Spanish Extremadura Moving 40,000 Desktops To Linux

jrepin writes with this quote from a post at the European Commission's JoinUp site: "The administration of Spain's autonomous region of Extremadura is moving to a complete open source desktop, replacing the current proprietary desktop platform, confirms the region's CIO, Teodomiro Cayetano López. The IT department started a project to install the Debian distribution on all 40,000 desktop PCs. 'The project is really advanced and we hope to start the deployment the next spring, finishing it in December.' The project makes it Europe's second largest open source desktop migration, between the French Gendarmerie (90,000 desktops) and the German city of Munich (14,000 desktops)."

Comments

Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[Anonymous Coward]

While it is a pity that Europe is sliding into socio-economic oblivion, it's a great chance for Linux. Never waste a crisis!

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[Mannfred]

As a taxpayer I'd prefer my tax money to go towards supporting lean security-hardened Linux distros (with some genuine potential for overall cost savings) rather than licenses for the latest Microsoft desktop OS, Exchange servers etc. This ought to be good news for taxpayers long-term regardless of how the economy is doing now.

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[lucidlyTwisted]

They're not moving to Linux though, they are simply moving from a customer Linux distro (called "Linex") to Debian, purely because they were finding maintaining their own distro too much of an overhead.

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[lucidlyTwisted]

"custom Linux distro" not "customer Linux distro".

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[hcs_$reboot]

Europe is broke

This is a mistake to make an association between an economic failure (Spain) and the Linux choice.

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[Anonymous Coward]

It's only the service nations which are going broke. Those with quasi-socialist governments which own or heavily sponsor manufacturing are doing very well - from Germany to China. Those which have steered to the right, consistently eschewing investment in manufacturing and scaling back the welfare state (which, from an economic PoV, keeps people in sufficient health and education that they can remain productive as long as possible) to create a non-productive underclass, such as Spain and Italy, are pretty much fucked. England and the US had a hope thanks to heavy research, heavy+specialised manufacturing and investment portfolios, but Cameron/Brown and Obama/Bush have been making sure to destroy our remaining self-worth and finish the job Reagan and Thatcher started.

Linux should be supported from a socioeconomic PoV not because its initial licence cost is cheap but because it removes the strangehold of those who would create imaginary property and other artificial scarcities - the worst of which are the trade arranagements which make it artificially cheaper to manufacture in countries half way across the world with barely any human rights and/or protections.

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[Anonymous Coward]

My Linux distro is the customest

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[dintech]

No one expected the Spanish Extremadura... to switch to linux desktop.

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, only the computers in schools, high-schools and public health services work with Linux (at classrooms we used Linex some years ago, Debian-Edu last years and Debian squeeze this year). But we have many computers at offices working with Windows XP, 9x and W2000. These are the computers that are going to migrate.

The changing name from Linex to Debian is provoked by a political change (progressives lost, conservative won) not for maintaining troubles. The brandname Linex was associated to the progressive party, so the new party doesn't want it around. Linex was Debian with Artwork packages and some selected programs. You can do the same without the Artwork packages.

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[a_hanso]

Better late than never. The invasion of England would have gone very differently had the Spanish Armada not been running Windows.

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[keeboo]

Ah, that makes sense now, because I've read about the migration to Linux in Extremadura since few years ago and related news even earlier.
News on that migration were quite widespread. I'm not spanish nor living there, and still it rings a bell.

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[icebraining]

I actually thought they already had. They've had their own distro for years now.

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[RotateLeftByte]

Have you any idea where Extramadura is?

It is a wild and truly beautiful part of Spain. The variety of Birds that you can see there is... fantastic especially the raptors.
Pretty sparsely populated as well.

In the grand scheme of things and in particular, the Spanish Financial woes, it is about as significant to the Spanish Economy as North Dakota is to the US Economy.

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[CrackedButter]

Do chickens have large talons?

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[tao]

How then can you explain Sweden, whose finances have become far more robust (and is doing a fair bit better than the rest of the EU countries) after the liberal/right-wing government took over after years and years of socialist rule?

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[theguyfromsaturn]

It has taken a long time coming. That autonomous region had their own distro (LinEx [http://www.linex.org/joomlaex/]) since 2002 (shut down december 29 2011... moved on to a national initiative, CENATIC [http://www.cenatic.es/]). Apparently they still had lots of computers to migrate.

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[rev0lt]

Sweden is a very small country (population-wise), and an oil exporter. This is a simplistic correlation, but perhaps the increasing price of oil in the last decade has increased the financial health of the country.

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[mcgrew]

Microsoft: Trouble at mill.
Apple: Oh no - what kind of trouble?
Microsoft: One on't cross beams gone owt askew on treadle.
Apple: Pardon?
Microsoft: One on't cross beams gone owt askew on treadle.
Apple: I don't understand what you're saying.
Microsoft: [slightly irritatedly and with exaggeratedly clear accent] One of the cross beams has gone out askew on the treadle.
Apple: Well what on earth does that mean?
Microsoft: *I* don't know - Mr Wentworth just told me to come in here and say that there was trouble at the mill, that's all - I didn't expect a kind of Spanish Extremadura.

[JARRING CHORD]

[The door flies open and Cardinal Perenz of Spain enters, flanked by two junior cardinals.

Perenz: NOBODY expects Linux! Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and freedom.... Our *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and freedom...and an almost fanatical devotion to Stallaman.... Our *four*...no... *Amongst* our weapons.... Amongst our weaponry...are such elements as fear, surprise.... I'll come in again.

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[Sique]

You messed up Sweden with Norway. They aren't an union anymore since 1905.

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[gmack]

If the old OS was XP they would be near a forced upgrade anyways to avoid being caught insecure after XP EOLs in 2014. XP to Windows 7 would require a complete hardware refresh. Windows 7 or Linux, no smart admin will want to wait until the last minute (next year) to deal with whatever transition they are planning.

Also: 5 minutes of browsing on dell.es netted me a mid range machine (core i3, 4g ram, 500g hd) with a 23 inch monitor for 610 Euro and of course that price goes down when start talking bulk purchase (and down even more without the win7 license).

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[cwgmpls]

North Dakota has the fourth largest oil production of all of the Unites States. It is very large contributer to the U.S. economy.

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[rev0lt]

http://www.indexmundi.com/sweden/oil_exports.html

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[RotateLeftByte]

Ok. That shows how much I know from the RH side of the Atlantic.
What I was trying to say, other parts of Spain, for example Galicia, Catalonia, Andalucia etc are all far greater contributors to the Spanish Economy than Extramadura.

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[Hatta]

Sure we did. Hell, Extremadura Linux is the only one Stallman will use, IIRC.

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[Stormwatch]

Although cost is a concern, the true reason why ALL governments, no exception, must move to open systems is because it is simply unacceptable that a public service be ever subject to vendor lock-in.

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[mcgrew]

Now these 40,000 people will need at least 8 hours of training

FUD FUD FUD!!!

I see it's been over a decade since you tried Linux. KDE is so similar to Windows that anybody who has ever used Windows would have no trouble using KDE. I have folks bring me "broken" PCs all the time that are hopelessly infected with garbage and who have no reinstall disks for Windows. None ever needed any training to use Linux, and most came later and told me how much better they liked it than Windows.

How much retraining did it take to migrate them to Windows 7 from XP? Moving to Linux is less of a change. All of the "hard" parts, the administration, is going to be done by IT staff who presumably are well versed in Unix. Any admin that doesn't know UNIX is, IMO, not competent to be a network admin to begin with.

10% of these peoples [sic] PC will need to be upgraded, Yes yes Linux can run better on older hardware however if they are going to upgrade their OS they might as well upgrade their oldest PC's [sic]

That's just stupid, and I'm not talking about your misuse of apostrophes. That old machine is going to run a hell of a lot faster under Linux, since it has no ever-growing registry nor antivirus to slow it down. If it's powerful enough to run the software it needs, replacing it is a waste of money. They're not going to be playing FPSes or calculating PI to the tem millionth decimal point.

800 euro for a new PC seems fare.

I hope English isn't your first language. And 800 Euro??? WTF??? A good office computer doesn't even cost 800 dollars.

When you are in a depressed economic times is is sometimes it is better to stick with what you got [sic] and don't upgrade and maximize the use of your purchase.

Odd how you didn't take that into account when you stupidly suggested that since they're replacing an expensive OS with a free one they might as well spend more than a new copy of Windows costs on hardware "just because".

(I like Linux I really do)

Considering the earlier part of your comment, that's VERY unlikely. If you'd run Linux in the last five years you'd know migration woudn't take any training whatever. Sorry, but I'm calling you a liar. An illiterate one, too.

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[tao]

And if you would've bothered to check the real source (CIA factbook), you would've noticed that Sweden imports twice as much oil as it exports... https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sw.html

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[tolan-b]

The UK Armada /is/ running Windows, depressingly... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/05/windows_for_warships_hits_type_23s/

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[Damnshock]

They're not moving to Linux though, they are simply moving from a customer Linux distro (called "Linex") to Debian, purely because they were finding maintaining their own distro too much of an overhead.

Pitty that a comment that is wrong is scored "5, Informative"

They're moving computers with privative software on them, not the thousans of machines that already run Linex (or Debian or whatever you want to call it)

Regards

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[mcgrew]

the worst of which are the trade arranagements which make it artificially cheaper to manufacture in countries half way across the world with barely any human rights and/or protections.

What makes it cheaper IS the lack of rights and protections. It's perfectly OK for a Chinese company to make the air so dirty that you can't breathe, and the water so dirty that rivers catch fire like it used to be in the US. Plus, it's way cheaper to live. I, as a worker, cannot compete with someone who can ride a bus 300 miles for a nickle and only has $30 a month to pay in rent. Worse, I certainly can't compete with slave labor.

Some rich folks want us to be as poor as the Chinese so they can make fortunes manufacturing here without paying folks enough to live. Why do you think they created a recession and tried to make a depression? The poorer you are, the richer they are.

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[jellomizer]

Clarification for all the uptight idiots.
Where I used a numeric estimates to prove a point that their are other factors involved beyond just the cost of the license.

8 Hours of training Yes...
<i>"I see it's been over a decade since you tried Linux. KDE is so similar to Windows that anybody who has ever used Windows would have no trouble using KDE. I have folks bring me "broken" PCs all the time that are hopelessly infected with garbage and who have no reinstall disks for Windows. None ever needed any training to use Linux, and most came later and told me how much better they liked it than Windows.

How much retraining did it take to migrate them to Windows 7 from XP? Moving to Linux is less of a change. All of the "hard" parts, the administration, is going to be done by IT staff who presumably are well versed in Unix. Any admin that doesn't know UNIX is, IMO, not competent to be a network admin to begin with."</i>
You sound like you do not work a an organization of any particular size... There is a big difference Updating your Work PC with your Home PC... Your home PC the person will play with it, for work they need to get to work right away. People are afraid to mess up their work PC they will follow policy and procedure, a New OS means there is a new policy and procedure. Less then 1 day of training with a little bit of practice for the rest of the day seems fare.
Moving from XP to 7 will require training too... However it is less because those Apps that you know and love will still be there.

<i>"That's just stupid, and I'm not talking about your misuse of apostrophes. That old machine is going to run a hell of a lot faster under Linux, since it has no ever-growing registry nor antivirus to slow it down. If it's powerful enough to run the software it needs, replacing it is a waste of money. They're not going to be playing FPSes or calculating PI to the tem millionth decimal point."</i>
I am sorry fanatical zealotry towards an Operating system will not make it run light speeds faster. Linux can run faster on low end systems when you strip features away, that is its strength you can customize it in great detail. However, if you are going to have a platform where you have people with faster computers you are going to want to have a common configuration, to make maintenance easier... This isn't a home PC this is a work PC, the IT Staff will need to maintain 40k worth of PC and numerous configurations will be a nightmare. I am surprised for someone with such a low user ID to have no Idea what it takes to manage an enterprise environment.

<i>"I hope English isn't your first language. And 800 Euro??? WTF??? A good office computer doesn't even cost 800 dollars."</i>
I hope you don't do anything that requires logic or rational thinking... Does that include laptops mixed in too oh yes you got cheap desktops but you need Laptops too just because you need people who work out of the office... Also there is a degree of PC's you need to have on hot standby... Oh and the time it takes to install each system... 800 Euro per PC is a low estimate of the true costs.

<i>Odd how you didn't take that into account when you stupidly suggested that since they're replacing an expensive OS with a free one they might as well spend more than a new copy of Windows costs on hardware "just because".</i>
My suggestion isn't to upgrade anything at all, to keep things the way they are. Most people will not push for a hardware upgrade if their software is the way it is.
It is cheaper to stay on your current working platform then to migrate... Migration is expensive and it will take a long time to recover the costs. In a poor economic situation. Cost centers such as IT needs to be stretched a little further. What advantage are you really getting going to Linux over Windows for the next 5 years... Not much...

<i>Considering the earlier part of your comment, that's VERY unlikely. If you'd run Linux in the last five years you'd know

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[rev0lt]

If you look at USA, they import almost 5x more oil than what they export. Still, they are the 10th largest oil exporter in the world. If you bother to actually check the CIA factbook oil export list, you'd find lots of countries that actually don't produce oil listed as oil exporters (such as Portugal, as an example), so the math you are making probably isn't that simple.

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[mcgrew]

Your home PC the person will play with it, for work they need to get to work right away.

If the thing's set up properly, they can get to work right away. Most shops have the same computers on every desk, it's just a matter of the wage of the person doing the installing. But you're going to have the same cost when you upgrade your hardware, and with open source you're not going to be forced to upgrade your hardware. Everyone using XP will HAVE to upgrade in two years, and the upgrade will likely need new hardware because the software will be bloated as it always has with Windows "upgrades" (I put that in quotes because Win 7 is less useable than XP).

Moving from XP to 7 will require training too... However it is less because those Apps that you know and love will still be there.

A word processor is a word processor. They've gone from WordStar to DOS Word Perfect to Windows Word Perfect to Microsoft word, and the only complaints I hear users make is that Word won't read their Word Perfect files. That's Microsoft's fault and no one else's. You won't have that problem migrating to Oo.

I am sorry fanatical zealotry towards an Operating system will not make it run light speeds faster.

Your cart is in front of your horse. The zealotry is from installing Linux on Windows computers and seeing how much faster they run, and they run faster because of the reasons I put forward. If Windows runs without missing features, Linux will run better with no stripping necessary. Period.

Does that include laptops mixed in too

Ok, you have a point there, not too many laptops where I work. 800 euros might be about right.

My suggestion isn't to upgrade anything at all, to keep things the way they are.

You said "might as well replace hardware".

And I didn't bring up the fact that Linux still has a huge amount to stupidity in its UI

Some of it, yes. Particularly Gnome (but that's just my preference; I just don't like that desktop).

And before you start blasting people on their spelling and grammar

The only spelling problems I have is when people confuse homophones, when they insist on spelling words like they sound. It slows down my reading comprehension, and besides -- dyslexia IS a brain problem. And why in the hell does anybody use an apostrophe when it's not warranted, dyslexic or not? Sorry, but I'm going to have to hold on to that bit of predjudice. You should know better.

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[Haileri$]

I haven't really much exposure to Linux on the desktop but as an architect responsible for delivering a Windows 7 desktop to 150,000+ desktops, training is most certainly an issue, from end users, on site support teams all the way through to the backend admins. I assume there would be a step change in support tools and processes. There certainly is a big change going from Windows XP or even Vista to Win 7. In my opinion it would be naive to think that a more to a completely different OS doesn't mean a complete re-training exercise from top to bottom. It also doesn't mean that it isnt unachievable, especially if Linux / Unix already has some penetration, perhaps in the workstation space, and therefore desktop support and the tools required / processes are already somewhat defined etc. Your experience of people bringing in broken PC's to fix is a world away from an enterprise environment. I suspect have no conception of the process involved in designing and executing a simple request that in practice spans several resolver groups, some of which will certainly change as a result of an OS change. You've also completely ignored the application compatibility angle. The OS is but a window to get at your apps and therefore to that wonderful data. App compat is the most important part of any desktop refresh at the moment. Come the wonderful day when every app is HTML 9 standard or whatever the desktop may be irrelevant but right now it isn't. Please don't tell me you are going to get 15,000 apps working on WINE and maintain support agreements with the app vendors or move everything to open source and migrate the data across to the correct format at the same time. In most enterprise cases, the vendor hardware sourcing agreement is separate from the OS refresh cycle. If you can sync or extend that refresh period (assuming Linux can run on older hardware better and hence the refresh cycles can be extended) then all is well but you probably need the support of the hardware manufacturers. I don't automatically see that becasue Linux *may* work on older h/w better than Windows you necessarily *can* make this happen but I don't necessarily discount this either. I'd also note that in most cases, reliability is probably more important than speed within the Enterprise. Depends on the worker model. Both is of course very nice :) A PC may cost 800 dollars since the price could includes warranty & break-fix support to a certain SLA response time over the lifetime of the device. A laptop will be much much more. Btw, my org is on a 4 year h/w replacement cycle. Windows seems to cope fine enough. Hope this helps

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[mcgrew]

I haven't really much exposure to Linux on the desktop but... There certainly is a big change going from Windows XP or even Vista to Win 7. In my opinion it would be naive to think that a more to a completely different OS doesn't mean a complete re-training exercise from top to bottom.

I'm not sure about the enterprise grade admin tools, but as far as users are concerned, believe it or not a move from XP (can't say about Vista, I never used it) to KDE is less of a change than from XP to Win 7; I'm using all three OSes, XP at work, Win 7 on my notebook (haven't gotten around to installing Linux on it yet) and kubuntu on the main home computer.

It's easy to see why you would doubt that, if I hadn't been exposed to Linux in a while I'd be pretty doubtful, too. DL a copy of kubuntu, you can run it from a CD and try it out without actually installing. The kubuntu CD is also good for getting data from a drive that Windows won't boot because you've changed too much on the computer.

Your experience of people bringing in broken PC's to fix is a world away from an enterprise environment.

That's very true.

You've also completely ignored the application compatibility angle.

Yes, if you're running custom apps that will only run on Windows, you're stuck with Windows. But MS isn't as backward compatible as they would like you to think. When I went from 98 to XP, half my software no longer worked. The shop I work in recently upgraded from the worst browser ever made (IE6), and the reason it took them so long was because of an application that used Java and IE6 and wouldn't run on any other browser. I assume they rewrote the app.

But compatibility is a reason to change, not a reason not to. Microsoft isn't compatible with anything, not even itself. If you have an older version of Word, you're not going to be able to read documants made in a newer version; we have these problems all the time. It seems MS is the about only one that does this, although I've seen it with Adobe products, too, especially PDFs, they're even worse than MS.

Please don't tell me you are going to get 15,000 apps working on WINE and maintain support agreements with the app vendors or move everything to open source and migrate the data across to the correct format at the same time.

The Ernie Ball corporation, perhaps the world's biggest manufacturer of guitar strings, managed to after the BSA raided them (google "ernie ball linux").

I woudn't mess with WINE, if there's something like Photoshop you need, moving to Linux really wouldn't be an option. It certainly isn't for everyone, but nothing ever is.

I don't automatically see that becasue Linux *may* work on older h/w better than Windows you necessarily *can* make this happen but I don't necessarily discount this either.

If you have something as ancient as a 486 running Windows 98, modern Linux distro won't work; I've tried it. But the computer is capable of running XP it will run Linux faster. The reasons are Windows' ever-growing registry and the need for antivirus. As to the hardware, often newer hardware either won't work or won't have as much functionality because the FOSS guys haven't written drivers and so forth yet.

I'd also note that in most cases, reliability is probably more important than speed within the Enterprise.

Reliability is probably Linux' strongest point. It simply doesn't crash. Apps sometimes do, but they never bring the OS down with it. Linux is far more fault-tolerant as well. A few years ago I was running a PC dual-boot, and thought I had a registry problem or something because Linux was working well while Windows was flaky, but it turned out that the power supply was on its way out. I had an Acer that had a bad hardware bug (they've since fixed it) where if you had it set to hibernate on battery with the lid closed but do nothing if plugged in, then closed the lid and plugged it in before the lights stopped flashing it would go crazy on either OS -- but after a few times, Windows woudn't even boot in safe mode, Linux always recovered.

Btw, my org is on a 4 year h/w replacement cycle.

Since the PCs always come with Windows already installed, that's a good reason to stick with Windows.

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[Trogre]

It's truly sad that a post like this gets modded down at all, much less "offtopic".

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the recue

[KermitJunior]

Thank you, troll. Those numbers are COMPLETELY bogus and pulled out of thin air. 1) You don't know 8hrs... I've seen much less (like a 30 minute briefing and a sheet of "use this program for this task" chart. 2) You just randomly threw in upgrades to pad your numbers. 3) You assume rebuilding applications (and the number of applications) to, again, simply pad your numbers. Please get at least a few facts before trolling.

Extremadura has done a lot for linux

[emj]

They have hosted codesprints and Debconf 2009. So this is really just a continuation of a long time of moving towards Linux. But I do not like the part where he says "Our budget for this is zero euros", that will not go well.

Re:Extremadura has done a lot for linux

[crimperman]

I wondered about that too but I guess as the statement was made by the CIO that he's talking about software licence budget rather than overall budget (including staff, equipment etc.)

Re:Extremadura has done a lot for linux

[bgat]

Yes, I find that perspective troubling too. Seems like at least PART of the savings coming from reduced licensing costs for non-FOSS software could be used to fund the transition away from same.

The comment suggests to me a lack of clarity in the motivation for the transition. Money shouldn't be the only incentive, of course (I find the other upsides to a FOSS environment to be much more compelling), but anyone who understands the current state of affairs for software licensing would be reasonably expected to acknowledge that in a discussion about moving away from it.

Re:Extremadura has done a lot for linux

[serviscope_minor]

Money shouldn't be the only incentive, of course (I find the other upsides to a FOSS environment to be much more compelling), but anyone who understands the current state of affairs for software licensing would be reasonably expected to acknowledge that in a discussion about moving away from it.

True to an extent. I find FOSS particularly convenient and in the long term, fully open almost alwys winds up as the pragmatic choice as well. For me as an individual, that is easy to evaluate.

For a large business or organisation, probably the easiest way to get an overall number is by the cost.

It is, of course difficult to do. How do you factor in the short-term cost of lost productivity as users retrain? How much does it cost to have the exchange server down (again--is it that bad or just impossible to find good admins???)? How much will it cost in lost productivity as one has to mess around with DOCX versus ODT in the short term? What about in the long term (if you have 40,000 desktops, you are large enough for people to play by your rules). What about the long term advantage of hiving found that bugs that you find (and perhaps fix) get merged in upstream?

Hard to put an excact figure on.

Of course since it is a government organisation, there are yet more benefits. Even if it costs the same, the money spent on licenses which would otherwise disappear will be more likely spent locally on people to make the syatem work benefiting the local economy.

Re:Extremadura has done a lot for linux

[JAlexoi]

But I do not like the part where he says "Our budget for this is zero euros", that will not go well.

Maybe what he meant was that they got no explicit budget that says migration to Linux. There might be several options for "funding" though - College/Uni students making code "contributions" for credits(or even part of mandatory coursework), budget for upgrading Windows machines and cuts in other services. That might be just plain accountingspeak that means that on balance the budget for Linux migration is actually 0. Without an inquiry, there is no way of verifying.

Re:Extremadura has done a lot for linux

[Bengie]

"Because our budget for this plan is of zero euros"

Not arguing against you, but he said "plan". I guess his plan doesn't include "staff, equipment etc". My guess is he said what he said to sound sensational. Unless he truly has volunteers doing all the work.

Re:Extremadura has done a lot for linux

[JAlexoi]

Not long ago I finished a project in a EU member state govt agency. That DOCX is already a major PITA for the IT support. And the way they work, mostly they don't need any Windows exclusive features.

Re:Extremadura has done a lot for linux

[rev0lt]

If you have a non-redundant mail infrastructure (exchange or unix-based), then mail is not that important for you. And while there are networks where the migration to OSS desktops (not necessarily linux-based) can be done without much hassle, in many organizations it is next to impossible without redefining the entire IT structure. The Microsoft stack has its problems (as every other solution), but one of the big advantages is centralized management. Need to give access to a given terminal to a guy, but only 9-5 this week, and the guy can only run X apps and cannot save to the computer or an external device? No problem. Someone from accounting is working with the auditor team, and needs to be able to log in to their wokstations, but keeping the same privileges as in accounting? No problem. Don't want people in customer support changing the desktop background or browser settings? No problem. The company was sold and the new owner needs to grant access to their employees to the aquired company, but not the other way around? Yeah, "no problem".

Touting OSS as the magic bullet for everything is not a good idea. With OSS servers will still need maintenance, and sometimes maybe they will hang too. Desktops will need maintenance, and it's not at all that simple. And users will still complain.

Re:Extremadura has done a lot for linux

[mcgrew]

Probably not volunteers, but he probably already has an IT staff that is well versed in UNIX. You need no extra staff or equipment to convert to Linux. Hell, Ernie Ball had very little trouble converting to Linux after Microsoft pissed its CEO and founder's son off.

Re:Extremadura has done a lot for linux

[mcgrew]

The Microsoft stack has its problems (as every other solution), but one of the big advantages is centralized management. Need to give access to a given terminal to a guy, but only 9-5 this week, and the guy can only run X apps and cannot save to the computer or an external device? No problem. Someone from accounting is working with the auditor team, and needs to be able to log in to their wokstations, but keeping the same privileges as in accounting? No problem. Don't want people in customer support changing the desktop background or browser settings? No problem. The company was sold and the new owner needs to grant access to their employees to the aquired company, but not the other way around? Yeah, "no problem".

Novell has done all that for at least the fifteen years since they put a network in where I work. I'd be very surprised if there weren't superior open source software with the same functionality.

They recently went to MS, and it's been one clusterfuck after another.

Re:Extremadura has done a lot for linux

[rev0lt]

Novell's eDirectory is probably the best directory service in the market today. But it's not opensource, and it can be run on Windows, as well as other proprietary unixes, such as Solaris and AIX. I may be wrong (I haven't used Novell for a long time), but I seriously doubt that a Novell solution is cheaper than a Windows one. Regarding opensource solutions, I haven't seen a product that comes vaguely close. If someone actually knows of such product, I'd love to hear about it.

Re:Extremadura has done a lot for linux

[WuphonsReach]

It's the directory stack where MS wins currently. While Novell's eDirectory is fine, in a mixed environment, I may as well just pay for Microsoft's Active Directory and get things that pretty much "just work".

I keep hoping that Red Hat will wake up, smell the coffee, and realize that an easy to administer open-source directory service needs to happen.

(Admittedly, I have not had time to look at RHEL6.)

Nobody expects...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody expects the Spanish Extremadura!

Re:Nobody expects...

[pezezin]

Well, I certainly do, if only because I have been living here my whole live :P

Undercosting much?

[Gwala]

"And of course, it needs to be free. Because our budget for this plan is of zero euros."

Yep.

Can't see this blowing up in anyones face. (See: the ongoing ordeal and budget overruns of the Munich conversion)

Re:Undercosting much?

[PeterBrett]

"And of course, it needs to be free. Because our budget for this plan is of zero euros."

Yep.

Can't see this blowing up in anyones face. (See: the ongoing ordeal and budget overruns of the Munich conversion)

Um, last time I checked (which was a couple of weeks ago) the Munich project was going extremely well.

Re:Undercosting much?

[Aloriel]

Don't be an idiot, Extremadura developed and deployed Linex, massively deployed in every single public (high)school in Extremadura; they know how to do it and what it costs.

Re:Undercosting much?

[Gwala]

Yeah now - but look at the original time and budget estimates.

Re:Undercosting much?

[kamapuaa]

It's been nine years and more money than budgeted and they've converted 65% of the computers. The idea of converting to Linux is still so strange and uncommon that an autonomous region of Spain considering the same move nine years later is Slashdot-worthy news. It sounds to me like a huge failure.

Re:Undercosting much?

[Anonymous Coward]

oh don't be such a party pooper.

Re:Undercosting much?

[BlackCreek]

oh don't be such a party pooper.

The GP has a point. The Linux desktop went nowhere. 40K desktops in Spain, 14K in Munich and 90K by the French police are by themselves respectable numbers. But when you take the perspective that:

• -- these are the 3 biggest deployments of (desktop) Linux within the whole European Union public services,
• -- AFAIK the only 3 very large ones,
• -- in 2012

  one needs to reckon that, yes, we may all use Linux at home and some even at work (I do) but the Linux desktop never made it anywhere close mass market presence.

If I want to buy a high-quality laptop withOUT paying for an OS license that I am not going to use, the situation is as dire today as it was 10 years ago.

Re:Undercosting much?

[sourcerror]

There are news that Hungarian public administration is moving away from Windows desktops as well. (Also because of licensing costs; there's a general asterity going on.)

Re:Undercosting much?

[gerddie]

Not in Europe, but The Worlds Largest Linux Desktop Deployment: 500,000 Seats and Counting in Brazil should count for something.

Re:Undercosting much?

[Lumpy]

Really?

http://www.system76.com/

http://www.ohava.com/

https://www.thinkpenguin.com/

http://www.blackstonesystems.net/

Yup it's dire... Nobody at all is selling desktops or laptops with linux preinstalled.

Did you even look?

Re:Undercosting much?

[chrb]

It's been nine years and more money than budgeted and they've converted 65% of the computers.

On the bright side: they have migrated 100% of systems to Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, and ODF.

more money than budgeted

Yes, but this would almost certainly have also been the case if they were migrating all their systems to a more recent release of Windows. They were running enterprise wide NT4. The comparison point should not be against the pre-existing TCO, but against the alternative cost of migrating to a more recent Windows. "We do not have a goal to compare total cost of ownership. Microsoft stopped supporting NT 4.0, so we must migrate." limux project leader. How much do you think a government migration of 15,000 NT4 desktops, plus Office and other software to a recent release of Windows would cost? Due to increased hardware requirements of new Windows, such a migration would also certainly require new PCs, which would further increase costs. Maybe the cost of migration would be the same, less, or more, but in the long term freeing themselves of costly vendor lock-in and the Microsoft upgrade treadmill should result in substantial cost savings

Re:Undercosting much?

[BlackCreek]

Really.

System76 is US based. Ditto for Ohava.com. Ditto for ThinkPenguin. I could not look at BlackStoneSystems. I am on a RHEL machine, and their website requires a newer flash than the one I have. Regarding living in Europe and ordering a laptop from the US:

1. I don't know about you, but I would prefer buying my laptops from a shop I could return something if necessary.

2. I also would rather NOT pay import taxes on my laptop...

(Ok, I didn't flat out state that I live in Europe, but then, why do you just assume I am US based :-P)

I have no doubt that someone with more time could find a seller in Germany or France serving continental Europe. But my point is this: if you just walk into a large 'general' computer shop all laptops you'll find will be running Windows7 or OSX. Ditto for any 'regular' computer seller on the web. Hence I call buying a laptop with Linux pre-installed a 'dire proposition'.

That I have to go to a small specialist shop to skip paying for the OS license I'll ditch, was exactly my point. FWIW Often the economy of scale, and faster turn-over of larger brands will mean that I can buy a better spec'ed laptop WITH Windows and still pay less than what I would by buying from a smaller 'linux' focused shop. (Which of the shops you linked to has anything like an ultra-book in the pipeline?) Which -again- is my whole point, Linux laptops is a tiny niche and getting one is particularly cumbersome (relative to the 'trouble' I would have buying something with Windows7 or from Apple).

Did you even look?

I did look at the local Lenovo.com shop and some other places some months ago, and there was nothing I could buy without Windows.

Re:Undercosting much?

[chrb]

The Linux desktop went nowhere. 40K desktops in Spain, 14K in Munich and 90K by the French police are by themselves respectable numbers.

By that logic, the Apple desktop also "went nowhere", since there were no mass migrations of government departments to Apple computers. Or maybe there is another explanation? Maybe governments are very conservative in their IT procurement, and by default choose Microsoft, often without even bothering to consider other options? For obvious reasons, it is difficult to estimate the exact number of Linux desktop users, but according to Microsoft, Linux has a greater desktop share than the Mac. Here's are some interesting comments from a report from 2010: Debunking the 1% Myth

If we do the math we find that due to netbooks alone Linux captured nearly 6% of the desktop market in 2009. In order to reach a total number we need to add larger laptops and desktops both from companies like Dell, HP (their business line) as well as smaller boutique vendors.

Additional confirmation of the growth in Linux desktop market share last year came from an unlikely source: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Using a slide to visualize OS market share Ballmer had Linux desktop market share as a slightly larger slice of the pie than MacOS. Nobody considers Apple insignificant on the desktop and neither is Linux. Here is, in part, what Mr. Ballmer had to say about Linux on the desktop and the competition for Windows:

Linux, you could see on the slide, and Apple has certainly increased its share somewhat.

[...]

I think depending on how you look at it, Apple has probably increased its market share over the last year or so by a point or more. And a point of market share on a number that's about 300 million is interesting. It's an interesting amount of market share, while not necessarily being as dramatic as people would think, but we're very focused in on both Apple as a competitor, and Linux as a competitor."

Does anyone believe that Microsoft would see Linux as a serious competitor is Linux had captured just 1% of the market? That doesn't seem very likely, does it? All the figures I have quoted so far represent sales of systems preloaded with a given operating system: Windows, MacOS or Linux. They do not represent actual usage. If you go down to the local brick and mortar computer shop or big box retailer, buy a system with Windows, wipe the hard drive and install Linux that still counts as a Windows system, not a Linux system.

Re:Undercosting much?

[oakgrove]

The Linux desktop went nowhere.

Good thing I don't make my choice of OS based on a worldwide popularity contest then.

Re:Undercosting much?

[c0p0n]

Also, the region (I was born there) has plenty of experience on rolling out Linux on institutions through LinEx first (schools), then Debian itself (on the health system's IT infrastructure) later on. They were far from smooth at the time as mistakes were made, particularly when it came to re-educate and retrain staff. The region's government staff desktops is the last, and biggest, migration to make.

Re:Undercosting much?

[BlackCreek]

The Linux desktop went nowhere. 40K desktops in Spain, 14K in Munich and 90K by the French police are by themselves respectable numbers.

By that logic, the Apple desktop also "went nowhere", since there were no mass migrations of government departments to Apple computers. Or maybe there is another explanation? Maybe governments are very conservative in their IT procurement, and by default choose Microsoft, often without even bothering to consider other options? For obvious reasons, it is difficult to estimate the exact number of Linux desktop users, but according to Microsoft, Linux has a greater desktop share than the Mac. Here's are some interesting comments from a report from 2010: Debunking the 1% Myth

Apple tries to occupy a very different market. Linux has been pushed as the 'ideal' public service desktop for years and years and years.

FWIW I very, very much doubt Apple has less of a desktop/laptop presence than Linux. This is probably MS trying to downplay the importance of Apple in their (MS) home market.

Judging from all my acquaintances, I can tell you that: (about 10 years ago) when I started my PhD many of my colleagues used Linux at home. With the years, each and every one of them migrated to Apple. Many of the colleagues I had after my PhD, (people that work all day on Linux desktops) migrated from Linux to Apple 'at home' in recent years. The amount of people I know personally that runs Linux at home has only been shrinking.

The text you quoted talked about 'netbooks' running Linux. Suuure. How many *new* netbooks running Linux have you seen for sale in the last 2 years?

Re:Undercosting much?

[jellomizer]

But it is Linux. So it has to be a success.
Because the Operating System is by far the cause or solution to all of lifes problems.

Re:Undercosting much?

[chrb]

Apple tries to occupy a very different market.

Apple would love to occupy the corporate and public sector desktop market. It would mean vast amounts of guaranteed income every year.

Linux has been pushed as the 'ideal' public service desktop for years and years and years.

Really? I see the opposite - most Linux vendors have pretty much ignored the desktop and focused on niche areas like embedded systems, servers, HPC, etc. IBM said chasing Windows on the desktop was a deadend, and Red Hat famously pulled away from focusing on the desktop years ago. Ubuntu seems to have been the only one that has maintained a desktop focus, and they have an estimated 13 million or so users.

Judging from all my acquaintances

Anecdotal evidence and a biased sample - your colleagues are probably in the top 1% of global income, and the kind of people who don't mind spending large amounts of cash on their personal computers.

How many *new* netbooks running Linux have you seen for sale in the last 2 years?

The netbook market fell for various reasons. The market changed - people adopted tablets, and full-featured laptops became smaller, faster, and cheaper than they were. MS began selling XP again and put pressure on netbook manufacturers to adopt it. Netbooks also, oddly, became more expensive as they became more like laptops in response to the increased hardware requirements. The choice of Linux distros was often odd as well - instead of partnering with, say, Ubuntu, many of the netbook makers chose to pre-install random Chinese distributions. The rise of smart phones also played a huge part - why carry a larger netbook around with you, when you can do email, facebook, web browsing etc. sufficiently well from your phone, that fits in your pocket and weighs a hundred grams?

Re:Undercosting much?

[chrb]

List of Linux adopters. It has some interesting ones which I hadn't heard of, e.g. 180,000 Ubuntu desktops deployed in Macedonian schools.

Re:Undercosting much?

[BlackCreek]

Apple would love to occupy the corporate and public sector desktop market.

There is a difference between would like to occupy/own a market, and be actively working to grab that market. Apple is not fighting for the corporate market. Not saying that they are not go for it at some point, they are not into it now.

Anecdotal evidence and a biased sample - your colleagues are probably in the top 1% of global income, and the kind of people who don't mind spending large amounts of cash on their personal computers.

On the non-biased side: it remains impossible to buy a computer running a normal Linux desktop in a 'normal/mainstream' computer shop. Most gadgets I own, only have software support for using it with Windows or Macs, say, the image processing software that came with my photo and video cameras.

FWIW, someone answered to a post of mine (in this thread) saying "happy I don't care about OS popularity". That misses the point. I can't safely upgrade the firmware in my cameras using Linux. I can't use the (very nice) image processing software provided with my cameras within Linux (crashes under wine). So at the end of the day, at least for me, OS popularity has actual negative consequences. (it is not the end of world, but it makes a difference).

The netbook market fell for various reasons.

Regardless of the reasons. It fell. Linux does not exist (in any significant way) in netbooks anymore. My point is that the netbook gain in market share was an ephemeral thing.

Re:Undercosting much?

[tlhIngan]

Apple would love to occupy the corporate and public sector desktop market. It would mean vast amounts of guaranteed income every year.

But at what cost? Corporate purchases, and by extension government ones, tend to be ones that generate lots of revenue, but have tiny margins as people drive to lower the bottom line cost. Even the server market, considered to be a high-margin part of corporate IT is still subjected to shrinking margins.

Apple simply isn't interested in that market because the purchasers can be quite demanding and unwilling to pay for it. Apple's more than happy to let HP/Dell/etc fight it out on the race to the bottom and continue to enjoy the much fatter margins they're currently earning.

After all, Dell ships easily 10 times the number of computers Apple does, but in the end the profit Dell makes on computers is very similar to what Apple makes on computers.

It's also why Apple lacks an entrant in the sub-$500 PC market, or why their Mac Mini wouldn't fit in (still need monitor and keyboard, for example). Or why Apple went "ultraportable PC" with the Macbook Air instead of trying to do a netbook.

Be nice if this actually happened

[jimicus]

OK, so I understand from other posts that Extremadura has historically done a good job of supporting Linux. Whatever. I still can't shake the feeling - particularly given past experience with other big migration projects - that this is a ploy to get a better price from Microsoft.

Re:Be nice if this actually happened

[JasterBobaMereel]

They have no MS licences, they currently run Linux (their own custom Distro) and are migrating to standard Debian

Perhaps it is a Ploy to get a better price from Apple/Oracle etc ..who they also don't use ...?

Good for them...

[j-b0y]

Extremadura is one of the poorer regions of Spain and with the general funding squeeze trying to get the public deficit under control, I reckon they have a lot to gain from this.

So, 2012 is the year of the Linux desktop?

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally! Just in time for the end of the world, too.

UEFI

[peppepz]

I wonder if, in the future, having to buy hardware that is "designed for Linux", and is therefore in a market aside from the one of mainstream desktop PCs, could reduce the economic advantage of such operations.

Re:UEFI

[ironman_one]

Or this will make PC manufactures not touching UEFI with a ten foot pole.

Re:UEFI

[guabah]

But Linux distros already support UEFI, it could slow adoption of signed boot or whatever it's called.

Re:UEFI

[jampola]

You have just discovered a gaping hole in the market for non UEFI hardware!

Re:With EU financial troubles, ....

[jampola]

You say that like it's a bad thing!

A few clarifications

[lufo]

Please allow me to make a few clarifications on the subject, because there are some additional facts related than can be missed if you didn't read TFA and TF(Spanish Newspaper)A linked by TFA:

• Extremadura became pioneer in Free SW creating their own Debian-based distro 9 years ago, LinEx (Linux Extremadura)
• They implanted a PC every two school students (primary education, up to 13 yr) region-wide running LinEx, appart from the Regional Administration
• Now they're closing the LinEx development project, handing it to a national-level (rather than regional)
• The information is based in a 2011-12-31 statement by the regional CIO, saying they're migrating from LinEx to "pure" Debian as LinEx is orphaned
• I've tried to find additional info (like planning, additional commentaries, etc) in newspapers, the official regional citizen-info site, etc. on the subject but I've found nothing
• I've found some statements from LinEx project (now ex-)workers but these statements where just suppositions
• Regarding to a HW and UEFI related comment I've seen, I don't think they will replace any hardware, they will just migrate the OS in those systems already owned by the regional administration

Re:A few clarifications

[lufo]

handing it to a national-level (rather than regional) free-software promotion organisation

Sorry about that. The parent author.

Re:A few clarifications

[lufo]

It was done some years ago: in 2002 they bought 70.000 PCs and put the first 50.000 one for every 2 high-school students (so my first information was wrong, it's not under 13 but 13 to 17 years old) and the remaining 20.000 for primary education (under 13 yo.)

Here is a blog entry (in Spanish) from 2009 in which one of the responsibles comments on the conversion of the original PCs into thin clients:
http://www.itais.net/2009/01/26/reutilizando-70000-ordenadores/

Re:Isn't this an old story?

[lufo]

They created LinEx and migrated back then. Now they're migrating back to Debian as they end development of LinEx.

Re:With EU financial troubles, ....

[nadaou]

> You say that like it's a bad thing!

to all readers that think the author is MS bashing for MS bashing's sake (or an appeal to the /. groupthink), read this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

Re:Typical misleading summary

[lufo]

I don't know what the automated translation looks like, but I can tell you that

a) LinEx was not a "ridiculous incest", it made sense big time and also was more than just the distro, they put a free-software-based-PC every two under-13 school kids, they put the same PCs in every public library in the region ("Nuevos Centros del Conocimiento", New Knowledge Centers), they created elder-persons computer-literacy programs and more...

b) how can they "suck in public money" if they were the very public administration? They stopped giving away public money to (US) private companies, and created a public entrerprise to create a public-interest, publicly-available, free-as-in-beer-and-also-as-in-speech region-wide computer network with public access to the internet.

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the rescue

[unixisc]

Yeah, I was trying to look up that distro under distrowatch, but couldn't find it. Thought it was a localized edition of Linux. At least w/ Debian, they have a rich ecosystem in place. At least, w/ that there won't be a painful migration around.

Makes sense to go to Debian from all those old versions of Windows. Although I wonder - does Debian Linux support a wider variety of hardware than Debian kFreeBSD? That way, one can get the advantages of FreeBSD along w/ the offerings of Debian.

Its not much of a migration

[voss]

LinEX is a debian based disto, so switching over to regular Debian is fairly simple and requires less maintenance.

Cool name

[sirdude]

Extremadura is one cool sounding name for a province! I haven't been this impressed since I came across the prison planet of Crematoria.

P.S. Hear, hear for more Debian users!

Re:Cool name

[Sique]

It is named thus, because it is in fact extremely dry. If it was in Asia or in Africa, we would classify the Extremadura as a desert.

Re:Europe is broke , Linux to the rescue

[columbus]

Why did this post get modded down? Yes, poster is AC, but it also sounds like poster is possibly from Extremadura and probably from Spain. Local input is informative.