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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

#231

Post by h91wka »

coldtea wrote: post #219
h91wka wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they? Russia, for example, is neo-feudalist, not capitalist.

Many western countries had similar strongmen. Some even had a bona fide royalty class, lording over common people, and then their sons, and grandsons lording in turn... That aside, modern Russia has tons of capitalists... Crony capitalism is still capitalism, and there are tons of proper companies there besides. Not everything is owned by some government-friendly mafioso. But when a regime collapses, like USSR did an…

> That aside, modern Russia has tons of capitalists

They are the least protected class, who live under constant threat of business extortion by corrupt government clerks. That's pretty much the opposite of "cut-throat capitalism".

Re: German city wants to ditch Microsoft for Linux

#232

Post by coldtea »

h91wka wrote: post #231
coldtea wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many western countries had similar strongmen. Some even had a bona fide royalty class, lording over common people, and then their sons, and grandsons lording in turn... That aside, modern Russia has tons of capitalists... Crony capitalism is still capitalism, and there are tons of proper companies there besides. Not everything is owned by some government-friendly mafioso. But when a regime collapses, like USSR did an…

> That aside, modern Russia has tons of capitalists They are the least protected class, who live under constant threat of business extortion by corrupt government clerks. That's pretty much the opposite of "cut-throat capitalism".

>They are the least protected class, who live under constant threat of business extortion by corrupt government clerks.

Not exactly, they are the ones who are friendly with the corrupt government clerks. It's not like government trumps capitalism, it's more like capitalists own friends in high places...

So same as in most countries...

Re: German city wants to ditch Microsoft for Linux

#233

Post by johannes1234321 »

em-bee wrote: post #227
johannes1234321 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

6 years ago there was an election and the conservative party and the mayor went to Windows (after Microsoft moved German headquarters from a suburb to the city) This year we had a new election now Green party leads the city council and they want to go back to Linux. Now Hamburg, where the Green party also won big, wants to change as well. Hamburg is even more significant since Hamburg not only is Germany's second lar…

to give an example of where that difference between hamburg and munich could come into play: munic can not decide to put linux into its schools, because as a decision that would have to happen at the state level, that is bavaria. but hamburg can. so if the hamburg transition is successful, that may translate into more Free Software in schools, which will be a model for the other german states.

It's more nuanced. Munich has municipal schools and at least on administration side it can do what they want there. However curriculum is made on state level, thus if the curriculum depends on Microsoft software (explicit about Excel etc.?) They would have to comply. Also some state funding budgets, i.e. for getting a few machines, might be bound to "default configurations" thus for going Linux the city might have to pay out of its own budget ...

Re: German city wants to ditch Microsoft for Linux

#234

Post by shim__ »

xur17 wrote: post #120
zubspace wrote: post #112

I may very well be part of a minority, but after working with Windows for the last 20 or so years I got used to it's quirks. And yes, I actually like it. Windows 10 on a Dell Latitude or XPS is stable, fast and I can run everything under the sun. Office applications, very domain specific applications like the Adobe suite, uncountable useful utility software, cross platform tools like Gimp, Blender or Krita. And still…

As a counter point, I've been working with Linux for the last 20 or so years, and I've gotten quite used it its quirks. It would take a lot to get me to switch at this point - I vastly prefer using it to both Windows and OSX (I used a OSX machine for 4 years at my last job, and have used Windows off and on). If Windows was free, and Linux cost $200, I'd still go with Linux. I guess my point is that a lot of the reaso…

I'm in the same boat, every time that I have to use Windows I'll get annoyed by how complicated even simple things are. Not to mention the endless amount of menus and setup wizards you have to click through to get anything done.

Re: German city wants to ditch Microsoft for Linux

#235

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

cycloptic wrote: post #209
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't even need to resort to commercial apps. A lot of older and niche software simply isn't in the repo. In Windows land you can download a binary and it will almost certainly run, and 10 years of updates later it will still almost certainly still run. In Linux land you'll probably have to compile it yourself. And 10 years from now you will probably have to make changes to C files manually because APIs have been…

You don't have to compile it yourself. You just do the same thing you would do with windows: keep old versions of the OS around and run them in a VM. (Running them in a container is also potentially an option which is not available on Windows) In some cases the old packages for library dependencies are still available too. For example see here for the packages from old debian versions: https://www.debian.org/distrib/…

Here's the thing about Windows: having to keep around an old version of the OS and run it in a VM is the exception. Often software that is 20 years old will not require this.

On Linux, that's often the rule for software that is 2 years old!

Re: German city wants to ditch Microsoft for Linux

#236

Post by sn_master »

sn_master wrote: post #2

"and better local control over the code powering the whole thing" I am finding it hard to think the city would have engineers releasing their own Kernel.

Not sure why the downvites, but do cities really want to invest in software engineers with enough background to analyze software patches, compile and deploy them vs regular IT technicians who can do the same job at fraction of the effort/salary and be replaced far more easily ?

I am genuinely curious why would someone think that's an advantage. Please give some explanation atleast after the downvote.

Re: German city wants to ditch Microsoft for Linux

#237

Post by cycloptic »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #235
cycloptic wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to compile it yourself. You just do the same thing you would do with windows: keep old versions of the OS around and run them in a VM. (Running them in a container is also potentially an option which is not available on Windows) In some cases the old packages for library dependencies are still available too. For example see here for the packages from old debian versions: https://www.debian.org/distrib/…

Here's the thing about Windows: having to keep around an old version of the OS and run it in a VM is the exception . Often software that is 20 years old will not require this. On Linux, that's often the rule for software that is 2 years old !

>Often software that is 20 years old will not require this.

A quick search around the net reveals this to be false, because Windows XP Mode doesn't work in windows 10. I haven't used windows in many years so you'll have to forgive me if there's something I'm missing here, but I see quite a few pages like this complaining about XP programs being broken or requiring a lot of fiddling to get working: https://www.dosgamers.com/windows-xp/windows-xp-games

It makes no sense to me that you have no problem with this, but at the same time you're complaining about having to type something like "docker run ubuntu:precise" to get an old version of a Linux userspace running inside a container. If this is too much work then you can pay Canonical or Red Hat or any of the other numerous Linux companies for a support contract for an LTS distro. This seems to be very similar to the situation in redmond where you now have to pay for an extended support contract if you realistically want to keep using Windows XP/7.

Re: German city wants to ditch Microsoft for Linux

#238

Post by trekrich »

rb808 wrote: post #71
trekrich wrote: post #23

Makes you wonder if Microsoft had conducted them selves better with Windows 10, then they might not have been looking at doing this. Windows 10 has been a total mess.

source?

erm any IT professional that has had to deploy windows 10 using MDT or SCCM? The never ending new versions of Windows 10 that need to be deployed. Windows 10 should have been the LTSC version right out of the gate. None of that chaffy Microsoft Store they are back peddling on. And all the other issues that have came along since the OS release.

Re: German city wants to ditch Microsoft for Linux

#239

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

cycloptic wrote: post #237
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the thing about Windows: having to keep around an old version of the OS and run it in a VM is the exception . Often software that is 20 years old will not require this. On Linux, that's often the rule for software that is 2 years old !

>Often software that is 20 years old will not require this. A quick search around the net reveals this to be false, because Windows XP Mode doesn't work in windows 10. I haven't used windows in many years so you'll have to forgive me if there's something I'm missing here, but I see quite a few pages like this complaining about XP programs being broken or requiring a lot of fiddling to get working: https://www.dosgame…

This is my point: sometimes 20 year old Windows software doesn't work. What you're seeing is evidence that it is the exception rather than the rule because people expect it to work because it usually does.

In the Linux world, the community is pretty actively hostile to people simply wanting to run software not in the repo let alone originally compiled 20 years ago.

Re: German city wants to ditch Microsoft for Linux

#240

Post by cycloptic »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #239
cycloptic wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Often software that is 20 years old will not require this. A quick search around the net reveals this to be false, because Windows XP Mode doesn't work in windows 10. I haven't used windows in many years so you'll have to forgive me if there's something I'm missing here, but I see quite a few pages like this complaining about XP programs being broken or requiring a lot of fiddling to get working: https://www.dosgame…

This is my point: sometimes 20 year old Windows software doesn't work. What you're seeing is evidence that it is the exception rather than the rule because people expect it to work because it usually does . In the Linux world, the community is pretty actively hostile to people simply wanting to run software not in the repo let alone originally compiled 20 years ago.

I don't see any evidence to support the assertion that this is the exception rather than the rule. My searching has only shown evidence to the contrary, that various fiddling and workarounds need to be done to get old apps working properly in Windows 10. Even moreso if you want to use some of the newer features they're promoting, like tablet mode or high-DPI. Legacy apps just don't magically work in those situations. Here is another source for this directly from MS, where various workarounds are suggested: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3025083. Again I am not a windows user and I'm just going off of web searches so if you have some other evidence then please tell me. I just simply do not believe that MS has some kind of magical solution for perfect backwards compatibility. Supporting that stuff continues to take up engineering time and they will also gladly charge you an arm and a leg if you insist on needing it.

>In the Linux world, the community is pretty actively hostile to people simply wanting to run software not in the repo

This is wrong. Supporting software that is not in the repo has been the primary reason for adoption of containers, and also other similar things like flatpak and snap. The only difference with these is that the upstream distro cannot possibly support them because it goes outside their scope, so you have to get support from somewhere else.

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