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German State Plans To Migrate 13,000 Workstations From Linux to Windows (zdnet.com)
An anonymous reader quotes ZDNet:
The German state of Lower Saxony is set to follow Munich in migrating thousands of official computers away from Linux to Microsoft's Windows. As initially reported by Heise, the state's tax authority has 13,000 workstations running OpenSuse -- which it adopted in 2006 in a well-received migration from Solaris -- that it now wants to migrate to a "current version" of Windows, presumably Windows 10.
The authority reasons that many of its field workers and telephone support services already use Windows, so standardisation makes sense. An upgrade of some kind would in any case be necessary soon, as the PCs are running OpenSuse versions 12.2 and 13.2, neither of which is supported anymore.
According to the Lower Saxony's draft budget, €5.9m is set aside for the migration in the coming year, with a further €7m annually over the following years; it's not yet clear how many years the migration would take... Munich's shift away from LiMux -- the city's own Ubuntu-based distribution -- is expected to cost more than €50m overall, involving the deployment of around 29,000 Windows-based computers.
The authority reasons that many of its field workers and telephone support services already use Windows, so standardisation makes sense. An upgrade of some kind would in any case be necessary soon, as the PCs are running OpenSuse versions 12.2 and 13.2, neither of which is supported anymore.
According to the Lower Saxony's draft budget, €5.9m is set aside for the migration in the coming year, with a further €7m annually over the following years; it's not yet clear how many years the migration would take... Munich's shift away from LiMux -- the city's own Ubuntu-based distribution -- is expected to cost more than €50m overall, involving the deployment of around 29,000 Windows-based computers.
This should be easy. The German state has become quite the expert on migration as of late. Let's just hope no-one gets raped in the process.
It is a shame. Willingly paying for closed source malware and spyware isn't my idea of using money wisely.
Idealism vs. getting shit done. It's no surprise that Germany's government is choosing getting shit done.
They should try that for electricity generation next.
That this is being done *without* a cost-benefit analysis.
There is a certain amount of politics here, but if I were a citizen/tax payer of Lower Saxony I'd be mostly concerned that this is being done before an analysis is available.
I understand that Open Suse 12.2 and 12.3 are obsolete, but I would think that migrating to Leap 42 or Leap 15 would would be a lot cheaper than buying Windows 10 licenses. In TFA, they cite the issue that telephone support is now being done on Windows - but I would think that it would be more cost effective to move them to Linux.
But, without any kind of analysis, the people who are going to pay for this won't know.
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Was auch immer Du geraucht hast, gib mir bitte nichts davon ab!
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
If EU is not a friend anymore according to Trump, why does the EU allow USA software in their administration?
I wish more companies would make OSX builds of software. I'd run a hackintosh in a heartbeat.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Try this anecdotal evidence:
Open LibreOffice Calc 6.0.2.1, rotate text 180 and add borders. Things look, print and export with huge black lines.
Open random docx your friend or colleague sent you, it looks different or even terrible (yes, they are bad at formatting, yes, it would look slightly better if you had Microsoft fonts installed).
Print a document to an USB printer, unplug it during printing. Now google how to "Enable" your cups printer.
Open Firefox on your touchscreen laptop, try finger scrolling. It selects text instead. It luckily works in Chromium.
You must not be using an enterprise version then. RedHat charges $299 per workstation license, per year, if you want support, $179 if you want to do it yourself. You can get the desktop version with no support, but you're still going to pay $49 / yr. Windows 10 is $84 / yr in comparison. So if you're going to compare apples to apples by comparing the pricing of enterprise licensing with support, then you're not really any better off in either camp.
This is the graph that should worry Microsoft.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Sorry I cant help you right now my computer is updating.
No, the problem is EXACTLY that they are a stickler for rules rather than getting things done. There is no flexibility, no grey area in which things get done unless the rules specifically allow it.
Let me give you a very recent example. A year ago I had eye surgery to get a cornea transplant, and to help the cornea attach and not be rejected I'm taking a series of different medications and eye drops. Monday of this week I went to my doctor to refill my prescription for my eye drops only to find out he's on vacation until the second week of August. Ouch, not smart, and yes I should have paid attention to his vacation schedule.
I had the great idea of sending an email to the hospital that did the surgery and where I go for checkups every few months, asking them to write me a prescription just this once.
They refused. Why? Because I hadn't been there this quarter and to do ANYTHING for me they need a new referral from my doctor.
The doctor that's on vacation.
HOW is that getting shit done? They refused to get me the eye drops that are required to help my eye heal because of bureaucracy.
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Had they started using a windows is back in 2006, it's security would be no longer supported as well. If they can operate on Linux and are familiar, and I can't see why they would spend the money to change. I imagine they use them for basic tasks like email, typing word docs, excel sheets, and printing and not much else. In that case the free version will trump windows every time.
Holy shit, why are you suddenly talking about Windows and Linux in a conversation about immigration, you... (looks up) oh, shit, is THAT what conversation this is? Jesus Christ did THAT go off the rails. Thanks for trying to bring it back. LOL
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
Right, MS bailed on phones, therefore losing the war. Google is moving radidly into the full PC desktop space with ChromeOS aka Linux (check out Crostini) and they already have a lock on the cloud productivity space. You will also see ChromeOS increasingly present with a standard windowing interface. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that many major software vendors are already eyeing ChromeOS ports. That's Microsoft's last line of defence.
Even without defeating Microsoft on its home turf, the world is just changing. Most users never did need to run a spreadsheet, now many of them don't even need to run a word processor. They do things by messaging now, not by documents. The world is moving on and Microsoft just can't.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Google is moving radidly into the full PC desktop space with ChromeOS aka Linux (check out Crostini [chromeunboxed.com]) and they already have a lock on the cloud productivity space.
Are you high? ChomeOS is a blip in a rounding error of the market share.
Are you drunk? Chromebook shipments surge by 38 percent, cutting into Windows 10 PCs. Chromebooks are perennial Amazon bestsellers. Chromebooks hold a majority of the US K-12 market. Chromebooks can do everything Android can. Time to sober up. Or don't, nobody cares about your Slashdot upchuck.
Did I mention, Chromebooks are pretty damn secure.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
You must not be using an enterprise version then. RedHat charges $299 per workstation license, per year, if you want support, $179 if you want to do it yourself. You can get the desktop version with no support, but you're still going to pay $49 / yr. Windows 10 is $84 / yr in comparison. So if you're going to compare apples to apples by comparing the pricing of enterprise licensing with support, then you're not really any better off in either camp.
And?
Realistically, most places with Windows support it themselves. That's while still paying for the licenses.
And you know perfectly well there are good usable Linux distributions that don't require paid support licenses. With Windows, you pay whether you use any support or not, no matter what.
With Linux you can have any kind of custom distribution you want. Not so, Windows.
Linux, "telemetry" optional. Windows, mandatory ...
No, it's the users that don't know how to use it, they are used to windows at home or elsewhere. That is the main problem.
Tired of my customary (Score:1)
Let's be real: 99% of Windows revenue comes from companies who don't care about Android, ChromeOS or any other OS in their AD- fueled desktops.
Good thing that segment of employees is shrinking so they can lay off some of those fat ass point and click Windows sysadmins.
And when K12 and Android users get a job, they will also use.. a Windows desktop.
See, that's the point, a lot of them won't because email isn't how you do things now, and Microsoft doesn't do a whole lot more of value. They don't even do a great job on email. So many businesses running on Gmail now. You don't need to accept my prediction, it's already a thing, and it's getting bigger fast. Why do you think PC sales are tanking?
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
And thus you prove the point that is being made - that the Rules are more important than Getting Shit Done.
This is not some random hospital I contacted. This is a hospital where I have a current treatment going, but because the last time I was there was in April they refuse to write ONE prescription in order to Get Shit Done.
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I expect that it is because all those immigrants that Germany wants to employ cheaply instead of its own workers have been brought up on pirated copies of Windows.