16 ms·

The rise and fall of Limux

146 points by bitcharmer 9y ago

DannyB2 9y ago
If somebody does not want a software system, or in some cases, wants to sabotage it, this is not a technical problem. No technical solution will fix it. It might be fixable, but not with a software update.
- cjsuk 9y ago
  Sometimes you have to update the people to make the software work. I’ve watched a company’s staff sabotage an ERP system because it made them more accountable.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- e1ven 9y ago
  Agreed. Unfortunately, updating the way people look at things is a lot harder than updating code. It takes years of work to convince people to buy-in to things, and a lot of it is advertising and promoting, not just education and training. It's a lot tougher than just submitting a PR :/
- soulbadguy 9y ago
  Yes, but at one point we need to ask why people don't want linux. Apple MACOS & IOS, android, even windows 8 and 10 did introduce radical new changes, it was a bumpy road, but at the end people did start using it. It is a technical problem, Linux on desktop is just worst than both windows and MACOS; Both in term of software available (can we stop pretending that libreoffice is even remotely comparable to MS office...), basic drivers and OS services (wifi etc...) and UI design
  - greenhouse_gas 9y ago
    >Yes, but at one point we need to ask why people don't want linux The long tail of software and that the alternatives are good enough. I happen to be a Linux guy, but when I bought my computer, it came with Windows. If I use it to browse the web, play games or type word documents, why should I switch? Back in the win95/98/3.1 days, Linux's main advantage was stability. How many old-timers spent hours working on a Doc or WordPerfect file, to lose it all because of a GPF? Linux was such a breath of fresh air back then. Honestly, the "year of the Linux desktop" ended when XP came out.
    - gmueckl 9y ago
      No, the year of the Linux desktop ended a few years later: - Laptops became hugely popular and Linux never was great at plug and play hardware handling. - PulseAudio was part of the fix that wasn't - KDE4 and Gnome 3 happened (even though the plasma desktop was stabilized soon, things like Akonadi and Nepomik have managed to destroy much of the appeal of the unique tight integration of KDE software) - systemd happened. Mentioning this will trigger rabid supporters among the HN crowd, but the fact remains that this is at least a PR disaster on all accounts. The end result of the changes of the last decade is that Linux installations have become extremely opaque even to experts while effectively staying just as brittle as before.
      - watwut 9y ago
        99% of desktop users never heard of systemd nor controversy around it. And if they did, they forget a day later.
        gmueckl 9y ago
        Of course someone got triggered by the presence if the word "systemd". I am surprised that it didn't take longer. But that was not my point at all. The fact is that all attempts to fix the Linux user space have essentially failed to deliver. The additional complexity added over these years did effectively nothing to move the Linux desktop into the 21st century, let alone this decade. I was extremely hopeful around 2003 to 2005 that Linux might carve out a corner in the desktop market. Now I find myself pondering switching to Windows full time after dual booting for two decades.
        AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y ago
        "additional complexity" is the ticket. Linux Desktop tried so hard to chase some strawman of the "average user" over the past 2 decades, while at the same time keeping their identity as a unix system, that they ended up building a nightmarish Rube Goldberg machine that is completely opaque in its operation even to a lot of the people claiming to be experts in using it. They sacrificed "simple" on the altar of "easy" and, unsurprisingly, it didn't get them anywhere. Simple is easy to work with, and easy to reason about. That means that even when you screw up, it will be pretty obvious why, and when it breaks it will be pretty obvious to fix. It also usually means it'll be pretty flexible. DOS was simple, but not easy, for instance. Windows has been trending this way too. Of course, if you ask me, the Linux community always prefered complexity anyway. Take package managers: they only exist to manage complicated dependency relationships. Instead of asking why they have such complicated dependency relationships in their software, or why that causes so many problems for them, they instead wrote a package manager to handle the whole complicated mess; and that package manager was such a rousing success that no one ever wrote another one because it had so elegantly and completely solved the problem. Sigh
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y ago
    To a certain extent, I think the lack of applications, driver compatibility, and "familiarity" are excuses trotted out by Linux Desktop evangelists. Don't get me wrong, they definitely are a problem, but they'd be solved problems if people actually wanted to work with a Linux Desktop. The thing is, people don't. I grew up in the 90s, and I was even a Linux and OSS evangelist during my stupid teenager years. I really wanted to make a Linux Desktop work. I still do want a viable OSS desktop. But what I found was that the community built up around Linux, and the Linux Desktop in particular, seems intent on making things suck as much as possible. I can hypothesize a wide variety of reasons why, and I suspect anyone who's spent a significant amount of time working with OSS communities can as well, but the upshot is that pretty much nothing they do is conducive to producing a good product. What's worse is that they largely refuse to recognize any problems they might actually have, technical or otherwise, preferring instead to believe they are a perfect beacon of The Way Things Should Be, that everyone else is doing it wrong, and blaming Windows's dominance for their failures.
    - bobajeff 9y ago
      The vocal response you get on the internet when you ask why any product is failing is usually some variation of: "It failed because the company/developers didn't do things I wanted!" However, I believe the truth is less subjective than that.
    - icebraining 9y ago
      I think you're sincere, but your post sounds like a pretty good troll. Lightly attacks a wide group of people while not being overly aggressive and doesn't actually make any concrete point (like point out those problems) so it's easy for others to read in it their own opinions and defend it. http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html
      - slededit 9y ago
        Not op but to bring this into concrete terms the multiple incompatible UI toolkits, and especially the GTK rewrites couldn't have helped. I remember first starting out trying to decide if I should use KDE or GTK. And this choice would affect how well your apps worked in ways that are totally non obvious if you aren't a UI programmer.
  - MrFurious 9y ago
    The problem are videogames and MS Office. Nobody change OS if use it.
    - the_af 9y ago
      I play plenty of AAA games on Ubuntu (example: the latest Mad Max), so that's definitely not it. Also, a lot of computer users are not interested in games at all. You might have a point about MS Office.
      - greenhouse_gas 9y ago
        The issue is "the long tail". For example, if my favorite game (extra points if it's from 2000 and abandonware) doesn't work on Linux, why should I switch? If my camera which I already own isn't on Linux, why should I switch? If I'm running an office and I suspect I'll need a Windows program in the future (almost guaranteed, if you want some off-cloud accounting or billing or business-logic software), why should I switch?
        the_af 9y ago
        > if my favorite game [...] doesn't work on Linux, why should I switch? That's easy: you should not switch to Linux because of games. You should switch because you like it better than Windows; if you also happen to like gaming, you will find plenty of games for Linux. Your favorite game might not be available, but then again, you should not switch (to any OS!) because of games. This is not exclusively a problem for Linux either; it also happens to Mac users. Still, the Mac has many fans, right?
        greenhouse_gas 9y ago
        >That's easy: you should not switch to Linux because of games. You should switch because you like it better than Windows; if you also happen to like gaming, you will find plenty of games for Linux. Your favorite game might not be available, but then again, you should not switch (to any OS!) because of games. That's my point. For the "masses", there isn't much there (see how much they care about privacy), and something to lose.
arunc 9y ago
Without improving Linux on the desktop[1], implementations like Limux are bound to take this route. [1] http://itvision.altervista.org/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.the.desktop.current.html http://itvision.altervista.org/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.th...
- e1ven 9y ago
  There is a LOT that can be done to improve desktop linux, but I think in this case, at least according to the article, the difficulties were largely political, not technical.
  - soulbadguy 9y ago
    That wasn't my read of the situation. Bottom line is, the administration realize that the cost savings promised might not materialized, and that most of IT problems could be resolved more cheaply by just moving to better version of windows
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y ago
    In the general case, though, I think the biggest problem is that the community that uses and works on the Linux Desktop doesn't actually want it to improve. If you're an open source developer, for instance, why would you work to improve or maintain software X when you can create an alternative that does things slightly differently? That looks a lot more impressive on a resume. And I'd swear many Linux Desktop users wish it was even more complicated and fragile either because they love troubleshooting or just so they can virtue signal that they're leet. I mean, why else would /r/unixporn exist?
    - amcca029 9y ago
      I think this is largely an issue with X rather than users wanting to show off, I think wayland (while not perfect) can really help with developing easy to use desktop enviroments. Also not everybody who uses "complicated" setups care about "leetness", personally I use i3 (and alot of mods, customizations) because nothing compares to the ease of use + functionality for me. I personally want more linux desktop adoption, Ive switched my parents over, trying to convert my brother.
tomalpha 9y ago
This has (some) echoes of the rise and fall of the use of Linux at Central Scotland Police: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/11/ms_lochs_down_police/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/11/ms_lochs_down_polic... I worked with one of the architects of that (many moons ago). He was a fervent believer in OSS and its use in the enterprise. From what I could glean, they struggled with user interface issues - end users didn't like having to relearn how to use their very-similar-but-not-quite-the-same-word-processor software. As soon as he left (and it was never clear which came first) they decided to return to the Microsoft fold. edit: better article link
- danieldk 9y ago
  From what I could glean, they struggled with user interface issues - end users didn't like having to relearn how to use their very-similar-but-not-quite-the-same-word-processor software. I find this very interesting. We are all familiar with less tech-savvy users that are only comfortable what they know. However, Google Docs is a fierce competitor of Microsoft Office. Android/iOS replaced Windows for a lot of regular users. Chrome crushed the competition, including Internet Explorer. Why are these examples different? Is it because these alternatives did not try to emulate Microsoft's products and hence didn't cause the impression that 'it's almost the same, but glitchy'. Or was the experience of these products so much better than Microsoft's counterparts? What lesson could the FLOSS world learn here?
  - extrapickles 9y ago
    If you collaboratively produce documents at your workplace, Google Docs wins by a large margin. Microsoft products have way too many issues when multiple people are editing the same large (100-200 page) document. Edit: The takeaway for FOSS is that the product has to be lower frustration than the alternative for it to win out.
    - iaonsdionio 9y ago
      That sounds like a nightmare. Google Docs is barely powerful enough for writing a three-page letter. I can't imagine writing a collaborative 200-page document with it. LaTeX + git would be the ideal, but my coworkers would shoot me for suggesting it.
ams6110 9y ago
Maybe they would have had better luck if they didn't create their own distro? That seems like a lot of unnecessary overhead, unless it's just marketing for "Ubuntu + preselected set of packages" > Along the way, it was reported that 20% of the users of Limux were not happy or satisfied with it I would guess you could survey users of any computer/OS combination and get that response. That means 80% of users are happy (or at least, not unhappy) which is phenomenally good, really.
HumanDrivenDev 9y ago
You can pry my Linux desktop out of my cold dead hands. I've been using it for almost 10 years now, and I couldn't imagine having to deal with windows telemetry and terrible performance, or apples outrageous prices. Yes it takes longer to set up but my desktop setup fits me like a glove. I always feel slightly handicapped when I have to use windows at work. There is one thing that would make me switch, and that's apples IME methods for Chinese characters, which are a lot more sophisticated than the Linux offerings.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- fizixer 9y ago
  The article is about LiMux, some Linux initiative in Munich.
  - PuffinBlue 9y ago
    Any one who read the article would know that. They'd also know LiMux comes with a LiNux desktop client, which is referenced about 10 times in the article.
  - HumanDrivenDev 9y ago
    I'll admit I did just skim the article. Still, it's about a Linux desktop system.
- kllrnohj 9y ago
  "windows [...] terrible performance" Uhh... what? The only significant performance difference is in graphics & media, which is where Windows handily bests Linux. What performance are you talking about?
  - greenhouse_gas 9y ago
    It depends. The thing with Windows is that you have exactly one way to use it, and if your computer is old and it's specs aren't good enough, too bad. Linux, on the other hand, can be run with Gnome 3, or with lxqt, or with i3. You can even run a desktop Linux on a raspberry pi. So maybe Windows 10 beats Gnome 3 (although I don't know if it's true, I don't have Windows), but it definitely can't beat "Linux"
bipson 9y ago
There is a lot of hyperbole, idealism and straight out lies around this story, from both sides unfortunately. All idealism aside, it is important to acknowledge that there were (always will be?) issues with documents made in MS Office sent by e.g. other departments or by citizens. After all, the workers are supposed to handle applications and such. The departments were promised free Linux based software solutions made from scratch to cover their workflows. This has actually nothing to do with Linux itself, but it seems that software never fulfilled the requirements. It appears that Microsoft spent quite some time and money to convince the decision bodys and the workers that none of this problems would have happened with MS Windows. All idealism aside, if you are going to partially stick to handling MS Office documents, there is no way Linux will be satisfactory.
- buovjaga 9y ago
  Can you give some examples of straight out lies from the Linux camp?
  - hutzlibu 9y ago
    everything will be cheaper and better (not neccearily from any officially involved, but you could hear it from the advocates on many forums and can still hear it. The german Heise forum for example is very bad for this, unfortunately)
    - bipson 9y ago
      Sigh <strikethrough> You're statement is the kind of thing I was stabbing at with my critique: a hidden (shallow) argument, that going with LiMux is worse than going with MS, and it would have been wiser and cheaper to stick with MS in the first place? Why can't such a thing (arguably a complex matter) be discussed in a mature way, without unfounded arguments that are just re-iterated anecdotal wisdom, and mostly stabs at the other guys? This is not a we vs. them thing! And you should stop believing everything you're being told by the guys in your group. </strikethrough> I was taking this the wrong way. Nevertheless, we should stop arguing with the idealists and their idealistic, unfounded arguments, basically taking the discussion down to a unsolvable level. Let's discuss objective (measurable or at least verifyable) arguments instead.
matt4077 9y ago
> "Do we suck at the desktop?" Yes. Absolutely. UI design doesn't work in the OSS "bazaar model". It needs a pope who is generally regarded as infallible, and deferred to even when not. Alternatively, a rather strict set of rules like Apple's HIIG might work, possibly created and enforced in a process like Wikipedia's. I've repeatedly cringed when watching some eager young guy set his grandfather up with Linux. It may have improved now, but having once seen a 75-year old type commands into a terminal as dictated over the phone to install flash has thoroughly ruined any instinct to proselytize I may have had.
epx 9y ago
The problem is Office. It is actually a problem of two sides. 1) Libre/OpenOffice was never satisfactory. It is ugly and crashes. Tried many times using it since 1999 and it gets worse and worse. Pity, because StarOffice was a perfectly usable alternative back then. 2) Office-like products are addictive in corporate environment. People love to make ramsom-note style documents and presentations. An old typewritten document seems way more professional in direct comparison... People add so many 'hairs' in documents that not even Office365 can open them anymore, so you have to resort to native MS-Office. And sometimes it must even be the Windows version, because the Mac version does things a little differently and messes up a really complicated document. (The second last version for Mac consistently broke when review mode and table changes were mixed, and I worked in an environment where review mode was extensively employed.) Any migration away from Windows would have to tackle these problems before even the operating system. The rest of the desktop UI is ok in Linux - people use mostly the browser anyway. Google Docs is an option - no documents more complicated than GDocs can handle should be allowed. I actually preferred the documents were all generated, either by software, or at least using markup like HTML or LaTeX, that are diff'able. But I know this is impossible to impose on the layman.
- INTPenis 9y ago
  I've observed the same but regarding fancy Office documents my experience has mostly been with amazingly complex Excel spreadsheets. People who have no programming background, no knowledge of modern tools like jupyter somehow are very proficient at crunching data and making graphs in Excel. I've seen some outlandish things like all invoices being generated by Excel templates and data gathering done by vbs. Or an entire datacenter mapped up in Excel, like a poor mans racktables. Granted the vbs was done by a programmer but that's a tiny slice of what I've seen done in Excel. So if you're going to force these people that I work with into google docs then you need to offer an alternative they can understand. Either a devops department that can script these things for them easily, or training in new tools.
- fauigerzigerk 9y ago
  Google Docs (and other cloud services) as the enabler of the "open source" desktop is a bit ironic though, considering it is neither open source nor do we even have control over the binaries.
ThatGeoGuy 9y ago
> "Do we sometimes harm these migrations by volunteering?" Migrations to free software are generally > driven by individuals, either inside a public administration or by a parent for a school. Those > individuals start bringing free software in and do lots of work (for free) to make it all work. > Problems arise and there is no budget to bring in others to help out; people burn out and then > everything fails. Instead of coming to the conclusion that not having a budget led to free software > failing, the organizations often decide to "get a budget and do it right". He thought it might make > more sense to try to get the budget for the free-software project, instead of volunteering. When reading I thought this was a rather insightful passage. I've noticed this at varying levels by helping others out (family) or by watching others put in overtime for small fixes: if you don't set a budget, then free == charity == not as good as the free market could do in most people's eyes. Does anyone have any additional anecdotes or data into how this happens? I get that people attribute cost to value, even if the two aren't related at all, but I wonder how this affects institutions at a higher level.
macspoofing 9y ago
>Limux will be replaced with Microsoft clients. It doesn't make sense, he said, because the city already had a strategy to move away from desktops to "bring your own device" and other desktop alternatives. There are no desktop alternatives at work. You BYOD for checking email not doing work. And phones and tablets are much more proprietary than desktops.
vmarsy 9y ago
I'd be curious to read a similar story about how GendBuntu [1] is doing. They migrated 70,000 workstations, compared with 15,000 for LiMux. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu
CyberFonic 9y ago
There are so many great answers here, but ... As technical folks, we tend to forget that its all about politics and the hidden under-belly of politics is money, lots of it. MS and their consultant partners have a massive vested interest in keeping organisations subservient to their vision of IT. Limux and open source are certainly in the public's better interests, but that runs contrary to the plutocrats' interests. Guess who wins?
DyslexicAtheist 9y ago
it wasn't just a technical issue https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/rise-fall-limux-my-perspective-joachim-bauernberger/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/rise-fall-limux-my-perspectiv...

146 points by bitcharmer 9y ago

If somebody does not want a software system, or in some cases, wants to sabotage it, this is not a technical problem. No technical solution will fix it. It might be fixable, but not with a software update.

cjsuk 9y ago
Sometimes you have to update the people to make the software work. I’ve watched a company’s staff sabotage an ERP system because it made them more accountable.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
e1ven 9y ago
Agreed. Unfortunately, updating the way people look at things is a lot harder than updating code. It takes years of work to convince people to buy-in to things, and a lot of it is advertising and promoting, not just education and training. It's a lot tougher than just submitting a PR :/
soulbadguy 9y ago
Yes, but at one point we need to ask why people don't want linux. Apple MACOS & IOS, android, even windows 8 and 10 did introduce radical new changes, it was a bumpy road, but at the end people did start using it. It is a technical problem, Linux on desktop is just worst than both windows and MACOS; Both in term of software available (can we stop pretending that libreoffice is even remotely comparable to MS office...), basic drivers and OS services (wifi etc...) and UI design
- greenhouse_gas 9y ago
  >Yes, but at one point we need to ask why people don't want linux The long tail of software and that the alternatives are good enough. I happen to be a Linux guy, but when I bought my computer, it came with Windows. If I use it to browse the web, play games or type word documents, why should I switch? Back in the win95/98/3.1 days, Linux's main advantage was stability. How many old-timers spent hours working on a Doc or WordPerfect file, to lose it all because of a GPF? Linux was such a breath of fresh air back then. Honestly, the "year of the Linux desktop" ended when XP came out.
  - gmueckl 9y ago
    No, the year of the Linux desktop ended a few years later: - Laptops became hugely popular and Linux never was great at plug and play hardware handling. - PulseAudio was part of the fix that wasn't - KDE4 and Gnome 3 happened (even though the plasma desktop was stabilized soon, things like Akonadi and Nepomik have managed to destroy much of the appeal of the unique tight integration of KDE software) - systemd happened. Mentioning this will trigger rabid supporters among the HN crowd, but the fact remains that this is at least a PR disaster on all accounts. The end result of the changes of the last decade is that Linux installations have become extremely opaque even to experts while effectively staying just as brittle as before.
    - watwut 9y ago
      99% of desktop users never heard of systemd nor controversy around it. And if they did, they forget a day later.
      - gmueckl 9y ago
        Of course someone got triggered by the presence if the word "systemd". I am surprised that it didn't take longer. But that was not my point at all. The fact is that all attempts to fix the Linux user space have essentially failed to deliver. The additional complexity added over these years did effectively nothing to move the Linux desktop into the 21st century, let alone this decade. I was extremely hopeful around 2003 to 2005 that Linux might carve out a corner in the desktop market. Now I find myself pondering switching to Windows full time after dual booting for two decades.
        AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y ago
        "additional complexity" is the ticket. Linux Desktop tried so hard to chase some strawman of the "average user" over the past 2 decades, while at the same time keeping their identity as a unix system, that they ended up building a nightmarish Rube Goldberg machine that is completely opaque in its operation even to a lot of the people claiming to be experts in using it. They sacrificed "simple" on the altar of "easy" and, unsurprisingly, it didn't get them anywhere. Simple is easy to work with, and easy to reason about. That means that even when you screw up, it will be pretty obvious why, and when it breaks it will be pretty obvious to fix. It also usually means it'll be pretty flexible. DOS was simple, but not easy, for instance. Windows has been trending this way too. Of course, if you ask me, the Linux community always prefered complexity anyway. Take package managers: they only exist to manage complicated dependency relationships. Instead of asking why they have such complicated dependency relationships in their software, or why that causes so many problems for them, they instead wrote a package manager to handle the whole complicated mess; and that package manager was such a rousing success that no one ever wrote another one because it had so elegantly and completely solved the problem. Sigh
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y ago
  To a certain extent, I think the lack of applications, driver compatibility, and "familiarity" are excuses trotted out by Linux Desktop evangelists. Don't get me wrong, they definitely are a problem, but they'd be solved problems if people actually wanted to work with a Linux Desktop. The thing is, people don't. I grew up in the 90s, and I was even a Linux and OSS evangelist during my stupid teenager years. I really wanted to make a Linux Desktop work. I still do want a viable OSS desktop. But what I found was that the community built up around Linux, and the Linux Desktop in particular, seems intent on making things suck as much as possible. I can hypothesize a wide variety of reasons why, and I suspect anyone who's spent a significant amount of time working with OSS communities can as well, but the upshot is that pretty much nothing they do is conducive to producing a good product. What's worse is that they largely refuse to recognize any problems they might actually have, technical or otherwise, preferring instead to believe they are a perfect beacon of The Way Things Should Be, that everyone else is doing it wrong, and blaming Windows's dominance for their failures.
  - bobajeff 9y ago
    The vocal response you get on the internet when you ask why any product is failing is usually some variation of: "It failed because the company/developers didn't do things I wanted!" However, I believe the truth is less subjective than that.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    I think you're sincere, but your post sounds like a pretty good troll. Lightly attacks a wide group of people while not being overly aggressive and doesn't actually make any concrete point (like point out those problems) so it's easy for others to read in it their own opinions and defend it. http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html
    - slededit 9y ago
      Not op but to bring this into concrete terms the multiple incompatible UI toolkits, and especially the GTK rewrites couldn't have helped. I remember first starting out trying to decide if I should use KDE or GTK. And this choice would affect how well your apps worked in ways that are totally non obvious if you aren't a UI programmer.
- MrFurious 9y ago
  The problem are videogames and MS Office. Nobody change OS if use it.
  - the_af 9y ago
    I play plenty of AAA games on Ubuntu (example: the latest Mad Max), so that's definitely not it. Also, a lot of computer users are not interested in games at all. You might have a point about MS Office.
    - greenhouse_gas 9y ago
      The issue is "the long tail". For example, if my favorite game (extra points if it's from 2000 and abandonware) doesn't work on Linux, why should I switch? If my camera which I already own isn't on Linux, why should I switch? If I'm running an office and I suspect I'll need a Windows program in the future (almost guaranteed, if you want some off-cloud accounting or billing or business-logic software), why should I switch?
      - the_af 9y ago
        > if my favorite game [...] doesn't work on Linux, why should I switch? That's easy: you should not switch to Linux because of games. You should switch because you like it better than Windows; if you also happen to like gaming, you will find plenty of games for Linux. Your favorite game might not be available, but then again, you should not switch (to any OS!) because of games. This is not exclusively a problem for Linux either; it also happens to Mac users. Still, the Mac has many fans, right?
        greenhouse_gas 9y ago
        >That's easy: you should not switch to Linux because of games. You should switch because you like it better than Windows; if you also happen to like gaming, you will find plenty of games for Linux. Your favorite game might not be available, but then again, you should not switch (to any OS!) because of games. That's my point. For the "masses", there isn't much there (see how much they care about privacy), and something to lose.

arunc 9y ago

Without improving Linux on the desktop[1], implementations like Limux are bound to take this route. [1] http://itvision.altervista.org/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.the.desktop.current.html http://itvision.altervista.org/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.th...

e1ven 9y ago
There is a LOT that can be done to improve desktop linux, but I think in this case, at least according to the article, the difficulties were largely political, not technical.
- soulbadguy 9y ago
  That wasn't my read of the situation. Bottom line is, the administration realize that the cost savings promised might not materialized, and that most of IT problems could be resolved more cheaply by just moving to better version of windows
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y ago
  In the general case, though, I think the biggest problem is that the community that uses and works on the Linux Desktop doesn't actually want it to improve. If you're an open source developer, for instance, why would you work to improve or maintain software X when you can create an alternative that does things slightly differently? That looks a lot more impressive on a resume. And I'd swear many Linux Desktop users wish it was even more complicated and fragile either because they love troubleshooting or just so they can virtue signal that they're leet. I mean, why else would /r/unixporn exist?
  - amcca029 9y ago
    I think this is largely an issue with X rather than users wanting to show off, I think wayland (while not perfect) can really help with developing easy to use desktop enviroments. Also not everybody who uses "complicated" setups care about "leetness", personally I use i3 (and alot of mods, customizations) because nothing compares to the ease of use + functionality for me. I personally want more linux desktop adoption, Ive switched my parents over, trying to convert my brother.

tomalpha 9y ago

This has (some) echoes of the rise and fall of the use of Linux at Central Scotland Police: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/11/ms_lochs_down_police/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/11/ms_lochs_down_polic... I worked with one of the architects of that (many moons ago). He was a fervent believer in OSS and its use in the enterprise. From what I could glean, they struggled with user interface issues - end users didn't like having to relearn how to use their very-similar-but-not-quite-the-same-word-processor software. As soon as he left (and it was never clear which came first) they decided to return to the Microsoft fold. edit: better article link

danieldk 9y ago
From what I could glean, they struggled with user interface issues - end users didn't like having to relearn how to use their very-similar-but-not-quite-the-same-word-processor software. I find this very interesting. We are all familiar with less tech-savvy users that are only comfortable what they know. However, Google Docs is a fierce competitor of Microsoft Office. Android/iOS replaced Windows for a lot of regular users. Chrome crushed the competition, including Internet Explorer. Why are these examples different? Is it because these alternatives did not try to emulate Microsoft's products and hence didn't cause the impression that 'it's almost the same, but glitchy'. Or was the experience of these products so much better than Microsoft's counterparts? What lesson could the FLOSS world learn here?
- extrapickles 9y ago
  If you collaboratively produce documents at your workplace, Google Docs wins by a large margin. Microsoft products have way too many issues when multiple people are editing the same large (100-200 page) document. Edit: The takeaway for FOSS is that the product has to be lower frustration than the alternative for it to win out.
  - iaonsdionio 9y ago
    That sounds like a nightmare. Google Docs is barely powerful enough for writing a three-page letter. I can't imagine writing a collaborative 200-page document with it. LaTeX + git would be the ideal, but my coworkers would shoot me for suggesting it.

ams6110 9y ago

Maybe they would have had better luck if they didn't create their own distro? That seems like a lot of unnecessary overhead, unless it's just marketing for "Ubuntu + preselected set of packages" > Along the way, it was reported that 20% of the users of Limux were not happy or satisfied with it I would guess you could survey users of any computer/OS combination and get that response. That means 80% of users are happy (or at least, not unhappy) which is phenomenally good, really.

HumanDrivenDev 9y ago

You can pry my Linux desktop out of my cold dead hands. I've been using it for almost 10 years now, and I couldn't imagine having to deal with windows telemetry and terrible performance, or apples outrageous prices. Yes it takes longer to set up but my desktop setup fits me like a glove. I always feel slightly handicapped when I have to use windows at work. There is one thing that would make me switch, and that's apples IME methods for Chinese characters, which are a lot more sophisticated than the Linux offerings.

deleted 9y ago
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fizixer 9y ago
The article is about LiMux, some Linux initiative in Munich.
- PuffinBlue 9y ago
  Any one who read the article would know that. They'd also know LiMux comes with a LiNux desktop client, which is referenced about 10 times in the article.
- HumanDrivenDev 9y ago
  I'll admit I did just skim the article. Still, it's about a Linux desktop system.
kllrnohj 9y ago
"windows [...] terrible performance" Uhh... what? The only significant performance difference is in graphics & media, which is where Windows handily bests Linux. What performance are you talking about?
- greenhouse_gas 9y ago
  It depends. The thing with Windows is that you have exactly one way to use it, and if your computer is old and it's specs aren't good enough, too bad. Linux, on the other hand, can be run with Gnome 3, or with lxqt, or with i3. You can even run a desktop Linux on a raspberry pi. So maybe Windows 10 beats Gnome 3 (although I don't know if it's true, I don't have Windows), but it definitely can't beat "Linux"

bipson 9y ago

There is a lot of hyperbole, idealism and straight out lies around this story, from both sides unfortunately. All idealism aside, it is important to acknowledge that there were (always will be?) issues with documents made in MS Office sent by e.g. other departments or by citizens. After all, the workers are supposed to handle applications and such. The departments were promised free Linux based software solutions made from scratch to cover their workflows. This has actually nothing to do with Linux itself, but it seems that software never fulfilled the requirements. It appears that Microsoft spent quite some time and money to convince the decision bodys and the workers that none of this problems would have happened with MS Windows. All idealism aside, if you are going to partially stick to handling MS Office documents, there is no way Linux will be satisfactory.

buovjaga 9y ago
Can you give some examples of straight out lies from the Linux camp?
- hutzlibu 9y ago
  everything will be cheaper and better (not neccearily from any officially involved, but you could hear it from the advocates on many forums and can still hear it. The german Heise forum for example is very bad for this, unfortunately)
  - bipson 9y ago
    Sigh <strikethrough> You're statement is the kind of thing I was stabbing at with my critique: a hidden (shallow) argument, that going with LiMux is worse than going with MS, and it would have been wiser and cheaper to stick with MS in the first place? Why can't such a thing (arguably a complex matter) be discussed in a mature way, without unfounded arguments that are just re-iterated anecdotal wisdom, and mostly stabs at the other guys? This is not a we vs. them thing! And you should stop believing everything you're being told by the guys in your group. </strikethrough> I was taking this the wrong way. Nevertheless, we should stop arguing with the idealists and their idealistic, unfounded arguments, basically taking the discussion down to a unsolvable level. Let's discuss objective (measurable or at least verifyable) arguments instead.

matt4077 9y ago

> "Do we suck at the desktop?" Yes. Absolutely. UI design doesn't work in the OSS "bazaar model". It needs a pope who is generally regarded as infallible, and deferred to even when not. Alternatively, a rather strict set of rules like Apple's HIIG might work, possibly created and enforced in a process like Wikipedia's. I've repeatedly cringed when watching some eager young guy set his grandfather up with Linux. It may have improved now, but having once seen a 75-year old type commands into a terminal as dictated over the phone to install flash has thoroughly ruined any instinct to proselytize I may have had.

epx 9y ago

The problem is Office. It is actually a problem of two sides. 1) Libre/OpenOffice was never satisfactory. It is ugly and crashes. Tried many times using it since 1999 and it gets worse and worse. Pity, because StarOffice was a perfectly usable alternative back then. 2) Office-like products are addictive in corporate environment. People love to make ramsom-note style documents and presentations. An old typewritten document seems way more professional in direct comparison... People add so many 'hairs' in documents that not even Office365 can open them anymore, so you have to resort to native MS-Office. And sometimes it must even be the Windows version, because the Mac version does things a little differently and messes up a really complicated document. (The second last version for Mac consistently broke when review mode and table changes were mixed, and I worked in an environment where review mode was extensively employed.) Any migration away from Windows would have to tackle these problems before even the operating system. The rest of the desktop UI is ok in Linux - people use mostly the browser anyway. Google Docs is an option - no documents more complicated than GDocs can handle should be allowed. I actually preferred the documents were all generated, either by software, or at least using markup like HTML or LaTeX, that are diff'able. But I know this is impossible to impose on the layman.

INTPenis 9y ago
I've observed the same but regarding fancy Office documents my experience has mostly been with amazingly complex Excel spreadsheets. People who have no programming background, no knowledge of modern tools like jupyter somehow are very proficient at crunching data and making graphs in Excel. I've seen some outlandish things like all invoices being generated by Excel templates and data gathering done by vbs. Or an entire datacenter mapped up in Excel, like a poor mans racktables. Granted the vbs was done by a programmer but that's a tiny slice of what I've seen done in Excel. So if you're going to force these people that I work with into google docs then you need to offer an alternative they can understand. Either a devops department that can script these things for them easily, or training in new tools.
fauigerzigerk 9y ago
Google Docs (and other cloud services) as the enabler of the "open source" desktop is a bit ironic though, considering it is neither open source nor do we even have control over the binaries.

ThatGeoGuy 9y ago

> "Do we sometimes harm these migrations by volunteering?" Migrations to free software are generally > driven by individuals, either inside a public administration or by a parent for a school. Those > individuals start bringing free software in and do lots of work (for free) to make it all work. > Problems arise and there is no budget to bring in others to help out; people burn out and then > everything fails. Instead of coming to the conclusion that not having a budget led to free software > failing, the organizations often decide to "get a budget and do it right". He thought it might make > more sense to try to get the budget for the free-software project, instead of volunteering. When reading I thought this was a rather insightful passage. I've noticed this at varying levels by helping others out (family) or by watching others put in overtime for small fixes: if you don't set a budget, then free == charity == not as good as the free market could do in most people's eyes. Does anyone have any additional anecdotes or data into how this happens? I get that people attribute cost to value, even if the two aren't related at all, but I wonder how this affects institutions at a higher level.

macspoofing 9y ago

>Limux will be replaced with Microsoft clients. It doesn't make sense, he said, because the city already had a strategy to move away from desktops to "bring your own device" and other desktop alternatives. There are no desktop alternatives at work. You BYOD for checking email not doing work. And phones and tablets are much more proprietary than desktops.

vmarsy 9y ago

I'd be curious to read a similar story about how GendBuntu [1] is doing. They migrated 70,000 workstations, compared with 15,000 for LiMux. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu

CyberFonic 9y ago

There are so many great answers here, but ... As technical folks, we tend to forget that its all about politics and the hidden under-belly of politics is money, lots of it. MS and their consultant partners have a massive vested interest in keeping organisations subservient to their vision of IT. Limux and open source are certainly in the public's better interests, but that runs contrary to the plutocrats' interests. Guess who wins?

DyslexicAtheist 9y ago

it wasn't just a technical issue https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/rise-fall-limux-my-perspective-joachim-bauernberger/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/rise-fall-limux-my-perspectiv...