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Danish Ministry Replaces Windows and Microsoft Office with Linux and LibreOffice

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Re: Danish Ministry Replaces Windows and Microsoft Office with Linux and LibreOffice

#111

Post by TheNewsIsHere »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #69
fock wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yesterday: I saw the weird CVE for M365 which "exploits" some LLM through messaging embedded in emails. today: got a very long email, wanted to search for our department in it. Outlook: "Search is a deprecated feature". Despite all the "but you can't extrapolate to a large org from personal experiences"-FUD around, I think for most orgs (especially governments which are generally far behind on processes) it would be…

I was watching my wife navigate Outlook the other day, I can't believe how bad it's got since I last used it. It was completely unresponsive on brand new hardware. The UI was awful.

Outlook used to be one of the best email clients available. Now it’s essentially the worst imaginable.

We just renewed our 365 licenses at my company for one more year. I’ve been mentally sketching out an exit strategy. I inventoried what we use in 365 and Azure, and there’s not a single thing we can’t replace with an alternative we run or a different provider that’s a bit less hostile to third party ecosystems/standards/etc.

Re: Danish Ministry Replaces Windows and Microsoft Office with Linux and LibreOffice

#112

Post by rcarmo »

vaylian wrote: post #54
rcarmo wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s really not. Edge bundles a number of authentication libraries with the Linux version that enable things like remote passkey support.

What is "remote passkey support"? I am familiar with passkeys (both resident and non-resident). But I haven't heard of remote passkeys yet.

Bluetooth binding to your mobile device, which then handles MFA with biometrics.

Re: Danish Ministry Replaces Windows and Microsoft Office with Linux and LibreOffice

#113

Post by mihaaly »

I am struggling with increasing number of daily (sometimes hourly) annoyances of Windows during my work, distracting me considerably by now, so this news fills me with envy. I have an increasing urge fuelled by this - but not only by this - to switch job/profession.

Some from the top of my head: randomly forcing me to put the window I am moving to the numbered sections of 1-2-3 without the chance of cancel, forcing me to size and position choices mandated; 'update and shut down' actually works as 'update and restart' finding my computer on in the middle of night or in the morning; hibernating while update is available turns on the computer during the night; renaming of OneDrive files clears the name sometimes typing; switching wifi (between previously used ones) on its own, while being in a perfectly working remote desktop connection, breaking it randonly; taskbar buttons loose icons after resuming from hibernation; yes/no message box is transparent through remote desktop; ... some from the past few (less than 4) days.

Re: Danish Ministry Replaces Windows and Microsoft Office with Linux and LibreOffice

#114

Post by mihaaly »

ThinkBeat wrote: post #91

How does Linux fit into the eco system that surrounds it? I have no idea what systems the Danish government uses, but being a "Microsoft shop" with Exchange, Active directory, Teams etc is not uncommon. I hope they will address and fix or have work arounds for all of them. I feel sorry for the people who work there havin to nmove to LibreOffice. IT is free, and it works, but if you have spent 20 years or more using M…

> if you have spent 20 years or more using Microsoft Office, it will feel quite foreign

I am using MS Office for 30 years, and the current MS Office products feel offensively alien. Slown down in workflow.

Meanwhile, in the past 20 years or so, I was affiliated with organizations (plural) having mixed composition of Win/Mac/Linux support throughout.

Re: Danish Ministry Replaces Windows and Microsoft Office with Linux and LibreOffice

#115

Post by Propelloni »

jve wrote: post #45
mrweasel wrote: post #24

As many IT people in Denmark is pointing out, it's not really about replacing Office and Windows, it's all the surrounding infrastructure that will be the main issue. Are these Linux machines going to authenticate against the Azure Active Directory, maybe just a local Active Directory, or are the IT department going to run a separate service in parallel? Are they moving away from Exchange Server... probably not, give…

> Are these Linux machines going to authenticate against the Azure Active Directory... Are they using Intune, if so what's the replacement strategy where? This comes up all the time when we talk about Linux in corporate deployment. As I have only experience in MS word regarding governance, let me ask this: - Is there really no tools for Linux world that allows managing loads of Linux machines in an easy manner as it…

That's depends what you want to do. If you want an all-in-one solution you'd go with the solution of your distribution vendor, e.g. Red Hat IPA/Satellite, SUSE Manager, or Ubuntu Landscape. Linux just plays nicer with ADS than MS Windows with any Linux solution, so most fall back to ADS in mixed environments.

If you only want Identity, Policies and Audit trails over several different Linux distributions, FreeIPA is your weapon of choice. It is clicky and requires no scripting. Just like ADS it is a bit of a pain to get into, but easier to run than OpenLDAP ;) If you want OpenID, too, connect FreeIPA and Keycloak, but you will need to dive onto the CLI. For configuration management connect Saltstack, here you have to edit rules files.

Re: Danish Ministry Replaces Windows and Microsoft Office with Linux and LibreOffice

#116

Post by seb1204 »

exceptione wrote: post #7
fazza999 wrote: post #2

Gosh. Is Linux now ready for the desktop?

KDE + any rolling distro is miles ahead of Windows. So, as a user of both, I read your question with a smirk. If you would ask if LibreOffice is ready, I would say: yes and no. The UX of LO is worse than MS Office. LO is more feature rich in certain areas but it lacks the UX if you want to get a well-looking document with a minimum amount of work. Case in point: lack of acceptable Impress templates (they look from th…

Changing infrastructure and software packages should not fail due to a missing or bad office template. Surely this can be made from scratch to suit the gov org and current standards/legislation within one work month by any skilled consultant. There are challenges yes, an office template should not be on the top list. Maybe I'm totally wrong...

Re: Danish Ministry Replaces Windows and Microsoft Office with Linux and LibreOffice

#117

Post by linotype »

belter wrote: post #67
mrweasel wrote: post #24

As many IT people in Denmark is pointing out, it's not really about replacing Office and Windows, it's all the surrounding infrastructure that will be the main issue. Are these Linux machines going to authenticate against the Azure Active Directory, maybe just a local Active Directory, or are the IT department going to run a separate service in parallel? Are they moving away from Exchange Server... probably not, give…

Or maybe Microsoft is terrified that it will work? Then Bill Gates would not be able to do his 345th pledge of "I will give away all my money..." https://www.freeipa.org/ "Manage Linux users and client hosts in your realm from one central location with CLI, Web UI or RPC access. Enable Single Sign On authentication for all your systems, services and applications." https://www.keycloak.org/ "Open Source Identity and A…

FYI Bill Gates stepped down as CEO in 2000.

Re: Danish Ministry Replaces Windows and Microsoft Office with Linux and LibreOffice

#118

Post by ngrilly »

a2128 wrote: post #62
exceptione wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

KDE + any rolling distro is miles ahead of Windows. So, as a user of both, I read your question with a smirk. If you would ask if LibreOffice is ready, I would say: yes and no. The UX of LO is worse than MS Office. LO is more feature rich in certain areas but it lacks the UX if you want to get a well-looking document with a minimum amount of work. Case in point: lack of acceptable Impress templates (they look from th…

I've stopped recommending LibreOffice to anyone after I found out about OnlyOffice, its UI/UX is much better and I've personally been using it without running into any issues or limitations. I'm not a super big power user so I don't know if it lacks features that professionals need, but it's been perfect in my case

People are switching from MS Office to LibreOffice because MS Office is US-controlled. Who's controlling OnlyOffice?

Re: Danish Ministry Replaces Windows and Microsoft Office with Linux and LibreOffice

#119

Post by bee_rider »

IceDane wrote: post #57
mrweasel wrote: post #24

As many IT people in Denmark is pointing out, it's not really about replacing Office and Windows, it's all the surrounding infrastructure that will be the main issue. Are these Linux machines going to authenticate against the Azure Active Directory, maybe just a local Active Directory, or are the IT department going to run a separate service in parallel? Are they moving away from Exchange Server... probably not, give…

It's also just absurd in general since no one who has used LibreOffice can seriously think it is a viable replacement. It can do in a pinch but I imagine the file format incompatibility issues between ms and libre are going to cost more in lost productivity than your number above.

The only problem I ever had with LibreOffice is that (at the time) there seemed to be some inconsistency when showing some PowerPoint-generated slideshows. I suspect the standard is incomplete and the issue is just a matter of matching the expectations of whatever software was used by the person who generated the slides. So, if the officials switch, it is fine.

Anyway, if the government is generating files that require MS office to open, they are essentially creating an undocumented tax, to be paid to a foreign company. This seems… legally questionable (depending on your local laws of course), and wildly stupid.

Re: Danish Ministry Replaces Windows and Microsoft Office with Linux and LibreOffice

#120

Post by graemep »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #69
fock wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yesterday: I saw the weird CVE for M365 which "exploits" some LLM through messaging embedded in emails. today: got a very long email, wanted to search for our department in it. Outlook: "Search is a deprecated feature". Despite all the "but you can't extrapolate to a large org from personal experiences"-FUD around, I think for most orgs (especially governments which are generally far behind on processes) it would be…

I was watching my wife navigate Outlook the other day, I can't believe how bad it's got since I last used it. It was completely unresponsive on brand new hardware. The UI was awful.

I briefly used MS word recently, and the UI is so different. I found it quite hard to find things.
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