German Linux Migration White Paper Updated

TheRealDamion writes to let us know that the German Federal Government Co-Ordination and Advisory Agency (KBSt) has released an updated version of their Linux Migration guide whitepaper. This guide, originally released in 2003, is incredibly detailed offering assistance on a wide range of issues that could be faced in a migration from Windows to Linux.

Comments

Re:No mention of GNU

[TheRaven64]

A GNU userland already does boot on two BSD kernels and one GNU kernel - although the GNU kernel doesn't have much hardware support. These systems look a lot more like a Linux distribution to the user than a Linux system with a BSD userland would.

And even if you are using a BSD userland, then you will still find some fairly major components (e.g the compiler collection) are GNU projects.

Re:No mention of GNU

[Master of Transhuman]

And without a kernel, the GNU tools are (mostly) useless.

And since GNU means GNU is Not Unix, and the whole point of the GNU project was to produce an OS - a COMPLETE OS WITH KERNEL - which they utterly failed to do over twenty years until some Finnish grad student did it (probably not even using their tools, for all I know)...

In other words, you've lost that battle, so fuck off.

Linux is Linux and the rest of the OS and distro is by whoever supplied it - including KDE, GNOME, and fifty thousand other tiny little people who don't particularly care if the OS is called Linux or KDE/Linux or GNOME/Linux, or tinylittleutility/Linux.

Only the GNU clowns want support.

If you NEED it, you don't deserve to get it.

Morons.

Re:You missed the point

[IpalindromeI]

I apologize for being too subtle. I'll spell it out for you.

Computers don't look that great, so usually people want to use them to do things other than spice up a room. Many computer users are dumb or lazy, so whatever they want to do needs to be easy to figure out. Since people rely so much on sight, making things visual also tends to make them easier, which lets more dumb and lazy people figure out how to do them.

(Here's where it gets good.) Most people are too dumb and lazy to figure out how to do things without X, and some things can't even be done at all without it. If someone can't use the computer to do the things they want to do with it, the computer doesn't work for them. It's broken. Nonfunctional.

(Here's where I tie it back to the beginning of the argument.) Your claim was that, without X, the system is only "less warm 'n fuzzy," implying that it still works. In one sense you're right, in that someone knowledable could still use it for something. But most people aren't knowledgable, so for them it doesn't work. It doesn't accomplish its purpose of allowing them to do the things they want. Since that is a computer's only purpose, it doesn't work.

(One more try, from your angle.) I'm not trying to argue that the GNU parts aren't important (even though most can be replaced with non-GNU stuff). I'm saying that X is at least, if not more important, because that is the piece that actually lets the system become a desktop OS, which is what normal users need to make a computer work. Without X, Linux does not work for those people.

As to your analogy, it didn't refute my point, so I ignored it. Here's one that captures what I'm saying: It's like the difference between a car with only the bare essentials needed to make it move: an engine, a chassis, and tires, but without a body or seats. Sure it "runs," but who's going to drive it? No one. So effectively, it's worthless.