Huawei has launched three computers in China carrying the Deepin Linux operating system, a distro made by a Chinese company. Ready to say goodbye to Windows?
In addition to having to say goodbye to the Android operating system for its smartphones, Huawei may be forced to abandon Microsoft Windows for its laptops. Again due to trade tensions between China and the US and Donald Trump's famous ban. But the Chinese company is already experimenting with a valid alternative.
Alternative already ready, in this case, and that is called Linux. To be precise Deepin Linux, a Chinese distribution of the open source operating system based on Debian. Deeping Linux is already pre-installed on three laptops that Huawei has started selling on the Chinese market, through its online store. The three Huawei laptops without Windows 10 are the Matebook 13, the Matebook 14 and the Mateboox X Pro. On the international market, however, the same Huawei laptops are still sold with Windows 10 pre-installed and this, according to many, would mean that the company has not yet decided to completely abandon the Microsoft operating system.
They also cost less
The Matebook 13, Matebook 14 and Matebook X Pro sold on the Chinese store VMALL are completely identical to those present on the international market. The only difference is the operating system, replaced with Deepin Linux. The abandonment of Windows has allowed Huawei to tweak down the price: the Matebook 13 and 14 cost 300 yuan less (about 38 euros) while the Matebook X Pro costs 600 yuan less (about 76 dollars). This price difference stems from the fact that Deeping Linux, unlike Windows, is free (you only pay for technical support).
A prudent choice
While for smartphones Huawei is still trying to figure out if and when it will be forced to use its proprietary operating system HarmonyOS, defined by the same company as "not yet ready" to equip a modern cell phone, for laptops a much more conservative choice has been made: to rely on an already existing and well broken-in operating system, ready immediately and perfectly compatible with the hardware on which Windows also runs. This will allow Huawei, in case of improvement of the commercial relations between USA and China, to go back to the previous Microsoft OS in an almost painless way.
Indirectly all this could also do a lot of good to the Linux world: as long as Huawei will use Deepin Linux on its computers, it will have to develop and constantly update the drivers for the various hardware components and make sure that as many peripherals as possible are compatible with this version of the system created by Linus Torvalds.