Is state-approved Ubuntu distro how the Middle Kingdom will replace PCs with home-grown kit?
China’s military-derived and government-approved Linux distribution, Ubuntu Kylin, has revealed plans to target a second RISC-V platform. Ubuntu Kylin is Ubuntu’s official version for China and was developed in partnership with Chinese authorities, including the military. In March 2022, a version of the OS was released for the HiFive Unmatched board – a SiFive product in the Mini-ITX form factor and packing a five-core Freedom U740 SoC. In the announcement of the RISC-V release, Kylin’s developers admit the platform lacks broad software support. The release therefore includes a self-developed browser and productivity suite, among 20 packages coded just for the distro’s RISC-V debut. The distro is available in English here and the somewhat finicky instructions to install it are here [PDF].
