Green Party Leaders Don't Want Windows In Munich (techrepublic.com)

Reader sqorbit writes: Munich spent a lot of time (9 years) and a lot of money in shifting some 15,000 staff to a Linux-based OS. The plan now is to move to Windows 10 by 2021. Munich's Green Party is citing the WannaCry virus as a valid reason not to switch to Windows. "As with many of the biggest attacks, the computers that were mainly hit were running the Windows operating system," the Green Party said in a statement.

Comments

What is their issue?

[Camel Pilot]

I switched to CentOS (with Mate) on the desktop several years ago. I have windows on dual boot. I haven't booted into Windows for nearly year. I don't miss windows for anything. When I upgraded from CentOS 6 to CentOS 7 it literally only took me about 2 hours to upgrade and install my toolchain and have backups working. With Windows this would have taken an entire day. I smirk at my associates who worry about Ransomware or just cruft slowing chocking their desktops/laptops.

  However my use case may be different than others.

Re:What is their issue?

[burki]

For those of you who understand German I highly recommend:
http://www.br.de/radio/b5-aktu...
It is a 15 minutes talk with one of the members of the city parliament responsible for this decision.

I'm not saying that the decision to switch back to Windows is the right one, but you get a good feeling for the pain they are feeling. She mentions computers taking twenty minutes to start in the beginning of the day, they have 2'000 different applications in the city for specific tasks, some of them working only on a single versions of a web browsers. Their Linux clients exists in a variety of configurations, some with LibreOffice, others with OpenOffice. And while they managed to switch 70% of clients to Linux, they kept 30% of there machines on various versions of Windows going back to XP in order to cope with domain specific solutions.

And then she observes that there was a very active generation of IT technicians 10 years ago eager to make a switch to Linux. But the younger people these days neither care too much about Windows or Linux; they are much more interested (and knowledgeable) in coding Android apps. So they can't fill the position for admins with good knowledge of Linux desktops but have to hire independent contractors costing â 1'500 a day (instead of â 4'500 per months if they were regular city employees). To sum it up, they have a variety of IT issues many of them probably typical for any large city that can't pay the salaries good staff would expect in a booming and relatively expensive city like Munich. And all of you pointing out that they would have similar issues with an aging Windows environment as well are probably spot on. But taking into consideration that being the only bigger city with a non-Microsoft client infrastructure in the area certainly doesn't make it easier getting experienced staff from other communities with first hand experience in a comparable environment, their wish of getting closer to the main stream in government ID seems understandable.

Re:What is their issue?

[nine-times]

Thank you for posting. The first question about something like this should be "what problem are they trying to solve?" and your post gives some idea of the answer to that.

Having looked at this list, it doesn't seem like the problems they're experiencing are caused by using Linux. If their computers take 20 minutes to boot, there must be something wrong with their computers. If the complaint is that some people are using OpenOffice and some are using LibreOffice, that has nothing to do with the OS whatsoever. Either way, it's pretty easy to fix both of those at once: Buy new computers, and install the same office suite on all of them.

If the problem is that they have web applications that only work in a specific version of a specific web browser, that's not really a problem with their OS. If it only works on IE 6, then you might need to stick with an old version of Windows in order to use it, but migrating to Windows 10 isn't going to help. The real solution is to develop a new, modern web application (or at least overhaul the old one's front end) so that it's more browser-agnostic.

If the problem is that your IT people are all Android developers, then once again, I don't know how switching to Windows helps. Maybe the best solution would be to wait for Google to come out with their Android/ChromeOS hybrid and switch to that instead of one of the current Linux desktop distros.

The only issue that you've raised that seems like it might point you in the direction of Windows is, "they can't fill the position for admins with good knowledge of Linux desktops". It is possible that it's easier to find cheap Windows support than cheap Linux support. On the other hand, if the common computer problems are caused by having extremely old/slow hardware, and having old legacy apps that require Windows XP, then I'm not sure Windows support staff is a very good investment. You're going to hire a bunch of additional people and pay for a large-scale migration, only to find that you still have all the same problems.

Maybe there's more to it, and I'd be interested to know the details. However, it kind of sounds like someone in charge is under a mistaken impression that running Windows will fix problems that have nothing to do with the desktop OS.

Re:What is their issue?

[jfdavis668]

And I bet you don't spend most of your day in word processing and spreadsheet programs. If you do, you will find Windows far more useful than any Linux distro.

Re:Why would anyone *choose* Windows?

[jellomizer]

Here are some answers. They may not be stellar ones, but they are factors.

1. Employee Hiring: Everyone knows windows, most don't know Linux. Sure using Linux for work isn't that big of a deal, but it is just one more thing to train on.
2. Third party software: Most organizations thinking buy not build is the solution. Most of the software that you can buy is for windows.
3. Compatibility: 99% compatible means 3 days a year there is a problem.
4. Merging with other locations: Sure you may be on Linux but chances are the organization that you are merging with isn't
5. Big Vendor relationship: If you are a big enough organization. Your relationship with Microsoft is far more dynamic than here is the CD and install it. Microsoft will often work with you to make sure their product will work with your environment.
6. Hardware: Oh that new set of laptops has an incompatible network chip. And there is no Linux driver. You could make sure you get the linux approved system, but either it is out of date, or more expensive, just because that one necessary compatibility component.
7. Too many exceptions: If you are a Linux shop, you normally need a few windows boxes for those exceptions where you need it. There just may be too many people who need Windows as an exception.
8. Too configurable: Linux is often too configurable for its own good, deploying it in an organization will often get the organizations group think settings. Often being bad for everyone. Windows is you get what you get, and followed "Best Practices" which bosses think they like.
9. Silly names: Much of linux software has silly fun and unprofessional names. It just may not fit in the organizations culture.
10. That one problem that could had been easy in windows: When you use the exception vs what is common. You are under the gun to make sure everything is perfect. That one problem could get you. "No one got fired for choosing IBM" problem. You can buy a POS, but just as long as you are suffering with everyone else you are fine.