Review: deepin 23 Preview
Hiweed GNU/Linux is an Ubuntu-based distribution developed in China. Actually, that description is a bit out of date, let me start over. Linux Deepin is an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution featuring a custom desktop environment called Deepin Desktop Environment. Actually, that's no longer accurate. Deepin is a Debian-based distribution featuring the custom Deepin desktop and a number of desktop applications developed in-house. Wait, I'm almost up to date now. deepin is a Chinese distribution which claims to be independently developed. It features the Deepin desktop, a custom system installer, a custom application repository called Linglong, and the project offers atomic updates.
A preview of the latest version of deepin was published in mid-August and its release announcement featured a few key points. Specifically: the move away from Debian to be an independent distribution; the use of Linglong to offer a custom repository of portable applications that can be run across multiple distributions; and the use of atomic updates to make updates more reliable.
The new deepin release, version 23, is currently in the development phase at the time of writing and I wanted to see what this departure from the previous, Debian-based model would look like. I downloaded the deepin ISO which is a 3.4GB build for 64-bit (x86_64) computers. After confirming the media's checksum was good, I tried booting from it.
The live media brings up a boot menu asking if we'd like to install deepin with version 5.15 of the Linux kernel or 5.18. Both options also have failsafe driver options, resulting in four menu options. There's a fifth menu entry for running a self-check on the media. There are no options for running a live desktop in the menu. I decided to try the 5.18 kernel option first.