Two Linux distributors from China and Japan are building a common open-source platform for Asian companies. China’s Red Flag Software and Japan’s Miracle Linux aims to develop a common Linux platform to make it easier for Asian companies to switch to the open-source camp. The two Linux distributors said in a statement they will make use of Oracle’s software development centre in Beijing to jointly create a new Linux-based server operating environment called “Asianux”.
Linux for Asia: Asianux
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Eugenia Loli
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Asians have different computing needs then everyone else? Perhaps we need Euroinux, Amerinux and Afrinux so no one is left out.
Well they have very different alphabets than everyone else..
“Well they have very different alphabets than everyone else..
”
Neither Chinese nor Japanese have alphabets.
Last time i checked Common distros supported those character sets.
seeing as Russia is aprt of Asia as well, should we assume that along with the modifications to include better support for Kanji, Hiragan, and Katakana, that there will also be some sort of improved Cyrillic support (disclaimer: I’m not russian, just curious as to ramifications of the chosen name…)
Existing distributions simply do not have the resources to make the Asian versions as complete as the English version. Heck, even the Asian versions of Windows aren’t complete (according to Asians I know, anyway). This effort will help get more complete localizations. More importantly, it will function as an entity that provides for support and maintainence for Asian-language Linux installations.
Asian is used in the American sense, not the continental sense. In the US, Asian usually means korean/japanese/vietnamese/thai/chinese. Yes, I was surprised too when I learned that I was no longer Asian
Anyway, Russia is politically a European country.
Stop prodding and nitpicking at the superficial details of the story; it’s GOOD news.
Personally, I’m glad to hear that a couple more distros are pooling their resources. Not only will it help make Linux accessible to more people, but it also helps to establish and enhance standardization (essential for the commercial and non-commercial acceptance/success of linux). This joint venture also encourages positive, socially productive relations b/w two different cultures and maybe bridge a few gaps.
You’re absolutely right. Mac OS X, Redhat, SuSe, Mandrake, Slackware… you name it, their support for eastern Asian languages suck. Only Windows seems to do an excellent job (for Chinese, Korean and Japanese).
I think a separate OS is a misnomer. A separate Linux distro is probably a more fitting description. BTW, Asian computing market certainly has significantly different computing needs than the American/European market.
For starters, why doesn’t the Chinese version of any OS I know of show traditional Chinese holidays on the calendar? One of my biggest headaches is to keep track of the those holidays because they need to be converted every year from the Chinese lunar calendar to the western Gregorian calendar and their dates in western calendar change every year.
Also, Norton and other popular anti-spam softwares don’t seem to work for the spam I receive in Chinese
Lots of time I would be using an application with all the menus and toolbars properly localized in Chinese. I then proceed to open the help to search for something, and lo and behold the help comes out in pure English. For me, this is no problem. For 95% of the Chinese who don’t speak English, this could be more than a turn off.
In addition, the average hardware in China is at least two generations behind hardware here in the US. Local vendors surely could try to lower the minimum hardware requirements of recent distros of Linux (which are btw becoming prohibitively high) while providing better localization than previous major releases made here in the states.
Anyways, my point is ignorance breeds contempt. I do see a need for more local vendors to cater to more regional needs, for anyone who understands another culture, this is as clear as day.
I don’t understand your statement; Linux is the only operating system that works on *ALMOST EVERY* CPU on the planet.—The linux kernel basically has a life of its own; just about anyone, anywhere can use their existing hardware, regardless of make/origin.
It just so happens that most popular CPUs are from America… i.e. Digital, Motorola, IBM, Intel, AMD, Transmeta, etc.
The only comparable asian CPU I can think of off the top of my head is VIA’s C3… but that was acquired from Cyrix (an American Co.)… so, if you prefer to invest in Asian Processors, you can buy a C3… But you might be better off just investing in VIA chipset-based motherboards and going with another CPU (more power)…
I’ll stay with American until Microsoft screws up the industry, than I’ll buy from the Asians.
on the contrary, the Japnaese have what we could call an alphabet (though it doesn’t consist of alpha and beta, or the likes) and consist of 46 base characters in both Hiragana and Katakana, for a total of 92 characters (like we have 42 all together, lowers and caps). The Japanese use Kanji (the Japanese word for Chinese characters) in their writing because it simple takes up less space. Thought I’d point that out!
that’s 52 we have in ours together…new keyboards suck
In addition, the average hardware in China is at least two generations behind hardware here in the US.
I am from China. You know what? I think the situation may be the opposite. Hardware upgrade is more frequent than in USA, i suppose.
Reffered to as the “aiueo” (hiragana/katakana), much like we call our’s “abc”. It’s not letters, but 41 syllabes (some of these get altered addtitionally, but the very basic set is 41). You can write everything with this set of characters, unlike in chinese, but this is not what happens in practice. In practice, a good portion of jap. writing will consist of chinese characters.
You’re absolutely right. Mac OS X, Redhat, SuSe, Mandrake, Slackware… you name it, their support for eastern Asian languages suck. Only Windows seems to do an excellent job (for Chinese, Korean and Japanese).
OS X Asian language support sucks? I can’t say a thing about anything else but OS X has the absolutely best current Japanese language support. Windows’ is so-and-so, but in many aspects badly lacking. Last time I checked, Fedora’s (Redhat’s) was quite good for a Linux distro. I haven’t tried out SuSE, in Mandrake 9.1 Japanese support was severely broken, and Slackware doesn’t even have _any_ kind of Japanese support.
I think Song was either being sarcastic, or trolling. Support for different locales in Linux is actually pretty good – if only for the fact that you can actually change the language for your distro without having to buy another copy of the OS…I believe that’s the case with Windows, right? If I have an English version of Windows, can I download the French version and change my installation to French?
Isn’t part of the reason the Israeli government is moving away from MS products the fact that bi-di text support isn’t very good in Windows? I believe there are several languages that you can’t get Windows versions for at all, though I’m not sure which (I think catalan is one, and also some languages from India).
Now that I think of that…
At least I was really tired.