That year of the Linux desktop? I guess it starts next month. There could be a billion new users by Chinese new year:

http://www.zdnet.com/chinese-government ... 000012994/

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuKylin/130 ... eleaseNote

I think it will be interesting to see what happens to malware. I read last year that most desktops in China run an illegal copy of Windows XP with IE6. Upgrading to higher versions of IE not being possible because of Windows Updates being blocked.

Might we see a massive rise in malware targeted at Linux?

Assuming the good people of China do what they're told, of course.

Um. If anything, the fact the Chinese government is getting behind an Ubuntu variant is likely to stall it's takeup the other side of The Great Firewall, for some fairly obvious reasons.

There will always be some people who want to rebel, bypass firewalls, remain anonymous, post secret anti-government blogs, run underground media sites etc.

And then there's everyone else. The "normal" people. If every laptop in the shop runs Ubuntu, what OS are they going to use?

Bearing in mind it tends to be the "normal" people that carry the most malware, I do think it could be significant.

However, my crystal ball isn't working - and my knowledge of life in China is very limited. We'll find out eventually.

I love that they're still operating five year plans

The bit about a previous attempt making it harder for foreign hackers made me laugh too, cos it was my first thought when I saw the headline.

So they have given up on the previous version they had? They started their own distribution for the Chinese market in 2004 or 2005.

Yes I thought that they had a Chinese version of it but maybe the people did not trust it to actually use it. As for malware I would imagine that it is just as secure as Windows 8 or OSX 10.8

Are you talking about Ubuntu or Kylin?

The original Kylin was FreeBSD based, released in 2007. Wiki say's it's been used in government and military establishments, much like SEL has in America.

I don't know if Ubuntu has a previous "mission" to conquer China, but it has supported Chinese for a long time. I don't think it had Chinese government support.