Munich Council: To Hell with Linux, We’re Going Full Windows in 2020

Let's be honest. One of the major reasons the Windows systems and networks function and regular people are able to do their jobs is because IT has configured everything for them. It's been a while since I've been in a large organization but I assume that hasn't changed.

I think MS has been lobbying non stop for the entirety of this project and some of these officials are full of crap. 800 programs? Really?
 
800 programs might be a bit of a stretch, but based on all the BS my company runs, it could be close actually. We have a lot of custom applications developed in-house. Industrial controls, among others. Not that much of it couldn't be on Linux, but to do the conversion to Linux from Windows... the suck...
 
From the article:

Hübner added, "in the past 15 years, much of our efforts were put into becoming independent from Microsoft,"

Naturally, the best thing you can do is going back to Microsoft, if you want to get away from Microsoft. Yes?


Look, I know there are applications that don't run on Linux. That being said, was nobody in the decision making process even considering a hybrid environment at all?

Even still, has nobody heard of Citrix or App serving? Citrix is native on Linux, and you can serve any Windows application to Linux with it, or other Application servers too.
 
BloodyIron said:
From the article:

Hübner added, "in the past 15 years, much of our efforts were put into becoming independent from Microsoft,"

Naturally, the best thing you can do is going back to Microsoft, if you want to get away from Microsoft. Yes?


Look, I know there are applications that don't run on Linux. That being said, was nobody in the decision making process even considering a hybrid environment at all?

Even still, has nobody heard of Citrix or App serving? Citrix is native on Linux, and you can serve any Windows application to Linux with it, or other Application servers too.
Click to expand...

IMO they were basically bought. - Microsoft Germany moved their HQ to Munich in 2016 (linked earlier in the thread)

Imagine all the backflips your local City Council would do if Amazon was thinking about building an HQ in your town.
That's how you go from the goal of becoming independent to "All in!" Leeroy Jenkins style.
 
I'm not a programmer, but having started with computers using an Atari800XL and AtariDOS and experimenting with everything on through to current Windows and Linux, if someone truly wants to ditch Windows, they can. Will Linux run a DX11 game as well as Windows will, no, because Microsoft holds all the patents on it and Linux can't get close enough to a match because of legal concerns. Also Linux will always lag behind because the hardware vendors won't support it completely or open up their code so that Linux developers can write proper drivers for it. The ISO and IEEE standards that everyone in the computer industry work together to compile just get thrown out by MS. MS gets away with it because if you cross them, they cut you off and you lose out to those who will toe the line.

On the other hand it is good that MS can master the integration of everything, but the down side to that is they can get away with charging whatever they want since they killed the competition. You can't praise MS for owning the desktop and then criticize someone like Comcast for owning the local internet market since both are doing the exact same thing.
 
I hope they will send some of their hotties to Washington state as payment for Windows!
 
thewooster said:
I love linux, I really really do. But it's just not great for desktop use for anyone who isn't a in dev or IT.
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I wonder how much money it would take to make a business oriented linux distro and supporting software. Make it like windows from the user perspective, build out the tools for the sys admins so they don't have to be super experienced. The opportunity is there. Crapple could easily do it, I wish they would but they obviously consciously aren't. The only reason I can think of is that their customers would then start to dictate the direction of their software and inevitably hardware.
 
The irony is that in college I argued against the overall costs in total enterprise deployment of Linux. My reasons were the many things you'd need to install and build for a truly robust network and all the office needs and security. It cost me a grade in an otherwise perfect GPA. Now with Windows 10, every time a build/feature comes out I find myself putting just as much labor into turning crap off.
 
GNU/Linux definitely has its place, but sadly, the desktop/laptop is not it for the average user.
Some day, Microsoft... some day...! :D
 
Red Falcon said:
GNU/Linux definitely has its place, but sadly, the desktop/laptop is not it for the average user.
Some day, Microsoft... some day...! :D
Click to expand...

A quote substantiated by....Nothing....

As a tech my 'loaner' PC runs Ubuntu 17.10, I usually get comments on how good the OS is and how the client has never heard of it before. If you can use macOS, you can quite easily use Linux.
 
A lot of people try to pass off going to linux as this great, cheap solution only to find out support costs can go up. It has its merits but the bigger and older an organization is the harder it is going to be to move. I'm guessing a good part of the city has old proprietary software that is a nightmare to move from. Even moving away from office. In my area lawyers are on corel wordperfect still. What at least 15 years after everyone else has moved to microsoft office? They know corel and love it, they know how to do a bunch of time saving stuff in it and their documents all show correctly in it vs conversion issues. As firms bring on new lawyers they learn it because so many stock forms are in it that the firm uses and they would rather buy a copy of it along with microsoft office then spend the time converting everything. I bet the city has a bunch of issues like that. I seem to remember reading about office being a big issue for the city.

thewooster said:
I love linux, I really really do. But it's just not great for desktop use for anyone who isn't a in dev or IT.
Click to expand...

Basic home use can be a good place for it too now that things like netflix are playable on it. For a home user that will mostly use a web browser, maybe type a basic letter, and save some photos it would be fine. Once you get into heavy actual work use you end up with a lot of programs that are not written for linux and the free open source ones don't really compare. You could run terminal servers running citrix or even ms's own setup to run seemless apps but it has its own disadvantages.

darckhart said:
Disagree. Have my parents and other friends/family on easy versions of linux (mint, ubuntu, etc) and they are perfectly content with desktop use. Most things are all browser now anyway (google suite, youtube, etc) and all "personal" stuff happens on smartphones, so I've had relatively little complaints about the desktop. Sure, initial setup is a bit of a pain, but I assume their IT would do that too. After that, it pretty much runs itself. As long as hardware doesn't change and network doesn't change too much, there's no real headache.
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I have to say my dad has used linux mint for years on one of his machines and windows 7 and then 10 on another. He has had far more issues with the mint machine. Updates nuking the system are one of the big ones, version upgrades screwing up is another. Hell I have a dell xps developer system and last time I re-imaged it with the dell image(I screwed up the install and didn't feel like fixing it) and had update issues on a fresh install. I do agree with you for the most part. For basic personal use it is more than capable for most people.

B00nie said:
There's corruption in play 100% sure. For example why on earth would they use costly Exchange servers when a free, simple and working open source alternatives are available. Someone was either too inept to work without Microsoft or payolas were paid. Probably both.
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Because exchange is far better than anything the open source community has. Their best copies exchange and usually ends up using plugins to let stuff talk over the MS protocols. Most of the rest uses push imap which sucks compared to the ms options. Yes you can run push imap, a calendar server, etc, etc and get about the same. Or you can use exchange where that handles it all, it syncs to phones, can do some basic control over them, stores almost everything on the server, etc. Don't get me wrong, exchange has issues. I don't like the web admin interface vs the older ones with apps. It doesn't back up signatures, they haven't handled auto complete like they should have, etc. Still they are always improving it and if the open source option is to copy them they will always be behind. Apple doesn't care enough to try to compete in the backend, google wants it to go through a browser instead, and no one else seems to really be ready to give them good competition.
 
MRAB54 said:
I wonder how much money it would take to make a business oriented linux distro and supporting software. Make it like windows from the user perspective, build out the tools for the sys admins so they don't have to be super experienced. The opportunity is there. Crapple could easily do it, I wish they would but they obviously consciously aren't. The only reason I can think of is that their customers would then start to dictate the direction of their software and inevitably hardware.
Click to expand...

I guess you haven't used linux in a while. It's far easier to use today than windows from the end user perspective.
 
swatbat said:
Because exchange is far better than anything the open source community has. Their best copies exchange and usually ends up using plugins to let stuff talk over the MS protocols. Most of the rest uses push imap which sucks compared to the ms options. Yes you can run push imap, a calendar server, etc, etc and get about the same. Or you can use exchange where that handles it all, it syncs to phones, can do some basic control over them, stores almost everything on the server, etc. Don't get me wrong, exchange has issues. I don't like the web admin interface vs the older ones with apps. It doesn't back up signatures, they haven't handled auto complete like they should have, etc. Still they are always improving it and if the open source option is to copy them they will always be behind. Apple doesn't care enough to try to compete in the backend, google wants it to go through a browser instead, and no one else seems to really be ready to give them good competition.
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That's exactly the problem of most corporations. They go for haphazard solutions built over Office and Exchange instead of using proper tools for the job. Office+Exchange is a deadly trap for a company - it seems easy to use but in reality traps the company to a home brew non-sustainable solutions.
 
B00nie said:
That's exactly the problem of most corporations. They go for haphazard solutions built over Office and Exchange instead of using proper tools for the job. Office+Exchange is a deadly trap for a company - it seems easy to use but in reality traps the company to a home brew non-sustainable solutions.
Click to expand...

For email outlook and exchange is a very good solution. Now the random third party apps that do mail merges or other things that try to tie into office? Yea some of those can go bad really fast.
 
swatbat said:
For email outlook and exchange is a very good solution. Now the random third party apps that do mail merges or other things that try to tie into office? Yea some of those can go bad really fast.
Click to expand...

Depends on the size of the business. Considering small business, Outlook/Exchange is quite honestly a shit solution.
 
swatbat said:
A lot of people try to pass off going to linux as this great, cheap solution only to find out support costs can go up. It has its merits but the bigger and older an organization is the harder it is going to be to move. I'm guessing a good part of the city has old proprietary software that is a nightmare to move from. Even moving away from office. In my area lawyers are on corel wordperfect still. What at least 15 years after everyone else has moved to microsoft office? They know corel and love it, they know how to do a bunch of time saving stuff in it and their documents all show correctly in it vs conversion issues. As firms bring on new lawyers they learn it because so many stock forms are in it that the firm uses and they would rather buy a copy of it along with microsoft office then spend the time converting everything. I bet the city has a bunch of issues like that. I seem to remember reading about office being a big issue for the city.



Basic home use can be a good place for it too now that things like netflix are playable on it. For a home user that will mostly use a web browser, maybe type a basic letter, and save some photos it would be fine. Once you get into heavy actual work use you end up with a lot of programs that are not written for linux and the free open source ones don't really compare. You could run terminal servers running citrix or even ms's own setup to run seemless apps but it has its own disadvantages.



I have to say my dad has used linux mint for years on one of his machines and windows 7 and then 10 on another. He has had far more issues with the mint machine. Updates nuking the system are one of the big ones, version upgrades screwing up is another. Hell I have a dell xps developer system and last time I re-imaged it with the dell image(I screwed up the install and didn't feel like fixing it) and had update issues on a fresh install. I do agree with you for the most part. For basic personal use it is more than capable for most people.



Because exchange is far better than anything the open source community has. Their best copies exchange and usually ends up using plugins to let stuff talk over the MS protocols. Most of the rest uses push imap which sucks compared to the ms options. Yes you can run push imap, a calendar server, etc, etc and get about the same. Or you can use exchange where that handles it all, it syncs to phones, can do some basic control over them, stores almost everything on the server, etc. Don't get me wrong, exchange has issues. I don't like the web admin interface vs the older ones with apps. It doesn't back up signatures, they haven't handled auto complete like they should have, etc. Still they are always improving it and if the open source option is to copy them they will always be behind. Apple doesn't care enough to try to compete in the backend, google wants it to go through a browser instead, and no one else seems to really be ready to give them good competition.
Click to expand...

While this study was written in 2004, considering CPI and inflation and considering that Linux is a hell of a lot better today than it was in 2004, it tends to dispel many of your misconceptions:

https://static.lwn.net/images/pdf/cybersource-tco-study.pdf

In my experience, sticking with Windows is usually a result of young/poorly trained IT staff forcing their beliefs onto management in an attempt to cover up their inadequacies, as opposed to any real benefit in relation to running solely Microsoft products.
 
BulletDust said:
A quote substantiated by....Nothing....

As a tech my 'loaner' PC runs Ubuntu 17.10, I usually get comments on how good the OS is and how the client has never heard of it before. If you can use macOS, you can quite easily use Linux.
Click to expand...
I should have specified, "the average user in the workplace."
For basic Internet, email (web browser), and media consumption for the average non-workplace user, sure.

For real-world, everyday office work for the average user, no; I'm not including IT-anything in that "average user" category, if you catch my drift. ;)
This coming from a total Linux shill who would like nothing more than to see it curb-stomp Microsoft's products into the ground, but that isn't going to happen any time soon.

Really, though, the lack of Microsoft Office, decent video editing software, recent AAA games that aren't years old, and quite a few other productivity software suites is kind of a deal breaker for the majority of situations.
 
BulletDust said:
While this study was written in 2004, considering CPI and inflation and considering that Linux is a hell of a lot better today than it was in 2004, it tends to dispel many of your misconceptions:

https://static.lwn.net/images/pdf/cybersource-tco-study.pdf

In my experience, sticking with Windows is usually a result of young/poorly trained IT staff forcing their beliefs onto management in an attempt to cover up their inadequacies, as opposed to any real benefit in relation to running solely Microsoft products.
Click to expand...
For IT-related work, I wholeheartedly agree with this statement.
Again, though, for the average person in the workplace, not so much, sadly.

Shintai said:
You must have missed o365. It pretty much cant get any better for a small business.
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Yep, it is a fast and clean setup, very straight forward with an extremely small learning curve, has cloud-based settings (great for small businesses who are upgrading their systems), and is quite cost-effective.
LibreOffice is fine for a no-cost solution, but for real everyday office work outside of making basic documents, it just doesn't compare.

In the workplace, Microsoft Office, and by extension, Microsoft Exchange and Active Directory, are all the killer apps.
I know there are alternatives, but most places won't employ those as the time and overhead for them end up being more costly in the end.
 
I wonder how much money Microsoft is losing on government deals like this or leaning on partners like Netmarketshare trying to hide the general decline of Windows...

That money would be better spent on a proper Windows 7 successor.
 
DeathFromBelow said:
I wonder how much money Microsoft is losing on government deals like this or leaning on partners like Netmarketshare trying to hide the general decline of Windows...

That money would be better spent on a proper Windows 7 successor.
Click to expand...
Big data = big money & control over end-users


To quote Lord Dark Helmet:
"Druish princesses are often attracted to money, and power, and I have BOTH, and YOU KNOW IT!"

darkhelmetmeme.jpg
 
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Red Falcon said:
For IT-related work, I wholeheartedly agree with this statement.
Again, though, for the average person in the workplace, not so much, sadly.
Click to expand...

Well that study contradicts your belief, and it was made in 2004 when Linux was....Pretty shit.

These days it's a fully polished and perfectly usable OS. As I keep stating, as a user of Windows, Linux and macOS: If you can use macOS you can use Linux.
 
Red Falcon said:
Yep, it is a fast and clean setup, very straight forward with an extremely small learning curve, has cloud-based settings (great for small businesses who are upgrading their systems), and is quite cost-effective.
LibreOffice is fine for a no-cost solution, but for real everyday office work outside of making basic documents, it just doesn't compare.
Click to expand...

I use it every day for the running of my business, no problem. Furthermore, there are now a great many businesses switching to the G-Suite range of applications as G-Suite craps all over Office 365 and Google Docs works perfectly considering their needs and offers them absolute freedom.

Very, very few businesses have a need for massive Excel spreadsheets, the whole Excel argument is a moot point as Excel is one of the most overused and abused software applications out there considering what it was primarily designed to do.
 
BulletDust said:
Well that study contradicts your belief, and it was made in 2004 when Linux was....Pretty shit.

These days it's a fully polished and perfectly usable OS. As I keep stating, as a user of Windows, Linux and macOS: If you can use macOS you can use Linux.
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Two words: Microsoft Office
Also, the world is a very different place than it was in 2004, and sorry to say, that entire study hasn't been applicable in almost a decade.

Smartphones were all but non-existent back then (not counting PDAs and Blackberry phones - neither which were widespread), the cloud was virtually non-existent, and Internet connections and services were a small fraction of what they are now.
Also, training end-users to use Linux (sticking with only one distro, or more?), training for new applications (assuming they are even available without WINE or emulation), and initial costs are all far higher than if the workplace just adopted Windows or OS X for their end-users.

I never said Linux wasn't a "fully polished and perfectly usable OS", I said that it lacks the killer apps that makes it feasible for the average (non-IT) end-user in the workplace.
But we can always hope! :)
 
Red Falcon said:
Two words: Microsoft Office
Also, the world is a very different place than it was in 2004, and sorry to say, that entire study hasn't been applicable in almost a decade.

Smartphones were all but non-existent back then (not counting PDAs and Blackberry phones - neither which were widespread), the cloud was virtually non-existent, and Internet connections and services were a small fraction of what they are now.
Also, training end-users to use Linux (sticking with only one distro, or more?), training for new applications (assuming they are even available without WINE or emulation), and initial costs are all far higher than if the workplace just adopted Windows or OS X for their end-users.

I never said Linux wasn't a "fully polished and perfectly usable OS", I said that it lacks the killer apps that makes it feasible for the average (non-IT) end-user in the workplace.
But we can always hope! :)
Click to expand...

Office is becoming less and less necessary these days. It's the worlds least compatible Office suite marketed as the most compatible office suite. Most of it's bells and whistles considering licensing costs just aren't necessary in the daily running of a small business. More and more small businesses are switching to the cloud - You're right, the world is a vastly different place to 2004, it's now, more than ever, perfectly suited to anything but Microsoft.

As stated, a very valid study that completely contradicts your claims - Especially the point about training end users. End users are more adaptable than you give them credit for.
 
Frobozz said:
IMO they were basically bought. - Microsoft Germany moved their HQ to Munich in 2016 (linked earlier in the thread)

Imagine all the backflips your local City Council would do if Amazon was thinking about building an HQ in your town.
That's how you go from the goal of becoming independent to "All in!" Leeroy Jenkins style.
Click to expand...

I"m thinking that was part of it, but definitely not a whole. I'm thinking German "efficiency" got in the way. I mean, 15 years and they weren't fully transitioned or even halfway transitioned.
 
BulletDust said:
I use it every day for the running of my business, no problem. Furthermore, there are now a great many businesses switching to the G-Suite range of applications as G-Suite craps all over Office 365 and Google Docs works perfectly considering their needs and offers them absolute freedom.

Very, very few businesses have a need for massive Excel spreadsheets, the whole Excel argument is a moot point as Excel is one of the most overused and abused software applications out there considering what it was primarily designed to do.
Click to expand...
For small businesses that aren't doing anything serious in Excel or PowerPoint, this is definitely feasible, and I like how it has offline support and functionality as well.
For medium to large businesses, though, just... no.
 
BulletDust said:
A quote substantiated by....Nothing....

As a tech my 'loaner' PC runs Ubuntu 17.10, I usually get comments on how good the OS is and how the client has never heard of it before. If you can use macOS, you can quite easily use Linux.
Click to expand...

The only problem that non tech user will have big problems installing Linux :) NVidia drivers always tend to turn Linux into brick on first install unless you go to console and do some tricks to first disable drivers and then reenable them etc etc. Normal non tech people will just give up and go to Windows that never has these problems.

PS: I use Linux as a daily driver on all my laptops/pcs/htpc/nas and extremelly happy with it. But I am a SW developer.
 
Red Falcon said:
For small businesses that aren't doing anything serious in Excel or PowerPoint, this is definitely feasible, and I like how it has offline support and functionality as well.
For medium to large businesses, though, just... no.
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Interesting.

Are you aware of the fact that pretty much the entire SFX industry runs on Linux? From rendering farms, through to necessary servers through to desktop client machines - It's all Linux based. I've got a mate high up in the industry administering these systems and he claims quite firmly that no one has an issue with Linux from an end user perspective.

That's a pretty big industry.
 
almalino said:
The only problem that non tech user will have big problems installing Linux :) NVidia drivers always tend to turn Linux into brick on first install unless you go to console and do some tricks to first disable drivers and then reenable them etc etc. Normal non tech people will just give up and go to Windows that never has these problems.

PS: I use Linux as a daily driver on all my laptops/pcs/htpc/nas and extremelly happy with it. But I am a SW developer
Click to expand...

They'll have problems reinstalling Windows.

This is a moot argument. any decent packaged Linux distro is easier to install than Windows.

I install Nvidia drivers using the PPA method and they're far easier to install than under Windows.
 
BulletDust said:
Office is becoming less and less necessary these days. It's the worlds least compatible Office suite marketed as the most compatible office suite. Most of it's bells and whistles considering licensing costs just aren't necessary in the daily running of a small business. More and more small businesses are switching to the cloud - You're right, the world is a vastly different place to 2004, it's now, more than ever, perfectly suited to anything but Microsoft.

As stated, a very valid study that completely contradicts your claims - Especially the point about training end users. End users are more adaptable than you give them credit for.
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"Least compatible"?
"Bells and whistles"??

When is the last time you used Microsoft Office in a real enterprise setting?
Look, as much as I don't care for Microsoft and their products, and it pains me to say this, but real-world enterprise contradicts literally everything you just stated, including that very obsolete and no-longer-applicable study from 2004. :(

That study is not valid, nor has it been relevant since the late 2000s at most.
You have provided some great alternatives to Windows and Office for average/non-IT/non-business/small-business users, but that is where it ends.

For medium and large businesses with real-world enterprise needs, those alternatives are not even close to being realistic solutions.
I've seen places that have gone that route, and failed miserably along with costs for time and support exceeding if they had just gone with Microsoft and/or Apple solutions to begin with.
 
Red Falcon said:
"Least compatible"?
"Bells and whistles"??

When is the last time you used Microsoft Office in a real enterprise setting?
Look, as much as I don't care for Microsoft and their products, and it pains me to say this, but real-world enterprise contradicts literally everything you just stated, including that very obsolete and no-longer-applicable study from 2004. :(

That study is not valid, nor has it been relevant since the late 2000s at most.
You have provided some great alternatives to Windows and Office for average/non-IT/non-business/small-business users, but that is where it ends.

For medium and large businesses with real-world enterprise needs, those alternatives are not even close to being realistic solutions.
I've seen places that have gone that route, and failed miserably along with costs for time and support exceeding if they had just gone with Microsoft and/or Apple solutions to begin with.
Click to expand...

Where was I talking about enterprise? You generalized that I was talking about enterprise, but I never was!
 
Red Falcon said:
LOL!
No, it's because their IT staff know how average non-IT end-users think. ;)
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Not really, most IT staff are incompetent MS drones.

End user only cares where the browser icon is, where the email icon is, where the office suite is, how to open a .pdf.
 
BulletDust said:
Interesting.

Are you aware of the fact that pretty much the entire SFX industry runs on Linux? From rendering farms, through to necessary servers through to desktop client machines - It's all Linux based. I've got a mate high up in the industry administering these systems and he claims quite firmly that no one has an issue with Linux from an end user perspective.

That's a pretty big industry.
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Those are also multi-million dollar custom software suites, and I guarantee you the end-users and video editors in those businesses hardly ever touch the OS outside of their editing and rendering software.
If anything outside of that is needed, they just call upon their fully-staffed IT teams.
 
BulletDust said:
They'll have problems reinstalling Windows.

This is a moot argument. any decent packaged Linux distro is easier to install than Windows.

I install Nvidia drivers using the PPA method and they're far easier to install than under Windows.
Click to expand...
Windows 10? Nah, that's the simplest OS I've ever installed before.
Do I care for it? No.

Is it simple to use? Very.
 
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