public services of an entire german state switches from Microsoft to open source (Libreoffice, Linux, Nextcloud, Thunderbird)
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Modern MS infra administration is far from "navigating arcane GUIs": it's all about PowerShell, IaC, automation etc.
Yeah now it's all about navigating obscure web pages that mysteriously change every few months haha
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There used to be skins for KDE that made it look and feel 1:1 like Windows XP, I don't know if these things still exist. If yes, there you have it: Just make the system behave like Windows and they won't notice a difference. They only have to use Office, Mail and print files anyways. Most other tools they use are browser-based and will feel the same way
The names have changed. I literally had that conversation with "an engineer" 20 years ago wherein he concluded "I don't know, if I have to learn new names for most of the programs I use (Word, Photoshop, maybe two others) I don't think I want to use that other OS." I had to support his position, if you can't retrain to click on "Libre Office Writer" instead of "Office Word", then a move to Linux isn't for you.
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Conveniently, this could be a path to competence for those juniors in the long term.
"competency" in IT is more about your skills with the tools your company is using. My current company only has one super minor server running Linux so even if someone so advanced with Linux they make Richard Stallman look like a M$ shill wouldnt be a competent engineer in my infrastructure.
I do get what you're saying though and I wish more things would move to Linux in general. It's much nicer to manage.
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I know what you are saying, but it is not so bad: First of all, most things people are doing at work is not really related to the OS underneath. So if you are responsible for creating passports, you are using the special government program for passport creation. If you are a policeman, you are using the special police software to do your policework. Yeah, you need additional training, but in the best case your usual software keeps working. Most people are not really interacting with the OS during their work day.
(and let's be honest: Microsofts totally insane UI changes are also requiring lots of training. If you are used to just click on some specific buttons that somebody told you to click on, you're totally lost in Microsofts crazy wonderland of ridiculous UI changes )
Cross platform app development has been a viable and very available choice for 20+ years now.
Organizations which are developing their specialty applications locked in to a specific OS.... get what they deserve.
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'It used to be this and I want it to be this way, hold my hand for an hour while telling me its not this way anymore
Yeah, but that already happens every time Microsoft does a major version "upgrade".
And imagine how much more handholding it'll require when you fundamentally change everything about their computer lmao
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Look im an IT guy, and enforcing 2FA for all accounts at our company directly caused at least 2 people to quit at my company.
People are enormously resistant to change. It doesn't even matter if it actually impacts their job or anything, they will freak out and complain.
Hell 2 weeks ago I added a 3rd AP to one of our offices and just the act of moving the APs around caused enough of a disturbance that HR heard about it. And that was me giving them better internet! There wasn't even any downtime! I just moved the things that sit on the ceiling and nobody notices!
enforcing 2FA for all accounts at our company directly caused at least 2 people to quit at my company.
Thereby measurably improving the workforce.
I just moved the things that sit on the ceiling and nobody notices!
Somebody noticed.
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Hard to catch fish if you see the fish as dumb idiots, for some reason the fish don't seem to respond well to it idk.
The German IT fish keep coming back for the bait - never bothering to avoid the hook.
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The advantage Windows has is Intune for device management.
The disadvantage is having to use Intune.Linux is just much easier to script an install an manage using any of the IaC tools you might already be using for your servers. Yes, you can manage Windows with the same tools but it just isn't as reliable in my experience.
This is my biggest thing. How come nobody really has any MDM or MEM for Linux? One that actually offers everything that Intune does.
Hell i even use AD (Yes Microsoft Active Directory) on my Linux servers because it actually works
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That is such a crazy amount of money on license fees, especially when you consider that there are mostly free alternatives. I am always choosing foss options as I build my small business.
Right now, I am using onedrive, and Microsoft for my business email. Which I think comes out to like $5 a month.
My understanding is that for reliable email, you need to host with microsoft or google otherwise you are more likely to get sorted into junk mail. If that is incorrect, please let me know.
I agree with your assessment of e-mail... you either rent under a big provider or you spend countless hours playing whack-a-mole with whitelist-blacklist keepers. The big providers do this too, but they're so big it's not a major slice of their operation.
a crazy amount of money on license fees
License fees pay for development, sales, support, and profit. When you go open source you can skip the sales and profit, but you have to pick up a bit of development and ALL the support, which is considerable during times of big changes, like migration to a new desktop.
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Those boxes will be unicorns no matter what, though, also, they're not necessarily part of the general IT infrastructure. Someone in catastrophe defence might be running fluid simulations using some god awful expensive windows-only software but chances are they can manage their own box, and if not, the ministry will still have IT staff who can deal with that kind of thing.
IT absolutely does still have to manage those things though. At my company we have all sorts of obscure boxes controlling things like diagnostic readers and CNC machines. Things that the mechanics/engineers [imo] should be able to manage, its still on us.
Plus they usually still want those things to access the internet (because they require it) or access to file shares (to get gcode files and whatever) which is firmly an IT task
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My understanding is that for reliable email, you need to host with microsoft or google otherwise you are more likely to get sorted into junk mail. If that is incorrect, please let me know.
I don't know. I never had a problems with a smaller mail provider.
Define smaller.
I gave up running mail through my own domain hosted by a "smaller" provider (Canadian hosting company with less than 1M clients) because I was constantly having delivery issues because somebody somewhere on an adjacent subnet got blacklisted for SPAM, or worse.
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Personal/Family use is fine, it's kinda fiddly but so is most selfhosted software.
At an organizational level, that fiddliness spirals into a ton of work, which doesn't really overlap with other IT Duties in the way that troubleshooting OneDrive usually ends up solving problems with the whole Microsoft suite.
In my experience troubleshooting OneDrive issues is usually just restarting the OneDrive application or resyncing SharePoint sites
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No. For $16 a month you get Windows + O365 + InTune + EntreID. That includes role based access to admin portals, as well as for SharePoint+ one drive. You get per object audit and logging access to protect IP, you can remotely disable and wipe stolen devices if needed.
None of that can be replicated in one product, the reality it's 10 or so subsystems that need to be maintained. It's labor intensive. Does it make sense for some companies or governments with scale to switch away? ABSOLUTELY!
Is this thread filled with a bunch of people that vastly underrate capabilities and ease of use because of a hatred of Microsoft and what they represent and an unwillingness to look at how the users and businesses actually feel and make decisions? ABSOLUTELY!
I think management and MSP experience in this thread is nil and I think probably nobody in here has ever actually worked at a directors level.
I agree with everything you said but it's "Entra", not "EntreID"
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An interesting fact about Europe is they've long disobeyed their own procurement laws to choose Microsoft software, whether its corruption or what I've got no idea, I assume so though.
I think it's simple pragmatism. It will cost them, money and lost productivity, retraining all their computer users.
Regardless of the technical aspects, just the bitching and moaning of the workforce alone is enough to push the decision makers to take their chances with enforcers of the procurement laws instead.
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188K doesnt sound much
Small state.
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Certainly not this one: 6 EUR/user/year doesn't cover even Windows
Depends on your relationship with Microsoft.
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The hacker community it's very focused on Linux since most servers in the world run it. The fly by night script kiddies and botnet creators definitely prefer end user systems though.
The easiest hacks use social engineering. Much more social to exploit in the end-user arena.
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I admire the plan, but I doubt the public sector is going to completely acclimate to Linux. The average age of an employee in the public sector is something like 40+.
You might get lucky and get them to use one new program like LibreOffice, but there's no way you're going to completely revamp every desktop PC to Linux. I work in this field, and while everyone has been nice and friendly, they (and the entire system around them) are also hugely resistant to digital change.
If they ever make the move to a Linux Desktop environment, the IT support will go through hell.wrote on last edited by [email protected]I also work for the state and it's pretty discouraging how MS has us by the balls on everything. Every application we use is written in VB.net or Visual C# which also depend on running on a Windows server. Switching to Linux would be a nightmare and cost millions for no real gain. Maybe we could run SQL Server on Linux but I'm sure that even that has some gotchas that the state would not want to deal with.
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This right here. Linux security is so good that the easiest way to break in is via Phishing someone with a windows laptop.
The old jibe was that Windows users are so gullible that they're just easier to phish.
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If the trend continues then maybe the hacker community will start focusing on Linux. Can you imagine "I don't need a virus scanner, I use Windows, the under dog OS"
You say that like it's not already focused on. The majority of Internet infrastructure runs on Linux.
