Slashdot Mirror


Microsoft Alternative in Extremadura, Spain

grylnsmn writes "The Washington Post today has a front page article talking about how the Extremadura region in Spain is converting all government offices, businesses, and home from Windows to Linux. The article talks of their problems last spring and how the community banded together to solve them. "But the glitches are more an annoyance, [Ana Acevedo, who heads one of the government's document-processing units] said, than a hassle. 'It's mostly very tiny things,' she said." Overall, this is an important testbed for localities all over the world who are looking at making the switch. Overall, a very good and balanced article." Update: 11/03 20:37 GMT by T : Headline misspelled "Extremadura" as "Extramadura" -- fixed now.

11 of 296 comments (clear)

  1. The heading is wrong by RinzeWind · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's "Extremadura", not "Extramadura".

  2. Re:Redundant by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 5, Informative
    OK, is Slashdot now poting a story every time somebody installs Linux? This is getting ridiculous. We understand that more people are using Linux now. This stopped being news several years ago.

    This isn't somebody. This is over 100,000 machines with 10,000 switched already. I don't recall ever hearing about such a large OS conversion ever. This is news.

  3. Re:Redundant by Phouk · · Score: 5, Informative

    You obviously didn't read the article.

    Already, Vazquez de Miguel said, more than 10,000 desktop machines have been switched, with 100,000 more scheduled for conversion in the next year. [...] Organizers called their version "Linex," combining the names of Linux and Extremadura. The software has become so popular that it has been downloaded more than 55,000 times from www.linex.org by people outside Extremadura.

    This is a bit different in orders of magnitude from just "somebody installing Linux", isn't it?

    --
    Stupidity is mis-underestimated.
  4. Re:i claim spain in the name of america by nirvanis · · Score: 2, Informative

    Sadly, other regions in Spain have not accepted to use free software instead of Windows.

    --
    nirvanis
  5. Re:Look at the picture by Hektor_Troy · · Score: 3, Informative

    Ehm ... in a word:

    No.

    Linux is a kernel. Windows is an entire operating system.

    Add a bunch of various GNU/BSD/Whatever programs, and you end up with something, that sometimes are better than Windows, and sometimes with something that isn't.

    --
    We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
  6. Their have their own distro...: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    they have their own distro. Based in Debian 3.0 + Gnome2:

    http://www.linex.org

  7. Re:Dear Lord protect me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Hi,
    while your post is completely offtopic, and thus moderated as such correctly, I feel the need to help you out..

    What you've encountered is what RPM-users (RedHat, Mandrake, SuSe, Conectiva) call "Dependency hell". Package A depends on B, which in turn depends on C and D, which... you get the picture.

    Many distributions have come up with a solution to this: Mandrake has got urpmi, RedHat has got up2date, I'm sure SuSe has got one too, and Conectiva has got apt. Yup, that tool from Debian. They ported it to "rpm" distros, and it's working great. I use it daily on my RedHat 8.0 box.

    You can find all the info you need at freshrpms.net. Be sure to get synaptic, a graphical tool to install packages. You'll love it.

    If you need more help, feel free to mail me at atticusfinch at-symbol spamsu point cx.

  8. Re:Extremedura+Linux=Linex? Come on... by dsfd · · Score: 2, Informative

    In Spanish Linex sounds good. They want to emphasize the importantance of Lin-Ex as a "new" thing developed by them ... and win the regional elections again. I'm in favour of switching from MS to Linux but in my opiniosn the main emphasis of Linex is political propaganda of Mr. Ibarra, the president of Extremadura state.

  9. Re:Dark side to this by ninthwave · · Score: 2, Informative

    Show me some examples.

    For info on the packages in linex check here.

    There are no packages that would suggest that. You can check the source to see if there are specific changes.

    That is the beauty of Open Source you can check the source. Which is again my question can you show me some examples. Of this. I agree it is a possible dark side but the system of Open Source has checks and balances against that. More so then corporate software.

    --
    I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said: "I drank what?" - Chris Knight (Val Kilmer)- Real Genius
  10. Re:Heh Heh by sconeu · · Score: 4, Informative

    I haven't seen in any Linux distribution yet is no cost, easy to install security patches.

    Two words: Mandrake Update

    --
    General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
  11. Re:the biggest problem by pe1rxq · · Score: 3, Informative

    You can hot plug/unplug usb devices with any recent kernel that supports usb..... I'm pretty sure the same can be done with firewire.
    ACPI has nothing to do with this.

    Jeroen

    --
    Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/