Deepin

Linux distribution

Linux distribution

Deepin

Deepin 20.1 desktop, with the Qt-based Deepin Desktop Environment

Native name

| 深度操作系统; Shēndù Cāozuò-xìtǒng
Developer| Deepin Technology Co., Ltd.
OS family| Linux (Unix-like)
Working state| Current
Source model| Open-source
Initial release| 28 February 2004; 21 years ago (2004-02-28)
Latest release| 23.1[1]  / 16 April 2025
Marketing target| Personal computing
Available in| Multi-lingual (more than 30)[2][3]
Update method| Deepin Software Center
Package manager| APT, dpkg[4]
Supported platforms| x86-64, RISCV64,[5] ARM64,[6] LoongArch64[7]
Kernel type| Monolithic (Linux Kernel)
Default
user interface| Deepin Desktop Environment (Qt-based)
License| Free software licenses
(mainly GPL)
Official website| www.deepin.org/index/en

deepin (Chinese: 深度操作系统; pinyin: Shēndù Cāozuò-xìtǒng; formerly known as Linux Deepin and Hiweed Linux[8][3]) is a Linux distribution. It features the Deepin Desktop Environment (DDE), built on Qt and available for a variety of distributions. The Deepin userbase is predominantly Chinese, though DDE is in most prominent Linux distributions' repositories as an alternative desktop environment. The company behind the development, Deepin Technology, a wholly owned subsidiary of UnionTech (统信软件), is based in Wuhan, China.[9][10]

## History

[edit]

The distribution began in 2004 as Hiweed Linux.[3] In 2011, the development team behind Deepin established a company named Deepin Technology to support commercial development of the operating system. The company received business investments the same year it was founded.[3]

Deepin Technology joined the Linux Foundation in 2015.[11] In 2019, Huawei started to ship Linux laptops pre-installed with Deepin.[12]

The South China Morning Post reported that Chinese microprocessor company Loongson created a partnership in 2020 with UnionTech and Sunway to develop and promote the Deepin operating system in order to reduce Chinese dependency on Microsoft Windows.[13][14]

Deepin introduced a new package manager called "linglong" in 2022.[15]

In 2024, Deepin integrated AI into its (new) IDE, photo editing, search (now called "Grand Search"), and two new chatbot assistants: one for general knowledge and one for knowledge on Deepin.[16]

In June 2024,[17] Deepin announced it was joining the "Prosperity 2036" initiative, whose goal was to establish an open-standard system and open-source software stack based on RISC-V, enabling RISC-V hardware and software "to be recognized as a mainstream instruction set architecture" by 2036.[18]

Starting with the release of Version 23 in August 2024, Deepin began to provide improved hardware support for processor architectures other than x86: install media and packages for ARM64 and RISC-V processors were added to the existing support for x86 and LoongArch.[19][20]

## Overview

[edit]

Deepin includes a mix of open-source and proprietary programs such as Google Chrome, Spotify and Steam. It also includes a software suite of applications developed by Deepin Technology, as well as WPS Office,[21] 360 Security Guard,[22][23] and many others.

The development of Deepin is led by China-based Deepin Technology Co., Ltd (Chinese: 武漢深之度科技有限公司; pinyin: Wǔhàn Shēn-zhī-dù Kējì Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī). The company generates revenue through the sale of technical support and other services related to it.[3] As of 1 January 2020, Deepin Technology is a wholly owned subsidiary of UnionTech (统信软件; Tǒngxìn Ruǎnjiàn).[9][10] The release cycle has followed various schedules but currently aims at four releases per year.[24] Releases are delayed if the work of development and testing has not been completed.

The distribution is widely praised for its aesthetics in various reviews,[25][26][27] while it has also been criticized for various perceived breaches in user privacy.[28][29][30]

## Market share

[edit]

According to Deepin, in December 2022 the operating system had more than 3 million users worldwide, supported 33 languages, and had accumulated more than 80 million downloads since 2008 (when it was renamed "Deepin" from "Hiweed Linux" and also changed to Ubuntu and Gnome as a basis).[31]

## Deepin Desktop Environment

[edit]

Deepin features its own desktop environment called Deepin DE or DDE for short. It is written in Qt.[32] The distribution also maintains their own Window Manager dde-kwin.[33] The desktop environment was described as "the single most beautiful desktop on the market" by Jack Wallen writing for TechRepublic.[34][35] The DDE is also available in the software repositories of Fedora 30.[34]

Since 2019, DDE was also available on openSUSE Tumbleweed and Leap. However, on 7 May 2025, openSUSE announced the removal of DDE due to substantial packaging policy violations. In addition, there have been reports of recurring security issues, insufficient patching of vulnerabilities, inconsistent communication and limited upstream resources. As a result, maintaining a secure and reliable integration of DDE within openSUSE has become increasingly untenable according to maintainer team.[36][37]

UbuntuDDE and Manjaro Deepin are community-supported distributions, that feature the Deepin Desktop Environment and some deepin applications.[38] It is also possible to install DDE (Deepin Desktop Environment) on Arch Linux.[39]

## Deepin applications

[edit]

Deepin comes with a number of applications built via the DTK (Deepin Tool Kit), which is based on C++ and Qt.[40] The following is a list of Deepin Applications created by the Deepin development team:[41]

* Deepin Boot Maker
* Deepin Installer
* Deepin File Manager
* Deepin System Monitor
* Deepin Package Manager
* Deepin Font Installer
* Deepin Clone
* Deepin Picker
* Deepin Store
* Deepin Screen Recorder
* Deepin Voice Recorder
* Deepin Screenshot
* Deepin Terminal
* Deepin Image Viewer
* Deepin Movie
* Deepin Cloud Print
* Deepin OpenSymbol
* Deepin Music
* Deepin Calendar
* Deepin Remote Assistant
* Deepin Manual
* Deepin Emacs
* Deepin Presentation Assistant
* Deepin Calculator
* Graphics Driver Manager
* Deepin Repair
* Deepin Editor

### Deepin Installer

[edit]

Deepin comes with an installer named "Deepin Installer" that was created by Deepin Technology. The Installer was praised by Swapnil Bhartiya writing for linux.com as having "the simplest installation procedure" that was also "quite pleasant."[42][43] Writing for Forbes, Jason Evangelho complained about the installer requiring the user to select their location from a world map, though concluded by saying, "Aside from my little time zone selection pet peeve, the installer is beautiful, brisk and very intuitive."[44]

## Reception

[edit]

The distribution is generally praised for its aesthetics by users and reviewers alike, such as linux.com,[25] Fossbytes[26] and TechRepublic.[27]

### CNZZ incident

[edit]

When Deepin was accused in 2018 of containing spyware through the use of statistics software within their App Store, the company made an official statement clarifying that it did not and would not collect private user information. According to Deepin, CNZZ is a website similar to Google Analytics that collects anonymous usage information such as the screen size, browser and other user agent information to "analyze how the Deepin store was being used, in order to improve it."[45]

On 20 July 2018, Deepin removed CNZZ statistics from the Deepin App Store website due to the backlash.[46]

### Performance

[edit]

Deepin's reputation was that it had relatively high CPU and memory demands when it was still based on GTK and HTML technologies, even when the system was idle.[47] After switching to the Qt-based desktop environment, performance improved, as was noted by Linux.com in its September 2018 review of Deepin 15.7.[48]

### Concerns about connections to Chinese government

[edit]

Radware's head of threat research has commented on concerns about analytics collected by Deepin, and whether these are sent to the Chinese government: while the CNZZ analytics service has been removed, analytics are still collected, now by "Umeng+".[29] According to cybersecurity lawyer Steven T. Snyder, due to the sheer size of Deepin's codebase, it is impossible to really scrutinize all the code comprising it to be sure the Chinese government doesn't have backdoors.[29] The project does remain fully open source allowing anyone to review, modify or change the code to meet their standards.[49]

### OpenSUSE removal of Deepin Desktop Environment

[edit]

On 7 May 2025, the SUSE Security Team announced the removal of the Deepin Desktop Environment (DDE) from openSUSE Tumbleweed and the planned Leap 16.0 release. This was motivated by a documented history of persistent security vulnerabilities in various DDE components since 2017, difficulties in achieving satisfactory remediation with Deepin's upstream developers, and concerns over the upstream project's security culture. The discovery of a packaging policy violation in the deepin-feature-enable package (introduced in April 2021) that using a "license agreement" bypassed the security reviews and installed unverified components triggered a comprehensive review of the Deepin Desktop Environment (DDE) that culminated in the removal of the Desktop Environment from the distribution.[50]

## See also

[edit]

* Linpus

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "deepin 23.1 Release Note – Deepin Technology Community". Retrieved 16 April 2025.
2. ^ "Deepin Transplantation". Wiki. Wuhan Deepin Technology Co., Ltd. Archived from the original on 23 January 2021. Retrieved 16 May 2021.
3. ^ a b c d e "About us – Deepin Technology Community". Retrieved 10 May 2019.
4. ^ "【开源专访】Linux Deepin：做更好用的Linux桌面系统-CSDN.NET". www.csdn.net. Archived from the original on 29 July 2020. Retrieved 11 May 2019.
5. ^ "New developments in RISC-V! deepin Successfully Adapts LicheePi 4A – Deepin Technology Community".
6. ^ "deepin Successfully Adapts to Apple M1, Our Journey of Adaptation! (Part 1)". 5 July 2023.
7. ^ @linux_deepin (13 December 2023). "deepin supports arm64 x86_64 riscv64 ,（planing to support loongarch64）" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
8. ^ Wallen, Jack (14 February 2014). "Linux Deepin is a fringe Linux distribution that could steal your heart". TechRepublic. Retrieved 16 May 2021. "And then there's Linux Deepin (formerly Hiweed Linux)."
9. ^ a b Ye, Josh (2 September 2020). "Meet the Chinese operating system that's trying to shift the country off Windows". South China Morning Post. Archived from the original on 2 September 2020. Retrieved 14 November 2020.
10. ^ a b "Union Tech acquires Deepin, a well-known Linux-based OS maker in China". cnTechPost. 31 December 2019. Archived from the original on 27 November 2020. Retrieved 14 November 2020.
11. ^ "Alibaba, DCHQ, MediaTek, PayPal and Deepin Technology Join Linux Foundation – The Linux Foundation" (Press release). The Linux Foundation. 13 August 2015. Retrieved 19 September 2017.[dead link]
12. ^ Dubey, Yetnesh (13 September 2019). "Huawei Linux Laptops Running Deepin Linux Now Available". Fossbytes. Retrieved 16 May 2021.
13. ^ Yiu, Enoch (29 June 2021). "Loongson files US$542 million IPO in Shanghai to fund chip growth". South China Morning Post. Retrieved 26 August 2021.
14. ^ Ye, Josh (18 March 2020). "Meet the Chinese operating system that's trying to shift the country off Windows". South China Morning Post. Retrieved 26 August 2021.
15. ^ Borisov, bobby (20 August 2022). "Deepin 23 Introducing New Package Format". lunuxiac. Retrieved 24 February 2023.
16. ^ Rudra, Sourav (27 June 2024), Deepin Linux is Adding an Integrated AI Assistant, retrieved 10 August 2024
17. ^ "Friday June 21st, 2024 – Deepin Technology Community". Retrieved 14 September 2024.
18. ^ "deepin Joins the RISC-V Prosperity 2036 ! – Deepin Technology Community". Retrieved 14 September 2024.
19. ^ "Deepin 23 launches with atomic updates and support for more CPU architectures". Notebookcheck. 16 August 2024. Retrieved 17 August 2024.
20. ^ "New Release – Deepin Technology Community". Retrieved 17 August 2024.
21. ^ Afolabi, Jesse. "Deepin 15: A Beautifully Crafted Linux Distribution for Everyone". tecmint. Retrieved 10 May 2019.
22. ^ "360 Security Guard(Indigenous System Edition) – Deepin Technology Community". Archived from the original on 7 December 2021. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
23. ^ Bhartiya, Swapnil (12 January 2015). "Deepin Linux: A Polished Distro That's Easy to Install and Use". Linux.com. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
24. ^ "Interview with Deepin project leader Wang Yong | MUZI". muzi.info. Archived from the original on 18 May 2015. Retrieved 14 May 2015.
25. ^ a b "Deepin Linux: As Gorgeous as It is User-Friendly". 21 September 2018.
26. ^ a b "Deepin 15.10 is a Beautiful Linux Distro That'll Make Windows Users Jealous". 29 April 2019.
27. ^ a b "Deepin Linux 15.8: A functional and elegant desktop". 8 June 2023.
28. ^ "Statement on cancelling CNZZ statistics in Deepin Store – Deepin Technology Community". Deepin.org. Archived from the original on 20 July 2018. Retrieved 26 December 2021.
29. ^ a b c Germain, Jack M. (31 May 2019). "Deepin Linux: Security Threat or Safe to Use?". LinuxInsider. Retrieved 14 November 2020.
30. ^ Kourafalos, Odysseas (5 November 2020). "Deepin Linux Review: Stylish Distro or Spyware?". Make Tech Easier. Retrieved 14 November 2020.
31. ^ "The 12th DDUC: Deep Love, Evolving Together – Deepin Technology Community". Retrieved 5 January 2023.
32. ^ "Deepin Builds a Better Linux Desktop | Reviews | LinuxInsider". www.linuxinsider.com. 5 December 2018. Retrieved 6 April 2019.
33. ^ Verma, Adarsh (29 April 2019). "deepin 15.10 Is A Beautiful Linux Distro That'll Make Windows Users Jealous". Fossbytes. Retrieved 10 May 2019.
34. ^ a b Wallen, Jack (10 January 2019). "Deepin Linux 15.8: A functional and elegant desktop". TechRepublic. Archived from the original on 30 April 2019. Retrieved 16 August 2024.
35. ^ "Deepin Desktop Environment – ArchWiki". ArchWiki. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
36. ^ Borisov, Bobby (8 May 2025). "openSUSE Removes Deepin Desktop Over Security Policy Violations". linuxiac. Retrieved 10 May 2025.
37. ^ Gerstner, Matthias (7 May 2025). "Removal of Deepin Desktop from openSUSE due to Packaging Policy Violation". SUSE Security Team Blog. Retrieved 10 May 2025.
38. ^ "Manjaro Community Editions". Manjaro. Archived from the original on 22 September 2017. Retrieved 30 September 2017.
39. ^ "Deepin Desktop Environment – ArchWiki". wiki.archlinux.org. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
40. ^ "Deepin Tool Kit: Deepin Tool Kit Widget". docs.deepin.io. Retrieved 6 April 2019.
41. ^ "Original Applications – Deepin Technology Community". Retrieved 10 May 2019.
42. ^ "Deepin Installer – Deepin Technology Community". Retrieved 10 May 2019.
43. ^ "Deepin Linux: A Polished Distro That's Easy to Install and Use". Linux.com | The source for Linux information. 12 January 2015. Retrieved 10 May 2019.
44. ^ Evangelho, Jason. "A Linux Noob Reviews: The Deepin 15.8 Installer". Forbes. Retrieved 10 May 2019.
45. ^ "Linux Deepin is NOT spyware". Deepin. Archived from the original on 16 April 2018.
46. ^ "Statement on cancelling CNZZ statistics in Deepin Store – Deepin Technology Community". 20 July 2018. Retrieved 10 May 2019.
47. ^ "Deepin 15.4 review – All that glitters is not gold". www.dedoimedo.com. Retrieved 10 May 2019.
48. ^ "Deepin Linux: As Gorgeous As It Is User-Friendly". Linux.com | The source for Linux information. 21 September 2018. Retrieved 10 May 2019.
49. ^ "Wuhan deepin Technology Co., Ltd". GitHub. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
50. ^ "Removal of Deepin Desktop from openSUSE due to Packaging Policy Violation". 7 May 2025. Archived from the original on 8 May 2025. Retrieved 7 May 2025.

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