7 ms·

I'm sorry, what year is it? Am I posting on Slashdot still? Is this year finally going to be the year where Linux desktops become something for normies? When M

I'm sorry, what year is it? Am I posting on Slashdot still? Is this year finally going to be the year where Linux desktops become something for normies? When Munich did this it never got to a majority of their desktops, is my recollection, it maxed out in the 40%s. Now we're going to do it all over again with a different, much poorer, German state?

smoyer 3y ago
Curiously, I was going to bring up that very same slashdot article (and the one describing how it has failed). Howdy old-timer!
nextos 3y ago
Schleswig-Holstein is not poor. It is next to Denmark, and it is really nice and well developed. I think transitioning to a different platform is mostly an organizational and political, rather than technical problem, and the main roadblock is educating users and altering processes to migrate away from MS Office. That said, modern Linux distributions like NixOS or Guix could be great to manage large fleets of computers, keep them up-to-date, and upgrade things without fear. In my experience, that is the main technical issue administrations are experiencing. And of course, running free software is great because it brings freedom to change things.
- maxcoder4 3y ago
  As a long time Linux user, I think problems are partially technical. For example: * A lot of software used by them is certainly Windows only (they will have to find alternatives, change their workflows or invest in some windows virtual machines) * Windows tooling for organizations is much more mature. There's a reason virtually everyone uses AD. * Linux is very focused on user freedoms. This is not usually important in the office. But freedom to configure things is a freedom to break thinks, and cause admin headache. The problems are solvable, but it doesn't mean they don't exist. Oh and I love nixos, and I always wonder how realistic would it be to use it in a company for management of thousands of desktop machines. Sounds like it would be perfect for it, but i don't know any stories.
  - tichiian 3y ago
    > There's a reason virtually everyone uses AD. The reason everyone uses AD is that you can have a functional Linux client in AD. But you cannot have a Windows client in any Linux-based LDAP+Kerberos setup. The problem isn't that there isn't a good solution for Linux in big organisations, the problem is that Windows is only compatible with AD, nothing else, so the more compatible system (Linux) gets shoved into AD.
    - briHass 3y ago
      AD is also better and more feature complete. It was born out of necessity, but it's had decades of refinement in thousands of deployments that the OSS solutions haven't had.
      - Zardoz84 3y ago
        So, why does Microsoft want to kill AD and move everything to their cloud ?
        tichiian 3y ago
        Because AD is a security nightmare. It is a collection of ~30 distinct protocols, e.g. bastardized versions of LDAP, Kerberos, DNS, DHCP, X.509 and a few RPC protocols that are all weirdly intertwined, with 30 year old designs. Every few months there is another CVE like 'oh, we forgot to checksum and sign that one field over there, please install this incompatible patch or you will have unauthed RCE'. Since all those patches make things break, there is a lot of vulnerable AD installations out there because most people need to be on "compatibility settings" that are insecure. And even the "secure" settings drop a CVE every few months.
        briHass 3y ago
        They want you to move everything to the cloud, for obvious reasons. However, if you have on-prem/non-cloud servers, AD is still in the mix. They actually recommend running an AD DC as a VM in the cloud as a backup and to integrate cloud resources in scenarios that are more complex than Entra and Intune can handle.
- mandevil 3y ago
  According to wiki here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_cities_by_GDP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_cities_by_GDP) Munich in 2021 had a per capita GDP of 86k euro. According to wiki here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_states_by_GRP_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_states_by_GRP_p...) Schleswig-Holstein had a per capita GRP of ~42k euro in 2022 (note that the years are different). So these figures suggest that Munich is roughly twice as rich as S-H, which they list as below average for the BRD, as the 8th richest of Germany's 16 Lander. I took German in high school (back when I was on slashdot), I actually had tests on where all of the Lander were, I know a few things!
  - nextos 3y ago
    That's a bit of an unfair comparison as Munich is a city, whereas Schleswig-Holstein is a state. It's not very different from Bavaria or neighbouring areas such as Jylland or Lower Saxony: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_states_by_household_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_states_by_house...
renewiltord 3y ago
And published on zdnet.com?! Did I mention that Netcraft has confirmed BSD is Dead?
ramijames 3y ago
I'll admit, I miss Slashdot.
- antod 3y ago
  Yeah, it was a sad day when Netcraft confirmed it was dying.
dannyphantom 3y ago
Oh wow, I wasn't really online at that point in my life but I wanted to read more about it - were these the articles/threads you remember? Munich Finally Starts to Embrace Linux, September 26, 2006 - https://slashdot.org/story/06/09/26/0236246/munich-finally-starts-to-embrace-linux https://slashdot.org/story/06/09/26/0236246/munich-finally-s... Munich Reverses Course, May Ditch Linux For Microsoft, August 18, 2014 - https://linux.slashdot.org/story/14/08/18/2219253/munich-reverses-course-may-ditch-linux-for-microsoft https://linux.slashdot.org/story/14/08/18/2219253/munich-rev...
- mairusu 3y ago
  https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-not-windows-why-munich-is-shifting-back-from-microsoft-to-open-source-again/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-not-windows-why-munich-i...
- mandevil 3y ago
  Those articles for sure, but my memory is that it came up an awful lot in most linux slashdot discussions: Munich was cited the proof that this now was finally the time that normies would use desktop Linux, it was just turning the corner, this time definitely. Definitely remember going rounds with people over whether OpenOffice would be the spear to destroy the evil MS/Wintel monopoly (this discussion was definitely before the LibreOffice fork and Oracle murdering original flavor OpenOffice) and Munich was the main example to discuss. Of course, nowadays there are more *nix based GUI's in the world than Windows: between all of the various Apple products (XNU) and Android (Linux) you have the vast majority of the consumer GUI's in the world. Because most of us wasting our time in the linux slashdot forums missed how the world was actually going to change. Any resemblance to us now sitting around on Hacker News is purely coincidental I'm sure.
BikiniPrince 3y ago
I had the exact same thoughts. At least this time around it’s basically done out of the box.
tempest_ 3y ago
Linux desktops will never be for normies because desktops are not for normies and are dwarfed by mobile devices and have been for a while now. Many, Many people use only mobile devices and the ones under 40 who still have computers have them for work.
- 998244353 3y ago
  Well, the article was about work. Mobile devices may be well-suited for chatting and general entertainment but I seriously doubt that many people could do effective work - more than a couple quick changes - with the mobile versions of Word or Excel.
Intralexical 3y ago
> When Munich did this it never got to a majority of their desktops, is my recollection, it maxed out in the 40%s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux > September 2006 — "Soft" migration begins. > October 2013 — Over 15,000 LiMux PC-workstations (of about 18,000 workstations) > December 2013 — Munich open-source switch was "completed successfully". > September 2016 - Microsoft moves its German headquarters to Munich. > November 2017 - The city council decided that LiMux will be replaced by a Windows-based infrastructure by the end of 2020. The costs for the migration are estimated to be around 90 million Euros. > May 2020 - Newly elected politicians in Munich take a U-turn and implement a plan to go back to the original plan of migrating to LiMux. They've still got a website up where they say some stuff about it, which itself is hosted MIT-licensed on GitHub with pretty regular commits: > Our strategic guidelines also provide for this: > > If economically and technologically or strategically sensible, LHM prioritizes the use of open source solutions, in particular to avoid company dependencies. LHM pursues this approach in both the application and infrastructure areas. https://opensource.muenchen.de/use.html https://opensource.muenchen.de/use.html https://github.com/it-at-m/opensource.muenchen.de/commits/main/ https://github.com/it-at-m/opensource.muenchen.de/commits/ma... Well, it's not just about "FOSS" or whatever, is it? As a German state, you're better off not relying on making payments to a North American company. LibreOffice specifically was indeed decommissioned eventually in Munich (just within the last couple months!), though: > LibreOffice was used as an office package as part of Limux until the end of 2023. Though the Microsoft headquarters do make this seem like possibly a special situation, and as another commenter said, surely they don't need a national headquarters in every German state…

smoyer 3y ago

Curiously, I was going to bring up that very same slashdot article (and the one describing how it has failed). Howdy old-timer!

nextos 3y ago

Schleswig-Holstein is not poor. It is next to Denmark, and it is really nice and well developed. I think transitioning to a different platform is mostly an organizational and political, rather than technical problem, and the main roadblock is educating users and altering processes to migrate away from MS Office. That said, modern Linux distributions like NixOS or Guix could be great to manage large fleets of computers, keep them up-to-date, and upgrade things without fear. In my experience, that is the main technical issue administrations are experiencing. And of course, running free software is great because it brings freedom to change things.

maxcoder4 3y ago
As a long time Linux user, I think problems are partially technical. For example: * A lot of software used by them is certainly Windows only (they will have to find alternatives, change their workflows or invest in some windows virtual machines) * Windows tooling for organizations is much more mature. There's a reason virtually everyone uses AD. * Linux is very focused on user freedoms. This is not usually important in the office. But freedom to configure things is a freedom to break thinks, and cause admin headache. The problems are solvable, but it doesn't mean they don't exist. Oh and I love nixos, and I always wonder how realistic would it be to use it in a company for management of thousands of desktop machines. Sounds like it would be perfect for it, but i don't know any stories.
- tichiian 3y ago
  > There's a reason virtually everyone uses AD. The reason everyone uses AD is that you can have a functional Linux client in AD. But you cannot have a Windows client in any Linux-based LDAP+Kerberos setup. The problem isn't that there isn't a good solution for Linux in big organisations, the problem is that Windows is only compatible with AD, nothing else, so the more compatible system (Linux) gets shoved into AD.
  - briHass 3y ago
    AD is also better and more feature complete. It was born out of necessity, but it's had decades of refinement in thousands of deployments that the OSS solutions haven't had.
    - Zardoz84 3y ago
      So, why does Microsoft want to kill AD and move everything to their cloud ?
      - tichiian 3y ago
        Because AD is a security nightmare. It is a collection of ~30 distinct protocols, e.g. bastardized versions of LDAP, Kerberos, DNS, DHCP, X.509 and a few RPC protocols that are all weirdly intertwined, with 30 year old designs. Every few months there is another CVE like 'oh, we forgot to checksum and sign that one field over there, please install this incompatible patch or you will have unauthed RCE'. Since all those patches make things break, there is a lot of vulnerable AD installations out there because most people need to be on "compatibility settings" that are insecure. And even the "secure" settings drop a CVE every few months.
      - briHass 3y ago
        They want you to move everything to the cloud, for obvious reasons. However, if you have on-prem/non-cloud servers, AD is still in the mix. They actually recommend running an AD DC as a VM in the cloud as a backup and to integrate cloud resources in scenarios that are more complex than Entra and Intune can handle.
mandevil 3y ago
According to wiki here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_cities_by_GDP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_cities_by_GDP) Munich in 2021 had a per capita GDP of 86k euro. According to wiki here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_states_by_GRP_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_states_by_GRP_p...) Schleswig-Holstein had a per capita GRP of ~42k euro in 2022 (note that the years are different). So these figures suggest that Munich is roughly twice as rich as S-H, which they list as below average for the BRD, as the 8th richest of Germany's 16 Lander. I took German in high school (back when I was on slashdot), I actually had tests on where all of the Lander were, I know a few things!
- nextos 3y ago
  That's a bit of an unfair comparison as Munich is a city, whereas Schleswig-Holstein is a state. It's not very different from Bavaria or neighbouring areas such as Jylland or Lower Saxony: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_states_by_household_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_states_by_house...

renewiltord 3y ago

And published on zdnet.com?! Did I mention that Netcraft has confirmed BSD is Dead?

ramijames 3y ago

I'll admit, I miss Slashdot.

antod 3y ago
Yeah, it was a sad day when Netcraft confirmed it was dying.

dannyphantom 3y ago

Oh wow, I wasn't really online at that point in my life but I wanted to read more about it - were these the articles/threads you remember? Munich Finally Starts to Embrace Linux, September 26, 2006 - https://slashdot.org/story/06/09/26/0236246/munich-finally-starts-to-embrace-linux https://slashdot.org/story/06/09/26/0236246/munich-finally-s... Munich Reverses Course, May Ditch Linux For Microsoft, August 18, 2014 - https://linux.slashdot.org/story/14/08/18/2219253/munich-reverses-course-may-ditch-linux-for-microsoft https://linux.slashdot.org/story/14/08/18/2219253/munich-rev...

mairusu 3y ago
https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-not-windows-why-munich-is-shifting-back-from-microsoft-to-open-source-again/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-not-windows-why-munich-i...
mandevil 3y ago
Those articles for sure, but my memory is that it came up an awful lot in most linux slashdot discussions: Munich was cited the proof that this now was finally the time that normies would use desktop Linux, it was just turning the corner, this time definitely. Definitely remember going rounds with people over whether OpenOffice would be the spear to destroy the evil MS/Wintel monopoly (this discussion was definitely before the LibreOffice fork and Oracle murdering original flavor OpenOffice) and Munich was the main example to discuss. Of course, nowadays there are more *nix based GUI's in the world than Windows: between all of the various Apple products (XNU) and Android (Linux) you have the vast majority of the consumer GUI's in the world. Because most of us wasting our time in the linux slashdot forums missed how the world was actually going to change. Any resemblance to us now sitting around on Hacker News is purely coincidental I'm sure.

BikiniPrince 3y ago

I had the exact same thoughts. At least this time around it’s basically done out of the box.

tempest_ 3y ago

Linux desktops will never be for normies because desktops are not for normies and are dwarfed by mobile devices and have been for a while now. Many, Many people use only mobile devices and the ones under 40 who still have computers have them for work.

998244353 3y ago
Well, the article was about work. Mobile devices may be well-suited for chatting and general entertainment but I seriously doubt that many people could do effective work - more than a couple quick changes - with the mobile versions of Word or Excel.

Intralexical 3y ago

> When Munich did this it never got to a majority of their desktops, is my recollection, it maxed out in the 40%s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux > September 2006 — "Soft" migration begins. > October 2013 — Over 15,000 LiMux PC-workstations (of about 18,000 workstations) > December 2013 — Munich open-source switch was "completed successfully". > September 2016 - Microsoft moves its German headquarters to Munich. > November 2017 - The city council decided that LiMux will be replaced by a Windows-based infrastructure by the end of 2020. The costs for the migration are estimated to be around 90 million Euros. > May 2020 - Newly elected politicians in Munich take a U-turn and implement a plan to go back to the original plan of migrating to LiMux. They've still got a website up where they say some stuff about it, which itself is hosted MIT-licensed on GitHub with pretty regular commits: > Our strategic guidelines also provide for this: > > If economically and technologically or strategically sensible, LHM prioritizes the use of open source solutions, in particular to avoid company dependencies. LHM pursues this approach in both the application and infrastructure areas. https://opensource.muenchen.de/use.html https://opensource.muenchen.de/use.html https://github.com/it-at-m/opensource.muenchen.de/commits/main/ https://github.com/it-at-m/opensource.muenchen.de/commits/ma... Well, it's not just about "FOSS" or whatever, is it? As a German state, you're better off not relying on making payments to a North American company. LibreOffice specifically was indeed decommissioned eventually in Munich (just within the last couple months!), though: > LibreOffice was used as an office package as part of Limux until the end of 2023. Though the Microsoft headquarters do make this seem like possibly a special situation, and as another commenter said, surely they don't need a national headquarters in every German state…