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Munich Has Saved €4M So Far After Switch To Linux
New submitter Mojo66 writes "Mayor Ude reported today that the city of Munich has saved €4 million so far (Google translation of German original) by switching its IT infrastructure from Windows NT and Office to Linux and OpenOffice. At the same time, the number of trouble tickets decreased from 70 to 46 per month. Savings were €2.8M from software licensing and €1.2M from hardware because demands are lower for Linux compared to Windows 7."
I use LXDE because it reduces the bloat of a clunky window manager. You do not really have this option in windows, you only have explorer. That's it. If you want an older version? You're suggesting downgrading to an older, about to lose support, version of windows? What kind of suggestion is that? I don't have to downgrade to a distro from 2002 to get a speedy desktop, why should I have to do that with windows. In my experience, linux has always been much faster than windows (even with clunky ubuntu versus windows xp), more stable, and a friendlier environment for development. I still run windows, however, because running direct X 10/11 games in WINE is impossible if not near, and WINE is slow anyway (Ironically, blockland runs faster in wine than it does natively on windows...). And on my laptop, I have optimus graphics which are unsupported by nvidia for linux. So, I have to either play games on windows or suffer extremely slow integrated intel graphics.
Strange, I have the exact opposite experience. Photoshop running in wine (on mint) runs faster than nativly in Windows on the same dual boot machine. I also find that from log in to finished desktop is MUCH faster with linux. Windows seems to come up, but then various programs keep popping up for attention.*
I will admit that flash is better in windows than Linux woo hoo.....
* before you say uninstall a bunch of programs in windows, I have the same functionality in Linux without the slowdown at boot.
Linux is better, faster, and more stable. Just the savings on support calls alone would be enormous.
On the various computers where I've installed most "trendy" modern distros (Ubuntu, etc), they actually run slower under Linux than Windows. Not that Linux doesn't have plenty of other advantages, but in my experience, for out-of-the-box installs, speed isn't one of them.
I think the big test would be to bench them again in six months and then a year. I think you'll find the Linux box catching up to, and then passing the Windows box as Linux does not suffer from "Windows rot." Every application you install seems to just HAVE to start up with the system and run ALL THE DAMN TIME! Do I really need iTunes, Google updater, MS Office, Acrobat Reader, and Winzip running ALL THE DAMN TIME? Here's a better idea: DON'T LAUNCH UNTIL I TELL YOU TO LAUNCH! I don't need MS Office preloaded and ready to go just case I might need to create a OneNote thingie. I think I'll be OK if I have to wait the extra 1.5 seconds when I decide to launch it. Nothing is more frustrating that when I see someone complaining about their computer being slow and I find that their little notification icons run from the clock to the middle of the task bar and then fixing it for them for the fourth time in a quarter.
It's also important to note that Linux upgrades itself for free with little user interaction. Windows can do the same, but it's not free and after four or five upgrades, your machine is useless from all the legacy stuff left over from installation's past.
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