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German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

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Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#141

Post by slightwinder »

cardanome wrote: post #75
RedShift1 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your arguments but the Linux desktop sucks, I would never want to use it full time let alone support it (note that I used to be a full time Linux desktop user, I left after KDE 4 came about). Linus Tech Tips is running a series on desktop Linux and they are hitting the hammer on the nail where exactly all the pain points are.

I would agree that the Linux Desktop sucks in absolute terms when we think what a sane Desktop experience could look like but compared to Windows, this does not hold true. Linux has quite improved from the early KDE 4 days. These days, you install Linux Mint with Cinnamon and you are good to go. Super easy to use and just works. It is based on Ubuntu, so you can use all the packages but with the bad stuff and experim…

> These days, you install Linux Mint with Cinnamon and you are good to go.

This story is told since early days of Ubuntu. Reality still is not like that. As always, it strongly depends on what you do and what not. I'm using Linux as my main driver for 25 years, but still have a windows-install for certain tasks like gaming and certain hardware&software. And overall I consider the user-friendliness of windows still higher than linux. From my experience, casual task are working far better with windows out of the box than they do with linux. Though, this is of course not so much true for cases of heavy modification, as we have them in companies. In that case Linux seems to be overall better.

Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#142

Post by tryptophan »

Kjeldahl wrote: post #106

I'm all for using free / open source where it makes sense and is cost effective. And frankly, Office is probably overkill for most of the actual needs of users. Having said that, I tried making a three page brochure a year ago, using the most recent LibreOffice release at the time. Just a mix of some screenshots and paragraphs of text. It was just too slow to be useable. On the same computer, Google Docs running in t…

As much as I want to support libreOffice, my experience has been the same as yours.

The whole office suite just feels so janky/stutter-y/not-smooth. Its like there are fps drops or slight pauses before many actions. It is quite irritating. Also on a hidpi/4k display, many things still do not scale properly.

Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#143

Post by 9dev »

cardanome wrote: post #126
rich_sasha wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been said ad infinitum. My experience is that Windows works, but very poorly. It is slow, hangs, steals my data and treats me like an abusive parent treats a toddler. But for me, Linux doesn't work. Or maybe it works 90%. Something's always broken, and a different thing is broken with each update. It requires constant tinkering. One flawless and amazing experience I had was working on Linux at a medium-sized…

What exactly does not work? What Distro were you using? Serious question because my experience is that I install Linux Mint and everything just works. Updates never break anything. Why should they? The only arguable pain point is maybe graphics drivers but honestly installing proprietary ones is just a few clicks these days. Plus you don't need them for office work anyway. (Maybe also some power saving features on ce…

This is the standard reaction I’ve heard so often from experienced Linux users, but you tend to forget all the trouble you’re able to solve because you know what you’re doing. Consider proprietary graphics drivers - ordinary people won’t even know why that is an issue, where to look if the display flickers, or what even drivers are. And that’s just the start of it… I’ve never had a Linux box that didn’t require me to open a terminal to fix something after a while. Updates definitely break something sometimes, because the people publishing them are humans that make mistakes. Why shouldn’t they?

If you’re using a Thinkpad, you’re well of. Try a cheaper machine, and be surprised by exciting tinkering opportunities like fast battery drainage, issues connecting external displays, external printers not being recognised, or Bluetooth speakers not playing audio. We can fix it, my mom cannot.

Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#144

Post by GekkePrutser »

cardanome wrote: post #75
RedShift1 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your arguments but the Linux desktop sucks, I would never want to use it full time let alone support it (note that I used to be a full time Linux desktop user, I left after KDE 4 came about). Linus Tech Tips is running a series on desktop Linux and they are hitting the hammer on the nail where exactly all the pain points are.

I would agree that the Linux Desktop sucks in absolute terms when we think what a sane Desktop experience could look like but compared to Windows, this does not hold true. Linux has quite improved from the early KDE 4 days. These days, you install Linux Mint with Cinnamon and you are good to go. Super easy to use and just works. It is based on Ubuntu, so you can use all the packages but with the bad stuff and experim…

KDE 5 is also really good IMO. I like it much more than Mate or Cinnamon.

Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#145

Post by usrusr »

slightwinder wrote: post #128
sgt wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't Munich do this like 20 years ago and it was a complete failure? Linux and OpenOffice. I think one of the major concerns at the time was that OpenOffice didn't work well with all the Excel and Word documents they needed to open, so people opted out and installed Windows instead. To the regular office worker, it didn't matter much if the computer ran Linux or Windows, as long as it worked. To the IT admin, it mi…

It wasn't a complete failure, more the opposite, a great success. Until Microsoft moved their HQ to Munich and some old conservatives started complaining about some miniscule problems. Of course, there were issues, every software has issues. And Bavaria's IT is very problematic in general, having many issues overall. But those were all solvable, at a cheaper price than the rollback to Windows had cost at the end. And…

I'd say success, period. Not in migrating to one software or the other (who cares), but in migrating a large company's national headquarters to your city.

Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#146

Post by stelonix »

cardanome wrote: post #126
rich_sasha wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been said ad infinitum. My experience is that Windows works, but very poorly. It is slow, hangs, steals my data and treats me like an abusive parent treats a toddler. But for me, Linux doesn't work. Or maybe it works 90%. Something's always broken, and a different thing is broken with each update. It requires constant tinkering. One flawless and amazing experience I had was working on Linux at a medium-sized…

What exactly does not work? What Distro were you using? Serious question because my experience is that I install Linux Mint and everything just works. Updates never break anything. Why should they? The only arguable pain point is maybe graphics drivers but honestly installing proprietary ones is just a few clicks these days. Plus you don't need them for office work anyway. (Maybe also some power saving features on ce…

I'm not the parent but I'll answer as a 9 years Linux user and advocate.

Things just break with updates, or sometimes do not work. I'm on Ubuntu 20 right now and Firefox can't detect the microphone on some websites like FB or instagram, but works just fine on Chrome. On my home computer running Arch and similar setup Firefox detects the mic just fine.

It's brittle, it feels like it's duct tapes all the way down and the breakage is mostly because not many foss projects really care about backwards compatibility.

However, on topic, the awful mess that is the Linux desktop experience does not matter since we're talking about public servants and not home use.

Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#147

Post by heurisko »

RedShift1 wrote: post #30
nivenkos wrote: post #24

Now switch to Linux too. The more we invest together, the easier it becomes. German states can help Spanish states, and Finnish schools, Danish universities, and French businesses, etc. - collaboratively investing so that everyone benefits and Europe can build its own Tech industry and have some independence from the US. This is absolutely critical to move away from the dominance of "Big Tech" to FOSS solutions that…

I agree with your arguments but the Linux desktop sucks, I would never want to use it full time let alone support it (note that I used to be a full time Linux desktop user, I left after KDE 4 came about). Linus Tech Tips is running a series on desktop Linux and they are hitting the hammer on the nail where exactly all the pain points are.

My favourite desktop is the Unity desktop by Canonical, which used to be the old Ubuntu desktop.

I felt like I could tell they were building it for actual users. There were things like the corner pixels activating logout, so you could just drag your mouse straight to the corner of the screen.

It also ran well on old hardware.

Ubuntu moving to the Gnome interface again was a step back in my opinion, but it shows what can be done if there is a business with a clear vision.

Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#148

Post by MayeulC »

mfru wrote: post #133
bluedino wrote: post #110

What is the open source alternative to Office365? 'Regular' Office is becoming more and more rare. Which is a shame, between the licensing costs, having to re-download or re-install the desktop apps, having to deal with OneDrive, etc.

I'd say a combination of Nextcloud together with Collabora Office.

Collabora is quite nice, but also complicated to setup (at least last time I tried, could be true only at individual level too). OnlyOffice has less features, but that also makes it simpler to use and deploy.

Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#149

Post by GekkePrutser »

md8z wrote: post #95
gopiandcode wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> OSS is dead. Given that OSS was a corporate sponsored perversion of Free/Libre software designed to trick naive developers into contributing unpaid labour without getting anything back, I would hope so. Free software, on the other hand, is roaring ahead, and doing better than ever.

I used to volunteer for the FSF and I can't agree with that at all. The FSF is politically/socially irrelevant and GNU has largely failed and been relegated to an extreme niche. The "free software movement" as it stands is still a reactionary movement, a desire to go back to the good old days when hardware vendors also wrote all the software and shipped the source code along with their products. It's just not a reali…

Largely failed? Everyone is using the GNU userland on Linux.

I don't see it struggling either really. The Linux desktops are in a better state than they have ever been.

Re: German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice

#150

Post by GekkePrutser »

jhgs wrote: post #39

Has been done multiple times before. Re-training users and increased support expenses usually nullify any license cost savings over time.

That's the Microsoft side of the story yes. The old "Linux Myths"

In reality many admins see much easier management, see other posts in this thread too.

The problem arises when you don't go all-in on Linux and try to have the two ecosystems work together. This is when it becomes a mess.

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