Spanish Province Dist-Upgrades

Johnny Mnemonic writes "The Spanish province of Extremadura has adopted Linux for the official OS of schools and offices, largely because of price. Simply, they don't have enough money for other OSes, and they promise to handle the rollout more gracefully than a similar Linux initiative in Mexico. According to Wired, this is the first time a European school system has switched to Linux."

Comments

The desktop-revolution begins

[rseuhs]

Even the most die-hard Microsoft supporters will admit that Linux is viable on the desktop right now.

Microsoft supporters usually cite "migration costs" or "training costs", or other shortsighted reasons why people should not switch to Linux.

This is shortsighted because corporations and organisations come and go -> If switching costs is the only thing in favor of Windows, then it will lose slowly, but steadily.

Of course, the massive Windows-exodus will not start before CodeWeavers and Transgaming make Linux "Windows compatible", but I see them doing exactly this in the next 2 years.

Then computer-makers will start putting Windows-compatible-but-cheaper-than-Windows Linux on their boxes.

Re:The desktop-revolution begins

[Dave_bsr]

As far as i'm concerned, OO matches MS office. it's not _exactly_ the same thing but it does what an office app should do, and it's very close to being able to open up MS docs well. It can do what an office system should do, and it does it well. Once an office application is available, adoption will follow. Applications follow a market - and if linux doesn't get XYZ applications in ABC time that doesn't mean it isn't "viable", it just means it isn't the right thing for you at that time.

Gimp is cool, there are a million cool things about linux. And yes you can use it successfully as a desktop OS - I do.

Getting a machine "linux compatible" is much easier in my experience than getting a machine windows 2K compatible, by far - and XP has some pretty high standards too. I've never had problem with NICs, and my bet is that winmodem support will come, and in some areas is coming. As much as they suck, i wouldn't mind the extra for a REAL MODEM, thank you.

Re:The desktop-revolution begins

[Anonymous Coward]

Until Star Office or Open Office can match up with MS Office, Linux on the desktop is only viable for geeks.

Star/Open Office don't have to be better than MS Office, they only have to be good enough, which they are. The most critical thing that's lacking is file format compatibility. But when that isn't an issue (such as in this case), Star/Open Office is good enough.

Hardware compatibility is another problem. With all the winmodems and NICs out there that don't work with Linux how can you expect to get people to use it if you can't network? Replacing the NICs and winmodems isn't always the answer if you've got a cash strapped school.

Aside from the fact that Linux NIC compatibility is very good, a cheap NE2000 card is still a good ways cheaper than an XP license.

...and you guestimate labor at $50/hour

You really think that admins in Spain make $50/hour? Bwahahahahahahahaha!

Re:The desktop-revolution begins

[Chasuk]

Even the most die-hard Microsoft supporters will admit that Linux is viable on the desktop right now.

I suppose you could call me a die-hard Microsoft supporter, though I tend to consider myself agnostic regarding OS's. However, as I use Microsoft OS's to the virtual exclusion of all others, the die-hard Linux supporters will probably consider me a die-hard Microsoft supporter. The point of this wordy preamble? I am [or might be considered] a die-hard Microsoft supporter, and I take exception to the quote italicized above.

Linux ISN'T viable on the Desktop right now.

Linux will be ready for the Desktop when the majority of *neophyte computer users* don't need tech support and hand-holding to use it, or when the tech support which is available is as freely and ubiquitously available as it is for the Windows platform.

The words *neophyte computer users* were emphasized for a reason. Don't respond unless you have digested them.

I work in telephone tech support, and I have done so for years. Further, I am the guy who is called by in-laws, friends, acquaintances, and other assorted and otherwise not-even-on-their-xmas-card-list family members when their PC stops co-operating.

During the day, EVERY day, I get phone calls like this one:

Customer: "Hello, I use you for my e-mails, and now I can't get them."

Me: "We are your Internet Service Provider, and you are having trouble receiving your e-mail through us?"

Customer: "Uh-huh."

I collect the customer's name, I look their account up, and after I have ensured that their service has not been disconnected due to a deliquent bill, we proceed.

Me: "Are you connected to the Internet when you try to check your e-mail?"

Customer: "What?"

Me: "When you try to check your e-mail, are you sure that you are actually connected to the Internet?"

Customer: "I don't know. How do I tell?"

After several false starts we do solve the problem, but the conversation almost always includes moments similar to this:

Me: "What version of Windows are you using?"

Customer: "I don't know. How do I tell?"

Or:

Me: "What browser do you use?"

Customer: "I don't know. What's a browser?"

Me: "The program that you use to browse the web. Do you use Internet Explorer, Netscape Communicator, Opera, or something else?"

Customer: "I don't know. How do I tell?"

Or:

Customer: "I can't read what my friend sent me."

Me: "What did you send you?"

Customer: "I don't know, I can't open it to find out."

Me: "No, I mean did he send you a text file, a sound file, an image, what?"

Customer: "I don't know, I can't open it to find out."

Me: "What is the name of the file that he sent you?"

Customer: "I don't know. How do I tell?"

Me: "Did he send it to you as an e-mail attachment, or was it sent on a zip disk, a floppy, or a CD?"

Customer: "I don't know. How do I tell?"

Or:

Customer: "How can I get rid of my cookies?"

I spend several minutes trying to explain one of several different processes, during which time it becomes obvious that the customer has no fucking idea what a cookie even is, but a helpful computer "expert" told him they were bad.

I spend hours a month trying to explain to people how to install, and remove, various computer applications. In Windows, it is a relatively painless procedure, though it is far from standard or perfect. The customer might have to download a program to help him extract the file he has downloaded, which is always confusing to a neophyte, but they eventually manage. Usually it is double-click and go, for both installation and removal. I say usually: Windows is especially sloppy in leaving fragments of removed programs all over the HD, and in leaving shit in the registry. And DLL hell sucks, but both problems are getting better.

In Linux, the customer has to understand debs, and rpms, and tarballs, minimum. He has to understand the compile process, and what a dependency is, and that the kernel may be rock solid, but that the Windows Manager or the application he is using isn't. In other words, he has to understand that the stable OS he is using, as a Desktop solution, is just as prone to crashes as Windows, but that if he were running a server it wouldn't crash nearly as often as a server crashes in Windows. That is exceedingly useful to a Desktop user.

Imagine a conversation with a neophyte Linux Desktop user.

Me: "What distribution of Linux are you using?"

Customer: "I don't know. How do I tell?"

Or:

Me: "What Window Manager are you using?"

Customer: "I don't know. How do I tell?"

I would then spend several minutes trying to ascertain whether the customer was using Gnome, or KDE (all arguments over what a Windows Manager is put aside), or Enlightenment, or...

You get the idea.

Now, today, right now, the average Linux user is several times more computer literate than the average Windows user. They are members of the geek-elite. They wouldn't ask questions as dumb as the examples I've given.

But for Linux to be viable on the Desktop, it would have to embrace the masses of *neophyte computer users* who are already petrified by MS Windows. And MS Windows is pretty bloody simple, in most regards, to Linux, regardless of which distribution or Windows Manager you are using.

I've been installing Linux since 1995, with Slackware as my first install, and it has improved leaps and bounds, but it is still not ready for the Desktop, the Desktop being that user space inhabited by the non computer-geeks, the computer neophytes.

Re:The desktop-revolution begins

[jesterzog]

Even the most die-hard Microsoft supporters will admit that Linux is viable on the desktop right now.

Even the most die-hard Linux supporters will admit that Windows is viable on the desktop right now. Unfortunately it has to be better before most people will consider it a reasonable alternative. It also needs better marketing, because effective (not necessarily honest) marketing is so often what decides the purchasing decisions that people and businesses make. Whether or not GNU fans want to sell their soul and push boundaries to gain market share is another issue, though.

Microsoft supporters usually cite "migration costs" or "training costs", or other shortsighted reasons why people should not switch to Linux.

This is shortsighted because corporations and organisations come and go -> If switching costs is the only thing in favor of Windows, then it will lose slowly, but steadily.

I'll agree that it's shortsighted, but I also don't see a serious difference between Linux supporters citing "software purchasing costs", which for the most part is just a fixed cost in the first place. Once you've bought it, you have it.

I've had Win98 on one of my boxes for three years, I've installed the updates when they came along, and it hasn't cost me much more than what I paid for it. It's the ongoing maintenance that's the big cost to a lot of businesses. Linux usually requires much higher paid and harder to find staff than Windows requires...

Yes it's partly because of the education system and the Microsoft monopoly and the unfair popularity of winmodems from companies that don't release alternative drivers, but it's true. And it's unlikely to be too difficult to put together an argument showing this to be more expensive than the occasional Microsoft upgrade.

Personally I like using linux/bsd/unix/whatever more than Windows. But I think it's naive to talk about free software as an inevitable dinosaur that will soon rise up and thwart Microsoft out of existence. Five years ago, people were saying that exactly that would happen within months, and people never stop saying it. It also never really happens.

When it comes down to it, Microsoft is full of very smart (albeit cut-throat competitive) business people who, whatever you might read around slashdot, are not stupid. Microsoft could be split in half and it'd still come out on top one way or another. This doesn't mean that Microsoft doesn't make mistakes or that people won't switch away from Microsoft products; all of that is just part of the calculated risk taking that any business does. But it's not going to collapse under its own stupidity any time soon.

That's how I feel about it, anyway.

Re:The desktop-revolution begins

[visualight]

I know an 11 year old girl who can produce web pages in a text editor and is equally comfortable using linux as she is using windows. Her parents think she's a brainiac, but the truth is she just didn't know in advance that linux would be harder. Just as she thinks that using Front Page or GoLive is harder than using NotePad. I quote, "I don't know what all those buttons do, it's easier to just type it." She's learning javascripting from one of the Bible books now, although I am available to "translate" the lessons from the book.

The point is it's just as easy to tell a friend in need to type "rpm -Uvh" as it is to say "doubleclick this file".

Linux is not so difficult it's just different and some people are too timid to attempt the adjustment. Think of how AOL spends a billion dollars a year convincing people that they're "easy" to use when in fact all they did was make they're user interface deliberately different from the "generic" IE/NS set. When an AOL user see's me open up Mozilla to a "blank" page they go "What do I do now?" because all the banner ads and popups are missing.

Re:The desktop-revolution begins

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it is FAR easier to phone support command line operations like "sudo apt-get install mozilla" than it is to navigate the maze of varying icons and menus on a winbox.

Re:The desktop-revolution begins

[Gizzmonic]

Look at Apple, decent systems with SHIT for software or at the very least, a good wait of 6 months to a year to get the same software Windows already has.

Not everyone cares about playing Doom 2k2, or having 12 different versions of label-making software. Some of us have video to edit, and the best packages are Mac-only.

Re:The desktop-revolution begins

[uspsguy]

You must not support the same Windows that I do. I just spent Friday night and Saturday morning trying to clean up a botched modem install on a W2K laptop. Finding and deleting files manually, searching and editing the regestry for multiple abandoned keys, frequent reboots. It was my father-in-law's machine. He is more computer literate than most but was completely lost. Don't tell me Windows is ready for the desktop. Its there by default in most cases but that doesn't mean its any better than Linux. At work, we have numerous Unix-flavor boxes that just run day in and day out. We keep Ghost images of our Windows workstations on the network because we don't have time to figure out all the problems that crop up. We just give them a fresh working image and walk away.

Re:The desktop-revolution begins

[Permission Denied]

The point is it's just as easy to tell a friend in need to type "rpm -Uvh" as it is to say "doubleclick this file".

Surely you gest.

(a) recognition and memorization are completely different cognitive abilities, and (b) you need to actually work with these people to figure out what the parent poster is talking about. I'll talk about (b).

I knew this guy in college - physics major, really smart guy. He was doing numerical analysis in Fortran and he decided he needed his own Linux box instead of just using the iron the physics department offered. He bought a system from VA (this was a while ago).

Mein Gott, the problems this guy had. He never bothered to look up the rpm command. He just used the KDE feature where it would install an rpm once you double-clicked on it. If you think the "neophyte user" will remember that command you're completely wrong. If you think the neophyte user will do a google or apropos search for the rpm syntax, you're wrong. The neophyte user will never even see a demonstration of the rpm syntax.

One day, he decided to use GNOME instead of KDE. I get a phonecall when he wants to go back to KDE from GNOME. The Hell I went through that day.... No he wasn't using gdm, kdm, just plain xdm. Forget trying to guide him through editting .xsession. I ended up physically going to his machine and fixing it myself. Fortunately, I also enabled ssh that day.

Week later, I get another phone call. He can't log in using xdm. It took a while to get a good explanation of what was really going on, but I finally figured that logging into xdm was just spitting him back to the xdm prompt. So I tell hime to give me his passwords, and I log into his box. Nothing seems wrong - his .xsession is fine, I tried it myself remotely. Everything in his user account looked peachy. Then I did a "df -h". Turns out he had like 20 gigs empty in /home, but the 4 gigs in / were all filled up. This guy never used the user account that the VA setup program must have created for him. Double-clicking on rpm files requires root privs, so he would always log in as root. Thus, /root was full of crap and /home was completely empty (VA had a nice partitioning scheme which I understood). Problem is, this guy didn't have any idea of what a user even is, so the lecture about not logging in as root probably did nothing.

Now, you might call this guy clueless. Regarding unix administration, yes, he was completely clueless, but the stuff he was doing in his fortran programs was way over my head. This guy definitely knew his physics, so he wasn't stupid. Problem with us unix folks is that a lot of time we lump in people who don't understand Unix as idiots.

Me? I love /usr/ports, CVSup, the whole lot. Makes my job easier and more fun. But I know this stuff is not for everybody, and I'm OK with that - I'm not going to install Linux on my aging mother's win98 PC and if my colleague likes using MacOS, that's fine by me - no need to force Unix on everybody.

I hope they've considered all of the

[Slash Veteran]

ancillary costs. Not to prompt a flamebait, but if you only compare the costs of the various OSes to purchase, you're missing the boat.

Linux is free to acquire, but it is certainly not free in terms of support costs, training, finding compatibility solutions (when someone in the windoze world sends you that office document), etc.

None of this is insurmountable, but much of it is often overlooked.

JWZ himself said it best: linux is only free if your time has no value.

Now stand back and think about that. So true. Open Source is still the way to go, but don't forget the cost of Open Source in your financial rollups.

The cost of free-as-in-beer software

[The Monster]

linux is only free if your time has no value.

That is precisely why Open Source software is cheapest in the most economically-depressed areas. For the money that would otherwise go to licensing fees, you can hire and train lot of local talent to run things. And becasuse it's OS, they can learn it inside and out, instead of just learning the interface that has been exposed to them.