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German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

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Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#281

Post by nick__m »

aembleton wrote: post #192
cardanome wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly does not work? What Distro were you using? Serious question because my experience is that I install Linux Mint and everything just works. Updates never break anything. Why should they? The only arguable pain point is maybe graphics drivers but honestly installing proprietary ones is just a few clicks these days. Plus you don't need them for office work anyway. (Maybe also some power saving features on ce…

Fingerprint reader does not work in Manjaro.

If you have "supported" hardware, the Arch wiki probably have a solution to that problem: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Fprint

Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#282

Post by jotadevmc »

nivenkos wrote: post #24

Now switch to Linux too. The more we invest together, the easier it becomes. German states can help Spanish states, and Finnish schools, Danish universities, and French businesses, etc. - collaboratively investing so that everyone benefits and Europe can build its own Tech industry and have some independence from the US. This is absolutely critical to move away from the dominance of "Big Tech" to FOSS solutions that…

In Spain some steps have already been taken. At least on Madrid, all schools use MAX, which is developed by public workers and includes useful open-source apps that integrate with the existing EducaMadrid platform, entirely run on open-source software. With that said, people have a hard time using it compared to Windows, which they are most likely already used to use. It also becomes a problem when you need to use it at home. Most people dont know how to install an OS.

Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#283

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #139
formerly_proven wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Munich did that a few years ago, which got rolled back after they elected the dude mayor who got Microsoft to move their German headquarters to Munich. Completely unrelated events, of course. There were of course some technical problems as well, e.g. because a number of administrative tasks can only be performed using Excel 2003 with VBS macros enabled and stuff like that, as well as "technical problems", like "users…

Uhh "users can't install software themselves" is how things are supposed to be. If you're still giving everyone admin rights you're going to have a fun time every time one of them falls for phishing.

In my experience I would say that limiting users in this way, unless they have a very standardized workflow and will never be expected to deviate from it, is a terrible idea. Most of the risks you're actually afraid of don't need local admin to do significant damage. Locking people out of their local OS just protects the local OS (which is trivially reimaged), not their documents, and not the resources they have access to on the network; you know, the stuff you actually care about. Sure, there are a (very) small number of new attack vectors opened into your network by programs which can get local admin, most of which you should be mitigating against anyway, but compared to the added friction you cause the users by taking it away those are just not worth it. And that's before you consider privilege escalation attacks that make it irrelevant if the user even has local admin.

Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#284

Post by pasabagi »

GravitasFailure wrote: post #270
pasabagi wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually thought this when I was writing the comment. The difference is, you call the manufacturer when you actually need their specific expertise, and when they're your best option. You're not obligated to. They haven't generally purposefully hidden the internals of the machine from you - and most machines are designed to be serviced by end-users. If every software supplier was like hilti when it came to support,…

> you call the manufacturer when you actually need their specific expertise, and when they're your best option. You're not obligated to. That depends entirely on the terms of your lease and service agreements. For high end equipment, like the CNC systems at my work, you may not even be given the option to purchase them, and they're so specialized you probably won't have someone that can competently work on them even…

I guess specialized equipment isn't really the analogue for most software. Most software is a bit like a hammer - a generic tool with worldwide application.

I can see the closed-source approach working for really complicated subdomains (like a geometrical constraint solver) where you really can't fix it unless you're immersed in the relevant maths - but that's just not what most software is, or where most bugs lie.

Another thing is, how many of the machines in any given factory are that specialized? My dad works in a factory with a bunch of different machines, and only in a couple of cases would it make sense to call an engineer if they broke down, because most of the machines are pretty straightforward. Is that just warping my expectations?

Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#285

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

namdnay wrote: post #212
go_elmo wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only saw linux machines in SE companies so far (at least remote ones). Maybe, just maybe, it is because non-tech people 1) cant handle it as cli is needed from time to time 2) because personal preferences & habits make it almost impossible to "force" using linux on staff..?

3) Excel macros and VBscript

4) distribution madness

5) lack of userland backwards compatibility

6) poor commercial application support...

Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#286

Post by olyjohn »

zoomablemind wrote: post #259
earthnail wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from Munich. As much as I would've liked that project to succeed (I really did), I can tell you that Limux - that was the project's name - was a brutal usability disaster. As in, almost meme-level bad. It's like the Berlin airport in software. Sure, Microsoft has a huge office in Munich, and they definitely applied political pressure, too (it'd be naive to assume they didn't). The project's stated goal was to be…

>...I REALLY hope the LibreOffice transition goes well. If anything that rings alert on my mind is the LO's Calc, which at times decides to become slow and consume the CPU for no apparent reason. Or equally annoying flacky interoprability betwen LO Writer and MS Office Word (works in general, but loses some alignment, magles styles etc.) As much as I'm for LO and want them to succeed, I feel for the clerks dealing wi…

You say you want them to succeed, but I don't believe you are sincere. This negativity with anecdotal evidence is so annoying. Like the whole world will come to a halt because some document formatting got fucked up.

I see this same shit with Excel all the time. It's fucking FULL of bugs that have just been around for so long, people just get used to it and work around it.

I mean, if you selected a group of 30 rows in Excel, then use CTRL to deselect one row in the middle... it doesn't deselect it, it "selects" the row again, so now it's just darker than all the other rows. Is this fixed yet? It was a bug in fucking Office 2016 and goes back years. Nobody said it wasn't ready for use!

It's such a fucking basic feature. To de-select a single row out of a group that is selected. It's the single most counter-productive thing ever. When I found this bug, I was blown away that nobody ever complained about it! I worked with thousands upon thousands of people with Excel and it was never a problem?!

Word doesn't even play nice with it's own files... ever moved a file from Office 2013 to Office 2016? I've seen it garble files a million times. Move a Word doc from Mac to Windows and shit gets hosed sometimes.

The clerks will get used to the issues. Just the same way that they got used to the hot fucking garbage that Microsoft charges enterprises and governments substantial amounts of money for, and provides precisely dick for support in return.

EDIT: I mean look at this shit! Apparently deselecting is a new concept to Microsoft!

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/deselect-a-select...

Note: This feature is only available in Excel for Window if you have Office 2019, or if you have a Microsoft 365 subscription. If you are a Microsoft 365 subscriber, make sure you have the latest version of Office.

Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#287

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

pessimizer wrote: post #196
9dev wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the standard reaction I’ve heard so often from experienced Linux users, but you tend to forget all the trouble you’re able to solve because you know what you’re doing. Consider proprietary graphics drivers - ordinary people won’t even know why that is an issue, where to look if the display flickers, or what even drivers are. And that’s just the start of it… I’ve never had a Linux box that didn’t require me to…

> Consider proprietary graphics drivers - ordinary people won’t even know why that is an issue, where to look if the display flickers, or what even drivers are. Why would an employee that wasn't part of IT procurement ever be thinking about that? If you're telling me that it's impossible to hire a single person for procurement who can figure out whether your machines will run on the OS your organization has chosen, I…

Because there are only two ways to get up to date software on Linux: 1) run a bleeding edge distro, 2) compile from source.

Neither of these are good options.

Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#288

Post by philliphaydon »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #139
formerly_proven wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Munich did that a few years ago, which got rolled back after they elected the dude mayor who got Microsoft to move their German headquarters to Munich. Completely unrelated events, of course. There were of course some technical problems as well, e.g. because a number of administrative tasks can only be performed using Excel 2003 with VBS macros enabled and stuff like that, as well as "technical problems", like "users…

Uhh "users can't install software themselves" is how things are supposed to be. If you're still giving everyone admin rights you're going to have a fun time every time one of them falls for phishing.

I just heard that our new hire got his company issued laptop and can’t do work because he can’t install the software he needs. He has to organise with it to get it installed. To do software qa.

If i was in that situation I would just reformat the computer. Luckily I don’t have a company issued laptop. I gave it back because it was a Dell XPS aeroplane. I use my own laptop for work.

Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#289

Post by [deleted] »

olyjohn wrote: post #286
zoomablemind wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>...I REALLY hope the LibreOffice transition goes well. If anything that rings alert on my mind is the LO's Calc, which at times decides to become slow and consume the CPU for no apparent reason. Or equally annoying flacky interoprability betwen LO Writer and MS Office Word (works in general, but loses some alignment, magles styles etc.) As much as I'm for LO and want them to succeed, I feel for the clerks dealing wi…

You say you want them to succeed, but I don't believe you are sincere. This negativity with anecdotal evidence is so annoying. Like the whole world will come to a halt because some document formatting got fucked up. I see this same shit with Excel all the time. It's fucking FULL of bugs that have just been around for so long, people just get used to it and work around it. I mean, if you selected a group of 30 rows in…

[deleted]

Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#290

Post by f6v »

go_elmo wrote: post #203
f6v wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you could save money by switching to Linux from Windows, I’d expect to see much more Linux machines in corporations.

I only saw linux machines in SE companies so far (at least remote ones). Maybe, just maybe, it is because non-tech people 1) cant handle it as cli is needed from time to time 2) because personal preferences & habits make it almost impossible to "force" using linux on staff..?

> because personal preferences & habits make it almost impossible to "force" using linux on staff..?

I’m willing to speculate office workers won’t care. More and more people will have smartphone as the only personal computer. So it won’t be about them not wanting to use Linux at work because they run Windows at home.

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