"Linux switch saved city millions and reduced user complaints" • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by Xylakant » Mon, Apr 02, 2012, 9:52 PM UTC

tbsdy wrote: post #35

I love Linux myself, and I have no doubt that they've saved money, but the following makes me a little concerned about how they are going about Service Management: "Ude said it was impossible to be exact about the amount of complaints the help desk gets about LiMux, noting that most problems are a combination of several causes. The software is not always the problem, since often there are problems reaching a server,…

I'm speculating a little here, but there might be legal restrictions keeping them from reaching that goal. The basic argument is that any tool that may be used to track work performance (such as a tool tracking user errors) may be abused to control the employees work and thus may need union approval. I've run into this issue multiple times when doing work for government or government-like institutions in germany, once in pretty much the same constellation: A tool for defect tracking in IT was shot down because the union was afraid that it might be used to single out low-performing employees by tracking their computer problems. (sounds silly, I agree, but we're talking germany and we do have our own standards of sillyness.)

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

#112

Post by Xylakant » Mon, Apr 02, 2012, 9:55 PM UTC

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

Actually, the article is not based on a press release. The original document is a response of the cities administration to a question brought up in the cities council chamber. The question was brought up because Vienna obviously stopped its WieMux migration.

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

#113

Post by VMG » Mon, Apr 02, 2012, 10:17 PM UTC

Splines wrote: post #103

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'…

> 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. If you're in the US, I've been using the web app tax software and it's been great. Nothing to install locally and my progress is always saved. Maybe not for you if you are in a complex tax situation, but if your life is simple doing it onl…

Just a random thought: as a German I have the impression that people here would be much too paranoid to do something like that over the internet, even with SSL.

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

#114

Post by jwildeboer » Mon, Apr 02, 2012, 10:21 PM UTC

tzs wrote: post #98

Have they actually saved anything when you take into account nearly a decade (so far) spent on doing this migration? The Munich migration is pretty much the canonical example of how to botch a Linux migration.

Yes. And 6 years (2006 the migration started) is far from "nearly a decade" if I can trust my math. The Munich migration has been attacked, downplayed, doomed for as long as it is running. The article here gives some hard data based on a reply to a request from the opposing political party in Munich that hoped to get some ammo to attack the migration. Instead they got well researched data that shows the opposite - so far they are absolutely in budget, saved 30-60% of costs (as planned), reduced support costs (as hoped) and created a side project called WollMux that tremendously helps in migrating the VB cruft and macro ridden templates that accumulated over the past 10-15 years into a reusable library of centralized functions.

They "deduplicated" a lot of redundant forms (one little example: The act of asking for PTO was implemented in 45(!) different forms depending where you work in Munich - now it is one single unified service for all) and by centralising stuff they can now do useful statistics that simply didn't exist before.

The focus on Open Standards starts saving a lot of time and money in the archives already.

(Disclaimer: I work for Red Hat, have been involved privately in the migration a bit since 2005)

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

#115

Post by flomo » Mon, Apr 02, 2012, 10:33 PM UTC

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

My understanding is that Munich had a lot of issues which were orthogonal to Linux - decentralized support, lack of inventory, lack of standards. Of course, it didn't help that the original proponents were of an 'ideological' bent and perhaps bit off more than they could chew.

Either way, a 9 year IT project is really dismal.

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

#116

Post by AnthonyMouse » Mon, Apr 02, 2012, 10:51 PM UTC

Uchikoma wrote: post #59

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't a matter of comparing like for like; that isn't the problem. The problem is that the single cheapest Mac laptop is $1000. If all you're doing is web and email, you may not need a Core i5 or SSD. You can get a PC laptop which is more than fast enough for Mom usage for less than half that price, especially if you put Ubuntu on it and don't have to run antivirus.

"It isn't a matter of comparing like for like; that isn't the problem." Never heard that in a discussion. I thought it was all about comparing like to like. The OP didn't say "for reading emails". Especially as he gave the example of 100% Office compatibility (Office 2011?). Or you could compare live time value. I've broken several Thinkpads in a small amount of time, my wife uses a MacBook for more than 5 years with…

Is your premise that you need a Core i5 to use Office? That seems like a stretch. You can get Core i3 or AMD A-series laptops in the $500 range which are more than fast enough for Office and still half the price of any Mac laptop, e.g. this one:

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=bqct14...

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

#117

Post by rhizome » Mon, Apr 02, 2012, 11:34 PM UTC

ccozan wrote: post #51

fleitz wrote: post #41

They moved from Windows NT to Linux in 2006 . No wonder it reduced complaints. I'd be far more interested in a migration from Win 7 or Win XP to Linux.

I think the main reason was independence from vendors - since they were based on NT and Microsoft just pulled the support - ouch!, not necessarily nicety or features of a desktop. The whole infrastructure was changed and not just some frontend.

I can't find a reference right now, but in 2003-2006 there was a huge jump in license costs for Microsoft customers.

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

#118

Post by rbanffy » Tue, Apr 03, 2012, 1:48 AM UTC

Splines wrote: post #107

rbanffy wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I work at Microsoft on the Word team. If you have a problem with a Word document, shoot me an email (it's in my profile) and I'll see what I can do.

I no longer use Word (back to Linux and LO for work), but I'll keep an eye on the Windows and Mac coworkers and reach you if I hear anyone experiencing these kinds of problems. We also have a consultancy working on a large project with lots of documentation and specs being generated as Word documents with Excel, Project and Visio elements embedded. I'll get in touch with them as I suspect they are the most likely to be hit by problems like the ones I had.

As for the other projects and teams, we have significantly reduced the use of Project as we moved our tracking to Jira and use Confluence to keep almost all project artifacts. Despite the fact we still use Exchange for e-mail, I dropped desktop software and moved completely to OWA, with Evolution doing backups over IMAP into a local maildir rsynced to a durable datastore.

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

#119

Post by ekianjo » Tue, Apr 03, 2012, 2:02 AM UTC

kaolinite wrote: post #58

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…

FYI, I upvoted even though I disagree with much of what you've put. A number of these issues that you mention are only present with a lack of planning. If you go out and buy a computer with the intention of running Linux on it, you plan and you pick a computer with good compatibility. With each release of popular distros such as Ubuntu, compatibility improves massively. My Dad's laptop used to have issues with WiFi a…

I'd add that when you install a Linux distro (at least a good one like Ubuntu, OpenSuse, CentOS), you end up with a working environement with all your hardware recognized at once (except ATI issues). You just can't do the same with Windows. You have to download every part's driver and install them one by one before you got something working. Linux distros have come a long way and now they are simply amazingly easy to setup.

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

#120

Post by DrStalker » Tue, Apr 03, 2012, 2:07 AM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #90

edwinnathaniel wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Microso…

I've worked with corporate SharePoint and never heard any complaints about downtime; I've even manage a messy SharePoint environment that was left to "rot" with insufficient maintenance (both on SharePoint and on the servers) and it never went down.

Where we did have big problems was finding developers to work with it; we actually found a few that had worked with it but deliberately avoiding listing it as a skill because they did not want to ever work with it again. (in Sydney a few years ago)