City of Munich Struggling With Basic Linux Functionality

jones_supa writes: Just like the city planned a year ago, Munich is still calling for a switch back to Windows from LiMux, their Ubuntu derivative. The councilors from Munich's conservative CSU party have called the operating system installed on their laptops "cumbersome to use" and "of very limited use." The letter from the two senior members of the city's IT committee (PDF in German) asks the mayor to consider removing the Linux-based OS and to install Windows and Office. "There are no programs for text editing, Skype, Office etc. installed and that prevents normal use," the letter argues. Another complaint from councilors is that "the lack of user permissions makes them of limited use." These kind of arguments raise eyebrows, as all that functionality is certainly found on Linux.

Comments

Idiocy.

[Shaman]

This is computer neophytes telling IT how things work.

Like the pigs running the farm. Like the inmates running the asylum.

Like councillors up to their ears in that Microsoft bribe money.

Re:Idiocy.

[TWX]

Computer neophytes are the reason that the IT department exists in the first place. IT's sole role is support. I don't care if it's a $200 netbook or a $200,000 iSeries financial server, computers are a means, not an end. All of us in IT have a job because we facilitate that means for people that don't know how to do it themselves, regardless of the reason why they don't know how.

If the IT department for Munich either failed to train users how to use their equipment (like how to find a simple GUI text editor like Mousepad) or failed to install such software it's not the users' faults that they're upset. I use vi, but I don't expect Bärbel to get escape-shift-colon-w-filename-enter to save her file, or to understand the differences between CR-LF and UNIX-style file structures.

I also wonder how good of a job they did keeping the users' workstations up-to-date. That's a huge problem in IT even on systems that were designed from the outset for it.

Re:Idiocy.

[MightyMartian]

This has been a process that has been ongoing since the earliest days of general use computers.

I recall when my office moved from Wordperfect 5 to the first Windows version pf MS-Word. It was a fucking nightmare. Despite the obvious advantages WYSIWYG, there were months worth of bitching and moaning, and a few people who pretty much convinced management to let them keep using Wordperfect in a DOS window.

What it turns out people needed was training. Even a two or three sessions to familiarize people with the interface, and they had at least the rudiments down. I think some of the older staff never got it fully, but as Wordperfect faded into oblivion, they either made do as best they could.

The complaints being reported here suggest that where Munich has fallen down is in training. People literally have no idea how to use their computers.

Re:Idiocy.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no way to met the requirement when they change all the time because some porn/gabling/toy software/site will not install/work properly.

All the 'basic functionally' they claim to need are will know to be found in ubuntu and other distributions. These peoples are lazy liars, or corrupted liars that want microsoft money.

Re: Idiocy.

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem in Munich is the same I have seen everywhere I have seen Linux introduced

The workers use their laptops for personal stuff besides work.

Often employees get Admin rights as part of their work requirements and installing games and other personal stuff like GPS software or specific hardware drivers is common.

All of that is fine and dandy on Windows because people is mostly familiar with Windows and any one can click next-next-next.

Often the IT department has to deal with their system cock-ups and continuous malware infestations. "Uuuh I dunno it broke"

When you give a Linux computer to people 99% of the time it is a work tool, and obviously the workers are not happy that they can not use their new flashy free laptop paid by the council with public money for personal use.

And that is all there is to the story.

Re:Idiocy.

[Aighearach]

I just wanted to toss this in here, my wife doesn't know the difference between the words "internet" and "web browser," but she has no trouble at all using Skype on linux. If you don't know what is under the hood, it is all the same; you click the icon, the application opens, and then the buttons are from the application not the OS.

She knows we're not using windows, but she doesn't know what that means; but she can still use it exactly the same. And if she plugs in a USB drive from work, opens LibreOffice, works on a spreadsheet... and calls it "excel," it doesn't matter and it still works!

This is how it is supposed to be. Users who are not blacksmiths should not worry about the metal used for their plow, but instead they should worry if it can indeed plow the fields they have.

Re:Idiocy.

[Yunzil]

Sure, keep insulting the people telling you that Linux just might have a problem or two. That'll surely convince them of the error of their ways.

Re:Idiocy.

[bhcompy]

So why didn't you train them on it? You change their world and you're responsible for educating them

Re:Idiocy.

[AmiMoJo]

Years ago in a previous life I built/reinstalled some computers for customers. We used to install Open Office because most people thought it was part of Windows and couldn't comprehend that Microsoft wanted charge them hundreds of pounds for software that their work/school/mate's dodgy warez copy provided on every other PC they had ever used.

People were still confused and complained, until we started renaming the program shortcuts to Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Just the icons on the start menu, nothing else.

We don't no stinkin' planning department...

[__aaclcg7560]

Throwing Linux on the PCs and letting users figure it out isn't a proven strategy.

Translations

[sjbe]

The councilors from Munich's conservative CSU party have called the operating system installed on their laptops "cumbersome to use" and "of very limited use.

Translation: We don't want to be bothered learning anything new and it doesn't have solitaire on it.

"There are no programs for text editing, Skype, Office etc. installed and that prevents normal use,"

Translation: We have no idea what we are talking about, can't be bothered to ask any questions and only want to use what we are already familiar with.

Another complaint from councilors is that "the lack of user permissions makes them of limited use."

Translation: We want to be able to download whatever malware infested screensaver or porn we feel like.

Re:Translations

[wvmarle]

"There are no programs for text editing, Skype, Office etc. installed and that prevents normal use,"

Translation: We have no idea what we are talking about, can't be bothered to ask any questions and only want to use what we are already familiar with.

Wrong translation. This should be: "those that install the systems have no idea what they're doing", as such software should be pre-installed on any system and be ready for use. Of course I'm taking the complaint at face value here, and the complaint is that standard productivity software has not been pre-installed. To ease transition, they may even consider using the default Windows icon for Word on the OpenOffice/LibreOffice launcher and so. Skype has a Linux version so that's even more of a no-brainer, it should be pre-installed or made dead easy to install if licensing prevents pre-installing it.

Re: Translations

[buchanmilne]

As far as I remember, their transition strategy started with deploying OpenOffice and Firefox on all Windows machines and making them the default, then removing MS Office a few months later, then switching the OS a year later while keeping most applications the same.

IOW it is almost impossible that the users didn't have a word processor available or know how to use it, or even if it was the case, thus wasn't as a result of the OS change.

Not having Skype may be due to policy (which would apply regardless of OS), in favour of other privacy-respecting IM platform.

Normal people have no way to know that

[Schezar]

Normal people don't know what applications are or how to install them. They click blindly, like newborn infants, until Microsoft Word appears, and then they express whatever it is in them that drove them to this extreme. Outlook is a gateway into a magical world of 576,442 unread emails and 500,333 unsent drafts. The "fix it" button on the front of the machine usually works, but sometimes doesn't. Their grandson tells them to stop hitting that button, but he's into voodoo and something called Mimecraft, so what does he know?

Dear Slashdot editors

[LichtSpektren]

I know it is ubiquitous in journalism to abbreviate e.g. "two senior members of the city's IT committee" to "Munich", but it is not correct, and the imprecision of such phrases can wildly skew the impression that a reader gets versus the facts.

Examine the headline: "City of Munich Struggling With Basic Linux Functionality". Without any sort of clarifying modifier to "City of Munich", one is liable to take this to mean a significant portion of the populace (millions of people), when in fact the subject aforementioned is really a small group of sabre-rattlers.

Re:Maybe they should hire qualified Linux experts

[LichtSpektren]

By all metrics, LiMux has gone extraordinary well for Munich. The complainers are a bunch of politicians being paid off by Microsoft; note how there's no actual bureaucrats expressing dissatisfaction with it.

wtf?

[znrt]

Unter anderem können keinerlei Programme
(Textbearbeitungsprogramme, Skype, Office, etc.) selbst nach installiert werden, welches
einen normalen Gebrauch verhindert

no text processing? no skype? wtf? LiMux must be the worst distro ever.

or it could be that this is the worst fud ever.

Re: Don't light your torches just yet...

[r_a_trip]

Munich has had this system since 2004. I refuse to believe that Munich could have survived this long on the system if it really was like in TFS.

Re:Tell the old dogs

[JSG]

My wife has no idea she is using Arch Linux and KDE in the main on her laptop. It just works. She browses the web, Facebook and dodgy Flash games, YouTube etc etc, emails via our corp Exchange (I own the company), and so on. Printing just works as does the webcam, bluetooth, touchpad and all the rest.

I replaced the laptop with another in about 60 mins after cloning the old HD to the new one, most of that was spent getting the discs out into a cloner. I had to fiddle with one driver (Broadcom WiFi bollocks).

I update it via ssh every now and then and suggest a reboot eventually when she fancies it. I have locked the widgets and embiggened some of them so they are always where they should be and easy to find.

No computer OS is just plain sailing, Windows, Linux, *BSD, OSX or whatever. They all have sharp edges somewhere.

Re:Are they running Windows 8?

[0123456]

because hitting the windows key and typing out what you want to do is just so cumbersome.

Hint: there's a reason it's called a GRAPHICAL User Interface. If I wanted to have to type commands, I'd use a real shell.

Microsoft added that crap when Search was the New Shiny, and everything had to have Search to compete with Google.

Then they added a tablet interface when the iPad was the New Shiny, and everything had to support touchscreens to compete with Apple.

Maybe they should just try building a good desktop OS with a GRAPHICAL User Interface.