Huawei Unveils a HarmonyOS Laptop, Its First Windows-Free Computer (liliputing.com) 24
Huawei has launched its first laptop running HarmonyOS instead of Windows, complete with AI features and support for over 2,000 mostly China-focused apps. The product is largely a result of U.S. sanctions that prevented U.S.-based companies like Google and Microsoft from doing business with Huawei, forcing the company to develop its own in-house solution. Liliputing reports: Early version of HarmonyOS were basically skinned version of Android, but over time Huawei has moved the two operating systems further apart and it now includes Huawei's own kernel, user interface, and other features. The version designed for laptops features a desktop-style operating system with a taskbar and dock on the bottom of the screen and support for multitasking by running multiple applications in movable, resizable windows.
Since this is 2025, of course Huawei's demos also heavily emphasize AI features: the company showed how Celia, its AI assistant, can summarize documents, help prepare presentation slides, and more. While the operating system won't support the millions of Windows applications that could run on older Huawei laptops, the company says that at launch it will support more than 2,000 applications including WPS Office (an alternative to Microsoft Office that's developed in China), and a range of Chinese social media applications.
Since this is 2025, of course Huawei's demos also heavily emphasize AI features: the company showed how Celia, its AI assistant, can summarize documents, help prepare presentation slides, and more. While the operating system won't support the millions of Windows applications that could run on older Huawei laptops, the company says that at launch it will support more than 2,000 applications including WPS Office (an alternative to Microsoft Office that's developed in China), and a range of Chinese social media applications.
Finally (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, now you can be monitored by the PRC just like Microsoft monitors the free world. One problem though, the PRC will Uyghur you if you say something naughty.
Re:Finally (Score:5, Informative)
The US is currently using the immigration system to target brown people for abduction and transport to foreign death camps without any due process. It's monitoring social media to see who says mean things about Dear Leader. It's taking steps to control campuses, the media, and even lawyers.
It's not a lot of people, yet. Regardless, the US has no moral high ground here.
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This was rated as "Score:5 Informative?"
Slashdot is such a fucking joke nowadays, no wonder it's not even in the top 1000 sites anymore.
Why not just a Linux distro...? (Score:2)
HarmonyOS is one thing, but why not just a Linux distribution like Ubuntu, or perhaps do a downstream distribution of Debian or Red Hat? Something that provides a lot of functionality, well tested, and open source.
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Re:Why not just a Linux distro...? (Score:4, Interesting)
Perhaps a generation of Chinese computer science students grew up with the Torvalds-Tanenbaum debate, saw what Google was doing with Fuchsia OS and thought this was the way of the future.
[ c.f. Redox OS, if it had commercial backing from a major hardware vendor. ]
But in terms of Huawei, if you write your own kernel you don't have to concern yourself with being pestered to release source code under the terms of the GPL.
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It's the same argument as for Windows: familiarity. A phone/tablet is the next thing everybody knows to use, and will spontaneously switch to as a backup if their Windows laptop isn't available. I have colleagues, 40+ y.o. with PhDs, who don't own a laptop, say after work all they need is a mobile phone. A "mobile platform" (Android, iOS) is where people find the thousands of idiotic apps and games they want.
I imagine, if a company policy said "everybody uses Ubuntu", many would feel humiliated into a nerd
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Why would Huawei want it to be open source?
Re:Why not just a Linux distro...? (Score:5, Informative)
Why would Huawei want it to be open source?
OpenHarmony is OpenSource IIRC is either BSD or MIT. Huawei donated as FOSS a krapton of HarmonyOS code around 2019~2020. And not the ASOP fork part, the HArmonyOS next part.
Also, the OS has a multikernel approach, and two of the kernels supported are FreeRTOS and Linux.
Then, Huawei puts some propiertary bits and bobs here and there, and that's HarmonyOS. Kinda like Apple putting a lot of propiertary bits and bob on top and around of the Darwin FOSS kernel and the FreeBSD USerland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
By the way, (Open)HarmonyOS has a multikernel approach, and two of the kernels supported are FreeRTOS and Linux.
There is even an european version called Oniro, one would guess the chinese backdoors (if any) would be detected by the europeans, and either patches or replaced by european backdoors.
Huawei has also signaled willingness to license the propiertary bits and bobs to other companies...
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Thank you, that is interesting.
Even with it's open source nature there will always be suspicions about how the PRC interacts with it, is there a separation of sorts or can it be as trusted as Linux is,
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Thank you, that is interesting.
Even with it's open source nature there will always be suspicions about how the PRC interacts with it, is there a separation of sorts or can it be as trusted as Linux is,
Again, if you distrust the PRC, use the Oniro flavour, as it is european.
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https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/05/huawei-matebook-x-pro-2024-linux-edition-goes-on-sale
National Security (Score:4, Interesting)
Every nation serious about its communications infrastructure should have its own OS and business applications. Even just maintaining a fork of something open source.
Windows and Azure are waiting to be abused by the US government to hurt a perceived foe.
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Yes, every nation that is serious about total population control and lebensraum victories will encourage investment in the opposite of open source.
The more the totalitarian - the less the open.
Because open doesn't really lend itself to control.
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And ultimately, at any given scale, it's all about control.
Everything that is fundamental to a group's survival should be under that group's control. A viable, stable country needs to be able to defend its borders, maintain order, and keep its people housed, clothed, and fed. There's a lot more to making a NICE country and happy citizens, but those three things are the bare minimum.
These days, that means you need to keep the computers humming because they're controlling everything. If your nation can aff
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Everything that is fundamental to a group's survival should be under that group's control.
Yes, that's the tribal idea of progress.
International trade and interdependence should be for everything beyond the survival needs
Spoken like a true MAGAT. Small wonder king trump rules your country.
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Do you mean from an aggressive military force, or from people fleeing a country so abused by the USA, they have less than the illegal aliens already living in the USA?
The US government will have to subsidize (through explicit welfare or tariffs) the manufacture of these low-tech chips, since everyone wants more powerful computers: The USA recently accused everyone else of doing that in every industry.
Can you leagally create a new OS? (Score:2)
No patent on context switching or something stupid like that?
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Patents expire. What new concepts in OSs exist that didn't exist 20 years ago (I'm sure there are a handful, but likely not a lot - and none critical for an OS as the OSs that existed 20 years ago were fully functional)?
HarmonyOS distributed architecture (Score:2)
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“Unlike a legacy operating system that runs on a standalone device, HarmonyOS is built with a distributed architecture [harmonyos.com] that uses a same set of system capabilities to adapt to a wide array of device forms, ranging from phones and tablets to wearables, smart TVs, and head units as well as PCs, smart speakers, headsets, and AR/VR glasses. It is adaptable to, among other things, the mobile office, fitness and health, social communication, and media entertainment.”
Sounds a lot like Apple's walled garden.
Ultimately (Score:1)