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France to ditch Windows for Linux to reduce reliance on US tech

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Re: France to ditch Windows for Linux to reduce reliance on US tech

#451

Post by _blk »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #416

>The French government did not provide a specific timeline for the switchover, or which distributions it was considering. Do they realize they need to pick a LTS distro now? You can't mix and match distros without having a massive IT and user retraining budgets.

They likely don't. It's a purely political move not a technical move. With the average length of the French work week, this will take a while to implement anyway. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a great thought but I don't think it's more than a short-sighted reaction. Munich unfortunately faltered after a few years.

Re: France to ditch Windows for Linux to reduce reliance on US tech

#452

Post by embeng4096 »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #380
embeng4096 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, my casual Steam games run well out of the box. I don’t even use a gaming-focused distro like Bazzite, just EndeavourOS. Helldivers 2, No Rest For The Wicked, Slay The Spire 2, even modded Lethal Company with friends using r2modman (also worked OOTB). And of course Discord works, including streaming when friends want to watch If I really want to play Apex or Battlefield I’ll fire up my dual drive dual boot Window…

why even use custom ones like Endeavor? steam works fine on basic fedora and arch -- have tried on both.

I did consider Fedora, just was intrigued by EndeavourOS, being Arch-based but with default settings that work totally fine for a casual like me, not having to fuss about setting up a DE or WM+addons, firewall, WiFi, Nvidia GPU worked out of the box, etc

Re: France to ditch Windows for Linux to reduce reliance on US tech

#453

Post by onraglanroad »

palata wrote: post #62
sgt wrote: post #2

That might work for government employees using webapps all day. But for power users it is unlikely to be friction free.

Can you call yourself "power user" when your point is that switching away from Windows is too hard for you?

Windows power users are the ones who have the greatest difficulty switching.

Basic users just want a web browser and need instructions for anything else anyway.

Hardcore geeks have tried everything going and have no problems with Cisco IOS.

It's the folk in the middle who struggle.

Just kidding about Cisco: it sucks.

Re: France to ditch Windows for Linux to reduce reliance on US tech

#454

Post by eviks »

port11 wrote: post #411
eviks wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for any application you want a government employee to use efficiently

Are web apps much less efficient to use?

Yes, slower start, more memory/cpu use, likely worse UI as the transition broke desktop conventions and/or just lost some power features in the process

Re: France to ditch Windows for Linux to reduce reliance on US tech

#455

Post by somat »

I understand what they mean, linux offers freedom, enough that it divorces your tech stack from any one company.

But isn't linux US tech? The blueprint, UNIX was a US project, torvolds works from the US. the original userland GNU was a US based project. The new userland systemd is a US based project.

Re: France to ditch Windows for Linux to reduce reliance on US tech

#456

Post by WaryByDesign »

Akronymus wrote: post #435
WaryByDesign wrote: post #420

It's... an admirable goal, but it pretty much remains to be seen if "France"[1] follows through. Previous attempts to "ditch Windows" have not ended that well. Munich in 2003, the entire Federal German government in 2009, Munich again in 2013, Munich again in 2021, and so on. Most common end-result: back to Windows. Breaking points are typically the lack of an "Office 2016" compatible suite, lack of "Adobe PDF" tooli…

Werent the munich government employees quite happy with linux, but microsofts lobbying with their headquarters got them to switch back?

I'm not aware of Microsoft's economic footprint in the Munich region, but I doubt it's significant.

The complaints that lead to the several-reversions-to-Windows at the time, as I recall, were all around "citizen sent me X, can't open X"

And those are all addressable issues, but not without significant know-how and funding.

Re: France to ditch Windows for Linux to reduce reliance on US tech

#457

Post by benterix »

somat wrote: post #455

I understand what they mean, linux offers freedom, enough that it divorces your tech stack from any one company. But isn't linux US tech? The blueprint, UNIX was a US project, torvolds works from the US. the original userland GNU was a US based project. The new userland systemd is a US based project.

> But isn't linux US tech?

If you want to discuss it on that level, it if Finnish tech imported to the USA, inspired by a Dutch implementation of a research OS.

On a more serious note, Linux has been developed by many individuals all over the world, you can't put a nationality stamp on it.

Re: France to ditch Windows for Linux to reduce reliance on US tech

#458

Post by WaryByDesign »

ricw wrote: post #449
WaryByDesign wrote: post #420

It's... an admirable goal, but it pretty much remains to be seen if "France"[1] follows through. Previous attempts to "ditch Windows" have not ended that well. Munich in 2003, the entire Federal German government in 2009, Munich again in 2013, Munich again in 2021, and so on. Most common end-result: back to Windows. Breaking points are typically the lack of an "Office 2016" compatible suite, lack of "Adobe PDF" tooli…

Munich is a bad example - they were effectively „bought out“ by Microsoft by investing hugely into the local economy in the form of offices and employees. It was also two parties that kept flip flopping with different priorities. Linux itself had some hiccups but was fine from what I recall.

> they were effectively "bought out" by Microsoft

Yeah, let me dispute that. They were, at least on three occasions, forced to roll back due to "citizen sent me X and can't open it" and/or "sent Y to citizen and they can't open it" concerns.

Mind you: these issues still persist in a fully Microsoft/Adobe "solution environment", but less so than in the "disregard all and move to Linux" situation.

And to be perfectly clear: that's all unacceptable. But it adds another, say, EUR 2B to the equation.

Re: France to ditch Windows for Linux to reduce reliance on US tech

#459

Post by smusamashah »

lionkor wrote: post #191

All the comments about Linux gaming make me want to give my $0.02. I've been gaming on Linux, with no Windows installed anywhere, for around 6 years. In the first 3 years, it was a massive pain. Games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. would consistently have issues with mouse input, weird acceleration, a lot of games wouldn't run at all. This is NO LONGER the case at all. Things run very well out of the box. All games I want to pl…

The DB lists popular games, what about indie games coming out every day?
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