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from the spending-a-huge-amount-of-money-for-zero-benefit dept.
The city will investigate how long it will take and how much it will cost to build a Windows 10 client ahead of a vote on whether to replace its Linux-based OS from 2021.
A decade ago, Munich was at the vanguard of a movement towards open-source software, switching thousands of staff to Linux from Windows at a time when a move on that scale was almost unheard of.
After spending nine years and millions of euros on the project, today the city's politicians agreed to begin preparing to return to Windows by 2021.
Under a proposal backed by the general council, the administration will investigate how long it will take and how much it will cost to build a Windows 10 client for use by the city's employees.
Once this work is complete, the council will vote again on whether to replace LiMux, a custom version of the Linux-based OS Ubuntu, across the authority from 2021.
Source: Linux champion Munich takes decisive step towards returning to Windows
Before the decision: Statement by The Document Foundation about the upcoming discussion
Linux's Munich crisis: Crunch vote locks city on course for Windows return
Previous: No, Munich Isn't About To Ditch Free Software and Move Back to Windows
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 18 2017, @02:20PM
The same problems other users have with it - most of the system is a mishmash of half-baked software, written either by hobbyists (sf.net, freshmeat), incompetents (Canonical - Wayland/Mir where art thou?) or just morons (Gnome3)
With Linux you just have a good kernel, some nice toolset from RMS&Co and that's it! Everything written on top of that plain sucks.
(Score: 3, Informative) by zugedneb on Saturday February 18 2017, @02:46PM
My mother, a true but clueless humanitarian, saw on television a company who employs asperger people to do some "IT" related stuff, and she asked me why there are not "many" companies that see the value of these people...
I kinda thought about linux, but she is not involved with this stuff, and i could not explain...
But yeah, thats linux... Some stuff are mostly brilliant, like VLC, emacs, xfs and some drivers in the kernel.
But, compared to what it shuld be, even the kernel sux.
My worst complaint, yet again compared to what i think should exist, is the linux IO caching.
Instead of a relatively small cache fixed to some rather small memory range, it uses the entire momory as cache, and removes everything you had there in favor of the crappy files you just copied to your crappy USB drive...
Even if you use the retarded parameters you can tune, so that the cache in some artificial way is constrained to 5 megs, it will still blast that 5 megs across the entire memory, so every binary, library or random other crap will likely have to be read from harddrive again, when you have downloaded or copyed a large file...
As workstation, and not server, user, with long uptimes, this is irritating as hell...
Yes, I have read about nocache, but dont care...
From the fucking nocache man page:
DESCRIPTION
The `nocache` tool TRIES to minimize the effect an application has on
the Linux file system cache........
WTF tries? garbage...
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 18 2017, @05:58PM
what a bizzare rambling incoherent post
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday February 18 2017, @09:19PM
Wait, wait, wait????
You're saying that windows does memory better?
You're saying that Ms didn't have to pay big bucks for this all to happen in Munich?!?!? HAHAHA!
Windows sucks. The only thing making MS money is the office hold outs: they are the kid who has to pay other kids to play with him.
Give it up: without Linux, and to some extent Apple, windows would still be BSODing. WinXP service pack 3 would have been a pay for thing instead of free, and it would still be complete crap. If it isn't still complete crap, thank a Linux user.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 4, Insightful) by zugedneb on Sunday February 19 2017, @12:38AM
What I am saying is that Linux is pulled in many directions by people who have no sense of "fitness for purpose" and even less concept of something being "mission critical".
Because of some strange religion, the developers involved with Linux seem not to see the benefits of a centralised orgnisation dictating, hmm, lets call it directions, and setting bar for quality.
There is simply no bar for quality, when it comes to linux distributions, at least.
Since I am at least moderately sane, for me to contribute, I want to have expected directions and expected quality my work should meet.
In this way I know who I am dealing with, and that if I meet these standards, my work will prevail and get respect.
And if not, than it is because the other programmer was better than me, and that is fine, since i am not Divine.
Other problem is the fact that if I contribute, to say KDE, that is I write code on my spare time for free, I expect some respect for my work and my time.
If it gets replaced for random reason by the managers of the project, I will not return.
I guess that many good coders did not return, when their contribution got replaced for random reasons.
Both gnome3 and kde4 are the most well known examples of throwing out old, mature system, and replacing it with random shit that nobody asked for.
The only parts of linux that has some quality are those that are written by people who have to know more than programming.
ffmpeg, vlc, gcc, the kernel, blender, gimp, drivers... Projects like these need some serious maths or hardware knowledge, and the people working on them are not morons.
The rest is unmaintainable shit. Especially the "window managers", and they are the first thing a users sees and must learn to use.
Unless you use some retro stuff like Mate, or xfce or trinity, they are worthless.
Random crashes, random stuff changed, random things not working or stop working for equally random reason... And it takes years to get them stable... And then, they are thrown out, and new random shit takes over...
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 4, Interesting) by hendrikboom on Sunday February 19 2017, @02:47AM
Unless you use some retro stuff like Mate, or xfce or trinity, they are worthless.
Random crashes, random stuff changed, random things not working or stop working for equally random reason... And it takes years to get them stable... And then, they are thrown out, and new random shit takes over.
That's exactly why experienced Linux users use so-called retro stuff. That's the stuff the didn't get replaced and thrown out, and as been around loong enough for the bugs to have left.
It's why U don't use the latest Gnome or Kde or their ilk. And why they avoid Windows, too. with its hard-to-avoid incompatible upgrades.
I'm quite happy with Xfce on Devuan.
(Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Sunday February 19 2017, @03:23AM
You may like BSD.
It is considered a bug if a change does not include documentation.
(Score: 1) by zugedneb on Sunday February 19 2017, @03:40AM
I got stuck with linux for "romantic" reasons =)
Was used to ntfs and ext2(3), but when I learned that xfs comes from SGI, i wanted a piece of the cookie, and reinstalled on it.
It was some Vectorlinux version in 2004ish...
For me, at least, the harddrive sounded differently: the clicks were softer, end the louder clicks no so frequent - i concluded that the filesystem layout and head movement is better optimized.
The system felt faster and also, it had defragmentation. Never had problems with it.
There seemd to be, if memory serves, some ambition "very" long ago to make xfs bootable on bsd, but it never happened... Now even the read support is gone in freebsd.
Anyways, will look into it in the future...
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Sunday February 19 2017, @04:18AM
I am trying XFS on my new cryptocurrency node. (Linux based -- thanks to a recommendation in the recent poll)
Moving my day-to-day computer and backup server (offline! -- sneakernet) to FreeBSD. That way I can try ZFS (and a somewhat planned system -- and avoid systemd).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 19 2017, @09:48AM
Ribbon.
End of argument.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday February 20 2017, @08:37AM
It's funny that you should say this. Go research what drives the Large Hadron Collider - and it isn't Microsoft's offering. Have a look at the top super computers and count how many of them are running a version of Windows. Look at phones - how did the Windows software fare in that market? Linux is more than adequate at doing all of these things and proves it by just getting one with it...
I believe that the problems that you raise are more of 'users' expecting one size to fit all when they are choosing an OS. It is simply not true. If you want a general purpose desktop OS go ahead and choose one. They will work well and meet your requirements. Don't, however, choose a bleeding edge distro and expect it to be as fully integrated as perhaps it could be. They are using new technologies and ideas and the more traditional packages will neither look as though they belong nor will they take advantages of the new concepts and features. Furthermore, why is there a rush to upgrade each time a distro is released - often every 6 months or so? The older releases will usually be supported for several years and many LTS releases have support for 5 years.
I do agree, however, on some of your views regarding software writers and the way they are rewarded or recognised. But the reward usually isn't the reason that people contribute. And if those managing a software project find something better to replace the code that which you have submitted, I would hope that they change to the better software. Do not update for update's sake - but if there is a genuine improvement to be had then lets all benefit from it.
I have stuck with the more traditional desktops. I dislike eye-candy and desktop bling. I want a desktop that lets me get on with doing what I want to do, and stays out of my way at all other times. I don't need a display that shows me the temperatures of each component, or shows me how many bits or bytes I have used, or even the weather outside. Now, perhaps that is as a result of my age - I come from a time when you had to wait to get time on a mainframe computer - and I am quite content with the basic tools that allow me to do my job/hobby in an efficient manner. But it has been very easy for me to select a desktop that meets my requirements and doesn't waste time doing a thousand and one other pointless tasks whilst I am waiting for the task that I do want to finish.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Saturday February 18 2017, @03:30PM
[...] the [Linux] system is a mishmash of half-baked software, written either by hobbyists [...], incompetents [...] or just morons [...]
Say what you will about Windows, but not much of it is written by hobbyists.
http://www.digibarn.com/collections/newsletters/homebrew/V2_01/gatesletter.html [digibarn.com]
(Score: 1) by butthurt on Saturday February 18 2017, @03:35PM
*Windows, OTOH, is not written by hobbyists.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 18 2017, @09:06PM
I'm not quite sure where you were going with that comment/link.
I will link to this:
Who writes Linux: Corporate America [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [computerworld.com]
I can't image that the numbers have gone -down- since then.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by snmygos on Saturday February 18 2017, @04:25PM
I have a long list of grievances about the interface of Windows 10. One of them is that configuration is distributed in many places and hard to find while all setups are easy to find in a tree, on Linux Mint.
Windows has its avantages, such compatibility with devices, but many drawbacks. Munich will regret Linux the day they will be victim of a virus and lose all the data.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 18 2017, @06:01PM
If they lose all of their data, it won't be because of whatever OS they happen to choose. It'll be because they don't keep sensible backups. Just like with anyone else.