Slashdot Mirror
Indian State Switches to Linux
pamri writes "In a pleasant and surprising move, the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, has opted to switch to Linux from Microsoft for its Gyandooth (intranet in Dhar district connecting rural cybercafes catering to the everyday needs of the masses) programme. What is more surprising is that the state's Chief Minister Digvijay Singh personally conveyed this to Bill Gates. A choice quote: 'For us it is not a question of Microsoft versus Linux. It is just a matter of choosing between a free software and a monopoly. We feel that when we are putting public information out in the open, then it should not be through a proprietary software.'"
I'd have encountered SAMBA if I had any windoze machines, but I don't.
I've got exim instead of sendmail, so I don't really know if there's anything hard about sendmail. Exim is easy to configure and comes very well documented.
Kernel panic? Well, that has happened to me once or twice. Once on an overheating machine. Once on a machine where I screwed up by not knowing how to work lilo. Never on a reasonlable machine with a normal install of Debian or Red Hat. Ever.
In any case, there is no comparing the "problems" you have cited to M$ crap. When a piece of free software does not work there IS something you can do about it. If the man or info page fails you, unlikely, and a google search does not turn up an answer right away, you can always download and read the source code itself. I've never had to do that, ever, becuse man and info generally list where all the configuration files are and those are almost always well documented. What happens when some bogus M$ code pulls up the old blue screen of death? You reboot, look at MSDN, google, and what not. But you can never ever actually fix the problem because only one company sits on the source and you are at their mercy. They get around to it when they get around to it, sometimes that's never and that's why M$ boxes fail so often, are so easy to break into and cost so much to own and run.
Poor pot and kettle, they've been sitting in the smoke of propriatory software so long they can't see the light of day.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Actually my senator, Russ Feingold [senate.gov], was the only one to vote against the USA Patriot Act.
Ah, my mistake.
I got them mixed up. The point stands with the names changed.
Another interesting fact that's made even more bizarre by its tragic end is:
In August 2001, FBI Deputy Director John O'Neill resigned from his post over George W. Bush's policy on terrorism and Osama bin Laden. Specifically, O'Neill's department was told to "back off" their bin Laden and Al Queda investigations while the Bush administration negotiated with the Taliban. O'Neill became the security chief of the World Trade Center - where he died during the events of 9/11.
Quoted from here.