As a South Korean, it is interesting to me that their translation of the technical terms which originate from English is quite different to ours. In general, the loanwords in North Korean tend to follow the meaning of the original words, whereas those in South Korean follow the pronunciation of the words.
For example, "system memory" is translated as "시스템 메모리" in South Korean, which is basically a transcription that reads as [siseutem memori]. In contrast, the same word is translated to "체계기억기" in North Korean, which is composed of 체계(=system), 기억(=remembering), 기(=machine), as shown in the last figure.
And also, they tend to use less word spacing in general. "관리자가입정보설정" in North Korean would be written "관리자 가입 정보 설정" in South Korean. It's much alike German word compound vs. English word composition (Bundesverfassungsgericht vs. Federal Constitutional Court).
I know this might be an irrelevant comment, but I prefer translations that translates the meaning, not the sound. And I feel it goes for my native language, Danish, as well, which has unfortunately been heavily populated with English loanwords, whose pronunciation has not changed. Which creates an unfortunate circumstance for the language, wherein a speaker has to know how a word is pronounced, and cannot necessarily guess it from its spelling.
More irrelevance, but I beg to differ. My mother tongue is a small language (Finnish) and much of the time this kind of translations don't really work for me.
To convey a meaning, you often need new words and concepts. And when translations try to use "native" words which are new, not established and not widely understood (even if they are approved by the official body that recommends new words), they are not any more understandable - vice versa.
Translations that just use slang, typically derived from English, are more understandable.
This phenomenon is so strong that I actually prefer to use English versions of operating systems and applications, because the translations that make up their own words to "explain meaning" are complete gibberish. My wife often asks me to help with translated Microsoft software, and I tend to be at loss about what they're trying to say. If it is in English, there's no problem. If someone says it in slang that relies on words that come from the sound of English words, there's no problem.
This is my reasoning for using the term 'polluted'. I primarily use English interfaces (except for the select few times I'm handed a Danish one), because English at least maintains one thing I like: Consistency.
The sad thing is there are decent technical terms translated into Danish, but no one uses them, because they never gained traction, so instead English words are used instead. I generally avoid these words when speaking, because I honestly don't like them.
Most particularly, the word 'computer' bothers me like no other when speaking Danish, that I always avoid it. Usually I use »maskine« (machine) or the original Danish word for computer, »datamat«, if I feel so inclined.
Exactly. I was disappointed that there was absolutely no attempt to look under the hood of this thing. That would actually be an interesting blog post to read: like a look at the system, pre-installed programs, the difference between it and PearOS, whether you can install whatever software you want on it, whether there is a package manager and, and then of course some wireshark captures.
Yeah just like the author, I was expecting something very ugly looking but was surprised that it looked good.
One one hand it makes sense they copied -- why spend time and effort into drawing all those assets from scratch? Take the best out there, steal it and you are done.
On the other and Apple is the epitome of your capitalist, western, company -- one that would surely be decried as a failure or an example of Western evil decadence by the propaganda. Perhaps those developing this are sort of things are given a more free reign and operate outside the "propaganda" domain.
I find myself wondering if it is some artifact of their science/engineering elite being educated abroad, and ending up with Macs in hand because they are right the most readily available *nix out there.
It's not just the visuals either - they have a bunch of the apps down really really well.
Finder, Calculator, Calendar, the top menu, etc. All really spot on.
I'm playing around in it still. Managed to find my way to the Terminal, and I'm poking around the filesystem.
It is Linux, and seems to be based on a stripped-down version of RedHat (going from some of the remnants of certain man pages).
The UI is a modified/themed KDE.
They did a really good job with the apps - for example, the calculator app is "Calculator.app", which is really a directory with a Contents/Resources, etc directories inside it; the same way OS X does it.
Wait did they really implement all this OSX cloning in North Korea? Are you sure this isn't subset of some skin developed outside of NK? It must have required a considerable amount of resources and skills. Do they have it?
The hosts of a VICE documentary were able to visit a computer lab [1] last year, and looking at the start button(?), it looks like an older version of Red Star OS.
Perhaps the reason is similar to the (apocryphal) tale of how the Tu-4 was manufactured with bullet holes copied from a captured, battle-damaged B-29 because Stalin said to copy it exactly.
For example, "system memory" is translated as "시스템 메모리" in South Korean, which is basically a transcription that reads as [siseutem memori]. In contrast, the same word is translated to "체계기억기" in North Korean, which is composed of 체계(=system), 기억(=remembering), 기(=machine), as shown in the last figure.
And also, they tend to use less word spacing in general. "관리자가입정보설정" in North Korean would be written "관리자 가입 정보 설정" in South Korean. It's much alike German word compound vs. English word composition (Bundesverfassungsgericht vs. Federal Constitutional Court).