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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

#71

Post by lolinder »

Folcon wrote: post #48
nivenkos wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've used Linux full-time at home for 10 years, and now at work (in an enterprise). For the most part, it works well and doesn't require a whole lot more support. The LTT video hit one specific packaging bug in PopOS that was present for only an hour, and was unfortunate. But to judge so much on that is unreasonable, shit happens in software engineering, it'd be like trying to use Facebook in the window where it was…

As someone who used to be an avid linux desktop user, but has subsequently moved away from it and is interested in the current ecosystem with a view to maybe coming back, what would you say is a good entry point? I used to run Ubuntu back in the day if that helps. I'm curious to get a sense of how much has changed.

Ubuntu is very stable and easy to get started with. I know there's some frustration with Canonical's direction, but it's still very much the distro I'd recommend to anyone who's just getting started. Everything more or less works out of the box for me (as much as it ever did with Windows), and Ubuntu still has the advantage of being the primary focus of most online documentation.

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

#72

Post by yetanother-1 »

justtocomment wrote: post #59
whalesalad wrote: post #36

I tried to use LibreOffice recently and that lasted about 30 seconds. Terrible software.

I tried to use a CNC mill recently and that lasted about 30 seconds. Terrible piece of equipment.

I like your argument, but there are some truth to what he says, not that I agree with him.

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

#73

Post by formerly_proven »

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…

Munich did that a few years ago, which got rolled back after they elected the dude mayor who got Microsoft to move their German headquarters to Munich. Completely unrelated events, of course.

There were of course some technical problems as well, e.g. because a number of administrative tasks can only be performed using Excel 2003 with VBS macros enabled and stuff like that, as well as "technical problems", like "users can't install software themselves" (i.e. users don't have root on the clients).

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

#74

Post by fbn79 »

pfortuny wrote: post #63
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 you but they did in Munich and then they undid it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux

They undididing the undid

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

#75

Post by cardanome »

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.

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 experiments removed.

Modern Windows is absolutely dystopian in comparison. Not being happy with getting money from licenses, they try to gather all the data about you that they can and try to shove their other services into your face. And then the whole update story. Not only do you need to restart the computer, you can't even do anything else while it is updating and it is taking its time.

Plus every damn Windows Computer in every school, university or whatever has always been maddening slow. (Yeah, I know it all depends on the specs and how it is configured and if you are running some silly antivirus and so on but still. Install Linux and you get a fast and responsive experience and it stays that way.)

Honestly I don't see any reason to run Windows instead of Linux in 2021 except maybe running very specific software that does not run well on Wine.

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

#76

Post by agumonkey »

throwaway123x2 wrote: post #12

MS Office was so much more functional and nicer to use than libreoffice when I last checked.

I didn't check the latest LO version but I agree. LO shines on import export but the UI lags, the functionalities are limited. Even macros are weird compared to VBA which is sad.

FOSS community needs to gather up on this.

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

#77

Post by pitaj »

hulitu wrote: post #38
emteycz wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, it has nothing to do with overall better UX that the actual users of these computers require, it's all corruption.

Better UI ? Ten years ago, yes. Now the UI in Office 365 is a disaster. And yes, some german politicians are very sensitive when money starts to flow.

Whether it's a disaster or not it's subjective. I think you'll find many people prefer how it is now, including the useful new features like xlookup.

Either way, it's what people are used to, and changing everyone's well established memory will be very difficult and expensive.

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

#78

Post by periheli0n »

OneTimePetes wrote: post #21

Would be nice to have a german software culture. But all we got is politicians who wish for that and then turn a blind eye on fraudsters like WireCard. Something is missing from the german cultural dna, that our neighbours have.(Swiss,Luxemburg, Belgians, Chechen Republic, Poland, Litauen). Seems the most important thing to be big in software in europe, is to foremost be not german ;)

Things will hopefully change now that the political tide has turned. Digitally, the old government was essentially stuck to the status quo of 2005, when they took over.

In my view the weak digital culture in Germany is a direct consequence of political non-engagement with the matter during the last 15 years. Many areas are affected, first governance itself (fax machines!!), in education (universities and schools "discovered" digital tools mostly in March 2020, when they were forced to), business and trade (card payment still not being ubiquitous, let alone contactless; Some trivial contracts still require ink signatures and paper being mailed around etc).

Other European countries are a lot more progressive, e.g. the UK.

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

#79

Post by Iolaum »

Folcon wrote: post #48
nivenkos wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've used Linux full-time at home for 10 years, and now at work (in an enterprise). For the most part, it works well and doesn't require a whole lot more support. The LTT video hit one specific packaging bug in PopOS that was present for only an hour, and was unfortunate. But to judge so much on that is unreasonable, shit happens in software engineering, it'd be like trying to use Facebook in the window where it was…

As someone who used to be an avid linux desktop user, but has subsequently moved away from it and is interested in the current ecosystem with a view to maybe coming back, what would you say is a good entry point? I used to run Ubuntu back in the day if that helps. I'm curious to get a sense of how much has changed.

Go with a mainstream distro to experiment and get a hang of it like Ubuntu, Fedora, PopOS, Mint etc.

Main reason is that searching for sulutions in the web is much better for distros with a big user-base. Additionally understanding the trade-offs of different distros is very hard if you are not already in the ecosystem, hence just go with something to get your foot in the door and don't sweat it.

Once you experience the papercuts and you get comfortable with them you can go into more advanced distros like Arch (derivatives e.g. Manjaro), Fedora Silverblue (what I currently use), etc.

If you can get a friend to help you go with the installation process, that 'll be very useful.

P.S. my TLDR suggestion would be to go with vanilla Fedora and use flatpaks for proprietary apps like steam/zoom/etc.

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

#80

Post by nvrspyx »

nivenkos wrote: post #53
Folcon wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who used to be an avid linux desktop user, but has subsequently moved away from it and is interested in the current ecosystem with a view to maybe coming back, what would you say is a good entry point? I used to run Ubuntu back in the day if that helps. I'm curious to get a sense of how much has changed.

I'd recommend Arch Linux for developers. It takes a little bit of set-up / learning at the start. But you can easily try it out with a tool like ALMA - https://github.com/r-darwish/alma See my preset files here - https://github.com/jamesmcm/arch-i3-usb But PopOS is probably the closest to the previous beginner Ubuntu experience now.

As a counter-recommendation, I'd recommend openSUSE Tumbleweed for developers. It is also rolling-release, but packages are more heavily tested. It's easier to set up. And by default, it uses btrfs and provides a useful snapshot tool called snapper.

While breaking has become relatively rare on Arch, it's simply easier to set up a stable environment without having to keep a close eye on updates with Tumbleweed.

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