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With XP's End of Life, Munich Will Distribute Ubuntu CDs
SmartAboutThings writes "Windows XP is going to officially die and stop receiving support from Microsoft in April, 2014. After that very moment, it is said to become a gold mine for hackers all over the world who will exploit 'zero-day' vulnerabilities. The municipality of the German city of Munich wants to stop that from happening [and] has decided to distribute free CDs with Ubuntu 12.04 to users of the almost extinct XP. Munich, through its Gasteig Library, will prepare around 2000 CDs with Ubuntu 12.04 to offer to city residents affected by Windows XP's end of support. Previously, it was believed that Munich city's authorities were going to offer Lubuntu 12.04, which would have required lower system requirements with the same support period."
Weeee
Migration away from Windows will be the norm for users of XP. Microsoft knows this, and will at some point in the near future announce at least another year of support for it while they work on what will hopefully be Windows 9, bearing no resemblance whatsoever to the Windows 8 abortion.
On the upside, Linux is being given away by a government as the successor to Windows xp. On the downside, how many kids/grandkids are there that will know how to fix their parents/grandparents Linux machines? I guess you could say I'm cautiously optimistic
just saying..
I can certainly understand wanting to protect the Internet from hackers by eliminating potential botnet hosts, but really they should be telling their citizens it's time to buy a newer used computer or a new computer with Linux, Windows 7, or OSX. Most machines still chugging along on Windows XP are not only vulnerable to attacks, they're going to be power hungry and inefficient. Pretty much anything you could do on a Windows XP machine you could accomplish with a tablet or a Chromebook fo r that matter.
Ubuntu can be kept up to date and the latest with an internet connection - that's easier than buying a new version and re-install every time a new OS comes out. Question is if people know what it is and what to do with it.
Why not offer it to everyone, regardless of their current OS, if they want it?
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
Mint would have been better.
to users of the almost extinct XP.
If by "almost extinct" you mean "Still installed on over half the computer in Asia," then sure. Bonus: It's still installed on over a third of machines worldwide I'm sure China will appreciate yet another American trying to meddle in their developing economy by giving them an operating system that no other major country would be expected to use as a replacement desktop, simply because we were nice enough to provide it free of charge. There's no possible way this do-good attempt to "save" the good people of another country... because as we all know, Western culture never tries to force other cultures to do what they want "for their own good".
Get a little international perspective, Slashdot. It's not like Microsoft practically gave away XP to developing countries to lock them in, and then jacked the price up for the upgrade, while giggling maniacally like some evil overlord. Jeez... why does the rest of the world hate imperialism so much? It's not like it ever enviously eyed their booming economy and thought; What can we do to cash in on this without looking like total dicks? Oh! I know... how about we pull support for their dominant operating system and force them to spend hundreds of millions on upgrade fees!
Snark aside, this disproportionately targets developing economies and non-western countries. Anywhere else, this would incite comments about racism, cultural warfare, etc., but since it's just an innocent tech giant all I've heard is crickets. Put yourself in the shoes of the rest of the world though; They have aging computers that can't run Windows 7 because of the significantly higher hardware requirements, and while they produce most of that hardware, they can't buy it because their workers all make pennies on the dollar. Are these people just going to drop off the internet, crawl down a dark hole, and die as a service to the rest of us, who hate the poor in the third world? Probably not: Instead, they'll form the backbone of supermassive new botnets, without any way to secure those systems, it'll become a cesspool of all manner of digital evil.
But at least Microsoft's profit margins will be up, so there is that.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Going from a Windows 7 to an XP system is like night and day. Everything just works and works more smoothly. No hunting and having to search (why the fuck should I have to search for something on my own system?) for what I need. No buried menus to turn crap off.
With XP I never have to wait for the system to tell me, a minute or so later, that I mistyped a network resource, the whole time preventing me from retyping the correct path.
To use the tired phrase, "You can have my XP when you pry it from cold, dead hands."
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Nice idea, but Ubuntu is, by default, about the least XP-like common Linux distro they could have chosen. Mint-MATE or something would be less of a culture shock.
By April 2014, Ubuntu 14.04 should arrive as the next LTS version.
I would certainly want that (or a derived distribution) rather than Ubuntu 12.04, especially in a PC with AMD graphics. The open source drivers for ATI/AMD are still catching up in features and performance, and 14.04 vs. 12.04 should make a significant difference.
C - the footgun of programming languages
but they should do everyone a favor and give Ubuntu CDs to everyone. There are less and less reasons to use Windows. Goodbye Microsoft, and good riddance.
I'm sure China will appreciate yet another American trying to meddle in their developing economy by giving them an operating system that no other major country would be expected to use as a replacement desktop, simply because we were nice enough to provide it free of charge.
So Munich is in China now?
AOL CDs and Floppy Disks. Great for leveling that kitchen table that has one leg shorter than the rest.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
I believe the idea is to get people off XP before EOL, and that means 12.04. Once 14.04 drops, they'll as likely as not start handing that out instead.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
quote:
After that very moment, it is said to become a gold mine for hackers all over the world who will exploit 'zero-day' vulnerabilities.
OK, right.
Because any criminal worth their salt would wait until then to exploit a zero-day instead of say using it RIGHT NOW!
And who's going to support the people who are being introduced to an entirely new operating system and applications installed on an ancient computer? Assuming they can get it installed.
Apparently Amazon is funding this endeavour.
Because they are Windows XP machines and probably old, I'd think someone who could afford a new machine would buy it.
I'd think Xubuntu, Lubuntu or Linux Mint Mate would be good choices.
Ubuntu 12.04 -> 14 really aren't designed to work with older hardware. Trust me, I've experienced it since Unity was introduced.
I guess I understand them not wanting to do last-minute dispatches, since 14.04 is scheduled to come out in the same month they're releasing these CDs... but they're just going to have to upgrade the 12.04 systems almost immediately since 14.04 (the next LTS) will be released that same month.
Previously, it was believed that Munich city's authorities were going to offer Lubuntu 12.04, which would have required lower system requirements with the same support period.
I have Ubuntu 12.04 LTS running on a nine year old P4. I won't say it's fast, but it works and is usable and probably works as fast as XP. I would only recommend using Gnome Classic (Gnome 2 like) as standard desktop, as it's much more intuitive than Unity. If Munich really wants this to work, they should create some kind of social work project that employs a bunch of people who can help Munich citizens to migrate. Just putting that CD in your computer will definitely result in data loss for many people I'm afraid.
This is a nice sentiment by Munich, but the many of the folks who are running XP and try and install Ubuntu 12 will be in for a nasty surprise -
32 bit machines without PAE will not load with most newer Linuxes. Most, including Ubuntu, no longer include 32 bit non-PAE kernels in their installers.
I found this out when I tried putting a modern albeit tiny Linux onto my FitPC 1 and an older EPIA motherboard - XP runs fine on these, but finding a linux is probably beyond the skill of most XP users. Jury rigging a different kernel in is definitely out.
A lot of older XP installs are also running on older hardware. Just giving away an OS will not magically fix this. And if these folks upgrade the hardware, it probably comes with a newer windows anyway.
Zero day?
How old is XP ?
If hackers haven't found holes in Win XP by now, they never will
And theres also 3rd party antivirus and firewall software, I presume that the commercial security software will be continue for subscribers.
Ask someone why they are still running XP and yo9u will probably get the answer that they have legacy software that doesn't work on newer versions of the OS, or they like the old interface. They are not likely to want to go to a completely different OS that looks different and won't run the old software.
I'm sure many others would too.
This could be a significant revenue stream for Microsoft.
I wonder if there will be legal consequences when some people inevitably wipe their hard drive clean of 10 years of data they never bothered backing up. I can imagine a lot of people who simply have absolutely no idea what they are doing with a computer in this fashion may brave it anyway only find themselves in this position after thinking it is some sort of direct upgrade. I can see a mindset of 'Well, the city endorses it!'
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
I don't know if U/12 is as bloated as some of the other releases but I'm betting it will bring a P4 to it's knees.
I have tried test installs on older equipment and been far from pleased with performance,
I suppose if you are used to dial up speeds this may not be a big issue.
If my attention span has moved on before it can boot up I'm going to be looking for some other solution.
Rick B.
It makes sense. Cannonical has been working for years to make Linux just as bad as Windows. By now Ubuntu should be pretty good as a drop in replacement for Microsoft products.
I have nothing against Linux, but its not exactly setting the world on fire and never has on a desktop. I guess its a nice token option but what happens when these people who don't understand that Linux and Windows are not the same? When they realize Office does not run on Linux or iTunes or any other program not designed for Linux. I think a better option and I am sure many XP users will eventually make is buying a new PC. Microsoft could easily garner the rest who prefer a upgrade by offering Windows 8 cheap. I just don't see a lot of users being happy with Linux.
We are still stuck on WinXP and most of my coworkers have fairly outdated laptops (think core2duo with 2gb of RAM). Right now with XP by the time it is started along with all the other mess our IT wants running I'm sitting at 1GB utilization. Open up a few of my apps I use for data analysis and I'm pushing the limit of what I've got. Usually have a 15-20 minute startup time as well just due to being slow.
I asked about upgrade plans and they were wanting to switch to us using a term server and logging into it using Citrix Metaframe. That ended up being crap because they couldn't figure out how to give us individualized desktops and weren't willing to give us the storage we needed (5gb per user is a joke for what I do).
So yeah... this is going to be interesting times.
This had Unity on by default, doesn't it? Epic fail.
We can almost hear one of one Redmond’s richest residents rubbing his hands together with glee.
Unity is almost as relevant to Ubuntu 12.04 as ASIMO is to Honda’s latest hatchback.
I had Ubuntu 12.04 installed for a short time and HATED it as well. The overall look and feel of the default Unity desktop manager is like it is trying to be a hybrid desktop/tablet OS and doing a half assed job at both. It managed to combine annoying, confusing and pandering on a level almost up there with Microsoft Bob. One wonders if this is a surreptitious reverse advertisement for Windows 8.
Crunchbang works great and has no spyware
So Munich hands out Ubuntu disks, people put them in their XP machines, and within 2 minutes, all of the data and programs on all of the PCs will be wiped out? Munich will come to a halt and have to spend huge amounts of money to recover or recreate the data. Also, just because Microsoft stops supporting it doesn't mean you have to stop using it. Anti-virus software will still work, and I'm sure some companies will come out with special protection just for XP machines. I've turned off auto updates on most of my XP machines because of the blue screens of death (BSODs) that many of the Microsoft updates caused! What I've found is the vast majority of viruses are attacking Vista and higher machines. I haven't run into one in quite a while.
you know,t he simplest way to get people to use linux, would probably be to ..." ...
have good hardware support.
the easiest way should be to download a very very very simple (linux based) program, burn it to
usb-flash and boot it up (10MB)(*)?
this mini-distro would do all the hardware discovery FIRST and then spit out some hash-number
made from all detected hardware.
the next step would go to ubuntu / suse / or whoever joined this alliance and type in the hash-number.
the result would either be a "costume" made ISO download-link that 100% will work with all the hardware detected -or-
a warning:"one computer component has no linux "driver" at this time. Continue to download-link
simple right?
(*)fuck, why not just make it a program to run on windows too
and w/ a kernel compiled so as to support the ancient machines people still running Windows XP are still using?
Is there any hope of ReactOS being useful as a general-purpose replacement by then?
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Wikipedia says 12.04 is supported until 2017.
The rush to fix X with Wayland / Mir breaks the X-only fglrx and nvidia proprietary drivers. In Ubuntu 14.04, the Free Software drivers are going to work infinitely better than the proprietary drivers by default. At least AMD and Intel have their own developers working on the drivers, where nvidia relies on the community.
Dual booting could be a popular option so that people can keep their old programs and data files. They should simply use Ubuntu for their web surfing and cloud activities. Keeping a separate drive or partition for shared data between the two OS's takes a small amount of time up front and makes the data sharing much easier.
Lower security risk with people contributing; people using XP will be thankful; MS make less money...etc. So many benefits!
I ran Win2k until earlier this year. Everyone kept tutting about how vulnerable I was to viruses, etc. In more than 10 years, not one. But they smiled and said I was just too dumb to know. Anyway, I believe that a 3rd party firewall, antivirus and any net-interacting software, kept up top date, and it doesn't matter how soggy the OS is under it. When the PC died I put XP on the new one; as more software was becoming incompatible with 2k. The real problem will come when Firefox is not updated for XP -- I think it is on its last legs for 2k compatibility. And Flash is already incompatible, so lots of websites didn't work properly.
Ubuntu us a newbie-friendly OS for those stuck on Windows for many years. The city of Munich is brilliant for doing this. Finally, a government entity that is looking out for its own citizens, and not being lobbied by big money. Excellent to see this. If only other governments would catch on.
There's just something fundamentally wrong with a company abandoning a product with such a huge install base. It's a huge Internet public health issue. Microsoft has a social responsibility by virtue of their success to act. I see four reasonable possibilities here.
1. Microsoft keeps releasing security patches for XP.
2. Microsoft ships a version of Windows 8 that will run on XP grade hardware.
3. Microsoft spins off XP into a company that will continue to support it.
4. Microsoft releases XP source code so that others can (at least have a chance to) patch it.
Eventually, all XP grade hardware will die, but with the advent of low power/low cost hardware XP could see a second coming if Microsoft would just support it. It's not like there isn't a huge amount of reasonably good software for the platform.
Imagine if a company in India bought XP and started releasing XP SP4 for like $10 or $20. So cheap that the 1st world wouldn't both to pirate it and still affordable to many in the 3d world.
Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
In the past, on /., when this story about Munich adapting Linux was making the rounds, it was a homegrown distro - LiMux - which was being adapted by the city. The last time this was covered, they had already saved a substantial amount.
Which then begs this question - why are they then pushing Lubuntu, particularly since LXDE is undergoing a change in going from GTK+ 3 to Qt 5?
Linux is a great system on it's own mertis. It's not ready, and will never be ready as a drop in windows replacement. You won't get the 98%+ backwards software and hardware compatibility that people expect. They should spend they money wasted on the linux project and throw it into ReactOS trying to get it to at least the beta stage.
Really, "Zero-day" exploits? Isn't it more like "4611-day" exploits?
Further, isn't about the 34th time "XP end of life" has been announced? I was told they would NEVER be patching xp again, and I just GOT another patch last week.
End of XP support is announced for April 2014. And yes, it has been extended before. If Microsoft is serious this time or if they will give in with another support extension is anyone's guess.
Remember this is the company that outright declared war on it's own desktop monopoly to force Metro and the Microsoft App Store down the throats of any new PC buyer. I don't think there's any reason for them to delay at all - and a huge reason for them to go forward (ie, increased Win7 sales, or new PC purchases that come with Win8). I especially think that, governmental action aside, there's no "save the users" reason - even the potential 0-day apocalypse - that Microsoft would care about continuing life-support for XP.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
MS will keep windows 7 for some time and may have to some level of XP like extended support at least till windows 9 SP1 or windows 9.X
Microsoft still supports XP? wow. Guess not everyone has moved to Windows 7 and 8. Not trying to be rude, but people aren't upgrading because they don't want to buy a new computer? but a new computer only costs like $400 and it comes with Windows 7 or 8. you can build our own for less than that. I make $400 in one day before stupid taxes are deducted.
just wondering
The big difference between them and Microsoft is that Microsoft pays people well to develop its software (and produces a number of high quality products this way) whereas Canonical trolls the web looking for packages that other people have written and then slaps them all together before putting their brand on it. How is this more ethical?
For God's sake, Shuttleworth only made his money by farming out a private key due to a loophole caused by US Export regulations. Ubuntu is the Ebaum's World of operating systems.
On the server side. The desktop stuff is supported until April 2015. I've got a 10.04 VM that I keep for old time's sake and the desktop stuff no longer gets updated, but backend stuff does.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
I have a LOT of applications I paid for on my XP box that I have no intention of re-purchasing or trying to find again. But I'm getting very irked with the direction Windows has gone in and have made a decision.
My next computer will more likely than not be a Linux laptop. Either Ubuntu or Debian. And it will have VirtualBox installed with an image of my XP box that runs in it. That way if I need the apps I can just fire up the VM and do what I have to and shut it down when I'm finished.
I have no respect for a company or organization that dumps Windows and jumps on the "free OS" bandwagon. If they can make it work, good for them, but you just pissed off thousands of your employees in one fell swoop simply because you too fucking cheap to upgrade a 13 year old OS and instead will pay more in the long run for loss of productivity. Imagine going into work one day and finding your IT just reformatted your computer, removed all the familiar apps you are used to using, replaced them with shitty open source alternatives, and shoved a new environment in front of you, all in the name of being fucking cheap.
What's the first thing an typical government worker is going to do in this scenario? Get on the phone and ask IT Support what the fuck just happened and how are they supposed to do their job when everything has changed?!
So go for it, unfortunately the article about the repercussions and actual COST of Munich switching to Linux will never be written so more organizations will be deluded into believing switching to Linux costs less than just upgrading Windows..
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Who knew SkyNet was going to run on a bunch of WinXP machines...
For a long time I was bothered by the fact that the popularity of each OS appears to be inversely correlated to it's underlying quality. Gradually noticed that the same seems to apply with the fast food -> quality cooking spectrum, exercise habits, etc. Just wanted to congratulate the Ubuntu team for understanding that the customer is always right and finding a way to make Linux competitive with Windows XP in terms of stability, ease of access, well thought out features and the like.
ISPs should do this to abolish the coming pain of bot nets from their networks.
I have a firewire audio device that I use for recording. There are no drivers for Windows 8. Windows 7 has drivers but they don't work well with the system. So the solution it seems is to just unhook it from the network. Continue to use as a DAW, and burn CDs to xfer data. I could put linux on there, but then pulse audio vs asdm vs jackd vs oss and some apps work with one but won't work with another... Yeah. I'll stick with XP.
By April 2014, Ubuntu 14.04 should arrive as the next LTS version.
Since the DVD's have been available since sept. 9th, it would have been hard for them to put 14.04 on them.
Incorrect. You would be right about earlier LTS releases (where it was 5 years support for server, 3 years for desktop), but 12.04 is 5 years for both. The implication was that this would be true for all LTS releases in the future, but I can't find a link for that at the moment in respect of 14.04.
Why not, why the hell not? How the hell could someone who has use of a computer can't have, in the last decade, set aside $300? That's $30/year. $2.50/month. Just over 8 cents a day.
At some point you just have to say: THINK AHEAD YOU FUCKING RETARD
I almost put something in that post about how "the business side would never go along with is because it dilutes the market for ...", but the thrust of the post was the social responsibility that companies have. If there are millions of unpatched XP boxes on the net, it could spell huge problems for the net as a whole and make the net unsafe and unusable for everyone. Profit may be job number one but it it squeezes out all other values it runs the risk of bringing down the whole system. Look what just happened to the baking industry as the result of unbridled greed. So while that may fail business 101 type reasoning, you fail business 501 and ethics 201 for being too shortsighted and polluting the well from which all drink.
Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
If hackers have found holes in Win XP, they will be saving and then using them after April, 2014.
FTFY
I come here for the love
I couldn't get my Brother MFC-4800 working with Windows 7, but the linux drivers work fine with Linux Mint and Debian Stable.
Since uSoft support is worthless who cares ?
Firefox 17 ESR will not install on Win2k. Haven't tried with the standard release. And indeed, flash will refuse to install.
Why not invest in this project instead of Ubuntu? Look more straightforward, XP->ReactOS than XP-> Ubuntu
distribute DVDs, but...
The summary seems full of strange notions. Nothing at all is happening "the very moment" support is withdrawn; there are not legions of hackers with their fingers hovering over the "send" key just waiting for Microsoft to withdraw support. The system will be just as secure the day before the support is withdrawn as it will be the day after. Things are only called "zero day" now because it sounds cool and scary. The major vulnerabilities are well known already.
So what is the current rate of vulnerabilities being discovered or XP, and how often are security patches being sent out today to fix them? If this is already a very low rate then the removal of support from XP is not a significant event.
ReactOS for free.
More will rush to my door, for dual core HP dc7100 CMT systems, selling for $60.00 at the Seminole county Florida Library Bookstore! Loaded with Linux Mint 13... IMMUNE to the 50 MILLION Microsoft Virus!!! Runs upto 200 times FASTER than Microsoft in all the processes needed to get little pixels on the screen! But, you knew that, right?
Well they want to keep copyrights on it, despite being an OS that came out before the Iraq war, or SARS, or the first US case of Mad Cow, or Gray Davis getting recalled, or Greenspan retiring from the fed, or Hurricane Katrina, or The release of three more operating systems from Microsoft.... Let's be reasonable.
Let's be reasonable. XP is four versions old at this point and it's time to give up the source code and set the copyrights to it out to pasture.
As long as they control the copyrights, it is not a dead product to them.
They are the only ones allowed to support it because of their copyrights on the code. Therefore they are the only ones who can do it.
And they are the only ones that can learn from the code (which was the entire point of copyrights in the first place), which is yet another abrogation of the responsibilities of the copyrights holder: that the copyrights lapse and the work moves into the public domain, enriching it.
will be full of stories about how the net has been brought to it's knees by the botnets recruited from the newly unpatchable XP boxes and blaming it all on microsoft.
Why don't they just change the laws to make the source code of Windows XP subject to eminent domain, then open source it?
After all, if we're going to have a legal concept of "intellectual property", then the basic principles of property law should apply. Windows XP is clearly a piece of property in the process of being abandoned, and millions of people around the world depend on it. Logically, it should be able to be seized by the government for the benefit of the public.
If we don't permit this, we essentially declare all current and historical uses of eminent domain to be invalid, since the case for application here is far stronger than any purely local justification for eminent domain could ever possibly be.
Microsoft, and its investors, have certainly had plenty of opportunity to make a reasonable profit from their investment in this software.
Also, long term oversight over business is a fundamental human right, just as long term oversight over government is. All software companies should be required to eventually provide the public well documented and build-able source code to their software, as a condition of being allowed to do business, in order to facilitate the exercise of this right. After all, we wouldn't want software companies infringing other people's rights by various things they hide in their software, and making the software subject to external scrutiny is the only practical way to prevent this. The definition of what constitutes "long term" in the context of "long term oversight" is subject to some discussion, but 15-16 years is certainly in the reasonable range.
Thus, making well documented source code available to the public serves multiple purposes fundamental to effective government.
It would make sense to generalize this to all commercial software (also to some types of design documentation for commercial hardware, plus, eventually, to biomedical engineering designs). We could even require software businesses to deposit copies of their source code with some independent third party, which would release the code at a later date, to ensure that the source code does not mysteriously get lost or misplaced.
Since the majority of stock market investments are short term (foolish of investors, but that's the way it is), this proposal shouldn't have any significant negative economic consequences. After all, we're talking about a product released a long time ago.
Windows Embedded Standard (2009) is the last version of WindowsXP embedded. It will be supported until 1/8/2019
So someone will still be slaving away on XP updates, if needed they can pop them over the the customer channel.
Why would hackers even bother with an old system? where's the challenge? Sure there will be a bunch of poor, and non computer people, but the pickin's look like they'll have little to gain, not much of a challenge, and little to brag about.