| 2008-08-15 |
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| With
the 2008 Olympic Games now in full swing in Beijing, China's most
prominent Linux vendor, Red Flag, has announced the availability of a
special "Olympic" edition of
Linux. This is a preview of the upcoming stable release 7.0. The
product is an installable live CD that boots into a customised KDE 4.1
desktop featuring an Olympic theme. It includes a (beta) migration
wizard allowing import of passwords, settings and data from a Windows
partition. Among the main components, this release comes with Linux
kernel 2.6.25, glibc 2.8, GCC 4.3.1, xorg-server 1.4.99, Qt 4.4.0,
Firefox 3.0 and Wine 1.0. The announcement also mentions a few known
issues regarding certain audio drivers and Intel graphics cards; these
should be corrected in the next release. More details and download
links are available in the (in Chinese). Interested testers can get the live CD image from here: (665MB, ). The system supports both the simplified and the traditional variants of Chinese, as well as English. |
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| 2007-10-01 |
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Linux 6.0 "Desktop", a Chinese distribution based on the recently
announced Asianux 3.0, has been released. As with any past releases,
Red Flag Linux 6.0 continues to focus on providing an easy-to-use
desktop that resembles the Windows user interface as much as possible
and includes a number of Windows-like utilities. New in this release is
the inclusion of 3D desktop features with Beryl, updated package
management infrastructure with APT for RPM, automatic dual-boot setup,
and multi-language support. The distribution uses the latest 2.6.22
kernel with modules for a large number of modern hardware devices and
wireless network cards, as well as read/write support to NTFS file
systems. On the desktop, the system is built around X.Org 7.2 and KDE
3.5.7, now with automatic mounting of storage devices, and
OpenOffice.org 2.2. For more details please see the
page (in Chinese). Red Flag Linux 6.0 is available as a 2-CD image set
- an installation CD and an optional "Tools" CD with extra software;
both can be from here: (680MB, ), (587MB, ). |
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| 2005-11-12 |
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Linux 5.0 "Workstation" for i386 and x86_64 processors has been
released. The new version, boasting improved reliability, usability,
security and hardware compatibility, is built on top of Linux kernel
2.6.9 and supports Chinese (GB18030 and Big5 encodings), Japanese,
Korean and English languages. The familiar Windows-like desktop and
control panel from Red Flag 4.1 continues to be the main desktop
feature, but the addition of development software means that the
product can also be turned into a powerful workstation or development
platform. See the distribution's
(in Chinese) for more detailed description. Red Flag Linux 5.0 comes on
four CDs - the first two contain the basic system, the third one
includes administration utilities, language modules and documentation,
and the fourth CD contains development software. The ISO images are
available for free download from several (very slow) mirrors . |
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| 2005-08-27 |
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Linux 5.0 is the first product to be based on Asianux 2.0, launched
earlier this week in Beijing. This is a desktop product and the
snapshot, made available for free download this week, is a testing
release. Red Flag Linux 5.0 intends to be a comprehensive desktop
operating system with major improvements in the area of installation,
hardware support, and desktop configuration. The system uses kernel
2.6.9, X.Org 6.8.2 and KDE 3.2.1, with many enhancements, solid
multimedia and instant messaging support, USB device hotplugging, and
other conveniences. Like the previous Red Flag Linux releases, the
desktop is designed to resemble Windows XP. Please refer to the product
(in Chinese) for further details. Download: (651MB, ) and (616MB, ). |
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| 2004-11-06 |
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| After a lengthy beta testing period, the final release of
Linux 4.1 Desktop Edition is out and available for free download. This
is the first Red Flag release based on the recently formed Asianux, a
common development platform maintained by China's Red Flag Linux,
Japan's Miracle Linux and South Korea's Hansoft. Red Flag Linux 4.1
brings many improvements over its earlier release, including easier
installation, better hardware support, improved kernel performance, and
more intuitive desktop configuration options. It is designed for use in
government offices, schools and on home computers. Here is the full (in simplified Chinese), inclusive of download links. Get the ISO image from here: (695MB). An optional second ISO image with development software is also available: RedFlag-4-devel-200410121158.iso (361MB).
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| 2004-09-22 |
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| Red Flag Linux has released the first release candidate of the upcoming
Linux 4.1. This version is based on Asianux 1.0 with the addition of
many desktop-oriented packages. The focus of the release was to
increase system responsiveness and to offer better hardware support,
while the KDE desktop environment was tweaked to conform to usability
studies. The product comes with excellent support for multimedia,
including CD burning, DVDs, VCDs and streaming audio. Newly included is
Wine for cross-platform compatibility. Support for Chinese input has
also been improved with the help of Red Flag's XFT-fontconfig typeface
management technology. The contains a lot more detail (in simplified Chinese). Download: (695MB), (614MB) and RedFlag-4-devel.iso (360MB).
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| 2004-06-16 |
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| Red Flag Linux has announced a release of
Linux 4.1 Desktop, Early Access edition. This is, effectively, a beta
version of the upcoming Red Flag Linux 4.1, code name "Muliphein"; it
is primarily designed for Chinese users not yet familiar with Linux,
with ease of use as its main feature. The complete release notes and
known issues are listed on (in simplified Chinese). Download from here: (680MB). Those who decide to participate in testing should report bugs on Red Flag's .
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| 2003-07-19 |
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Linux 4.0, formally released last Monday, is now available as a free
download. A large number of mirrors, together with some essential
product information (in Chinese) and md5sums is listed on . Download:
(613MB). Red Flag Linux is Chinese desktop Linux distribution with a
complete support for all aspect of Chinese usage (simplified Chinese
only) and a default user interface which strongly resembles WindowsXP
(see screenshot).
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| 2003-07-14 |
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Linux 4.0 has been released. Featuring a re-designed user interface,
faster system boot and improved application responsiveness, this
version of Red Flag Linux provides the usual range of desktop
applications for both home and office use, including Internet
connectivity tools, graphics and multimedia software, games and MS
Office compatible office suite with the ability to edit and print
documents in Chinese. A four-CD plus manual boxed set is available from
retailers around China for the equivalent of about US$12. Relevant
links (all in Chinese): and product introduction (PDF format). The ISO images are normally available for free download about one month after the official release.
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| 2003-06-10 |
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| Another company making a big push towards replacing Windows with Linux on desktops is
Linux. A beta version of the upcoming Red Flag 4.0 is now available for
download and testing. Major effort has gone into making this release
user-friendly with new menus, Internet connectivity software, graphics
and multimedia applications for use both at home and office. While the
download edition lacks any office suite, the
(in Chinese) claims support for Microsoft Office file formats and
Chinese printing in retail editions - a perfect product for government
and educational institutions to migrate to. A complete is available in PDF format (simplified Chinese only). Download: (603MB).
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| 2002-09-18 |
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| Just a short note to say that
Linux 3.2, released last month is now available as a free download. You
will need a lot of patience or maybe wait a week or two if you want to
download it -- the FTP access is hard and download speeds very slow, to
say the least. But if you are desperate, here is the download link: (619MB). You will also need a serial number which can be obtained from Red Flag's
(the code is typed clearly in red) and while you are at it, you can
also get the ISO's md5sum found on the same page. Some basic
informantion about Red Flag Linux 3.2 in English is on this .
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| 2002-08-12 |
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| After two months of beta testing, Linux 3.2 has been released. A brief
page (in Chinese) gives the usual talk about ease of migration from
Windows to Linux and the range of software available to satisfy all
levels of users of both home and business desktops. The packaged box
sells for the equivalent of about US$12 in China. No free downloads as
yet, but a complete ISO image should be available in about one month's
time from now. For more information about Red Flag Linux, please visit
the distributions or home page as well as this site's .
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| 2002-06-13 |
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| Linux is working on their upcoming 3.2 release; this is a beta release downloadable from here: .
New features include Kernel 2.4.17, Windows-like configuration tools,
complete Chinese interface with GB18030 simplified Chinese fonts and
intellingent input method editor ABC 6.0. Check for more information (in Chinese), while our maintains a list of basic packages. You are encouraged to report bugs to .
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| 2002-04-04 |
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| Linux 3.0 is out: "CAS Redflag Software Technologies Co., Ltd. unveiled in Beijing its latest desktop operating system, i.e., Red Flag Desktop 3.0." The announcement is available in and . The boxed product can be purchased for the equivalent of less than US$12 and the ISO image is also provided as a free . There are no download mirrors at the moment, so the Red Flag (also available in ) is the only place, where the image can be downloaded:
(656MB). You can try your luck, but as you can imagine, the downloads
are painfully slow at best. More information on this release on our and pages.
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