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German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

zdnet.com

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Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#141

Post by maxcoder4 »

briHass wrote: post #117
holografix wrote: post #21

Very hard for me to understand why, in a world of Google docs, anyone would want to deal with the bloated mess that is ms office. I was helping an elderly relative who works as a translator and hasn’t touched a modern version of word in about 5 years. They had a new computer and I got an ms office sub for them. The poor person re-did about 4 hours of their work 3x because they couldn’t find the file MS Word had guara…

People always forget about Outlook. Name me a competing desktop app that does integrated calendar, email, todo, and meetings as well as Outlook. Thunderbird is (unfortunately) a joke, and web clients aren't as nice when managing complex folder arrangements and lots of mail.

Honest question, what's wrong with Thunderbird? I never used Outlook, and I use Thunderbird daily so I wonder what I miss [1]. It also picked up development a bit and got some nice improvements, maybe check it out of you didn't recently. But I'm really curious why is it bad.

[1] I'm pretty sure outlook users miss good GPG support, at least.

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#142

Post by nimbius »

rudedogg wrote: post #131
nimbius wrote: post #127

Go Germany go! In the diesel repair shop I work in, I managed to convince the suits to switch out ms office for libre office. 90% of our stuff is now libre by default...only 2 users have full office suites and theyre both in the bean counting department. We print our BOMs, labels, envelopes and invoices using libre. Compared to office it runs like a scalded dog and never crashes.

That’s awesome. What distro did you go with? Do you have to help maintain them, or have they ever broken?

Windows for the majority of machines (we already own desktop licenses) but i keep 3-4 old laptops with ubuntu we nicknamed "crap outs" in case someone's PC dies, someone needs a laptop ASAP at a jobsite, or the IT gang needs to get fix someone's main PC. Our shops big label maker and 3d printer machine is currently 100% Ubuntu and is a favorite for a Lotta guys on the floor.

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#143

Post by unsignedint »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #87
FdbkHb wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Very hard for me to understand why, in a world of Google docs, anyone would want to deal with the bloated mess that is ms office. I see you have never opened a large spreadsheet in competing software or you wouldn't call MS Office bloated. Sheets and Calc are extremely slow, inefficient software. Excel alone, if you have a use for it, makes it well worth the price of admission. It simply has no competition and neit…

The pros you mention above are true for the desktop versions, but most definitely not the browser versions, in my experience. The browser versions feel squishy and feature incomplete and the interface is different enough to be annoying enough for me to avoid it like the donut with a hair on it. Mine is a very Excel-centric view. I wouldn't miss anything else in the office suite.

I’m keen to understand what features you found lacking in the web version of Office. My initial impressions aligned with yours; however, upon recent usage, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by its extensive feature set. While advanced data extraction capabilities in Excel are notably absent, the web version otherwise provides a comprehensive array of functionalities.

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#144

Post by mjfl »

For me Linux is so much better a user experience due to the lack of bloat in the operating system. Microsoft seems to be getting more and more intrusive with its data collection, in addition. Furthermore, being a foreign government that has been subject to US espionage in the past, I'm sure it's better for Germany to use an open source OS rather than US-state back software system.

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#145

Post by alluro2 »

raincole wrote: post #116
xattt wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Word and Excel, like Photoshop, are dominant because of their maturity as well as the muscle memory of their users. People were pissed 18 years ago when the Office ribbon was implemented because it broke their workflow. MS might have gussied it up now, but they haven’t dared to reinvent it since.

I honestly still hate office ribbon.

Same here - there are 1000 options, across 15 tabs, and I have to look through all the icons and labels till I find the one, with active tab and even displayed options changing depending on content selection.... It's a constant battle if you don't spend hours a day in MS apps and develop muscle memory.

I do realize that there are probably no ideal UIs for accessing such a breadth of options, and it was a valid attempt, but not really successful, imo. With some adjustment and practice by users, I believe something like Alfred within the app, with smart search and suggestions, would be a quicker and more efficient approach for tool activation. Since there has to be also a good way to discover features without explicitly searching for them, maybe something like the Start menu is the right approach - quick search, but also categories and lists of tools.

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#146

Post by jseliger »

orwin wrote: post #97
jseliger wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing/editing offline, complex formatting, familiarity. I'm not an Excel jockey but friends who are testify to its power and flexibility. I use Word a lot and the ease of use still beats gdoc's. For example, the macros and the "customize keyboard" options are great. cmd-l for "next edit," cmd-j for "accept and move on," cmd-; for "reject change." The speed is paramount.

To be fair, or maybe only in my opinion (but i had a teacher who agreed with me so :/), from at least 2008 until at least 2012 (So from when i discovered how nice it was until after i quit using word/openoffice entirely and only used Latex), OpenOffice/libreoffice templating features were more powerful than word's, although less intuitive. Gdoc is shitty however and i don't see how/why i want to use it over any compe…

I can buy all of this. I've periodically played around with Libre Office on MacOS and usually found the text rendering leaves something to be desired. It's one of these things that I'm glad exists and yet don't really use.

edit: I just downloaded the latest version and the text rendering looks good! Now time to see how it handles dark mode (white or green text, black background).

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#147

Post by briHass »

tichiian wrote: post #135
maxcoder4 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a long time Linux user, I think problems are partially technical. For example: * A lot of software used by them is certainly Windows only (they will have to find alternatives, change their workflows or invest in some windows virtual machines) * Windows tooling for organizations is much more mature. There's a reason virtually everyone uses AD. * Linux is very focused on user freedoms. This is not usually important…

> There's a reason virtually everyone uses AD. The reason everyone uses AD is that you can have a functional Linux client in AD. But you cannot have a Windows client in any Linux-based LDAP+Kerberos setup. The problem isn't that there isn't a good solution for Linux in big organisations, the problem is that Windows is only compatible with AD, nothing else, so the more compatible system (Linux) gets shoved into AD.

AD is also better and more feature complete. It was born out of necessity, but it's had decades of refinement in thousands of deployments that the OSS solutions haven't had.

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#148

Post by BikiniPrince »

mandevil wrote: post #109

I'm sorry, what year is it? Am I posting on Slashdot still? Is this year finally going to be the year where Linux desktops become something for normies? When Munich did this it never got to a majority of their desktops, is my recollection, it maxed out in the 40%s. Now we're going to do it all over again with a different, much poorer, German state?

I had the exact same thoughts. At least this time around it’s basically done out of the box.

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#149

Post by VelesDude »

AaronFriel wrote: post #60
mlok wrote: post #3

Munich did it a few times already since 2003. Last one was in 2020 : https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-not-windows-why-munich-i...

I've seen this story every few years, perhaps this is just how they Munich negotiates its contract with Microsoft.

Like every time North Korea needs more aid it launches a missile into the sea of Japan?

At least Munich's bargaining chip seems a bit more friendly.

Re: German state ditches Microsoft for Linux and LibreOffice

#150

Post by tempest_ »

mandevil wrote: post #109

I'm sorry, what year is it? Am I posting on Slashdot still? Is this year finally going to be the year where Linux desktops become something for normies? When Munich did this it never got to a majority of their desktops, is my recollection, it maxed out in the 40%s. Now we're going to do it all over again with a different, much poorer, German state?

Linux desktops will never be for normies because desktops are not for normies and are dwarfed by mobile devices and have been for a while now.

Many, Many people use only mobile devices and the ones under 40 who still have computers have them for work.

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