese-made Linux distributions.
The Chinese government did not specify which Linux versions would replace Windows 10. However, the stock prices of Chinese Linux suppliers, Kylin Software and Tongxin Software Technology (commonly known as UnionTech), immediately jumped.
These companies’ respective operating systems, Kylin OS (no relation to Ubuntu Kylin) and UnionTech OS (UOS), were already positioned as domestic desktop and server replacements for Windows in government, state-owned enterprise, and critical-infrastructure environments.
This change to Linux doesn’t mean that there will be a nationwide ban on all Windows installations in China. Windows Home China 11, a restricted, factory-locked edition that requires you to use only Chinese, is still available.
The transition also doesn’t mean that every government body has been ordered to abandon Microsoft software. The directive’s scope remains undisclosed. Still, the writing is on the wall: China’s future government desktop will be Linux.
rubber_chicken joins China in scrapping Windows for Linux
For real, this is such a coincidence. As I wrote about a few times here, I got a Linux laptop, running the aforementioned UOS, in China. I kept putting off making the switch for several months. I wanted to back up some photos from my phone to my computer and figured I could unplug it and use that usb-c port. The file transfer lasted something like a minute before my computer shut down from low battery. That’s all it take for it to drop from 100% to 5% or wherever that’s set. The manufacturer filed for bankruptcy 5 years ago so I doubt a replacement battery is in the cards, so the time to jump to Linux is now.
I found a guide to backing up a Windows machine to a Linux machine on the same network, so I fired up the linux machine, got on the wifi, found the command prompt and pasted in the very first. It’s balking at a sudo because I don’t have root. I search the error message and find out how to get root and . . . I need a WeChat account.
I’ve never gotten a WeChat account. I know it requires the assistance of somebody who has a WeChat account but I never really looked into how big of a deal that is. Apparently people only have a few verification slots per year. Also I’m seeing the possibility of linking a bank card to bypass that verification. Huh, how about that. It didn’t ask me for verification, even without a bank card. OK, I got to scan the QR code on my computer to “request root access.” I wonder where that request went. Well, it’s been a few minutes so I’m thinking China, where it’s 3 AM.
In the meantime, I used a different usb-c port to back up my documents folder to my phone, so I’m not entirely SOL if the Windows machine dies.
I would never install a Linux distro that doesn’t give me root access by default and makes me ask another party for it. It’s my goddamn computer. That’s some RedStarOS BS.
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