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"Linux switch saved city millions and reduced user complaints"

computerworlduk.com

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Re: "Linux switch saved city millions and reduced user complaints"

#81

Post by edwinnathaniel »

Xylakant wrote: post #69
cs702 wrote: post #54

Doubtlessly, this successful migration to desktop Linux must have been very difficult, costly, and disruptive. The upfront costs of migration surely exceed what it would have cost the city to stay on Windows for one or two more waves of upgrades. The important question is: were these upfront costs & multi-year effort worth it? The data presented in the article provides compelling evidence that the answer is yes -- i.…

While I support the general notion of your statement, I have to correct some facts: - The recurring costs for licence upgrades are said to be 2.8 Mio Euros every 3 - 4 years. However, there are other cost factors that need to be taken into account: migration and training costs for the new windows and office versions and cost that are now saved since they took the opportunity to unify some of their document management…

Don't forget to add the man-hours related to the licenses:

1) Navigate the licenses

2) Talk to the 3rd-party re-sellers (their response time varies)

3) Approval to purchase

These are "hiccups" that will slow down all projects were you had to go through them (and it is uncommon situation in Microsoft shops).

Re: "Linux switch saved city millions and reduced user complaints"

#82

Post by alan_cx »

keithpeter wrote: post #18

Disclaimer: I'm not a programmer and have been a bystander in medium sized IT projects. Does anyone think that large organisations will tend to move to Web-browser based business applications over the next few years? If so, will that make it easier to switch the client device without major change in the central plumbing?

An accountants firm I was working for 7 years ago was moving that way. It started when they had to upgrade their time and fees software to being browser based. It was far from perfect, but it logically made so much sense. Once they thought about it, it seemed the logical way to go for everything, so they set it as a long term goal. Dunno how far they got, I packed in working at that time. (nothing to do with any of that)

Re: "Linux switch saved city millions and reduced user complaints"

#83

Post by wolf550e »

aerique wrote: post #20
ajuc wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My parents use my old PC with Athlon 2000 and 512 MB RAM, I've instaled last Kubuntu with KDE 3.5 a few years ago, and never needed to touch it since then :) The only problem so far is - once a year they need to use free windows-only application, that doesn't run in WINE, to calculate taxes. They just go to neighborns for a few hours. My sister also has Kubuntu on her laptop, but she knows how to update it, so I don'…

There's always VirtualBox for such things, but it might perhaps not run well enough on a slow, old PC.

That CPU doesn't have hardware virtualization. Emulating a PC with Windows would be very slow.

Re: "Linux switch saved city millions and reduced user complaints"

#84

Post by darklajid »

Maybe interesting as well: Dave Richards is aggregated on planet.gnome.org with his work blog [1] about running the infrastructure of the city of Largo, Florida [2] (granted, far from the size of Munich). Time frame seems similar (since 2006) and his blog contains quite a bit of technical information about the challenges of running a city wide thin client network and the custom software they create for their users.

Its a fun read to learn about how many instances of Firefox you can run on a single machine at any given time as well..

1: http://davelargo.blogspot.com/

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largo,_Florida

Re: "Linux switch saved city millions and reduced user complaints"

#85

Post by doktrin »

DanBC wrote: post #79
doktrin wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did state that Linux was appropriate for enthusiasts as well as those with minimal needs. The reason I feel Linux to be appropriate for novices with bare-minimal needs, is that when operating within very narrow constraints the most popular Linux distros are both efficient and safe. For basic functionality, the price can't be beat. However, hassles really do begin to manifest themselves once users begin to really en…

You got downvoted because you included some traditional anti-Linux troll subjects with nothing to support those points. > However, hassles really do begin to manifest themselves once users begin to really engage their PC in any number of ways. The vast majority of PC users fall into this category. In other words, they have non-minimal needs but are neither enthusiasts nor developers or otherwise employed in IT full t…

>> You got downvoted because you included some traditional anti-Linux troll subjects with nothing to support those points.

I only mentioned the items I have personally had issues with. If these are in fact "troll subjects", there's probably a good reason for it.

>> OS X, in the context of local governments trying to save money, is - and I say this as politely as I can - a stupid suggestion. The hardware is much more expensive, is a lot more desirable to thieves, it has similar (or worse) dual monitor problems as you suggest above, it has similar (or worse) lack of software as you suggest above.

Maybe you're upset because you are purposely mis-reading what I wrote. My choice of OSX over Linux specifically referred to enthusiasts, and had absolutely nothing to do with the Munich local government.

Re: "Linux switch saved city millions and reduced user complaints"

#86

Post by amcintyre »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #9
vibrunazo wrote: post #4

On a parallel anecdote. Installing Ubuntu on my parents PC sure did reduce the amount of assistance they needed from me with crashes and malware. I'd recommend it to anyone who needs to spend some time helping non-tech friends with computer problems :)

Until they call up asking how to get netflix to work

If they've got a monitor/TV that's compatible with a Roku, just spend the $60 for that.

Re: "Linux switch saved city millions and reduced user complaints"

#87

Post by MatthewPhillips »

doktrin wrote: post #44
viandante wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, I would say just the opposite. If your needs are minimal, go with windows. If you need more, linux is a good choice. You will never get a decent terminal in windows or good support for some programming languages (such as python). You are right with Excel although. However, much of the "power" of Excel is really just needed because people are overusing it. Stop making "databases" out of Excel sheets and imple…

I did state that Linux was appropriate for enthusiasts as well as those with minimal needs. The reason I feel Linux to be appropriate for novices with bare-minimal needs, is that when operating within very narrow constraints the most popular Linux distros are both efficient and safe. For basic functionality, the price can't be beat. However, hassles really do begin to manifest themselves once users begin to really en…

I didn't downvote but I generally dislike these types of comments:

> The vast majority of PC users fall into this category.

This comes up all the time on HN. "The vast majority of users think X", "the vast majority of users live in Outlook", "the vast majority of users only need an iPad", etc. etc. The reality is that you have no idea what the vast "majority of users" want or need, you are projecting your own biases and micro-observations onto the world.

Actually I think we need to get over the idea that there is some 80+% of users who all need/want the exact same thing. Seems to me that there are probably a lot more categories out there than the black/white you're either a total novice or a power user world that is constantly constructed here.

Re: "Linux switch saved city millions and reduced user complaints"

#88

Post by rbanffy »

excerionsforte wrote: post #63
rbanffy wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to neglect the fact Office users routinely experience problems with their own documents and programs. Who never had a Word document that, after some heavy editing, refused to load? I have, many times, since the first version of Word for Windows. I've abandoned Office between 2002 and 2008 and, to my surprise, I still had those problems with Word, Project and Outlook (when I had to clean PST files more than o…

When speaking from your experience its easy to say 'many' users have had problems, just like how I can say I've never had a problem with a word document therefore 'many' users have never had a problem with a word document. :) Not sure what kind of editing you do. haha

Most are documents with inserted pictures, pieces of spreadsheets, Visio and Project charts. Insertion and deletion of the non-text elements appeared to significantly increase the chances of creating unreadable documents. Workarounds includes saving under different formats and removing history. I am counting my own problems as well as my closest coworkers.

As with Outlook's PSTs, there were no apparent cause for the corruption - it just happened.

Re: "Linux switch saved city millions and reduced user complaints"

#89

Post by st0p »

mattbriggs wrote: post #15
duncans wrote: post #5

For counter arguments there's some fascinating stuff at http://limuxwatch.blogspot.co.uk/ although it hasn't been updated for a while, so maybe they've finally succeeded?

Yeah, if you read that site you'll see that the Munich switch was really mismanaged and underestimated. This press release sounds more like pr spin then anything, since they we supposed to be done a very long time ago

If every large IT project would be regarded as failed because it was delivered late, the chances of a successfull project would approach zero.

Re: "Linux switch saved city millions and reduced user complaints"

#90

Post by rbanffy »

edwinnathaniel wrote: post #64
cs702 wrote: post #54

Doubtlessly, this successful migration to desktop Linux must have been very difficult, costly, and disruptive. The upfront costs of migration surely exceed what it would have cost the city to stay on Windows for one or two more waves of upgrades. The important question is: were these upfront costs & multi-year effort worth it? The data presented in the article provides compelling evidence that the answer is yes -- i.…

It's good for them that they haven't caught the "SharePoint" (and soon, InfoPath) wave yet cause if they do, the migration cost will rise quite significantly. Most offices these days do use SharePoint heavily and some of the BAs started their hands on InfoPath to make forms for data entry to SharePoint. To make matter worse (or sweeter, depending your POV), these whole thing can be acquired cheaper by using Office 36…

> It's good for them that they haven't caught the "SharePoint" (and soon, InfoPath) wave yet cause if they do, the migration cost will rise quite significantly.

You must not forget to factor in the huge pain of living with SharePoint. A good friend of mine, heavy Microsoft user (and advocate) regularly complains about downtime and data loss because of their SharePoint install. They were forced into it because Microsoft is one of their most important clients and demanded that they use it (or they'd move their business to a competitor)

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