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German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

blog.documentfoundation.org

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

#311

Post by ndiddy »

nivenkos wrote: post #42
RedShift1 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your arguments but the Linux desktop sucks, I would never want to use it full time let alone support it (note that I used to be a full time Linux desktop user, I left after KDE 4 came about). Linus Tech Tips is running a series on desktop Linux and they are hitting the hammer on the nail where exactly all the pain points are.

I've used Linux full-time at home for 10 years, and now at work (in an enterprise). For the most part, it works well and doesn't require a whole lot more support. The LTT video hit one specific packaging bug in PopOS that was present for only an hour, and was unfortunate. But to judge so much on that is unreasonable, shit happens in software engineering, it'd be like trying to use Facebook in the window where it was…

> The LTT video hit one specific packaging bug in PopOS that was present for only an hour

The PopOS install ISO was made during when the packaging bug was occurring. and remained up for months. They finally replaced it after the Linus Tech Tips video came out. Anyone who installed Steam without first updating the system broke their install.

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

#312

Post by ptman »

ruph123 wrote: post #269
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 always wondered why they had to create their own fork. I had the feeling that this is unecessary maintenance work that they took on and a "not invented here" philosophy. Why not just use one of the avaible distros or why not even make a deal with SUSE (a bavarian company) to have a subscription model with support directly from experienced distro makers? Surely they could've made sure that all important features and…

The big distros are quite customizable in order to suit a large audience. A large organization typically has defaults and customizations that need to be added. A common strategy is to _distribute_ their customizations by creating a distribution based on some more widely used distribution. Google had Goobuntu based on Ubuntu.

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

#313

Post by GravitasFailure »

pasabagi wrote: post #284
GravitasFailure wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. A…

>I can see the closed-source approach working for really complicated subdomains (like a geometrical constraint solver)

Ha! Funny you should bring that up. CAD is one of the reasons why I don't run Linux as my daily driver and I just don't see the current projects ever catching up with companies like Dassault or Autodesk thanks to the size of their teams. Overall I think I agree with your assessment, there's nothing that special in most software that most people or companies need, but wow does it suck when you're not most people.

As for specialized equipment...if you're making boutique soap, the equipment is specialized but not terribly special, so you can and probably will work on it yourself or contract with a local service company rather than getting a factory tech for every little thing, but if you're cranking out high precision parts it's pretty standard for a tech to hop on a plane at a moment's notice to get your equipment running again because it's usually cheaper to do that with an expert than to suffer extended downtime. I couldn't say what the exact breakdown is of total machines in the US that falls into the two categories, but the more precise and automated it is the less likely you are to own or work on it.

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

#314

Post by sneak »

3np wrote: post #214
tryptophan wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I want to support libreOffice, my experience has been the same as yours. The whole office suite just feels so janky/stutter-y/not-smooth. Its like there are fps drops or slight pauses before many actions. It is quite irritating. Also on a hidpi/4k display, many things still do not scale properly.

I wonder if there some specific bug you’re both hitting? I have a modest workstation and have not experienced this (fwiw 99% Writer/Calc, with the occasional slideshow)

Same experience yesterday running latest stable from the website on a brand new M1M MBP with Monterey. Laggy, with a garish UI straight out of 1998.

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

#315

Post by mixmastamyk »

tdeck wrote: post #310
gentleman11 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that a lot of organizations see foss as purely a free thing and not an investment. If they put half the money they spent on licensing into paying people to improve the foss packages they use, the ecosystem would transform and everyone would benefit. Massive cost savings overall, and it would push paid software to work harder to compete (who knows, it might even force Microsoft to offer decent privacy p…

Organizations like school systems don't have a great track record managing custom software projects. They don't know what to look for and who to hire, and how much things should cost. It's very likely that these problems would translate into funding FOSS development as well. Also, it's a big headache to manage custom development compared to buying or downloading an off the shelf package.

This is the opposite of custom development for the most part, with the exception of some integration work.

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

#316

Post by mixmastamyk »

apexalpha wrote: post #130
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…

To be fair, you're probably downlplaying it. How much enterprise software runs on Linux? Probably not a lot. LibreOffice is nice, but it can't compete with MS office. let alone Exchange, outlook...

Strange that so much of it moved to the web then, isn’t it?

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

#317

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

cardanome wrote: post #309
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What does "up to date" even mean in this context? It's not like there is a new version of Kmail every day. Why do you care if your version is a bit older? Honestly, anything that a developer has pushed. Sometimes I want an SVN build of DOSBox or need a bleeding edge feature of some tool I use all the time. On Windows, this is simply a matter of downloading a binary, but by and large Linux software doesn't work that…

For this we now have the AppImage format! (or snap/flatpack depending on your preference) For the few cases were you need bleeding edge you can just download and run it just like on Windows. For most applications bleeding edge is really not necessary and you can just normally install via package manager.

If only that were true, but there isn't an AppImage (my preference, but same applies to flat and sanp too) for every program. Or even most programs in my experience.

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

#318

Post by necovek »

deknos wrote: post #179
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'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. Bullshit > The simple truth is that Microsoft's products were/are just far superior than what the Limux initiative shipped. The Linux transition caused massive productivi…

It'd greatly help if you focused on the arguments you want to share — I understand the frustration from someone claiming your work is "subpar", but this way your message gets lost altogether.

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

#319

Post by Folcon »

nivenkos wrote: post #53
Folcon wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who used to be an avid linux desktop user, but has subsequently moved away from it and is interested in the current ecosystem with a view to maybe coming back, what would you say is a good entry point? I used to run Ubuntu back in the day if that helps. I'm curious to get a sense of how much has changed.

I'd recommend Arch Linux for developers. It takes a little bit of set-up / learning at the start. But you can easily try it out with a tool like ALMA - https://github.com/r-darwish/alma See my preset files here - https://github.com/jamesmcm/arch-i3-usb But PopOS is probably the closest to the previous beginner Ubuntu experience now.

Thanks for the presets, I'll have a glance through it.

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

#320

Post by Folcon »

Iolaum wrote: post #79
Folcon wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who used to be an avid linux desktop user, but has subsequently moved away from it and is interested in the current ecosystem with a view to maybe coming back, what would you say is a good entry point? I used to run Ubuntu back in the day if that helps. I'm curious to get a sense of how much has changed.

Go with a mainstream distro to experiment and get a hang of it like Ubuntu, Fedora, PopOS, Mint etc. Main reason is that searching for sulutions in the web is much better for distros with a big user-base. Additionally understanding the trade-offs of different distros is very hard if you are not already in the ecosystem, hence just go with something to get your foot in the door and don't sweat it. Once you experience…

I didn't get on much with fedora when I last used it, it sounds like it's gotten better though.
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