Getting started with the domestically produced Ubuntu Kylin operating system

On December 22, Ubuntu Kylin 15.04, a domestic operating system jointly developed by the Software and Integrated Circuit Promotion Center of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National University of Defense Technology and Canonical, was made available for download. This version sets the language to Chinese by default and fixes a large number of defects in Chinese localization and software.

This version is the fourth version launched by Ubuntu Kylin, which is customized for Chinese users. It pre-installs and provides a large number of software services suitable for Chinese users through the software center, and upgrades system themes, software center, calendar, online music search and other functions. This version is still a preview version and is only for user experience.

Sina Technology experienced this domestic operating system for the first time and finally concluded that Ubuntu Kylin is really a lackluster desktop operating system.

Review Ubuntu Kylin

In March 2013, the Software and Integrated Circuit Promotion Center (CSIP) of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) and Canonical, the company supporting Ubuntu, announced a partnership to establish the Open Source Software Innovation Joint Laboratory (CCN), with the goal of developing an Ubuntu version optimized for Chinese users, which is now the Ubuntu Kylin operating system.

Sina Technology tried to use the latest version of Ubuntu Kylin operating system for two days. However, it felt that this operating system, which is called Ubuntu Kylin in Chinese, is just a Chinese-ized Ubuntu operating system with a few third-party Chinese applications added. Ubuntu is an open source operating system with more than 20 million users worldwide.

The reason why Ubuntu Kylin operating system is lackluster is that Ubuntu itself is not very user-friendly. It would be great if Ubuntu Kylin could add icing on the cake based on Ubuntu, but in fact, during the installation and experience process, Ubuntu Kylin encountered problems such as lag, software crash, freeze, installation failure, etc. that do not exist in the same version of Ubuntu.

Like Ubuntu, Ubuntu Kylin comes pre-installed with the Unity desktop environment, which provides a graphical interface very close to Windows and Macintosh. In addition to native Chinese, Ubuntu Kylin provides a series of Chinese software to meet daily use, such as music search, lunar calendar, weather, Chinese app store, etc. In general, compared with the Ubuntu operating system, Ubuntu Kylin's improvements include but are not limited to: new wallpapers, new themes, and several Chinese software.

After careful experience, Sina Technology believes that the current work done by the Ubuntu Kylin project team is limited to localization and third-party software development, and on the surface there does not seem to be any more important work.

The evaluation of "lack of praise" is actually not only applicable to the Ubuntu Kylin operating system. This word can be used to describe almost all domestic operating systems that have emerged in the past two years.

Several domestic OSs have emerged

According to the official software procurement website hosted by the Central Government Procurement Center, in addition to Ubuntu Kylin, NeoKylin, Zhongke Fangde, SPGnux, Alibaba Cloud, and Longxin are all suppliers of domestic operating systems. Like Ubuntu Kylin, these operating systems are rarely used by individual consumers, but this does not prevent them from being selected for government procurement and benefiting from government procurement.

A few years ago, there were only a few manufacturers such as Zhongke Hongqi quietly working in the domestic operating system market, but in the past two years, many manufacturers carrying the banner of domestic operating systems have suddenly emerged. An important reason that tempted these manufacturers to get involved in the operating system market is the localization substitution project being promoted by government departments.

Bloomberg reported recently that China plans to have banks, military institutions, state-owned enterprises and core government agencies stop using information technology products from foreign companies and switch to Chinese manufacturers by 2020. Before officially launching this project, government departments have already started a pilot project in Siping City, Jilin Province.

It is understood that Siping City, Jilin Province has completely replaced the business application systems in the field of fiscal expenditure with domestic ones, achieving a comprehensive replacement from hardware, basic software (operating system, database and middleware) to application systems. Siping City's software and hardware product portfolio includes: financial management software from UFIDA, servers and storage devices from Inspur, switches from Huawei, operating systems from Zhongbiao Kylin, databases from DAMO and middleware from Easterncom.

In the past few years, China has become dependent on foreign operating systems, but as Microsoft officially ended its support for Windows XP, the pace of promoting domestic operating systems to replace it has gradually accelerated. Perhaps seeing this trend, in the past two years, more and more manufacturers have begun to market domestic operating systems.

From a macro perspective, the retirement of XP has become a good opportunity to develop domestic operating systems. At the same time, the government departments, due to their emphasis on information security, require the purchase of domestic operating systems, which also brings tangible income to manufacturers. These combined factors have together set off the booming domestic operating system market.

Manufacturers still need to work hard

From a macro perspective, domestic operating systems have ushered in the best historical development opportunity period, but they still face many challenges. In the past, the main reason why domestic operating systems failed to develop was that no one was willing to use them, and no manufacturers were willing to develop corresponding application software for them. Now there are finally more customers willing to use them, but the construction of the entire ecosystem is still lagging behind.

According to Net Applications, as of November 2014, operating systems other than Mac and Windows accounted for only 3.26% of the global PC users, and this market share in China is negligible. The commercial market for Linux is mainly in the server and supercomputing fields, but currently these fields also basically use distributions other than Ubuntu, such as Red Hat server operating system.

In order to solve the problem of backward ecosystem construction, Ni Guangnan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, proposed in August this year to establish a domestic operating system alliance, in which manufacturers would jointly build an application store to reduce the workload of application developers.

In Ni Guangnan's view, building a "domestic operating system ecological environment" should include improving the domestic operating system and its tool chain; developing various application software on the domestic operating system; porting the original application software on the Windows operating system to the domestic operating system; integrating the domestic operating system with the original information system; and providing tools to help users migrate from Windows systems to domestic operating systems.

If we follow the timetable revealed in the news, 2020 is almost imminent. Operating system development is a huge system project that requires not only capital and talent, but also qualitative changes caused by accumulated experience. Although the demands of commercial and civilian products are quite different, ease of use, portability and versatility are indicators that must be completed.

To achieve these goals, simply doing Chinese localization, modification, and secondary development is obviously not enough. Nothing can be accomplished overnight, and operating systems are not pigs that can fly in the wind. Whether the route of domestic substitution can be truly implemented instead of becoming a slogan and a face-saving project, domestic operating system manufacturers may need to work harder and be more serious.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.