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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"

#91

Post by rbanffy »

ttt_ wrote: post #21
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'…

Interestingly, as more government entities adopt linux and foss in general, they have a lot more incentive to provide support for that. So maybe in a couple years these government-issued software will target linux distros.

In Brazil, you can submit your tax return forms using applications that run on Windows, Linux and Macs. They probably run on anything with a J2SE runtime.

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

#92

Post by keithpeter »

Xylakant wrote: post #77
keithpeter wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, they'll have to change that for 12.04 unless they compile their own!

Well, they do have an IT department with staff competent enough to make a linux migration. I guess they do have an appropriate rollout management to compile and deploy KDE without much hassle. I wouldn't worry about that.

I'm sure they do, but isn't KDE 3.5 obsolete? They would have to take on the maintenance and security updates themselves...

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

#93

Post by jamesgeck0 »

mjdwitt wrote: post #26
jamesgeck0 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The formatting itn't always preserved perfectly when going back and forth with presentations. Text moves or runs off the bottom of the slide, etc. Also need to make sure to explain about file formats, or chances are pretty good that they'll try to send a LibreOffice file to a MS Office user.

Office can open Open Document types pretty much universally. More complex formatting is generally screwed up though, just as it is when opening MS types in LibreOffice.

Did Office 2003 get the ODF plugin pushed to it over Windows Update? It's on the oldish side, but there are still a lot of people using it.

I remember Office 2007's ODT support being rather poor, too. Most documents I tried to put through it only came through with minimal formatting preserved.

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

#95

Post by efuquen »

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…

"For example: in the K-12 sector, I heard schools are getting 90% discounts. Ninety percent discounts....."

That makes plenty of a sense. If you force people to use Microsoft products while they're young they are much less liable to switch to another platform while they're older. They're use to their tools and people are lazy. So heavily subsidizing educational uses of software makes plenty of sense.

God forbid we ever lived in a hacker culture where kids in K-12 were forced to learn how to code and actually understand how computers worked as part of the curriculum, then Microsoft would be in real trouble.

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

#96

Post by viandante »

edwinnathaniel wrote: post #62
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…

Are you completely ignoring SharePoint integration with Office?

SharePoint is what happens when you force a paradigm (the idea of files) to the limit of good sense. Why do we need Excel sheets lying around in SharePoint? Why not just a decent web interface connected with the databases (external and internal)?

I just today discussed with my boss a proposal from some finance guys of a "dashboard" in power point that will take half day to be manually updated every month. Come on... nobody sees this is plain wrong?

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

#97

Post by viandante »

crazygringo wrote: post #45
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…

Sorry, but LibreOffice (on OSX at least) has been horrendous for me. When scrolling, cells get repainted in adjacent cells, borders don't show up... There are so many display-related bugs that the entire program was rendered completely useless for me. It has nothing to do with making "databases" out of spreadsheets (I was only using 30 rows!), and everything to do with crappy, buggy interface code.

Never had this problems on linux. Actually I was pleased to have a decent csv support in libreOffice.

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

#99

Post by mdda »

skrebbel wrote: post #23

With these kinds of `hooray linux´ articles, I always wonder whether they included the cost of reduced productivity they included when moving everybody from MS Office to LibreOffice and stuff like that. The difference in quality, stability and features is pretty big. I've worked with LibreOffice only for about 8 months, and I can tell you, it's not just a matter of "getting used to". There's simply a whole bunch of b…

This 'getting used to' phase also applies to the Microsoft ribbon[1]. And all the differences from NT-XP-Vista-7.

Moreover, it's more likely that the GUI can be forced to be stable on Linux, while the underlying system receives security updates, because of the separation of components.

[1] Right now, the keystrokes I know for Microsoft Excel still work, but they bear no relationship to the UI at all.

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

#100

Post by mjdwitt »

jamesgeck0 wrote: post #93
mjdwitt wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Office can open Open Document types pretty much universally. More complex formatting is generally screwed up though, just as it is when opening MS types in LibreOffice.

Did Office 2003 get the ODF plugin pushed to it over Windows Update? It's on the oldish side, but there are still a lot of people using it. I remember Office 2007's ODT support being rather poor, too. Most documents I tried to put through it only came through with minimal formatting preserved.

I didn't start using Linux (and therefore LibreOffice) until after I stopped using Office 2003 on any computers, so I don't know about its support for ODT.

2007 did do fairly poorly from what I remember as well. 2010 though is much better; I go back and forth between those fairly regularly. Fonts are obviously an issue, and complex formatting isn't quite right all of the time, but each suite seems to open most of the other's file types fairly well.

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