Munich Decides On Debian

RichiH writes "Notwithstanding the recent craze about Ubuntu and the negative effects this might have, the german city of Munich chose Debian as the base for its LiMux project. Gonicus and SoftCon are the companies who were chosen to achieve this feat. With 14,000 desktops, this is one of the largest Linux transistions ever, even prompting Microsoft's Steve Balmer to offer a rebate of 90%. Other /. coverage here here and here."

Comments

Long time planning.

[Short Circuit]

This has been in the planning stage for a long time. Much as I love the almighty Penguin, I'll believe this when I see it.

Re:Long time planning.

[xoboots]

Who says this is a "Take that, Ubuntu!" ?? Just because the submitter suggested as much with his link to that retarded "controversy" the other day? Its all just meaningless flak. No doubt Munich chose the Debian distros they did (German) for the same reason that Suse was originally conisdered. No doubt SUse is not considered now just because it is now a foreign corporate entitity -- just like MS. Of course governments are going to want to support local ventures -- and why not? With Linux, they can. Everyone doesn't have to run distro "x" and it is possible to have many winners.

Re:Long time planning.

[4of12]

Just like with computer hardware, the longer you wait for Linux the better the version you get.

By the time deployment comes it will probably have OpenOffice 2.2, Evolution 2.4, etc.

Success of the project will be measured by office workers shrugging as they get to work on the new systems and finding expected functionality has continued wondering what the big deal was all about.

Kind of like the Y2K non-event.

Not cheap enough

[SunFan]

prompting Microsoft's Steve Balmer to offer a rebate of 90%.

Ah, the price of Windows XP is now down to $20? With Linux and Solaris free of charge, Microsoft still has some distance to go.

Re:Not cheap enough

[ajrs]

Yeah, you would have to pay me a lot more than $20 to give up linux for XP.

Re:Not cheap enough

[ajrs]

I do have an old 98 partition I use to play games. For me, windows is only good for playing games, not for work. If you want me to use windows full time, you'd have to pay me enough that I didn't need to work anymore. And then some.

Re:Not cheap enough

[SunFan]

What you are suggesting is that we go back back to 1970s IBM-style buttreaming.

I don't think this is the result, but what is happening is that software-only systems companies (Microsoft) are being undercut on their entire product lineup. That ain't good for business.

Look what Sun and IBM can do that Microsoft can't:

- give away the OS (OpenSolaris and Linux)
- give away the dev platform (Java & J2EE--rumors of open source JES from Sun, too)
- give away productivity apps (OpenOffice.org, GIMP, etc.)

What does that leave Microsoft with, the XBox? All the while, Sun and IBM are selling SPARC, POWER, and Opteron servers and selling support and services surrounding those servers.

IMO, in the long term, Microsoft will either have to be bought by a real systems company (HP? Dell?) and become a small figment of what they now are or inevitably become a teeny-tiny figment of what they now are.

Ballmer can kiss my !@#

[KingBahamut]

with his rebates. I think M$ is so vicious in their borg like behavior that giving an entire group of 14,000 users a 90% rebate is just a sign of what theyll do to keep their userbase in Europe. Something I fear that they have clearly lost already. Why doesnt Ballmer just give them Windows for free and see if that will denth their $800,000,000+ settlement by the EU?

Questions to be answered.

Why be surprised?

[bestadvocate]

Debian still has a larger package base, more archs supported and a bit less complecated costomazations. Ubuntu is better for end users looking for an easy install. The only "distrobution" we have seen derive from Ubuntu is Kubuntu, and thats just an alternative set of packages for default installation, and I would not be surprised if this mostly remains the same. Debian as a distro base is tried and true.
I feel this is like comparing ROCK with Gentoo, if less extreem

Re:Uh, Novell, SUSE, hello???!

[indifferent children]

SuSE would have been a shoo-in had it not been bought by an American company. This is not an anti-European rant, but companies and governments (especially) look for 'local' companies to deal with. When Novell bought SuSE, Europe lost its local distro, and buying SuSE has the same trade-balance effect as buying from M$.

Re:Looking forward to the know-how...

[mhesseltine]

I'm looking forward to see how they are going to plan a uniform distribution of packages across such a large quantity of workstations... rpm/apt/yum/redcarpet2/zenworks/altiris ?

Well, since they are using Debian, I would assume the use of apt/dpkg since that's Debian's package management software.

I am curious as to what you mean by "a uniform distribution of packages"? Are you discussing the bandwidth of updating 14,000 desktops from a Debian mirror, and thus want to setup your own mirror/repository? Or, are you asking about how someone would administer/roll out 14,000 workstations?

Re:Great

[FidelCatsro]

Sorry hit save instead of preview and extrans messed it up

"Gott erhalte Linux den Kaiser"
Linux ,Linux über alles,
Über alles in der Windows Welt,
Wenn es stets zu Schutz und Trutze
als unix zusammenhält,
Von der GNU bis zu Herr Linus,
Von G.R.U.B bis IPTables
- Linux , Linux über alles,
Über alles in der Windows Welt.

Re:and the text in English

[bcmm]

Google normally produces similar results but with better handling of strange characters.
from the Google Translation of TFA:

Munich sets on Debian

The companies Softcon and Gonicus received the addition from the Bavarian state capital Munich, the IT Migrationsprojekt LiMux with the production to support configuration and care of a basis Clients which is based on open SOURCE often commodity for the 14,000 jobs of the city administration. That means, which will be based future basis Client of the city administration on the Linux distribution Debian. The city Munich had European-wide written this order out.

LiMux project manager Peter Hofmann is pleased about a high participation in the advertisement and the quality of the offered achievements. That shows that a migration on Linux on the job is not "Exotenloesung at the market". The offerer with the best relationship received the addition from technical authority and price. Now a prototype is to be provided briskly, in order to be able to begin the actual migration at year end.

The town councillor Muenchens decided in May 2003 to begin on the personal computers of the city open SOURCE often commodity since the support for the operating system used at present was stopped by Microsoft. Up to the summer 2004 a fine concept was provided to the technical conversion and the organizational conditions, which the town councillor absegnete on 16 June 2004 . In September previous yearly confirmed a legal opinion Munich Linux course ( anw /c't)

90%?

[booch]

A 90% price cut? That's pretty incredible. To me it says one of 2 things:

• The company makes more than 90% profit on every copy of Windows they sell.
• Microsoft was attempting to "dump" the software for less than their cost, and should be prosecuted for that crime.

If it's the first one, then people and companies need to start paying attention. If it's the second one, then the government(s) need to start paying attention.