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

Just a minor correction...

[mfarah]

The Spanish province of Extremadura has[...]

Actually, Extremadura is an autonomous community (formerly a region under the older division of the country). It's composed of TWO provinces: Cáceres and Badajoz.

There. Mod me down as redundant if you will.

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

[municio]

IMHO, it's going to be the other way around: people will first switch to open source applications, (StarOffice/OpenOffice for instance, since it works in Windows) and then to an Open Source OS. It's easier this way, and it does more economic sense. I can imagine my company switching to an open source Office suite to save $500, I don't imagine them migrating to Linux to save on a Windows license they already paid for when the bought the computer. Besides, a marketoid who can MS Office can use StarOffice/OpenOffice very easily. If a marketoid has a problem with OpenOffice, I'm sure he will find his way around. But I can't imagine the same marketoid doing a su or changing file permissions. Besides the support team in many companies is made of MCSEs very familiar with Windows and that perceive Linux like a thread to their jobs. But I don't think they view OpenOffice like a thread, since they are not so into MS Office either.

Once a companies rely on specific open source applications, it might make sense for the market and free developers to target their efforts in providing bullet proof distributions based on specific applications, that hide all complexity to the final user (a la AOL), and gives maintenance responsibilities to the administrators. By complexity I mean very simple things for technical people (file permissions, packages installation, etc...), that look very complex for regular users.

For know, it's to soon to target the non-technical desktop market. Look at Red Hat, they don't even mention the desktop market. They focus only on the server side.

Move people first to open source applications, (I convinced 5 people to move over Mozilla on Windows this month on my job). OS will come later.

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.

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.