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German city wants to ditch Microsoft for Linux

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Re: German city wants to ditch Microsoft for Linux

#72
post #59
post #43

Windows, Office and Win Server (AD) make a combo that is quite difficult to replace. But if these cities are smart, they would pool their resources together to fund common tools. All the bits and pieces are already here. What is needed is a solid package that can be deployed and maintained easily, with user friendly GUI.

Can you explain the difference with openldap ? I have never used AD, and I am satisfied by openldap, I mean once I understood how to configure it...

AD can be very roughly described as LDAP with a better interface, a consistent implementation and some proprietary extensions. You don’t need to fight with incompatible clients and have a decent UI. For the rest it is conceptually quite similar.

Re: German city wants to ditch Microsoft for Linux

#73
post #43

Windows, Office and Win Server (AD) make a combo that is quite difficult to replace. But if these cities are smart, they would pool their resources together to fund common tools. All the bits and pieces are already here. What is needed is a solid package that can be deployed and maintained easily, with user friendly GUI.

What is the big deal about AD? A directory of your employees? What's so important about that? (I don't work in corporate IT I genuinely don't know.)

Did a little bit of IT before dev, AD handles management of all the resources on the network. Authentication, backups, policies, Exchange for your email server is plugged into AD.

Re: German city wants to ditch Microsoft for Linux

#74
post #43

Windows, Office and Win Server (AD) make a combo that is quite difficult to replace. But if these cities are smart, they would pool their resources together to fund common tools. All the bits and pieces are already here. What is needed is a solid package that can be deployed and maintained easily, with user friendly GUI.

What is the big deal about AD? A directory of your employees? What's so important about that? (I don't work in corporate IT I genuinely don't know.)

With AD Domain services, you get a centralized resources administration, with stuff like group policies, easy way to share stuff like printers and files access. Single sign-on for all your users.

When IT administer thousands of Windows PC on domain, thats the kind of stuff they appreciate as it make their lives easier.

Re: German city wants to ditch Microsoft for Linux

#75
post #11
post #3

Iirc, the initiative in Munich was very impressive, with public servants being taught how to file bug reports and whatnot. This is great news imo. Less spending on proprietary software, more accountability, possibly job openings for consultants. Good job Germany! I wish more countries would follow.

Many countries are currently ditching Windows in favor of home grown distros due to distrust of Microsoft. Notable examples: Currently transitioning: - Astra Linux (Russia) https://www.zdnet.com/article/russian-military-moves-closer-... - Kylin Linux? (China) https://www.techradar.com/news/china-to-ditch-all-windows-pc... - South Korea https://www.zdnet.com/article/south-koreas-government-explor... Already transition…

There is also Turkish government funded Pardus project [0] and has been going on since 2005. Numerous government institutions started to use it but still not enough to ditch Windows.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardus_(operating_system)

Re: German city wants to ditch Microsoft for Linux

#76
post #18
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many countries are currently ditching Windows in favor of home grown distros due to distrust of Microsoft. Notable examples: Currently transitioning: - Astra Linux (Russia) https://www.zdnet.com/article/russian-military-moves-closer-... - Kylin Linux? (China) https://www.techradar.com/news/china-to-ditch-all-windows-pc... - South Korea https://www.zdnet.com/article/south-koreas-government-explor... Already transition…

Definitely can't blame them for being distrustful. Seems like it would probably be easy enough for Microsoft to hide extra data in the telemetry that Windows 10 already sends home if the NSA or someone were to force them to, and history seems to inform us that US companies have little choice but to comply with such orders.

Just curious, what "history" are you talking about? Do you have some reference links?

Re: German city wants to ditch Microsoft for Linux

#77
post #54

Does Desktop OS matter anymore? So much is running in "browsers" now, even the SpaceX astronaut controls were Electron. The cloud provider is where it's at. AWS, Azure, GCloud ... and nothing from Europe.

Hetzner Cloud is in Germany.

Hetzner is pretty cool, but its a far cry from the vast amount of services offered by the big 3.

Re: German city wants to ditch Microsoft for Linux

#79
post #11
post #3

Iirc, the initiative in Munich was very impressive, with public servants being taught how to file bug reports and whatnot. This is great news imo. Less spending on proprietary software, more accountability, possibly job openings for consultants. Good job Germany! I wish more countries would follow.

Many countries are currently ditching Windows in favor of home grown distros due to distrust of Microsoft. Notable examples: Currently transitioning: - Astra Linux (Russia) https://www.zdnet.com/article/russian-military-moves-closer-... - Kylin Linux? (China) https://www.techradar.com/news/china-to-ditch-all-windows-pc... - South Korea https://www.zdnet.com/article/south-koreas-government-explor... Already transition…

FWIW in each of these countries, except perhaps North Korea, Windows is still king. Kylin, Red Star, and Nova are all very long running projects at this point, and as far as I can tell none of them are a majority even of government desktops.

Re: German city wants to ditch Microsoft for Linux

#80
post #18
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many countries are currently ditching Windows in favor of home grown distros due to distrust of Microsoft. Notable examples: Currently transitioning: - Astra Linux (Russia) https://www.zdnet.com/article/russian-military-moves-closer-... - Kylin Linux? (China) https://www.techradar.com/news/china-to-ditch-all-windows-pc... - South Korea https://www.zdnet.com/article/south-koreas-government-explor... Already transition…

Definitely can't blame them for being distrustful. Seems like it would probably be easy enough for Microsoft to hide extra data in the telemetry that Windows 10 already sends home if the NSA or someone were to force them to, and history seems to inform us that US companies have little choice but to comply with such orders.

Large governments have access to Windows source code.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/securityengineering/gsp

It's more about long-term strategy. China wants full control over their OS. They want features Microsoft would never add. They want support for their own hardware, etc.

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