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Red Flag Linux: Real, and Reviewed

Posted by timothy on from the love-the-uninstall-icon dept.

Over at NewsForge (NewsForge is part of OSDN, as is Slashdot), Roblimo has posted his impressions of the long-awaited, much-ridiculed Red Flag Linux (English version). It may not be a big seller outside of the Chinese-speaking world (despite the available English-language install), but it's not a hoax, and it's available as an ISO for download. Update from Roblimo: I did not write the NewsForge Red Flag review. Matt Michie deserves all credit for this excellent work.

1 of 381 comments (clear)

  1. So out of date? How very odd... by PeterClark · · Score: 2, Redundant
    I'm trying to think of why the kernel would be so old, that is 2.4.2. I mean, that's a year old! Plus, an ancient version of _Helix_Code_ GNOME (aka Ximian) is also installed. And while it's a little hard to tell, the KDE screenshot seems in my eyes to be running 2.0, although that's just a guess that would have to be double-checked.


    This tells me one of two things: one, the Red Flag people just took a base Red Hat distro (7.0? I run Debian, so I don't know when Red Hat first introduced kernel 2.4.2), s/Hat/Flag, and put it on the web. Two, they started with a Red Hat distro long ago, but took a long time to make whatever modifications they needed to and did not bother to update the kernel and programs. Both scenarios say volumes about the people who work on Red Flag. I mean, there are distros assembled by a handful of people that are more up-to-date than this! What are they doing, reading /. all day?


    I would be really interested if someone would do a security audit on this. Does Red Flag call home to Big Brother?


    :Peter