Trisquel On OpenKylin V2.0 sp2 Beta
到什么山上唱什么歌
English equivalent: When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
(https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Chinese_proverbs)
So I spent some time yesterday playing around with the latest version of OpenKylin (https://www.openkylin.top/en)
a Chinese GNU-Linux Operating System that I really enjoy, and has lots of support for different hardware such as riskV,
and my goal, was to see if it could be turned into a Libre operating system, like Trisquel, with proprietary bits removed,
offending features, and a new Libre-Linux kernel installed.
I've tried using OpenKylin since it was version 1.0, and it's very confusing to me, what is happening with it, because of
the poor translations, and also, because it always is seeming to be undergoing dramatic changes, from being based on Debian,
to having it's own homegrown package base, to being more closely aligned with Ubuntu, as well as the fact, that it is designed
for Chinese computer users, so it has many applications that are unfamiliar to a western audience.
I came to the conclusion just recently, thinking to myself about the bizarre experience(which is typically how I feel after using OpenKylin)
that compared to Trisquel, OpenKylin, is like on the complete opposite side of spectrum of extant Gnu-Linux operating systems, the Yin to our Yang... or vice versa. OpenKylin, is always trying new things, and since version 2.0 is now called an "A.I. PC Operating system" and has artificial intelligence integrated into the desktop.
风 向 变 时,有 人 镜 墙,有 人 造 风车
English: When the wind changes direction, some people build walls while others build windmills
OpenKylin, after booting into a new install, uses 6.5 GB of Ram memory, and is officially the heavy weight champion of Linux resource usage.
No distribution that I have ever seen, or could even imagine, except for possibly specialist proprietary systems, even comes close. In fact, OpenKylin's resource usage is similar to that of Microsoft Windows 11, and the user experience is reflected by these abnormally high measures. Attempting to even click on the application menu in OpenKylin, is a risky maneuver that threatens to bring the whole desktop environment crashing down. OpenKylin attempts to do too many things simultaneously with it's operating system design, and actually produce an experience for users, similarly to that of Microsoft I think, where everything they want to do, works out of the box without any technically difficult configuration necessary.
OpenKylin uses the ubiquity installer, the one used by ubuntu, and requires being put onto a usb by itself, in order to work correctly,
with dd like this...
user@pc:~$ sudo dd if=openKylin-Desktop-V2.0-SP2-Beta1-x86_64.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=512KB; sync
I tried using ventoy to boot it, which finally allowed me to boot OpenKylin with bios-mode on my UEFI PC.
(I made the ventoy as a legacy msdos device) The live environment was so clunky and slow however, despite my best efforts
to reconfigure it... with like nomodeset mitigations=off, that I became so frustrated with it, that I finally resolved
to just install it. Which since version 1.0 is a series of events has been the case.
The boot menu for OpenKylin lets us quickly change the language from Chinese -> English pressing the f2 key
and pressing f6 we get some advanced options, such as the ability to select *Only Free software* and to change
the command line. I think the 'Only free software' setting though, is a leftover from Ubuntu, and OpenKylin
essentially becomes immediately broken if we try to use that setting to install it. It appears to have done
something for me, but in other words OpenKylin is not designed to support that type of installation, and
and after the installation was complete, I was totally unable to upgrade the system with sudo apt upgrade,
receiving error messages about the nvidia-driver package not being installed.
That's typically, sadly, how my experience with previous version of OpenKylin has been. Because I think
package handling, by other distributions is so complex, the overall system seems to be trapped between two
worlds opposed to each other, the eastern and western software development domains. After spending an hour
attempting to reconfigure OpenKylin to use less ram, to run faster, and cleaner, unsetting as many custom
settings as I could possibly identify, and that simultaneously wouldn't break the system, to let the core
Gnu-Linux system run things, as opposed to the overbearing weight of OpenKylin customizations, I managed
to bring OpenKylin into a stable, usable state, but still only managed to bring the base ram usage to 2.8 GB!
For me, if the system is using between 400-700 MB's of ram by default, that is the best, if it's around 1 GB that's okay,
if it's any higher than 1 GB, then I am suddenly alarmed. OpenKylin doesn't attempt to be a lightweight distribution,
and in previous versions I would have called it a medium weight desktop environment, but now with it's latest version,
I am worried OpenKylin has completely lost it's charm for me. In fact, once they announced that they are an
"A.I. PC Operating system" I had already decided in that moment, that OpenKylin was done for me. (unacceptable)
It's a shame because I really enjoy deepin, and UKUI is okay, (but I think the name is weird) they're actually
so enjoyable, they make me smile and laugh, they're full of pleasant colors, sharply designed u.i. elements,
they're super easy to configure(at least with basic settings!), and provide helpful gui menu's to do lots of basic tasks,
and OpenKylin let's us, in the western world, see what computing is like for Chinese users to some degree, it
has lots of interesting apps, and is configured out of the box to work with uniquely Chinese applications,
and the unique Chinese internet. I tried downloading some Chinese webbrowsers to use as an alternative to *Firefox**Abrowser*
I'm really trying to escape the default behavior, of using Firefox to use the internet at all. I think it's dangerous,
and web services like the ones that support integrating A.i. everywhere, like Google/youtube/Micrsoft/bing I think
care little about the security of their users, and only care about pushing new features, new applications onto their
users regardless of the risks.
Well... after trying the browsers, which could install easily on Trisquel, they're even integrating A.i. into some of them, and
I couldn't even figure out how to change page colors, so I settled on good old seamonkey browser https://www.seamonkey-project.org/ which is one of my favorite alternatives, and is probably the oldest fork from the mozilla project away from *the firefox* has tons of options for customization, let's us disable image loading on pages, and disable javascript, (even parts of it) right in it's basic settings menu, which is a feature, that firefox doesn't even have despite it's obvious risks... It's like a calm, sobering, internet experience, a normal web application, as opposed to one that's constantly bouncing around and prompting you about new features, and cookie contracting.
Anyways I was going to write up a good article about Trisquel on OpenKylin, but I have like this extreme distaste for the forum right now, I feel a sense of impending doom, that someone is going to show up to harass us, about this post, I've lost all inspiration, I couldn't even hope to try to get libre-linux working, and if OpenKylin wasn't such a heavyweight distro, I could have withstood actually using it for more than an hour briefly, to see it's new features. Anything over 1 GB of ram usage, and I'm already heading for the door to leave a linux distro, and I know how to reconfigure it from the ground up, but OpenKylin makes that impossible. In other words I think it's possible with a great effort to get it working *freely*, and it's like a really special distro that is the key to unlocking the Chinese side of the internet/technology domain. I tried talking to people on it's forum before, and despite the fact that I am so nice and friendly, some very agitated, angry, Chinese people started harassing me immediately... So, you'll have to avoid those guys : D It used to be the case that OpenKylin was compatible with debian's packages, and when that was the case it was super easy to work with, but since then, it has adopted so many new features, it literally has become as bloated, unbearable, and unworkable as Microsoft windows 11, plus it's generally no longer compatible with anything we are used to, in the western domain of Gnu-linux systems : (
https www globaltimes cn page 202508 1341434 shtml
(don't run scripts on websites)(link dismembered)
"China’s total electricity consumption hits historic 1 trillion kilowatt-hour mark in July
By Global Times Published: Aug 21, 2025 10:15 PM
On the production line at Feiyan Blanket Co in Lianyungang, East China's Jiangsu Province, automated equipment processes a blanket for export on August 5, 2025. Photo: Yin Yeping/GT
On the production line at Feiyan Blanket Co in Lianyungang, East China's Jiangsu Province, automated equipment processes a blanket for export on August 5, 2025. Photo: Yin Yeping/GT
China's total electricity consumption in July made history by surpassing the 1 trillion kilowatt-hour threshold, reaching 1.02 trillion kilowatt-hours, up 8.6 percent year-on-year, according to data released by the National Energy Administration (NEA) on Thursday.
The growth was driven by multiple factors including prolonged heat waves, stable economic performance and the transition to new energy, an industry analyst said.
The figure was double that of 10 years earlier. Successive rounds of extreme heat, together with steady growth in industrial production, jointly fueled the sharp increase in power demand, said the NEA.
Primary industry consumed 17 billion kilowatt-hours in July, up 20.2 percent year-on-year, while secondary industry consumed 593.6 billion kilowatt-hours, up 4.7 percent and tertiary industry consumed 208.1 billion kilowatt-hours, up 10.7 percent.
Driven by persistently hot and humid weather, electricity load hit record highs across many regions, with urban and rural household consumption reaching 203.9 billion kilowatt-hours, up 18 percent year-on-year. Household power use in major provinces such as Central China's Henan Province, Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, and East China's Shandong Province surged by more than 30 percent.
The July data also showed a marked rise in the share of new energy. Power generation from wind, solar, and biomass increased rapidly, accounting for nearly one-fourth of the total, highlighting the accelerated pace of China's green energy transition.
In the first seven months, China's total electricity consumption reached 5.86 trillion kilowatt-hours, up 4.5 percent year-on-year, of which electricity generation by large-scale industrial enterprises amounted to 5.47 trillion kilowatt-hours, accounting for around 93 percent of the total.
As electricity consumption is a barometer of the economy, behind the numbers lies the broader trend of China's deepening economic transformation and upgrading, with new growth drivers gaining strong momentum, analysts said.
The rise in energy consumption is being driven by multiple factors, including increased use of air conditioners during the summer, reflecting improvements in living standards, Lin Boqiang, director of the China Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, told the Global Times on Thursday.
The rise in energy consumption also reflects the resilience and stability of China's economy, as industrial production continues at a strong pace, Lin added."
>"my goal, was to see if it could be turned into a Libre operating system, like Trisquel, with proprietary bits removed, offending features, and a new Libre-Linux kernel installed"
That's cool, I love hacking other distros in the same way. One of my earliest posts here was about getting rid of the proprietary bits on openSUSE Tumbleweed and running it with a self-compiled Linux-libre kernel. I get a lot of down-votes for hacking on non-FSF-approved distros, but I've also seen the progress made with distros like GNUinOS popping up as a project by @aitor to hack Devuan into a free distro.
You should keep it up. OpenKylin may not be the best target, but there are some others that are ripe for hacking into freedom shape. antiX, MX, Mint, Devuan - these are all fun to hack on, and I believe they all have tools to help you roll your changes into an ISO once you have removed the non-free bits. I think PCLinuxOS also, but I don't know much about that one and how its repositories are set up.
I have to edit that top post (as usual)
the only distribution that comes close, except for specialist systems I have seen before, to OpenKylin's "A.i. PC operating system's" resource usage on a default boot, is the latest standard Ubuntu, which sits around 4.5 gigabytes of ram consumption if I remember correctly(which it is based on)
on a side note windows 11 will literally take up 8 gb of ram on a default first boot, and if youre really careful you can get that down to between 6-7 gb, and the moment you go any farther(disabling automatic services) you will literally brick(completely break) your windows 11 OS
https://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20240506
Feature Story (By Jeff Siegel)
Ubuntu 24.04
Ubuntu 24.04 could turn out to be the distribution's most important release in a decade, a version as significant as owner Canonical's attempt at convergence with the Unity desktop in the mid-2010s. That's because, as Windows 10 reaches end of life in 18 months and its users either don't want to upgrade or don't have the wherewithal to do so, they'll go looking elsewhere. Given its role as perhaps the most visible Linux distro among the unconverted, Ubuntu is where many will look.
... I tried to find a reference to support my memory of the situation, I'm pretty sure I remember trying this out when it was in beta or just released or something, now the search results wont cooperate with me(anyways I'm not reinstalling it to find out)
Partial translation from 到什么山上唱什么歌 using LibreTranslate gives "Means that working methods, language expression etc. need to be adapted to specific scenes and object needs and avoid mechanical application of fixed patterns". The literal translation by me is "Arrive on a certain mountain, sing a certain song".
wow that's a beautful translation Avron thank you
I love chinese poetry, and it didn't even occur to me at the time, but I could have posted the pin yin so people could pronounce the characters and I could have looked up a translation seperately, but I was just trying to quickly write down my thoughts before I ran out of inspiration to write anything at all...
how did I already get three down votes on that last post? nobody is even talking on the forums at all... you guys just show to down vote people's posts...