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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

#81
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.

> I'd recommend Arch for Linux developers.

fixed it for you ;)

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

#82
post #69

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…

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…

> To the IT admin, it might have been more work to administer thousands of Linux machines, due to the slightly less mature environment.

Perhaps they weren't used to non-GUI automation.

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

#83

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 "dis…

Latvia comes to mind.I think, germans aging population plays into this conservative mindset. Now add the manufacturing culture, wanting to add a physical object/machinery to every piece of software and you can start to see the brakes.

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

#84

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…

That sounds so wonderful! Hopefully the US can also come together by divesting from European goods and services and also participate in this independence movement!

Plenty of US people like and make open source software. You don't need to be worried.

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

#86

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.

Honestly, all desktops suck these days. I find GNOME quite usable if you don't approach it as "fake Windows" or "fake macOS", while Windows 11 feels more like an incomplete KDE fork that tries to be Windows 10.

The problems the LTT videos are pointing out are problems that office workers don't need to deal with. They don't need to deal with package management, drivers or games. They need a browser, a home directory and an office suite. The LTT videos struggle with the obvious problems, most of which come down to very specific use cases (say, video streaming) and compatibility stuff (getting things developed for Windows, mostly games, to work). Also note that while Linus has been having tons of issues, his counterpart Luke has mostly been encountering minor annoyances.

I think the Linux desktop is great for a) advanced users and b) beginners that only do basic home and office work. The pain comes when you need to do moderately advanced stuff like automations, system configurations and obscure tools that few other people are using, or that aren't designed to run on that platform. In those circumstances, the community will direct you to the command line more often than not, and those users don't have the experience (or even the need, normally) to use it.

In a recent podcast the LTT folks said they were considering doing an episode approaching Windows from the same standpoint as Linux. Getting some basic stuff working on Windows (or macOS, for that matter) can be as much of a pain as getting it done on Linux, but we've been teaching kids how to use those systems for decades now.

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

#87
post #85

Ten years ago I used to be excite by news like this. Now I don’t care that much because, unless is a commitment to openness on a cultural level, is just a n inconsequential gesture, maybe even just a cost-saving measure

> [...] and the Windows operating system is to be replaced by GNU/Linux

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

#88

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…

> Now switch to Linux too

Yes, that seems to be the plan. Literally the first paragraph says

> and the Windows operating system is to be replaced by GNU/Linux

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

#89
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trade might be a good thing in general, but this comment is a bit reductionist with respect to the role of US Big Tech in suppressing and controlling EU tech

The EU seems to have no problem legislating against and penalizing US Big Tech in return. IMO the European attitude towards entrepreneurship and startups does more harm to EU tech than "US Big Tech" ever would or could

I was recently talking to a friend in Spain about a startup idea and he said no way could he join a startup (in a senior role) because if it failed his career would never recover.

AFAICT it really is the attitude pushing so much innovation out of the EU and not the legal environment much less the competition. The newer members like Hungary and Romania seem to have a lot less of this problem (but more of other problems like stable business environment and predictable rule of law).

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

#90
post #9

"digital sovereignty" is a nice phrase

Especially in contrast to the current digital colonialism. US Big Tech companies pay almost no corporation taxes in the EU (and if they do, only in Ireland / Luxembourg), and compete and buy out European companies, shipping the high-paying jobs (and the economic benefits and taxes those bring) back to the US (much like the oil industry in Nigeria, etc.). The EU must take a stand against this, like has been done again…

Let’s not overgeneralize. The US is not in lockstep with all EU goals and ideas, but not an ally? As someone who grew up with nuclear drills every week I can assure you I think of the EU as an ally, AND I want you to have a robust Big Tech environment. We share a common cultural interest in freedom and fairness, more or less, despite all the craziness in the world right now. Maybe the US isn’t always the BEST friend, but we have to be in the top five right? I would hate to be replaced by Belarus and Russia. ;)
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