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Ubuntu and open source help the City of Munich save millions

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Re: Ubuntu and open source help the City of Munich save millions

#91
post #80

I am not at all surprised that this worked. The biggest problem for mainstream linux is poor advertising. People with limited computer knowledge are just scared of change, and honestly, if no one knows how to pronounce Ubuntu then they are probably not going to pick a computer based on it. I mostly use Windows 7 and OS X, but I have worked with Debian/Ubuntu as a casual user. Linux was much easier to work with than W…

Well, Linux is now the most commonly used general purpose OS/kernel in the world. Every Android device, every Chromebook device (plus all the regular desktops and servers). I can't help but feel that part of Android and Chromebook's success is in part due to the users not understanding/having-to-know they're running Linux. Android and Chromebook don't even mention Linux anywhere, and users are content. I think regula…

Android may technically be Linux, but I am not sure I would count it as a step towards changing the desktop computer people get for their home. Chromebook is similar- as far as I can tell it just runs one browser window. This makes it more like a video game system than a PC.

Re: Ubuntu and open source help the City of Munich save millions

#92
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is such a thing as inherent productivity in the software though. Switching from one piece of software to another has a fixed cost, but switching to software that makes you more productive will help offset that cost. I agree on OO. The risk in my eyes here is that OSS (desktop) software is almost invariably less productive than proprietary software for some reason. Switching that way can make sense if you save a…

Windows as a share of Web clients is down to 60%: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_system... Nobody cites Windows or Office as an impediment to growth. It is very unlikely that the Windows Web client share decline has ever hit a "productivity" speed bump. Another way to look at it is that mobility turned out to be much more highly valued than Office or Windows compatibility.

That just says that web browsing is now a mobile activity. I think this project is about replacing desktop and laptop computers with linux. On desktop laptop windows is still dominating and losing mostly to MacOS

Re: Ubuntu and open source help the City of Munich save millions

#93
post #83
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One might as well expect productivity to increase switching away from proprietary software. I would, at least. Taking your example of Gimp, I expect institutional adoption of free software would result in some people having it who didn't have Photoshop at all before. They can now become more productive and take less of other people's time.

The vast majority of free/open source software is available for Windows, and that includes things as horrendously unusable as GIMP.

And then we should remember that the big cross platform ones are used by an audience 20x larger than Linux only applications, so they should be the good ones. What's a good, large/complex OSS app that beats its proprietary competitors? It sure isn't gimp or eclipse. It's Chromium! Which is backed by a megacorp. See the pattern? I have yet to see an OSS project impress me with a large/complex desktop application. I'm sceptical it will ever happen.

Re: Ubuntu and open source help the City of Munich save millions

#94
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My biggest gripe with Chrome on Linux is you can't change the default behavior of clicking in the address bar. In Firefox I can make it so clicking once selects everything. In Chrome, it drops a cursor and I have to click two or three times to get it to select everything. I understand some people want that behavior, but I don't. The Chrome team's response is that this is the Linux default and Chrome is a native Linux…

I'm currently running Chrome 35.0.1916.153 on Ubuntu 14.04 with XFCE and clicking once in the address bar highlights everything all. Don't know why mine is acting different than yours, maybe they changed that since you last tried it.

I last tried it years ago, so it's possible they changed it since then. When I read that response on their forum, I completely gave up on Chrome and haven't touched it since then. I don't care if "it's not the Linux way" [1], it's my way and who is Google to tell me otherwise?

Sorry, I'll end my rant now.

[1] https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=26140#c1...

Re: Ubuntu and open source help the City of Munich save millions

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My biggest gripe with Chrome on Linux is you can't change the default behavior of clicking in the address bar. In Firefox I can make it so clicking once selects everything. In Chrome, it drops a cursor and I have to click two or three times to get it to select everything. I understand some people want that behavior, but I don't. The Chrome team's response is that this is the Linux default and Chrome is a native Linux…

So then they add that to the other 10,000 config options people have requested, and now it's a bloated interface and people will lament "Why can't they keep it simple?" until they strip out all of the pet features and people get mad for them "stupifying" the interface.

Who says it has to be a config option in the interface? In Firefox it's an option buried in about:config under an obscure name, not user-facing unless someone really wants to find it.

Re: Ubuntu and open source help the City of Munich save millions

#96
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, Linux is now the most commonly used general purpose OS/kernel in the world. Every Android device, every Chromebook device (plus all the regular desktops and servers). I can't help but feel that part of Android and Chromebook's success is in part due to the users not understanding/having-to-know they're running Linux. Android and Chromebook don't even mention Linux anywhere, and users are content. I think regula…

Android may technically be Linux, but I am not sure I would count it as a step towards changing the desktop computer people get for their home. Chromebook is similar- as far as I can tell it just runs one browser window. This makes it more like a video game system than a PC.

In industrializing parts of the world, mobile devices are often the only access to the internet and software (and sometimes the first experience with a computing device).

Chromebook/ChromeOS is much more capable now than it used to be, with multi-tasking and multiple "apps" can be on-screen at the same time.

Re: Ubuntu and open source help the City of Munich save millions

#97
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My biggest gripe with Chrome on Linux is you can't change the default behavior of clicking in the address bar. In Firefox I can make it so clicking once selects everything. In Chrome, it drops a cursor and I have to click two or three times to get it to select everything. I understand some people want that behavior, but I don't. The Chrome team's response is that this is the Linux default and Chrome is a native Linux…

I'm currently running Chrome 35.0.1916.153 on Ubuntu 14.04 with XFCE and clicking once in the address bar highlights everything all. Don't know why mine is acting different than yours, maybe they changed that since you last tried it.

I am on XFCE using the same version as you and the highlighting works.

Re: Ubuntu and open source help the City of Munich save millions

#98
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Chrome is horrible on linux, --disable-gpu --audio-buffer-size what user is going to bother with that? Really? Chrome is a first class citizen on ChromeOS, so I'd expected other linuxes to be well served, too.

My biggest gripe with Chrome on Linux is you can't change the default behavior of clicking in the address bar. In Firefox I can make it so clicking once selects everything. In Chrome, it drops a cursor and I have to click two or three times to get it to select everything. I understand some people want that behavior, but I don't. The Chrome team's response is that this is the Linux default and Chrome is a native Linux…

My peeve for a long time was not having the bookmark bar work (drag the bookmark over a folder and popout the submenu). It worked on Mac and Windows. The just fixed it a few months ago (it's a little clunky though but I will take it)! Yay!

Re: Ubuntu and open source help the City of Munich save millions

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The initial Dell sputnik was lacking (notably small screen resolution, price, etc.). The second rev is decent: 4th Generation Intel® Core™ i5-4210U processor (3M Cache, up to 2.7 GHz) UBUNTU Linux 12.04 LTS (64-bit) 13.3 inch LED Backlit Touch Display with Truelife and FHD resolution (1920 x 1080) 8GB1 DDR3L at 1600MHz 128GB Solid State Drive Intel® HD Graphics 4400 3.02 lbs Dell Price $1199.99

I don't understand why you'd get this and not the cheaper exact model with windows.

Yea, I would too. You can't customize the model (ram, SSD, etc).

Re: Ubuntu and open source help the City of Munich save millions

#100
post #47

What about long-term compatibility of Microsoft (or Apple) products? How can proprietary, maybe even binary file-formats be accessed in 100 years from now? Cities usually keep their books forever. I have so many files from the nineties that are already very difficult to restore. I could imagine that open source formats have a huge advantage here?! #LongtermCosts

Not only are these file formats not binary (they are zipped XML), they are standardized and their standards are known and maintained. No issue here.
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