Chinese computers and Linux in teaching Ukrainian children
The other day I got a call from a familiar admin named Natasha. On the eve of the elections, 13 new computers with Linux were brought to the school where she works, and she asked me to help in it. As it turned out, there was an understanding of what. But in order.
As it became known, the Dnipropetrovsk region received about 1000 new computers, kindly donated to us by the Chinese, as part of the school informatization program. On one high school, in which I came, fell 13 cars. That's it about them and I want to talk today.
There is nothing special to tell. Look better. Computers were delivered in the amount of 13 pieces in such branded boxes:
Inside the package is a complete set - the system unit, monitor, mouse, keyboard, cables, disks. And everything is "branded." Even when the bios is turned on, we see two big hieroglyphs. In a few minutes we have a full-fledged workstation ready for use:
By the way, as you can see, a sticker is attached to the systemic (and not only there, but generally wherever possible), which will constantly remind students of the kindness and generosity of their Chinese brothers. Here it is near:
What I say about the power of the equipment, then according to its characteristics, it is not very weak. 2 GB of RAM, Intel dual-core processor. Gnome 3 runs smoothly. But about reliability, that is another question.
OS And here the fun begins. All computers come preloaded with Linux. They obviously did not dwell on the brand of iron, having also written their own distribution kit called Kylin Linux. Wikipedia says that Kylin (Kit. 麒麟) is an operating system developed by the National University of Military Technologies of the People's Republic of China and approved for use in the People’s Liberation Army of China. Kylin is based on the FreeBSD operating system Mach kernel with the addition of additional levels of security. Similar developments have already been made by the US National Security Agency, which resulted in the creation of SELinux. It sounds, of course, proudly and seriously, but in reality everything is not so. This is a terribly uncomfortable system. The kernel is far from Mach, but ordinary Linux version 3.2.
Package manager The RPM is here as the package manager, with yum bolted to it. By default, the repository is the only one, with a CR-ROM, on which there is almost nothing, even wine, mc, sudo. Additional official repositories are not found. Maybe this information is on the official website , but it is entirely in Chinese, without the ability to change the language at least to English. I tried to tie the Fedora repositories, but it did not end in success. Therefore, to install wine, I downloaded the package for mandriva and installed it with the --no-deps option.
Office. LibreOffice is not on the disk. Instead, the Chinese wrote their office suite (O_o). It is called Neoshine Office version 5.0. As I understand it, this is a complete set of office applications, including a text editor, spreadsheets, presentations, and maybe something else. Unfortunately, I never managed to try it - its installer is written in Java, graphically installs files one by one *. Rpm So the Java program did not start, there were not enough classes. Well, figs with him. By the way, Google does not give out information about it. I hope that we will install LibreOffice there, because without it there will be no life.
Graphic environment. Gnome 3 acts as the graphical environment here. Not quite the default, but with the bottom panel and the normal program menu. I want to look at the admin's face when after the next update these extensions stop working :) This is how the Kylin Linux desktop looks like:
The standard user is here, oddly enough, root , and without a password. Free space for creativity to schoolchildren! First of all, I added a normal admin user and set the password as root. Now you can be calm. And in general, how could such a thing be thought of? I do not understand ... As I reported earlier, the Dwarf works quite smartly on these computers, there was no frieze.
Discs. All software comes on three disks. The first is called Kylin Operating System , the second is Neoshine Office V5.0 , the third is Chinese Score 1.0.7 . The names speak for themselves. The discs are packed in such a case in the form of a book (I like it):
')
Despite a lot of laundered money from our side, we still have to be grateful to the Chinese for the systems provided. The Chinese have clearly conceived something ... Or is it humanitarian aid like that provided to poor African countries. Or is it a cheese in a mousetrap ... But now it does not matter. Quality goods or not, of course, practice will show. But I would have demolished the operating system at the administrator’s place and quickly, installed a normal, racially correct distribution, and would not suffer. But this is not my business, although it may be mine for a fee. It's a shame only that such distributive distributions, in which a normal UNIX admin will break a leg, only aggravates the negative attitude of people towards FOSS. As they say, KISS ...
PS This article is also available in Ukrainian here.
As it became known, the Dnipropetrovsk region received about 1000 new computers, kindly donated to us by the Chinese, as part of the school informatization program. On one high school, in which I came, fell 13 cars. That's it about them and I want to talk today.
Iron.
There is nothing special to tell. Look better. Computers were delivered in the amount of 13 pieces in such branded boxes:
Inside the package is a complete set - the system unit, monitor, mouse, keyboard, cables, disks. And everything is "branded." Even when the bios is turned on, we see two big hieroglyphs. In a few minutes we have a full-fledged workstation ready for use:
By the way, as you can see, a sticker is attached to the systemic (and not only there, but generally wherever possible), which will constantly remind students of the kindness and generosity of their Chinese brothers. Here it is near:
What I say about the power of the equipment, then according to its characteristics, it is not very weak. 2 GB of RAM, Intel dual-core processor. Gnome 3 runs smoothly. But about reliability, that is another question.
Software.
OS And here the fun begins. All computers come preloaded with Linux. They obviously did not dwell on the brand of iron, having also written their own distribution kit called Kylin Linux. Wikipedia says that Kylin (Kit. 麒麟) is an operating system developed by the National University of Military Technologies of the People's Republic of China and approved for use in the People’s Liberation Army of China. Kylin is based on the FreeBSD operating system Mach kernel with the addition of additional levels of security. Similar developments have already been made by the US National Security Agency, which resulted in the creation of SELinux. It sounds, of course, proudly and seriously, but in reality everything is not so. This is a terribly uncomfortable system. The kernel is far from Mach, but ordinary Linux version 3.2.
Package manager The RPM is here as the package manager, with yum bolted to it. By default, the repository is the only one, with a CR-ROM, on which there is almost nothing, even wine, mc, sudo. Additional official repositories are not found. Maybe this information is on the official website , but it is entirely in Chinese, without the ability to change the language at least to English. I tried to tie the Fedora repositories, but it did not end in success. Therefore, to install wine, I downloaded the package for mandriva and installed it with the --no-deps option.
Office. LibreOffice is not on the disk. Instead, the Chinese wrote their office suite (O_o). It is called Neoshine Office version 5.0. As I understand it, this is a complete set of office applications, including a text editor, spreadsheets, presentations, and maybe something else. Unfortunately, I never managed to try it - its installer is written in Java, graphically installs files one by one *. Rpm So the Java program did not start, there were not enough classes. Well, figs with him. By the way, Google does not give out information about it. I hope that we will install LibreOffice there, because without it there will be no life.
Graphic environment. Gnome 3 acts as the graphical environment here. Not quite the default, but with the bottom panel and the normal program menu. I want to look at the admin's face when after the next update these extensions stop working :) This is how the Kylin Linux desktop looks like:
The standard user is here, oddly enough, root , and without a password. Free space for creativity to schoolchildren! First of all, I added a normal admin user and set the password as root. Now you can be calm. And in general, how could such a thing be thought of? I do not understand ... As I reported earlier, the Dwarf works quite smartly on these computers, there was no frieze.
Discs. All software comes on three disks. The first is called Kylin Operating System , the second is Neoshine Office V5.0 , the third is Chinese Score 1.0.7 . The names speak for themselves. The discs are packed in such a case in the form of a book (I like it):
')
Summary.
Despite a lot of laundered money from our side, we still have to be grateful to the Chinese for the systems provided. The Chinese have clearly conceived something ... Or is it humanitarian aid like that provided to poor African countries. Or is it a cheese in a mousetrap ... But now it does not matter. Quality goods or not, of course, practice will show. But I would have demolished the operating system at the administrator’s place and quickly, installed a normal, racially correct distribution, and would not suffer. But this is not my business, although it may be mine for a fee. It's a shame only that such distributive distributions, in which a normal UNIX admin will break a leg, only aggravates the negative attitude of people towards FOSS. As they say, KISS ...
PS This article is also available in Ukrainian here.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/151455/
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