Linux Pioneer Munich Confirms Switch To Windows 10 (techrepublic.com) 336
The German city of Munich, once seen as a open-source pioneer, has decided to return to Windows. Windows 10 will be rolled out to about 29,000 PCs at the city council, a major shift for an authority that has been running Linux for more than a decade. From a report: Back in 2003 the council decided to to switch to a Linux-based desktop, which came to be known as LiMux, and other open-source software, despite heavy lobbying by Microsoft. But now Munich will begin rolling out a Windows 10 client from 2020, at a cost of about Euro 50m ($59.6m), with a view to Windows replacing LiMux across the council by early 2023. Politicians who supported the move at a meeting of the full council today say using Windows 10 will make it easier to source compatible applications and hardware drivers than it has been using a Linux-based OS, and will also reduce costs associated with running Windows and LiMux PCs side-by-side.
*grabs popcorn* (Score:2)
Guile theme rolling
Linux is awesome - but Windows 10 is not terrible. (Score:5, Interesting)
You have to understand users, whatever is easy - and whatever gets them trough the every day life - is what they will chose.
I'm a Linux user since 1998. I still use the Linux platform (Mint 18.1 right now, but I was a slacker...slackware for most of the time, I just grew old and didn't want to spend endless time finetuning everything), but I use windows 10 for my gaming pleasures, and at work we use windows 10 too (I work at a HUGE worldwide company now), and it doesn't suck. In fact, I'd wager that after 1 year...windows 10 actually kinda rule. It's easy to use, it's not ugly, it's functional, it's not breaking down every second day, it's fairly well protected and it actually just work. I'm a fan already, but it was a long road, because at home - I'm one of those 50+ something that still is a gaming freak, I have the latest hardware as always (1080Ti graphics card, and the latest i7 generation motherboard and processor), and on windows 10 it just doesn't suck. Not even at work, where we have MUCH less hardware, we're using vanilla Dell laptops with i5 processors, SSD storage devices, and D6000 Dell docking stations with 3 screens connected, works like a charm every day.
So yeah, I totally get it - if it works perfectly, if it runs smooth every day, if I don't have to concentrate on my freaking setup every day...but can concentrate just on my job - then I'm all for it!
Good job MS, for once!
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This is something that often gets lost on Slashdot. People are so busy complaining about privacy (which the average user can't give a crap about), or lost work because you haven't saved your work for the night and ignore the notifications that an update is pending (which the average user can't give a crap about), and all the talk about start menus and control panels (which the average user can't give a crap about) to realise what has actually changed under the hood.
In the mean time we have an OS that in its
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Aren't you just putting put a straw man and cutting it down? The first time I saw a stable Windows machine was when I ran Win2k RTM. The last time I saw an unstable Windows machine was like early Vista like 2007-ish, probably a bad driver. If there was a Windows version that promised:
1) Runs Windows applications including DirectX
2) At least 10 years of security patches (like XP and Win7)
3) No other "features" like telemetry etc.
I'd be ready to buy and so would a lot of other people, I imagine. As an OS, I d
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The last time I saw an unstable Windows machine was like early Vista like 2007-ish, probably a bad driver. If there was a Windows version that promised:
Cool so we agree then and we on Slashdot can stop with the Windows is unstable and shouldn't ever run any important software then. The only difference between your and my comment is the timeline.
But apart from the fact that I fundamentally can't trust Microsoft it's a good OS.
Exactly. Something as I said seems to be lost on much of the IT community who do nothing but repeat tired jokes from the turn of the century. It's actually more telling how popular and widely used Microsoft's OS is *despite* their hostility towards users.
Re: Linux is awesome - but Windows 10 is not terri (Score:2)
Or some critical feature doesn't work out of the box, like the taskbar and start menu, due to some other undesired feature like Cortana. (I should probably let that go,...)
In my experience, Windows 10 is becoming more like Linux, in a bad way.
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Windows 10 doesn't break down every second day. It just breaks down every six months or so (on a Surface Pro 4), like Ubuntu.
Sorry but no it doesn't. I've been running the same load of windows since 2009 when windows 7 first came out. I have upgrade through service packs, skipped windows 8, and did a in place upgrade to 10. I've swapped out hardware several times, including complete rebuilds, and my system has been rock steady for years at a time.
The only time it got unstable was when I had a bad harddrive in my system. I replaced it and it went right back to being rock stable.
Of course if you have wonky hardware or yo
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Its a Surface Pro 4. Customizability pretty much depends on Microsoft attachments.
I have a surface pro 4 too. I've not noticed any strange things with it. When running it in desktop mode it seems to be just another portable computer to me.
Now I won't give windows 10 any good marks as a tablet OS. It pretty much fails miserably there. It is usable but any android launcher will beat it with out working up a sweat.
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Actually, I'm going to dial down the enthusiasm I've had in these posts and kind of agree with you. I installed the latest update to windows 10 and now my external BR drive won't work.
So yeah. I see your point now.
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I'm a Linux user since 1998. I still use the Linux platform
Welcome to my boat. Have a seat, there is cold beer in the cooler.
I've been apart of the Linux community since day one. I started with dual tar ball install on an Amiga 3000. I still use a headless Linux box for my household file server.
But my general workstation is windows 10. So is my workstation at work. An the reason is it simply works 99% of the time. I don't have to fuss with strange Xwindows settings or wonder why my sound doesn't work.
Windows just simply works.
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I still miss my Amiga 3000. I love the look of that machine; and the feel of the keyboard. The freaking control key was in the right spot! To this day I still hit the caps lock key when I mean control.
I had lots of computer before my Amiga 3000. A C-64, C-128, and even an A500. But the Amiga 3000 was what I consider to be my real workstation computer.
I had one of the first A3000's too. With the kickstart on the HD. I never got around to buying a proper ROM kickstart for it. Didn't see the ne
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There's a lot of "if" coming off that statement. Perhaps Microsoft really improved Windows with version 10. At my employer I have a Windows 7 laptop which I use mostly for compiling software (my main desktop is Linux, thankfully). The Windows interface may be familiar to most people, but as a regular Linux
Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made (Score:2)
Quote: "Buried in the service agreement is permission to poke through everything on your PC.
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You have to understand users, whatever is easy - and whatever gets them trough the every day life - is what they will chose.
Nice fiction. This decision was made by greased palms, not by users.
Will not solve their problems (Score:5, Insightful)
The did about the most dumb thing possible: They blamed Linux for their dysfunctional organization. They will have pretty much the same problems after the move with some new ones on top. And the only sane alternative, moving everything to web-apps, was not even considered.
What happened here is that the ones in charge let themselves be bought by MS.
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The did about the most dumb thing possible: They blamed Linux for their dysfunctional organization. They will have pretty much the same problems after the move with some new ones on top. And the only sane alternative, moving everything to web-apps, was not even considered.
Windows software not working on Linux is a problem that isn't fixed by Windows?
Windows users needing to learn a different OS is a problem that isn't fixed by Windows?
The solution to 3rd parties not supporting alternate OSes with many bespoke systems is to ask 3rd parties to move to a complete alternate cloud based platform?
What happened here is that the ones in charge let themselves be bought by MS.
No what happened here is that a Slashdot user has no idea about the situation and thus feels qualified to come up with solutions.
The other thing that happened is that the same Slashdot us
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Well, obviously you have no clue what went in in Munich. It is fascinating though that you think I have no idea how government works in Germany, I only grew up there...
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I only grew up there...
That just makes it all the worse.
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Maybe read up on what their problems actually were?
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No, they needed to run a set of commercially available software, that had no Linux running version.
I've seen it so often, it's painful. There just isn't the commercially developed software ecosystem for enterprises out there (well, apart from server stuff). If you can't purchase up to date commercial software to support what you want to do, there's only one avenue left.. Go back to Windows where there's a glut of it.
Now, this could be a good money spinner for people who want to produce good software in th
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You are completely off.
You younglings never learn (Score:3)
All Operating Systems sucks, trademarked words in it does not make it suck less. :-)
I've only had a couple of thousands desktop Linux and Windows clients under my control back in the day, and it really is no difference at least moneywise, it is easier to do hires for Windows as long as you pay the senior guy enough to keep him. Happily I've heard that out sourcing is working pretty well on the Windows side so it's going to be a lot cheaper than Linux soon.
Linux might not be for you and your environment,
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The thing is, is that when you break down specific items like that, it IS possible to come up with alternatives. For example, Samba4 provides full Active Directory support. Linux has remote desktop stuff. In particular, I would trust Linux to stay up and running LONG after Windows shit the bed.
But Linux's biggest deficiencies are the fact that with Linux, you will hit a wall often, and completely unexpectedly. Things you take for granted on other system are a showstopper in Linux. As parent mentioned,
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Well, obviously you are stupid. None of these matter in a web-application landscape.
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Ability to run your OS for years without reinstallation while retaining the ability to install new software
It was THE problem that caused me to switch to FreeBSD. I have installed some new software to Windows 98 and then Word stopped working just when I was to produce an extremely important and extremely urgent letter.
Also, I have produced the following ironclad principle: The HDD is NOT the computer part. It's a medium. So if you install something you do it on a fresh medium while your work medium remains intact. Then your work medium is replaced with the new one and comes to storage.
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Nothing close approaches Active Directory, Group Policy, ADFS shares, PERIOD in the I.T. management roles that PHBs love. THis of course does not even go into the application compatibility problem too for non Windows operating systems in the workplace.
I can do remote software installs, get reports, if some PCs are off they will install the updates when turned on, do custom lockdowns for HIPPA and PCI (credit card info), Add legacy websites that only work in ancient IE to zones across hundreds of PCs so they
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NFS in Windows? God, you've never ran it for even a single PCs right?
Then there's
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It's probably time (Score:5, Interesting)
To do a quick financial audit of the officials making this decision.
Lobbying is really just another term for paid bribes.
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Re: It's probably time (Score:3)
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Lobbying is really just another term for paid bribes.
So, let me get this straight. The only reason the city of Munich would switch back to Microsoft is because someone got bribed. Does that mean someone was bribed to switch to Linux in the first place?
Not all lobbying is bribery, sometimes lobbying is from honest concerned citizens. If all the bad decisions a government makes were from being bribed then all the good decisions were also from bribery.
If all lobbying is bribery then who paid for the lobbying to make drunk driving illegal? I'm not saying I su
Paid off (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems to me that is the only way that spending $59.6 Million on windows could be seen as a method of reducing costs.
Reasons (Score:5, Interesting)
While no one but the actual deciders know for sure, but I'd be more than willing to step out on the limb and say: This has absolutely nothing to do with Linux or Windows fitness for the job. They've been doing it for 10 years now, I'm pretty confident any bumps were long ironed out and everything works pretty decently.
Just as TFA said, Microsoft had been lobbying heavily. Never said they stopped. Obviously they kept at it, and finally got their foot in the door. Greed seems to be on a helluv a winning streak in our society.
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They've been doing it for 10 years now, I'm pretty confident any bumps were long ironed out and everything works pretty decently.
You've never worked in a government have you? In many cases 10 years is just the time it takes to finally get a project cancelled. I'm not saying that's what happened, by all accounts I'm sure the new MS headquarters in Munich, and the new head of the department being a happy MS user in the past had a big hand in it. But assuming that just because something has been in place for 10 years it has had it's bugs ironed out is laughable enough in a large private corporation, in a government such a statement is o
Re: Reasons (Score:2)
What would you have done? (Score:5, Interesting)
MS moved its base in Germany to Munich. Subsequently, Munich had a new election for the city council. Surprisingly, the new major decided that Linux does not work and that there are too many security restrictions with Linux. This is what effective lobbying can do for you. Still other cities and towns go in the the other direction.
Re: What would you have done? (Score:5, Informative)
Don't worry, there are literally millions of other organisations flocking to desktop Linux due to its many advantages over the alternatives.
You'd think city's would learn (Score:2)
Munich joins rest of the world (Score:2)
Linux in the server room, Windows on the desktop.
I blame Gnome and KDE (Score:2, Interesting)
In the case of gnope, every release either breaks something, or takes away some functionality that distributions have to excessively patch in order to give some consistency to their userbase. And kde has never been more buggy. Just when a version starts to get stable, they ditch it and start over. The whole Linux mantra of "release early and release often" just doesn't work for desktops (or phones for that matter). Users want consistency and stability, which neither gnome or kde give them.
The problem is the missing noun. (Score:2)
"Release new products early, then release updates to them often" is great for users.
"Release new products early and release their complete replacements often" is bad for users.
The Linux community does the second, rather than the first.
Instead of this for a single tool, library, application, or environment:
10.0 this month
10.1 next month
10.2 the month after that
10.3 the start of next year
Linux does this for a single tool, library, application or environment:
10.0 this month
2017.3.51 next month
Project Congo Fre
Cheers (Score:2, Insightful)
Microsoft and the intels of the world congratulate you! Happy stolen data, Munich!
Jeez, admit it already (Score:2)
It is astounding to see the number of controversy theorists in the comments talking about lobbying and bribed officials. Does it really hurt your ego to accept that for a particular organization of a particular scale and type, Linux might not be the best option ?
I am a research scientist. I spend my time analyzing large amounts of microscopy data in Python, R etc. on very capable hardware. But you know what I found ? Windows 10 does fine. Everything works. I have no reason to use Linux. I went from Linux al
Re: Jeez, admit it already (Score:2)
Windows 10 does fine. Everything works. I have no reason to use Linux. I went from Linux all the time, to dual-booting Linux just in case I needed it, to Windows all the time in 10 years.
Funny thing ... if you swap the words "windows" and "Linux", the above statement would perfectly reflect my experience over the last 10 years.
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Exactly my point. There is no reason my particular choice should apply to you. And it doesn't make either of us stupid or dishonest to make disparate choices.
I can fully understand the reason why (Score:2)
Politicians who supported the move at a meeting of the full council today say using Windows 10 will make it easier to source compatible applications and hardware drivers than it has been using a Linux-based OS
I can fully understand why. I've been using Linux on and off for over a decade and a half, even paid for SuSE!!!!. I've run Linux Mint on a Thinkpad for a few years, no problems. Decided to put it on my desktop. Only problem is I have a NVIDIA Geforce 1060 GTX graphics card. Little did I realise just what an absolute nightmare it was going to be even to just get the Live DVD to boot to a GUI. Ended up having to re-enable onboard Intel Graphics just to be able to boot the live distro and install it. I then w
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Dude Use nVidia's Linux driver, not the stupid opensource nouveau driver that is the default on most distros only because its open, not because it actually works.
Windows 10? In a government agency?!? (Score:5, Interesting)
Incompetence at work. (Score:2)
Looking at how LiMux was botched one has to stand in awe and amazement over the sheer incompetence with which the project was driven against the wall. I'd love to wrap those responsible into barbed wire and shoot them into the sun. That would be a gain for humanity.
Meanwhile Schwaebisch Hall has done the transition to Linux just fine. And without all the press and drumming.
A counterexample (Score:4, Interesting)
Some people have argued that Linux does not work out for bureaucracies, civil servants or "large organizations". That made me laugh.
The French Gendarmerie (miltarized police) switched to Linux. But the organization was different. For example in lieu of bitching about non microsoft word processors not being compatible enough with whatever version of microsoft word, they dropped the proprietary formats and went to the .odt format. So, microsoft incompatibilities are not their problem anymore.
Because they made choices. And it worked out for them. A wikipedia summary here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
P.S. I sense an army of astroturfers on this topic, you guys aren't good at what you are doing.
Finally! (Score:2)
oh well (Score:2)
Sad but completely foreseeable, or at least it should have been by them. Of all tht things that could hinder Linux adoption, requirements to use Windows-only proprietary software is the one thing that can't be overcome in a reasonable fashion but should also have been easy to quantify. What were they expecting to happen when their organization apparently depended on hundreds of different Windows-only applications?
Are they using Windows 10 features? (Score:2)
Windows 10 has a number of nice features, such as the UWP, support for modern hardware like touch screens (with a touch compatible interface), high resolution screens, HDR, fast wake up etc, and great integration with the cloud, especially Office 365.
Linux may be the more solid operating system, but it offers none of the those features. So if you want to use them, Windows 10 is the winner by default.
Meanwhile (Score:4, Interesting)
Verizon ditched office for Google for business. Even their email is handled by google and employees can use Linux or Mac as their OS.
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The best chance Linux has of taking of is when support for Windows 7 ends in 2020.
But it won’t just like it didn't when XP support ended or when Vista bombed out. But, hey, this time it’s gotta work, right?
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XP had a viable replacement in Windows 7. Windows 7 does not have a viable replacement.
Also, Linux has improved considerably. At the time Vista came out Linux wasn't a viable operating system for most people. Now it's perfectly viable for the majority of people, but unfortunately most people just use what comes with their PC.
Re: Strang Timing (Score:2)
Ubuntu was out way back when. KDE 3.x was a fine desktop environment. It was beating out Lindows/Linspire for Linux for the average Joe. (And SUSE, and Mandriva).
At the time I was running Xandros 3. A well polished distribution which met my needs at the time, it might have become the go to transitionary distribution.
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What honestly do you do in Linux that is easier or more convenient than it would be to use Windows 10? Apart from running services like Apache, MySQL etc, which I personally find easier in Linux, for any desktop use there's nothing about Linux that seems better. Driver support is generally worse, there's less support for games (and no, running them in a degraded way in WINE is not an option). I tend to run a Linux server as a VM under Windows 10 - I've NEVER experienced a crash in years of using Win 8/10, e
Re:Strang Timing (Score:5, Informative)
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I tried windows 10.
It now has ads in the start-menu - not sure is improvement.
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Yeah, nerds don't want to admit that Microsoft have actually improved their products in the last 20 years.
Oh MS has improved, I'll give them that. But what burns me up is that it took them 20 years to get where they are now.
Meanwhile, on the Linux side of things, we got Ubuntu. *shudder*
Don't like Ubuntu? You have lots of other distros to choose from.
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Don't like Ubuntu? You have lots of other distros to choose from.
An there is part of the problem. How many distributions of Linux are there now? An which version do you want to run? In a business environment this is a nightmare. Then you have the software that you need that won't run on your distribution, or isn't supported.
You simply don't see this in a windows or mac desktop environment.
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Just use Ubuntu, you dumb twat.
Wow, master of wit are you? Nobody in a business environment uses Ubuntu for anything. Well not if they know what they are doing. They use Redhat Enterprise because they can get some kind of support for it.
Now who is the dumb twat, you dumb twat?
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Actually, I've worked in multiple business environments that used Ubuntu.
Well I did say "if they know what they are doing." Over the years I've seen and deployed thousands of Linux installs. I've been in datacenters with hundreds of Linux systems. Almost everyone of them is some version of Redhat or Centos.
You will always have the naive goober try some variation of Ubuntu. As long as they don't cause trouble and don't expect support they usually get to keep it. But most of the time their vanity Linux goes off the rails or they fail the security screening because thei
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I didn't ignore your point you idiot, but it's clear from your responses you have never installed or managed a enterprise level environment. You may have installed your precious Ubuntu on desktops in a small shop. Here let me spell it out for you.
Most distributions are binary compatible. Which simply means what can run on one can be made to run on another. What is not compatible is support. There is that word again, support. It is all the rage in big business shops. I would suggest you learn what
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I think we are done here. I've explained to you the problem as simple as I can with out actually insulting other peoples intelligence. You simply refuse the see the problem.
Again, stop being part of the problem.
Re: Strang Timing (Score:2)
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Re:Strang Timing (Score:5, Funny)
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The best chance Linux has of taking of is when support for Windows 7 ends in 2020. Under this plan they could end up switching to Windows 10 just as Linux begins to gain ground.
I for one won't be using Windows 10 and slowly transitioning my PCs to Linux Mint, and I think a significant number of computer enthusiasts will do the same. I'm finding Linux Mint to be very usable and to meet most of my needs. I may need to keep one Windows PC around for a while longer, but hopefully I'll find a way to get rid of that.
I think this was the plan in 2003.
Realistically Linux has been my desktop since 2001, and in the last 10 years the only things that have a major impact on my day-to-day experience are the support for Netflix and Steam.
Maybe a few more home enthusiasts will start jumping on board (Netflix and Steam are huge for the home experience), but considering that Apple has largely been expunged from the corporate environment I don't see how Linux is suddenly going to break in.
The future of corporate is Windows desktop
Re: Strang Timing (Score:2)
I got tired of updating Ubuntu and having to fix whatever mess prevented the OS from booting, such as it forgetting or failingto properly detect whatever my interface my hard drive was using. Got tired of staring at a recovery command line prompt and trying to remember how to remount the file system with read and write privileges to fix the dist-upgrade.
Add to that the fact that my iTunes library and Steam library were in Windows Vista, and I just gave up on Ubuntu. (After hav
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Re: Ah, old Linux issues (Score:2)
Thank you for articulating so well why desktop Linux is such a shambles. People have been saying similar things for two decades but all you get is abuse and denial of the many things wrong with it.
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Really, it's just easier to run and maintain Windows on the desktop for the vast majority of people..
1. The computer park on my workplace consists of 1 Windows-98 computer, 1 FreeBSD 6.1 computer, 6 computers with last versions of FreeBSD and one Windows XP computer. The only computer that requires maintenance is a Windows XP computer. All other computers just work.
2. The said Windows XP computer could be a FreeBSD one but some 10 years ago there was a management decision to use Windows XP because it's a development system for the client which performs the similar tasks. It appeared that the client just ne
Re:WAT? Windows? Easy to maintain? (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the point is they're easier for users. For actual IT departments, my experience is Windows is at best no easier than *nix, and in some ways a great deal worse (I much prefer plain text readable config files to registry files, though sadly XML is invading the *nix config world too). The one thing I've always loved about working in *nix environments is that if I want to do some significant configuration changes to the OS or a daemon, I can literally go "cp whatever.conf whatever.conf.bak" try out my changes and if they don't work I can quickly restore original functionality. It's possible to do the same thing in Windows by saving keys, but it's a pain in the rear, requiring the regedit application as an intermediary.
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But are they? When support for XP finished I switched over the living room to CentOS with gnome 2. Mrs Hog, not the most tech savvy person on the planet, didn't notice the difference.
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Re:WAT? Windows? Easy to maintain? (Score:5, Insightful)
Even then. There is still after 20 years no opensource solution for Outlook/Exchange. PHBs want meeting invites. They also want to see free/busy on all the recipients for their day.
I supposed in the last 4 years Office 365 has enabled some of the functionality on the web version now for Linux users, but it highlights in business there is no solutions.
MS may have made crappy OSes in the past, but their business software is certainly top of the line with Outlook and Excel. Before anyone goes on how Calc is good enough I have to say it is not for EVERY scenario. Even a city organization has financial anaylsts gurus and statisticians. These guys use add ons for Excel and proprietary software. Some who do not use advanced macros that LibreCalc can't do.
R and Python is now just started to hit some of these but these guys are not professional programmers. They knew macros and mathematics. Linux has no solution for these 2 scenarios.
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The Outlook is destined to die ONLY because the SMTP and POP protocols aren't secure anymore. And even if they use the secure transport their providers are obliged to store your correspondence for the Competent Organs.
I think the RetroShare mail subsystem has become operational enough to replace the SMTP.
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Mrs Hog, married to a Slashdot nerd
FTFY.
Nerds whining that 'my wife', 'my grandma', 'my son's third grandfather's cousin three times removed to the second power' is utterly meaningless.
There's a reason Linux has shit for market share outside the server realm. (In before zealots claim Android is some sort of victory for LEENUCKZ ON TEH DESKTOP.)
Re:WAT? Windows? Easy to maintain? (Score:4, Insightful)
But are they? When support for XP finished I switched over the living room to CentOS with gnome 2. Mrs Hog, not the most tech savvy person on the planet, didn't notice the difference.
That's cute. You are browsing the web just like I am on Ubuntu right now.
I decided drunk last night to give Linux a shot again on my PC as a native OS and not a VM. I plan to do fedora Mate 27 next.
Now, for the non-nerds can your Linux install (outside of your living room TV in the workplace) do Free/Busy on Exchange/Outlook for the PHBs? Can they schedule Skype meetings in Evolution or Thunderbird? Can they run SAP? How about the senior directors run WebEX for those in the federal German Government? Can Linux run ancient IE 6 and 7 sites written last decade before web standards took off? Can the smartcam just work for the above scenarios?
Can LibreCalc run the megaStat add-on for Excel? Can it do all of the Excel functions? Can the I.T. department managing 3,000 PCs with some off, some on, some in different configurations on Active Directory? Can the I.T. department create a Group Policy to lock down some clients with sensitive information? Can NFS support ACL (access control lists) with nested groups easily for permissions? Can the I.T. department automate a MASS installation whether computers are on or off?
Yes, what I wrote sounds like dauntte's inferno for nerds reading this who get to be sys admins and programmers at .coms. But, in my world doing corporate I.T. my job depends on these things and it is the real world. Management NEEDS THESE DONE. They do not care if I have 2,000 PCs when they get a certificate error in a browser due to a critical website being upgraded. It needs to be fixed NOW!
Linux doesn't cut it and I would be fired if I installed it. If all you do is browse the web and use NetFlix then a tablet or Roku is the best fit. An enterprise environment is a different beast and is underestimated how complex it is.
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Can it do all of the Excel functions? Can the I.T. department managing 3,000 PCs with some off, some on, some in different configurations on Active Directory?
It's basically irrelevant from the very moment the Windows is caught with sending your precious data to Redmond and then to all 3-letter agencies that exist. And now we (I work in some Russian defense-related institution that should not be mentioned by name) have only 2 variants: Either conserve the Windows XP environment forever or use LibreOffice.
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Can it do all of the Excel functions? Can the I.T. department managing 3,000 PCs with some off, some on, some in different configurations on Active Directory?
It's basically irrelevant from the very moment the Windows is caught with sending your precious data to Redmond and then to all 3-letter agencies that exist. And now we (I work in some Russian defense-related institution that should not be mentioned by name) have only 2 variants: Either conserve the Windows XP environment forever or use LibreOffice.
First off the EULA is mentioning sending data to Bing via cortana or searches as well as doing telemetry. Second, the enterprise version of Windows 10 has it disabled by default. LibreOffice is a no go as it doesn't do free/busy calandar functions for the executives for meetings that they waste time in all day which is a must have for their jobs.
Russia may have a right to be wary of American companies due to the poor relations both of our countries share and the NSA overstepping it's boundaries. The US is b
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
LibreOffice is a no go as it doesn't do free/busy calandar functions for the executives for meetings that they waste time in all day which is a must have for their jobs.
We had a MS meeting scedule and room booking system in our company. I don't know what it was (Outlook? You tell me), but no-one used it because if you tried you found that all the meeting rooms and managers were booked solid for the next six months "just in case they were needed".
To get a meeting room or find a chairman manager you had to go to one of the senior manager's secretaries the previous day who kept the real booking system, which was an unofficial paper diary.
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Most of your examples are disingenous: they rely on the fact that at some point someone accepted a 'solution' or a product that runs only on a windows or a specific sub-product for it (like IE6). When a vendor comes to me with a 'solution' like this, I laugh him out of the room. Either it runs everywhere or it's open-source and I can work on it to make it so. I agree that being a small shop doesn't always work (but there's ccompetition), but having tens of thousands of PC can force vendors to CHANGE.
How cool you are the CIO who can accept or deny purchases. Where I am from I am told to support this or YOU"RE FIRED and replaced with an Indian who will. I don't get to chose.
It may suck to be me, but that is reality. Infact, the vendors such as Oracle take lunches and golf trips to non technical people to sign off on such shitware. After the game of golf the CIO is handed a contract with an IE 7 product and told to make it happen. He then calls my boss to implement and then he calls me to support it and m
Re: WAT? Windows? Easy to maintain? (Score:2)
Thou I agree with you on your general opinion, other than the two Excel questions, the rest of the answers would be a yes.
AD isnâ(TM)t perfect, even it struggles to manage PCs, nested groups, and start up scripts when you get into 30+k clients. You will find PCs a week later that havenâ(TM)t installed a patch! We actually avoid NGs 3+ levels deep and keep the scripts very very slim.
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Try to add a printer to linux.. I. DARE. YOU.
That's funny, mine works.
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You haven't set up an alias or created a shellscript to do that, and created a right click function in nautilus actions? Sure you aren't a Mac user?
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Try pushing that change out to several thousand desktops, all running different version of linux/DE, when only some of them are online at any one time.
AD rules for managing this sort of stuff, fanbois cries aside, linux had nothing comparable.
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It sounded like Munich was having driver problems with new hardware, which has always been a huge thorn in the side of Desktop Linux users.
Hell, I still frequently run into issues getting XOrg to determine the correct native resolution of several monitors that I've recently used, an issue that I almost never see on Windows anymore.
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Generally they are, but Lennart Poettering pulls the average down quite a bit.
Re: and much easier to bugger their systems (Score:2)