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deepin is a Deban-based desktop distribution featuring the Deepin Desktop Environment (DDE).
The project's latest release introduces support requests to the software centre and provides
facial recognition as an option for signing into accounts.
"In deepin 20.5, a great number of practical features collected from user feedback are
developed and released.
The stable kernel is upgraded to version 5.15.24, underlying vulnerabilities are fixed, and
system compatibility and security are enhanced further.
Face recognition, one of the biometric authentication methods, is supported on adapted devices.
After enrolling your face in Control Center, next time on the lock screen and the login
interface, you can log in to deepin with your face ID.
By clicking 'Pin Screenshots' before taking a screenshot, the captured screenshot will
be sticky on top of windows, and its position can be moved.
While 'pinning' this picture to the desktop, you can use other apps at the same time to
improve work efficiency."
:: More ::
Chinese distro Deepin hits 20.5, complete with browser called Browser
Pretty 'community' version of one of the best-known Linuxes in Middle Kingdom
Deepin version 20.5 is the latest "Community" version of one of the best-known Chinese Linux
distros, and shows an interesting blend of technological influences.
The Debian-based distro is from the UnionTech Software Technology Co (Chinese language only)
in the People's Republic of China, however, it supports multiple languages and can be
installed and used entirely in English.
For the Chinese market, the company also offers a commercial desktop called UOS and a server
version.
The new version follows close behind the release of Deepin 20.4 in January.
It offers no choice of desktop, because its home-grown Deepin Desktop Environment (DDE)
is a big part of its appeal – as i mentioned when i looked at it and its related Ubuntu
DDE remix.
i gave 20.5 a quick spin in VirtualBox – which it complained about.
Like Ubuntu Kylin, Deepin uses a lot of animations and audio effects, including a fancy animated
loading screen and colourful wallpapers.
Consequently, the installer checks if you're running in a VM and warns you that performance
will be sub-optimal.
Even after installing the Guest Additions, the "Window Effect" button in Personalization
Settings remained stubbornly disabled.
Some interesting updates Although this is only a minor version-number
change, Deepin 20.5 is quite different from 20.4 in terms of its disk usage.
It has a complex partition layout, with a boot partition, dual Roota and Rootb partitions,
plus dedicated Data, Backup, and swap partitions.
For this reason, it won't install without a whopping 64 GB of disk.
That's not a lot these days, but it's four or five times more than most distros need.
All the partitions are plain old ext4, and the Data volume is mounted at /data rather
than /home as you might expect.
The complexity means that when i tried to install it as a dual-boot system with Windows
10, it failed, gracelessly and hard.
Interestingly, though, before that, it noticed that the test machine had an nVidia GPU and
offered to install the proprietary nVidia drivers.
This dual-root-partition layout suggests that Deepin has been studying ChromeOS, which uses
a comparable scheme.
You can't use ChromeOS inside the People's Republic, of course, because it relies heavily
on Google services – even to log in – and Google is blocked by the Great Firewall.
i suspect that Deepin aims to replicate ChromeOS's automatic update mechanism, which uses duplicate
root partitions to enable automatic self-updating with failover and rollback.
It would be good to see tech like this coming to more general-purpose distros.
Saying that, the graphical update tool didn't notice some updates that an apt command in
the terminal found.
An issue with older versions of Deepin was very few updates, but it remains to be seen
if that's still true.
UnionTech's Chinese-language site also talks about rapid boot times and planned support
for domestic CPU architectures such as Godson and Loongson.
This may be connected with the recent submission of Loongson CPU patches to the GCC compiler
suite.
OpenShell has been working on a classic replacement for Windows 11's Start menu
They see us Cinnamon Rolling, they're rating: GeckoLinux incorporates kernel 5.16 with familiar
installation experience Technology can sometimes go from east to west:
Ubuntu DDE 21.10 remix ships in 22.01 Huawei to lob devs $1.5bn in apparent effort
to Trump-proof cloud and mobile ecosystem Because Deepin can't directly use Google components,
the distro has its own browser, called just Browser.
It bundles version 5.5.3, which is based on Chromium 93.
It defaults to searching with Baidu, which isn't very helpful if you can't read Chinese,
but that's easily changed.
You also get Deepin email and download clients, plus a drawing program, document viewer, music
player, archive manager, various games… in fact, almost every program included is
Deepin-branded.
Many of the apps have only basic functionality: for instance, the music player can only play
local files, not online streams.
To be fair, though, many of the GNOME apps are also pretty basic, and the project is
actively removing functionality from its text editor, terminal emulator and so on.
In place of Deepin 15's bundled WPS Office – complete, capable, but freeware rather
than FOSS – you now get LibreOffice instead: a rather dated version 7.0.4.2.
The look is colourful but flat.
In what is surely a nod to Windows 11, the taskbar has been updated to have centred icons
by default.
Like GNOME, or Elementary OS's Pantheon desktop, most apps have a combined title-and-control
bar with a menu button at the end.
The task manager is attractive and functional, and the Control Centre does the job, although
i preferred the pop-out panel in older versions of Deepin.
Compared to other Chinese-influenced distros that i've looked at, such as Ubuntu DDE and
Ubuntu Kylin, Deepin is more polished and feels better-integrated.
Like Elementary, the built-in apps are easy and attractive, but power users will probably
find they need to install more standard apps, which will reduce the system's aesthetic unity
a bit.
Unlike Elementary, though, it's easy to do: the Deepin App Store has a lot of unfamiliar
Chinese apps, but also familiar friends such as Firefox, Chrome, Skype, even the old Trillian
instant messenger.
It's Debian-based, so it uses plain old .deb packages; no Flatpak, Snap or Wayland here.
Deepin looks good and works well.
The overall feel is broadly Windows-like, and i found it significantly more comfortable
than Elementary OS 6.1 or GNOME 42.
True, its default apps aren't as powerful as those in, say, Linux Mint, and the default
browser search will give you results in Chinese, but these things are easily altered or replaced.
On the other hand, it's the prettiest Linux around.
It makes Mint or Fedora look positively staid, and in our humble opinion, it's more attractive
than any KDE distro has ever been.
:: more ::
Deepin 20.5 Released with Face Recognition
Deepin 20.5 has tons of new improvements and features like an updated kernel and new app
features.
Deepin is a Chinese-made Linux distribution aimed at the average desktop computer user.
However, it is a popular choice among users who want a beautiful and stable Linux.
Beauty is a tradition to Deepin.
The distro features its desktop environment called DDE (Deepin Desktop Environment), one
of, if not the best-looking Linux desktop environments.
With the latest release of Deepin 20.5, it’s better than ever before.
Without a doubt, it is one of the most beautiful Linux distros based on the stable branch of
Debian.
What’s New in Deepin 20.5
Deepin 20.5 is an incremental update, so visually, things haven’t changed much, but if we check
the release notes, we can see how busy the developers have been with improving the capabilities
of a number of the apps.
The majority, if not all, of these apps, are developed in-house and adhere to a consistent
design language.
Face Recognition Despite all of the concerns, facial recognition
is becoming increasingly popular.
The feature of unlocking the device with facial authentication is available on most recent
Android and iOS devices.
So we start with the fact that one of the biometric authentication methods, namely face
recognition, is now supported on compatible devices in Deepin.
After enrolling your face in Control Center, you can use your face ID to log in to Deepin
the next time you see the lock screen or the login interface.
Pinning a Screenshot Another exciting change in Deepin 20.5 is
the added “pinning” functionality in the Screenshot app.
When you click “Pin Screenshots” before taking a screenshot, the captured screenshot
becomes sticky on top of windows and can be moved.
You can use other apps while “pinning” this image to the desktop to increase work
efficiency.
App Store Feedback Deepin Store is an application integrating
display, download, installation, commenting, and rating of a wide range of applications.
Moreover, it elaborately screens and collects different types of applications for you.
But what’s more important is that the App Store app shipped with Deepin 20.5 includes
entries for sending feedback and requesting updates.
So, for example, if you’re having trouble installing or updating an app, you can report
it directly to the app’s official support page and get help.
Furthermore, it works with touchscreen devices that support one-finger and multiple-finger
gestures.
Other Improvements in Deepin 20.5 The Mail app now supports various useful features,
such as automatic mail receiving after network reconnection and custom folder management,
which has been thoroughly optimized.
On top of that, the framework and plugins have been replaced with the popular Vue+TinyMCE,
resulting in a better user experience.
The Grand Search feature introduced in Deepin 20.2.4 also received some love from this release.
The retrieval accuracy and search scope have been greatly improved, and file types and
file extensions can now be used as keywords for more precise searching.
Under the hood, Deepin 20.5 is powered by Linux kernel 5.10.
In addition, the distro now allows you to set multiple IPs for a single wired network
adapter on the network side.
Furthermore, the password authentication interactions for wireless networks have been optimized.
Apart from those mentioned above, some additional changes also deserve to be noted here.
In the new version, Device Manager allows devices to be enabled/disabled, which is quite
handy functionality for users who prefer to work on the command line less often.
On top of that, local drivers for devices in deb format can be installed, updated, and
uninstalled.
Download Deepin 20.5 was a rather large download at
3.5 GB, and the direct download speed was underwhelming.
If you’re new to Deepin and if you’re going to try Deepin, especially if you’re
going to install it on a virtual machine, know that the Deepin installer requires you
to have at least 60GB of disk space which is a massive amount of disk space for a Linux
distro.
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