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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

#541

Post by krsw »

Melatonic wrote: post #472

The age of the Linux desktop might actually finally be coming Personally I think we are at an interim period for a big player to emerge and take over this space. If enough governments in the EU start switching over to customized linux distros theres a big chance for someone like Nokia to come in and develop their own approved distro with proper MDM and GPO-like management functionality baked in . On top of that it co…

Yeah, I think if Windows 11 is going subscription based (plus all the copilot pushing garbage and even more baked in ads) that will be a strong incentive to switch to Linux or SteamOS. I barely even play games enough anymore to make a desktop worthwhile. Might just jump to Mac only.

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

#542

Post by bostik »

jodrellblank wrote: post #493
Melatonic wrote: post #472

The age of the Linux desktop might actually finally be coming Personally I think we are at an interim period for a big player to emerge and take over this space. If enough governments in the EU start switching over to customized linux distros theres a big chance for someone like Nokia to come in and develop their own approved distro with proper MDM and GPO-like management functionality baked in . On top of that it co…

> " theres a big chance for someone like Nokia to come in and develop their own approved distro " Microsoft bought Nokia's devices and services division for Windows Mobile in 2014. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Mobile

They killed any Linux device development at Nokia in 2011. Still salty about Elop shooting down a project we had spent 5 years working towards.

The holistic platform security for a combined phone/tablet base system would have been really interesting.

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

#544

Post by PoignardAzur »

idoubtit wrote: post #523

The title is very far from the actual public statement that is linked in the article. The French government announced that its digital agency will switch to Linux during this year. This is about a few hundreds of computers owned by the agency. The second statement is that this agency is expected to publish, by the end of the year, a plan to reduce the digital dependency on the US. It's not "France to ditch Windows",…

Uh, TIL the DINUM still used Windows. I wonder what held them, it's certainly not a lack of familiarity with Linux.

I feel you're underselling the second statement a bit:

> Each ministry (including operators) will be required to finalize its own [migration] plan by fall

This sounds like there's actual pressure to start moving soon, especially for adopting existing DINUM solutions.

(I agree the title is clickbait.)

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

#545

Post by wolvoleo »

krsw wrote: post #541
Melatonic wrote: post #472

The age of the Linux desktop might actually finally be coming Personally I think we are at an interim period for a big player to emerge and take over this space. If enough governments in the EU start switching over to customized linux distros theres a big chance for someone like Nokia to come in and develop their own approved distro with proper MDM and GPO-like management functionality baked in . On top of that it co…

Yeah, I think if Windows 11 is going subscription based (plus all the copilot pushing garbage and even more baked in ads) that will be a strong incentive to switch to Linux or SteamOS. I barely even play games enough anymore to make a desktop worthwhile. Might just jump to Mac only.

They can't do that, when they've already sold you lifetime licenses.

They could however introduce a subscription-only windows 12 and have harsh cut-off requirements like they did with windows 11.

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

#546

Post by SoftTalker »

dschep wrote: post #526
Melatonic wrote: post #472

The age of the Linux desktop might actually finally be coming Personally I think we are at an interim period for a big player to emerge and take over this space. If enough governments in the EU start switching over to customized linux distros theres a big chance for someone like Nokia to come in and develop their own approved distro with proper MDM and GPO-like management functionality baked in . On top of that it co…

> "theres a big chance for someone like Nokia to come in and develop their own approved distro" SUSE is a German company, so probably nothing to even develop.

Does SUSE normally come up in conversations about "easy to use" linux distros for "normal" users?

I'm not in that world, so this is a genuine question. The last time I looked at SUSE it seemed typically German in being uniquely complicated for no good reason, but that was years ago.

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

#547

Post by red_admiral »

1718627440 wrote: post #528
red_admiral wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

big player + (standard) linux desktop may well be coming, but that means losing the semi-anarchist bazaar mentality. Will the standard be gnome or KDE or XFCE or ...? If gnome, version 2 or 3? Firefox or chrome as the default browser (or derivatives like waterfox or plain chromium ...)? AI integration? The moment you're developing for people with no IT experience and no CS degree, you're going to have to make tradeof…

Why does there need to be a standard application for everything? Is there a default pencil vendor? A default printer vendor? Paper? Car manufacturer? Taxi company? Just let people buy/get whatever vendor/application they like. I rather see more interoperational standards.

I guarantee you, in a large enough organisation, there will be exactly one approved pencil supplier. That's how corporate purchasing works.

There's a lot of cases where this actually makes sense for compliance, support, and service level agreements between your org and the vendor's among many other cases. It just gets annoying when you absolutely cannot buy coffee beans from shop B on the team consumables budget because we have an exclusive contract with shop A.

In a governmental organisation, you might even need a public bidding process for any supplier contract big enough to cover printers and their ink/toner, as well as a support contract if something breaks.

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

#548

Post by unethical_ban »

mrj wrote: post #492
yibers wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does XFCE compare to KDE and GNOME? Also, does it has all the nice window snapping features that I'm used to fron Windows?

As a long time Linux user, this comment makes me sad since many of those features were copied from Linux (many from Unity) :)

Unity really was a great project.

KDE 6.6 is great to me, but there are some quirks I have found. Their "peek at desktop" feature is annoying, I want "minimize all" but you have to do some scripting to enable that.

I've noticed that clicking the network button to see wifi status shows traffic rate, and that seems to lag and I suspect it has an impact on throughput.

I'm interested in Cosmic when it matures some more.

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

#549

Post by unethical_ban »

oscord wrote: post #505

Ditch iOS and Android for a Blackberry OS / Nokia ? Really, are there any alternatives?

Motorola and grapheneos? If only the French government weren't attacking Graphene.

As for desktop, I suppose the only major European options are Ubuntu and SUSE with corporate backing.

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

#550

Post by afewquarks »

I know this might be a controversial take but nevertheless I will state my opinion: I do not think "the year of the Linux desktop" is the good idea that most people seem to think. Everything that gets the eye of Sauron on it proceeds to become a complete mess.

Resources always win. All that is needed to ruin an open project is dump money into heavy development up to the point where it becomes impossible to do without it. Plenty such cases already.

This also ruins the development of the project akin to feeding wild life, you get them dependent on you, and if you stop feeding them they lose the ability to feed themselves in the wild. Such is the Linux ecosystem, based on a type of work that so far made a great project for people who have a bit of technical skills. Making it more accessible to the masses only brings that kind of bullshit into it. Inevitably. There is no way something of such importance, to the masses, won't get corrupted in one way or another. That never happens, if there is too much interest there will be funds dumped into corrupting it, one way or another.

The best path forward for Linux was as before, to fly just under the radar, to bee a bit too complicated for most people. This is what protects it. Most, if anyone, don't seem to understand this very simple fact. No older Linux user gets anything worthwhile out of this deal, nothing relevant, just inevitable enshitification of it. Historically proven over and over again. I find "the year of the Linux desktop" to be a childish take in a world that functions on completely different principles.

edit: To add a bit more context, Windows is not the mess that it is today because of evil Microsoft, it is a reflection of its user-base. Same with Linux. They did that to Windows, with their behavior, with accepting all that nonsense.

You want to bring the very same type of people, with that kind of attitude, in Linux, what exactly do you thing is going to happen? They will adapt to Linux mentality or they'll proceed to ruin Linux with their behavior? I can take a good guess on what will happen. People will people, and corpos will corpo to milk them.

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