Huawei offers laptops with Linux in its own Chinese webshop

Huawei has started supplying laptops with Linux in its own webshop. The manufacturer provides the Linux distro Deepin, made by a Chinese company. Until now, all Huawei laptops ran on Windows.

The Linux variants are listed next to the Windows versions in the Huawei Vmall in China. Two of the Linux versions are converted a few tens cheaper than the Windows variants, with the Matebook X Pro it makes almost no difference.

The included Linux distro is Deepin, according to a Reddit thread on the subject. Deepin was created by a Chinese organization and is a derivative of the Debian codebase. The Deepin Desktop Environment is based on Qt.

Huawei has not made any further announcements about the move. Dell also optionally supplies laptops with Linux. It seems that the partnership with Deepin has to do with the trade ban of US companies with Huawei. As a result, Microsoft is no longer allowed to supply Windows licenses to the manufacturer, which makes laptops with Windows impossible in the long term. Huawei is said to have already canceled the release of a laptop because of this move.