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After Europe ditched Windows, China follows suit with its own home-grown Linux distros

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After Europe ditched Windows, China follows suit with its own home-grown Linux distros

By Simon Batt
Published Aug 18, 2026, 2:50 AM EDT

As the world wakes up to its reliance on US tech, some countries are doing their best to move away from it. A few months ago, we saw the French government move away from Windows, calling its own dependence on US tech a strategic risk. Now, China is following suit by fast-tracking its plans to remove Windows from its government offices, replacing them with in-country Linux alternatives.
 
I wish them the best because Fuck Microsoft....
But in the case of France, it's a Government project.....
It's already resulted in a data breach that leaked 700,000 taxpayer identities; what it does, though, is give a massive government contract to Mistral AI.

As for China....
In 2002, Microsoft signed a 25-year agreement with the CCP that required them to develop a custom version of Windows for the Chinese government, to be maintained and managed locally in China.
In April 2025, Microsoft got wind that the Chinese Government wouldn't be renewing the contract, so they started mothballing their 15 offices and letting go of their 2000 or so employees at those offices.
Also, Azure (and its dependent technology) does not function in China, so Microsoft had to host their tech on an approved Chinese host VNet.
There are strong reasons to believe that State-Sponsored Hackers are using that VNet-hosted Azure service to run attacks against Microsoft services in the US and elsewhere; of course, that's not happening, so people who believe that are wrong.
TL;DR
China has been working to actively remove US-based tech companies from operating within its borders for over 2 decades; it was about time they succeeded.
 
Maybe if normies start using Linux they might put some energy into making the Remote Desktop aspect not an absolute shit show.
 
DukenukemX said:
Which remote desktop is a problem?
Click to expand...

all the Linux ones have problems. Remote Desktop is good if you have access to the desktop. But not if you want security of people not seeing your screen. Remote Login is good if you don’t have physical access to the machine or you don’t want people seeing what you are doing, but heaven help you if there isn’t a monitor or dummy plug on the video output. If you don’t have a dummy plug, you might be limited to 1366x768. You can use Xvnc to get around that, but it uses the bit depth as a unique session ID, so 1920x1080@24bit is different than 1920x1080@32bit. Which are the two different default color depths Microsoft RDP client uses on Windows and MacOS. And then you can also decide if Wayland, and separately, Gnome is good for you.

And that’s just Ubuntu…..

Microsoft RDP server just works. And feels great.
 
westrock2000 said:
all the Linux ones have problems. Remote Desktop is good if you have access to the desktop. But not if you want security of people not seeing your screen. Remote Login is good if you don’t have physical access to the machine or you don’t want people seeing what you are doing, but heaven help you if there isn’t a monitor or dummy plug on the video output. If you don’t have a dummy plug, you might be limited to 1366x768. You can use Xvnc to get around that, but it uses the bit depth as a unique session ID, so 1920x1080@24bit is different than 1920x1080@32bit. Which are the two different default color depths Microsoft RDP client uses on Windows and MacOS. And then you can also decide if Wayland, and separately, Gnome is good for you.

And that’s just Ubuntu…..

Microsoft RDP server just works. And feels great.
Click to expand...
This is a Wayland problem. You can do this with KDE Plasma. Wayland prevents this for security reasons. Pretty stupid reasons but it's done by design.
 

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China has never exactly been on the forefront of Microsoft tech. Windows XP was the most popular Windows OS and the most popular Microsoft browser was IE6, like a full decade after everyone in the west had already ditched both.
 
I don't believe this is Microsoft's fault (regardless of the merits of the products in question). Why did America become untrustworthy? Who in Washington will take responsibility for pissing off foreigners so badly? Do the President's supporters understand the harm?
 
kram182 said:
China and Europe already did this before, then came crawling back, now are doing it again, will come crawling back again as well

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/201...linux-os-china-built-to-look-like-windows-xp/

https://opensource.com/government/14/5/how-munich-switched-15000-pcs-windows-linux
Click to expand...
Munich wants to go back to Linux and other open source applications. There's also suspicion of US influence why they went back to Windows. Schleswig-Holstein, France, Denmark, Italy, and Spain have either moved to Linux or are in the middle of doing it. All because they're not cool with US influence.
 
Bit bemused by claims of an entire continent doing something after a few organisations' actions. A bit like claiming the US's goverment is democrat now, on the basis of New York's mayor's affiliation.

Ie: "Europe" ditched nothing, with most of it merrily staying well inside microsoft's ecosystem.
 
emphy said:
Bit bemused by claims of an entire continent doing something after a few organisations' actions. A bit like claiming the US's goverment is democrat now, on the basis of New York's mayor's affiliation.
Click to expand...
It do be like that sometimes.
Ie: "Europe" ditched nothing, with most of it merrily staying well inside microsoft's ecosystem.
Click to expand...
It's a growing trend which may remove proprietary software all together. Just to give you an idea, “Europe has a strong alignment with the principles of open source, with 82% of respondents agreeing that software developed using public funds should be open source. This sentiment exceeds the global average of 77% and reflects Europe’s commitment to openness, transparency, and collaboration, particularly in areas that intersect with public interest and governance.”. Would be strange if the EU keeps using Windows but wants to primarily fund open source. Considering how many malicious actors that are using software with back doors, it does make sense to want open source for transparency.
 
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Yeah, there are a lot of places considering Linux, have been for a long time, in various capacities. Many places have been using Linux already for some things.

I very much doubt, though, that many places have completely switched everything away from Windows in all cases, without exception.
 
DukenukemX said:
It do be like that sometimes.

It's a growing trend which may removed proprietary software all together. Just to give you an idea, “Europe has a strong alignment with the principles of open source, with 82% of respondents agreeing that software developed using public funds should be open source. This sentiment exceeds the global average of 77% and reflects Europe’s commitment to openness, transparency, and collaboration, particularly in areas that intersect with public interest and governance.”. Would be strange if the EU keeps using Windows but wants to primarily fund open source. Considering how many malicious actors that are using software with back doors, it does make sense to want open source for transparency.
Click to expand...
I'll believe only when I see it. It is particularly bad in my home country.

Europe developed age-verification? Google lock-in. School or university laptop? Microsoft or, in a rare case, apple. Payment using phone nfc chip? Google pay. 2fa for declaring taxes? Only with app from the play store. Migration of irs to a new office environment? Microsoft cloud.

It's nuts, even our so-called tweakers community has rusted so solidly into the big-tech ecosystems that most of them refuse to even try a linux distro on a no-longer-by-windows-supported laptop.
 
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emphy said:
I'll believe only when I see it. It is particularly bad in my home country.

Europe developed age-verification? Google lock-in. School or university laptop? Microsoft or, in a rare case, apple. Payment using phone nfc chip? Google pay. 2fa for declaring taxes? Only with app from the play store. Migration of irs to a new office environment? Microsoft cloud.

It's nuts, even our so-called tweakers community has rusted so solidly into the big-tech ecosystems that most of them refuse to even try a linux distro on a no-longer-by-windows-supported laptop.
Click to expand...

It's cause you can count Europe's best/still relevant technological achievements on two hands - Spotify, ARM, ASML, Linux kernel, SAP, Amadeus, Booking.com, NXP, Infineon - that's not even a full two hand count and some of those names show you really gotta 'dig deep' to even get there

And it's Europe's own fault via its own regulatory frameworks and regulatory hard-ons that have created this situation - which would and do apply to any software company/OS they're gonna use to 'break free with' too
 
emphy said:
School or university laptop? Microsoft or, in a rare case, apple.
Click to expand...
Bearing in mind this is deliberate, big tech knows to hook them while they're young as muscle memory is hard to relearn as you become older. Hence the reason why MS Office and the Adobe Suite is usually free to primary > high school students.
 
the_servicer said:
I don't believe this is Microsoft's fault (regardless of the merits of the products in question). Why did America become untrustworthy? Who in Washington will take responsibility for pissing off foreigners so badly? Do the President's supporters understand the harm?
Click to expand...
This has been moving this way since the Patriot act, which president do you want to blame? They all continued it, and some expanded it.
 
emphy said:
I'll believe only when I see it. It is particularly bad in my home country.

Europe developed age-verification? Google lock-in. School or university laptop? Microsoft or, in a rare case, apple. Payment using phone nfc chip? Google pay. 2fa for declaring taxes? Only with app from the play store. Migration of irs to a new office environment? Microsoft cloud.

It's nuts, even our so-called tweakers community has rusted so solidly into the big-tech ecosystems that most of them refuse to even try a linux distro on a no-longer-by-windows-supported laptop.
Click to expand...
Europe wasn't alone in developing age verification, and lets call it what it is and that's ID verification. The way I look at it, no government wants to be spied by other governments but they also wanna spy on their citizens. They'll use open source to prevent the spying, but don't like it when you flash GrapheneOS onto your phone like France. And yes, France plans to move to Linux, for digital sovereignty.
Gorankar said:
This has been moving this way since the Patriot act, which president do you want to blame? They all continued it, and some expanded it.
Click to expand...
If a president is complicit then they're just as guilty. Considering this came out in 2001, you got a long list of presidents to blame.
 
Gorankar, this is important enough to examine. If I'm wrong, please correct me.

If anything, didn't American tech dominance increase for many years after 2001? Even Edward Snowden didn't cause nearly the backlash against American tech we are seeing now. I'm having trouble understanding your point:

Gorankar said:
This has been moving this way since the Patriot act, which president do you want to blame? They all continued it, and some expanded it.
Click to expand...

These are two different phenomena. On one hand, we have increasing surveillance (as you mentioned). This raised concerns among people in the know. However, how much did the Patriot Act and other such abuses move the needle economically, in soft power, and in market share? Very little, if at all. I believe international cooperation in surveillance contributed to this fact.

On the other hand, we have one President in particular going out of his way to make the United States an unappealing ally and partner. All other Presidents inspired far more confidence among foreign customers and trading partners.

DukenukemX said:
Considering this came out in 2001, you got a long list of presidents to blame.
Click to expand...

Yes, other Presidents were involved with increasing surveillance. They are to blame for that. But this thread is about why business is suddenly lost. The United States proved we can have surveillance and strong business at the same time. Bush, Obama and Biden made it happen (partly by simply allowing it to happen). Then one President reversed it.

Where is this wrong?
 
Last edited:
the_servicer said:
But this thread is about why business is suddenly lost.
Click to expand...
It's not sudden as the pot has been boiling the frog since Windows 10. Windows 10 added so much telemetry data collection that it's the only reason I would avoid using Windows 10. Windows 11 only turbo charged this with Microsoft online account required and Microsoft pushing for Recall. Microsoft pushing for OneDrive and automatically saving documents to OneDrive and not the local drive. Even if you turn all this stuff off then Windows update can turn it back on. There's such a thing as getting too greedy and losing everything.

The United States proved we can have surveillance and strong business at the same time.
Click to expand...
Where have you seen this? Almost every company has been hacked and their stolen data was also stolen. Look at the whole Flock situation and how that's "working".
Where is this wrong?
Click to expand...
If you don't see the problems then I can't help you.
 
the_servicer said:
Gorankar, this is important enough to examine. If I'm wrong, please correct me.

If anything, didn't American tech dominance increase for many years after 2001? Even Edward Snowden didn't cause nearly the backlash against American tech we are seeing now. I'm having trouble understanding your point:



These are two different phenomena. On one hand, we have increasing surveillance (as you mentioned). This raised concerns among people in the know. However, how much did the Patriot Act and other such abuses move the needle economically, in soft power, and in market share? Very little, if at all. I believe international cooperation in surveillance contributed to this fact.

On the other hand, we have one President in particular going out of his way to make the United States an unappealing ally and partner. All other Presidents inspired far more confidence among foreign customers and trading partners.



Yes, other Presidents were involved with increasing surveillance. They are to blame for that. But this thread is about why business is suddenly lost. The United States proved we can have surveillance and strong business at the same time. Bush, Obama and Biden made it happen (partly by simply allowing it to happen). Then one President reversed it.

Where is this wrong?
Click to expand...
Because this business isn't "suddenly" lost. The EU has surveillance and censorship wants, wants that US companies are simply not obliged to give them. They need a home grown solution so they can have control over it. This was going to happen as a result of the way US tech companies operate, and how much control, real or imagined, that the US government has over those companies, and EU governments don't have. The EU does not see us as an ally, they see us as a rival. Blaming one company, or president, or one nations government, is inadequate, it's all of them, and worse, it's systemic. Across borders, time zones, economic systems, governments, corporations, and languages.
 
Gorankar said:
Because this business isn't "suddenly" lost. The EU has surveillance and censorship wants, wants that US companies are simply not obliged to give them. They need a home grown solution so they can have control over it. This was going to happen as a result of the way US tech companies operate, and how much control, real or imagined, that the US government has over those companies, and EU governments don't have. The EU does not see us as an ally, they see us as a rival. Blaming one company, or president, or one nations government, is inadequate, it's all of them, and worse, it's systemic. Across borders, time zones, economic systems, governments, corporations, and languages.
Click to expand...
I love how US companies are somehow beholden to every request from the government, and somehow in control of the government. All while managing to flout the laws to do what they want which is usually telling the government to F-Off.
 
Switched to Linux (Ubuntu 26.04). I think it's finally good enough to be a daily driver. It's not perfect, but it's stable. We'll see if an update changes my assessment of that.
DukenukemX said:
This is a Wayland problem. You can do this with KDE Plasma. Wayland prevents this for security reasons. Pretty stupid reasons but it's done by design.
Click to expand...
Using KDE Plasma and Rustdesk on my Ubuntu server. Had same problems as westrock2000. You can use a dummy plug or update grub to tell it has a dummy monitor, configured with an export of your own monitor's config, if you want a resolution over 1920x1280. Have not tried Xvnc. Borked my grub and spent days fixing it.
As he said, it's a cluster.
 
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sleepeeg3 said:
Switched to Linux (Ubuntu 26.04). I think it's finally good enough to be a daily driver. It's not perfect, but it's stable. We'll see if an update changes my assessment of that.
Click to expand...
Haven't used Ubuntu for a while.
Using KDE Plasma and Rustdesk on my Ubuntu server. Had same problems as westrock2000. You can use a dummy plug or update grub to tell it has a dummy monitor, configured with an export of your own monitor's config, if you want a resolution over 1920x1280. Have not tried Xvnc. Borked my grub and spent days fixing it.
As he said, it's a cluster.
Click to expand...
For some reason if the monitor isn't on then it won't let you connect. A dummy plug does work, but I don't know if that's a Linux thing or a monitor thing?
 
DukenukemX said:
Haven't used Ubuntu for a while.

For some reason if the monitor isn't on then it won't let you connect. A dummy plug does work, but I don't know if that's a Linux thing or a monitor thing?
Click to expand...
Technically it’s a universal driver issue, Microsoft works around it by defaulting to a 2D software renderer on headless units. You can force it in Windows with a group policy rule, and a few setting tweaks in WDDM, but a dummy plug is more reliable.

In Linux you can install a virtual frame buffer, but again dummy plugs are king.

Graphics Drivers use the EDID signal from the display as part of the initialisation process, without it the driver remains non responsive, so you’re left without a session accessible render pipeline, so you get a black screen.
 
sleepeeg3 said:
Switched to Linux (Ubuntu 26.04). I think it's finally good enough to be a daily driver. It's not perfect, but it's stable. We'll see if an update changes my assessment of that.

Using KDE Plasma and Rustdesk on my Ubuntu server. Had same problems as westrock2000. You can use a dummy plug or update grub to tell it has a dummy monitor, configured with an export of your own monitor's config, if you want a resolution over 1920x1280. Have not tried Xvnc. Borked my grub and spent days fixing it.
As he said, it's a cluster.
Click to expand...
Plasma has functionality for an RDP server built in. I've never used it because administering machine's remotely using SSH and terminal is more efficient, but I see no reason to doubt it's functionality under Wayland:

pqlpfLY.png
 
kram182 said:
China and Europe already did this before, then came crawling back, now are doing it again, will come crawling back again as well

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/201...linux-os-china-built-to-look-like-windows-xp/

https://opensource.com/government/14/5/how-munich-switched-15000-pcs-windows-linux
Click to expand...

Not necessarily true. Those articles are from a time when Windows didn’t suck, and Linux was less refined. This is 2026, where Windows is functionally malware, infected with telemetry and bloat, whereas you have options for immutable Linux distros. They are also from a time when US-China and US-Europe relations were at a different point. China has increasingly shown they’re interested in absolute sovereignty over everything in technology, and they’re now requiring more home-grown solutions even when the Chinese option is inferior. Trump’s negotiating tactics have proven toxic in Europe where the public appetite has shifted to “anything non-American where possible”, and Linus Torvalds is from Finland. Discussions I was having at the Hanover Messe tradeshow in 2025 revolved around companies and clients looking for alternatives to American options. My American counterparts reported they were less busy there than in previous years. Not trying to shift this into a political discussion, just pointing out that the impetus to be comparatively lazy and simply default to Windows is no longer there in many markets.

Microsoft’s Trump card remains the “one ass to kick if something goes wrong” advantage, which is how most software decisions are made (and why I’m not convinced AI will completely displace SAAS companies), but that advantage erodes if governments decide they require more sovereign control over their tech.
 
HockeyJon said:
Not necessarily true. Those articles are from a time when Windows didn’t suck, and Linux was less refined. This is 2026, where Windows is functionally malware, infected with telemetry and bloat, whereas you have options for immutable Linux distros.
Click to expand...
When I switched to Linux full time back in 2021, a lot has changed since. Mainly me going from Linux Mint to CachyOS was a game changer. In 2015 Linux did suck to use.
Discussions I was having at the Hanover Messe tradeshow in 2025 revolved around companies and clients looking for alternatives to American options. My American counterparts reported they were less busy there than in previous years.
Click to expand...
A lot of trust has been lost to American companies and this is the result. Open source is the future if you want to do business.
 
Lakados said:
Graphics Drivers use the EDID signal from the display as part of the initialisation process, without it the driver remains non responsive, so you’re left without a session accessible render pipeline, so you get a black screen.
Click to expand...
Is this related to why my computer takes noticeably less time to wake up from sleep if I hit a button on the monitor to wake it up before hitting a key to wake up the computer? Because that's really annoying, it's like a ten second difference.
 
That's probably because the computer has to send a wake signal to the monitor, and then the monitor has to process the signal and turn on, and no telling how long after you hit a keyboard to when the signal is first sent.

Whereas if you turn the monitor on yourself, it's already awake and waiting for a video signal on the input when the computer turns back on, so it's much faster.
 
Nobu said:
That's probably because the computer has to send a wake signal to the monitor, and then the monitor has to process the signal and turn on, and no telling how long after you hit a keyboard to when the signal is first sent.

Whereas if you turn the monitor on yourself, it's already awake and waiting for a video signal on the input when the computer turns back on, so it's much faster.
Click to expand...
Maybe I should turn off sleep on the monitor. it's very annoying, waiting 25 seconds (I've timed it) to get to the lock screen.
 
1_rick said:
Is this related to why my computer takes noticeably less time to wake up from sleep if I hit a button on the monitor to wake it up before hitting a key to wake up the computer? Because that's really annoying, it's like a ten second difference.
Click to expand...
Maybe??? But probably though indirectly.

I haven’t experienced that one but I want to blame that on CEC, which is a whole other nightmare of support on PC, especially over display port.

The display isn’t processing the wake signal so it’s not responding and then everything takes longer.
 
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1_rick said:
Maybe I should turn off sleep on the monitor. it's very annoying, waiting 25 seconds (I've timed it) to get to the lock screen.
Click to expand...
Ok that one I know….
At the office I try and make sure everyone’s primary display is HDMI, they have better CEC support and I tell everyone to press spacebar to wake their machines.

Too many people mashing Enter only for their displays to wake and their passwords not work because they are on a 5 minute lockout because every time they hit enter it was sending a bad password through.


Is it bad that so many little annoying things are clicking for me right now…

Like I knew the individual bits but I never put 2 and 2 together….
 
Lakados said:
Ok that one I know….
At the office I try and make sure everyone’s primary display is HDMI, they have better CEC support and I tell everyone to press spacebar to wake their machines.

Too many people mashing Enter only for their displays to wake and their passwords not work because they are on a 5 minute lockout because every time they hit enter it was sending a bad password through.


Is it bad that so many little annoying things are clicking for me right now…

Like I knew the individual bits but I never put 2 and 2 together….
Click to expand...
I'm talking about my home PC, so no password lockouts. I hit a key or mouse button, it takes about 25 seconds until I see the lock screen. I wake up the monitor manually, then wake up the PC, it takes about 15 seconds. I'm using Displayport.
 
1_rick said:
I'm talking about my home PC, so no password lockouts. I hit a key or mouse button, it takes about 25 seconds until I see the lock screen. I wake up the monitor manually, then wake up the PC, it takes about 15 seconds. I'm using Displayport.
Click to expand...
Yeah same thing I’m thinking all the same.

Monitor isn’t getting the wake command,
Display drivers don’t get EDID, so the display doesn’t get any signal until the first active pole which is 10 seconds after the machine has actually woken up which then wakes the display, which sends the EDID which initialize the drivers.
 
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