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French Parliament Chooses Ubuntu

Posted by kdawson on from the all-those-letters-are-silent dept.

atamyrat reminds us that last November it was announced that the French Parliament had decided to switch to Linux. At that time the distro had not been determined. It will be Ubuntu: "[T]wo companies, Linagora and Unilog, have been selected to provide the members of the Parliament as well as their assistants new computers containing free software. This will amount to 1,154 new computers running Ubuntu prior to the start of the next session which occurs in June 2007."

16 of 174 comments (clear)

  1. Quick French Lesson For Posters by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    chair == chaise

    throw == jet

    monkey == singe

    boy == garçon

    1. Re:Quick French Lesson For Posters by Silver+Sloth · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It isn't as if the French have ever made a major correct decision... Yeah, their decision to support those damn rebels in the colonies and help them overthrow their rightful British rulers, that was a real bad one! And that stupid statue they gave them, how inappropriate!

      In more recent times, their decsion to stay out of a disasterous war based on dubious evidence is looking better and better as time goes by.
      --
      init 11 - for when you need that edge.
    2. Re:Quick French Lesson For Posters by dlasley · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'll grant that as a rebuttal to the parent post, but the unfortunate truth in the U.S. is that a dramatic lack of historical scholarship and a distinct inability to grasp the nuances of the presence means that thousands of "decision-makers" around the country will look at this headline and say "well, if France is doing it, it must be anti-American since they support back invading Iraq". The fact that is was probably a smart call doesn't matter to people who's only worries are the three-month and six-month profit forecasts. Those decision-makers - many of whom have no excuse other than their own inadequacies - will see this as (optimistic) a ratification of Americanization and choose RedHat or (pessimistic) view it as yet another transgression by the neo-socialist liberals against the goodness of capitalism and choose Microsoft.

      So far, Kubuntu (I like KDE, what can I say?) has been excellent as both a laptop and workstation platform, and I do have Ubuntu on a handful of servers. My personal choice would be Ubuntu/Kubuntu over just about anything else, and I applaud the decision and hope (uber-optimistically) that it's the beginning of this so-called tipping point for Linux on the desktop.

      --
      when it rains, it gets real soggy. when it pours, i'm under the tap just _waiting_ for the joy
    3. Re:Quick French Lesson For Posters by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Bill Clinton pretty much much ignored Iraq, even though he believed them to be pursuing nuclear and other WMD programs. He was widely criticized for doing nothing. I see this historical revisionism a lot and just plain don't get it. Were you paying any attention to reality during the Clinton administration? Clinton did not "pretty much ignore Iraq", he extended the no fly zone, got congress to pass the "Iraq Liberation Act", bombed the fuck out of them, etc.
      In 1998 when he tried to hold Saddam to account for non-cooperation with the UNSCOM regime by bombing a wide variety of targets (mostly related to WMD production) he was widely criticized for it BY REPUBLICANS. They said he was trying to "wag the dog" and that there wasn't a real threat from Saddam, it was all just hype. Go look at the actual record of events during the Clinton administration. Look at how many tons of bombs were dropped on Iraq every year of his presidency, look at how many missions were flown over the no-fly zone in Iraq, look at his public comments during re: Iraq. It's complete and total bullshit that the very same people who mocked Clinton for attacking Saddam in 1998 now try to spin it in the opposite direction.
    4. Re:Quick French Lesson For Posters by oliderid · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "France were quite content to look the other way on Saddam Hussein's atrocities because they had a nice trade relationship with him. They were widely criticized for this "cheese eating surrender monkey" approach."

      1. Correction: they were widely criticized in the US.
      Americans were convinced that it was part of the war against terrorism while the Frenchmen were not. Do you remember these so called Al Qaeda bases in Iraq? Or these Iraqi chemical stocks, the mobile lab? The fake British report? I do. de Villepin speech was acclaimed by most foreign countries. I stil remember it.
      2. The US supported Saddam when he invaded Iran (just like France, Germany and countless of other western countries).
      3. Nobody reacted when he gazed Kurds in the 80's.
      4. Nobody tried to support the Shia uprising after the first Gulf war.

      Of course the real US agenda was different (securing oil production, stabilization of the region, etc.) and the American agenda was in opposition with some French interests (French oil companies had secured extremely lucrative deal in Iraq prior to the invasion).

      The US had a "grand vision" of the middle east (getting rid of dictators, bringing democracy and western values, securing this major oil source). the French government didn't share it and they wanted to protect their own interests. Both failed miserably.

  2. OT: Have anyone tried Wubi? by atamyrat · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I came across with Wubi - new Ubuntu installer for Windows. You don't have to burn CD nor create new partition.
    From FAQ:

    How does Wubi work?
    Wubi adds an entry to the Windows boot menu which allows you to run Linux. Ubuntu is installed within a file in the windows file system (c:\wubi\harddisks\ubuntu.hd), this file is seen by Linux as a real hard disk.
    How do I install Ubuntu?
    Run wubi, answer the few questions, reboot and select "Ubuntu" from the boot menu, go grab a coffee and when you are back Ubuntu will be ready for you.
    How do I uninstall it?
    You uninstall it as any other applications. In windows go to the control panel and select "Add or Remove Programs", then select Wubi and uninstall it. You can also use the uninstaller that you find in C:\wubi\uninstaller.exe.
    1. Re:OT: Have anyone tried Wubi? by Bob54321 · · Score: 3, Funny

      I haven't tried Wubi but I'm guessing its similar to the Debain Installer that I tried. I never had any trouble with that. You've got to love the Ubuntu wiki and its use cases!

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      :(){ :|:& };:
  3. Re:I don't get why they would use Ubuntu... by Short+Circuit · · Score: 3, Insightful

    To me, Fedora is the RPM equivalent of Ubuntu.

    I'm not sure either should be used as an enterprise's first Linux desktop rollout; Windows admins aren't accustomed to their relatively furious rate of major releases.

    Debian might have been a better choice, with its slow release cycle and decent security patch rollout rate.

    --
    tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
  4. Re:I don't get why they would use Ubuntu... by MartinG · · Score: 4, Funny

    enterprise-ish

    Would you care to define enterprise-ish for us non-bullshit speaking types?

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    -- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz .@adgimnoprstu
  5. Re:Perfect matchup by dreamchaser · · Score: 4, Insightful

    While it's not my favorite distro, there are plenty of support options available for Ubuntu. Of course I'm pretty sure you knew that and just felt like tossing out a troll. The alternative is you're just daft.

  6. Re:I don't get why they would use Ubuntu... by MartinG · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That sounds like pretty good description of Ubuntu to me!

    Which of those characteristics you describe are Fedora, (Open)SUSE or Debian better than Ubuntu at?

    Just to be clear, I'm not saying I think think Ubuntu is better than the others. In fact Fedora is probably my favourite disto. I just don't see how it is more "enterprise-ish" than Ubuntu is.

    --
    -- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz .@adgimnoprstu
  7. Re:I don't get why they would use Ubuntu... by Knuckles · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The thing is that Ubuntu is built around the latest and greatest bleeding edge bits and pieces, it's quite common for stable packages to be replaced with beta versions and for things to break horribly without warning. Maybe Ubuntu could start releasing a toned down distribution for use in environments where stability and predictable behaviour is more important.

    You have no clue how the Ubuntu releases work, do you? What you proposing exists since 06/2006, it is called Ubuntu 6.06 LTS

    --
    "When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
  8. Re:I don't get why they would use Ubuntu... by Zonk+(troll) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Hmm. Perhaps you haven't heard of the LTS release. Dapper is supported on the desktop for 3 years, 5 on the server. Packages are stable, only getting security and bug fixes. Similar to RHEL. I'm sure this is what they're planning on using. If not, they need to fire the implementers.

    --
    "The Federal Reserve is a fraudulent system."--Lew Rockwell
    End The FED. -
  9. Re:Surprising choice by corwin2 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'd have expected a French governmental institute to have chosen a good French product like Mandriva over an British on like Ubuntu (Conanical Ltd. is registered in the Isle of Man). Those French do so love their protectionism at the expense of flexibility and a fair market, after all.
    It may also mean that your view of the French mindset is not totally accurate ? ;)
  10. Re:I don't get why they would use Ubuntu... by Zonk+(troll) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Who is modding down all critique of Ubuntu? I use Ubuntu every day, and it is really a immature* piece of shit. Can you elaborate? Ubuntu provides a Usable desktop out of the box. Fedora and RHEL need a good amount of tweaking to get decent. Ie, the default Gnome config is rather bad and it's KDE needs to be replaced to work adequately.

    IMHO, the main area Ubuntu lacks is in configuration. It's a step backwards in that regard as it does require editing config files if the default doesn't cut it. Ie, if you need to change something with X you have to modify /etc/X11/xorg.conf wile Fedora/RHEL have system-config-display. This really needs to be addressed.
    --
    "The Federal Reserve is a fraudulent system."--Lew Rockwell
    End The FED. -
  11. Good stuff by RoiDaGaubert · · Score: 3, Informative

    I'm french and for once proud to be :-p

    Obviously that the only good decision that the french gouvernement took for a long while ....