German Foreign Office kills desktop Linux, hugs Windows XP Openistas beware! Politicos at the German Foreign Office are reportedly ditching Linux in favour of returning their desktop PCs to Windows XP-based systems. According to a report on netzpolitik.org, which was diligently spotted by The H, the German Foreign Office recently decided to dump their Linux-based machines. That move …
The masses, in case you hadn't noticed, aren't largely very productive - they spend ages generating pointless pie charts in pointless spreadsheets to keep pointless managers pointlessly happy.
Working for long hours at a time is not necessarily the same as being productive for long hours at a time. The creative industry (everything from graphic design to movie production) largely uses Macs, servers are more often than not some variant of Unix.
Take me for instance, I'm on a Windows machine right now, at work ... and I'm writing a message on El Reg ... hardly productive ;)
I heard about it a couple of days ago on German radio. The FO will keep Linux for backoffice stuff (i.e., servers), but it was apparently impossible for all the years that they used Linux to train the normal users to use Linux-based desktops. Which actually paints a pretty damaging picture of the average FO staff's mental flexibility.
"Schlag mit dem Handrücken" is the translation provided by dict.tu-chemnitz.de
But I guess it doesn't carry the meaning of the English word anymore, at least as I understand it...
Maybe "Schlag ins Gesicht" -> "slap in the face" would come close.
Greetings from a German Reg reader
Simon
>>And they don't think that will happen when they attempt to move to Win 7 .Office 2010? Fools.
It's difficult to see why that should happen. The Win 7 and Vista clients have done very well in Germany, while Linux remains marginalized:
http://gs.statcounter.com/#os-DE-monthly-201001-201101-bar
It's time for the geek to come out of denial and admit that Office 10 is on the short list of "best in breed" in office suites -
and that MS Offfice is simply one component of a very successful Office system, which includes Sharepoint, etc.
Office 2003 is still the best in breed Office suite. Office 2007/2010 are terrible awkward mutants roiling in indescribable agony after having been born malformed into a world where they never should have existed.
POLY SHOULDN'T BE!!!
Since Microsoft has decided long ago to say “fuck you, consumer” and essentially do whatever they want (as opposed to actually listening to their customer base,) I can advocate only Libre Office. It isn’t great (Office 2003 is the last “great” Office package,) but it beats the pants off that unholy shite with a ribbon bar.
And down with WIndows 7's useless, unstable and poorly designed Windows Explorer too! Whoever came up with that needs to be locked in a room with nothing but Lynx for internet access for five years as punishment.
Christ on a bike. We use Sharepoint at our big multinational company, and it is utterly appalling (it might be our implement ion of course). Slow, impossible to find what you want, with an incomprehensible UI. Everybody I work with tries to avoid it like the plague.
No thanks.
Any change from MS Office/Windows, no matter how trivial is an unacceptable and impractical imposition that reduces productivity and attracts massive training costs.
A total redesign of the OS/application UI in Windows on the other hand is a chance to modernize the UI for an enhanced user experience.
Phase 2 will be in about 3 years or less, when a massive hardware upgrade will be required across the board to get the system ready for Win 7.
QUOTE: When the "users" are the CEO and his gaggle of supporting lackeys
This is the most likely explanation. I hate to think "backhander" (although it was the first thing which came to mind) but the most likely causes are:
* Higher-ups don't like Linux, miss being able to play games on their work machines or similar, or
* Custom VB macros don't work in OO, and noone has the expertise (or time) to rewrite them
...while sticking their fingers in their ears and saying "la la la la la"...
OpenOffice is *still* not as good as Office. The Linux desktop is more confusing than the Windows one. Whether that's because of user familiarity or not is irrelevant. If they want users to be able to use the FOSS products efficiently, they'll have to pay for expensive training. If the training is more expensive than buying a bulk XP license, they'll buy XP.
I don't know which desktop they went with, but to make that comment, you must presumably know? Which one was it?
I would say that perhaps Gnome might confuse a full dullards, as it is a *little* different, but KDE is pretty damn similar, so is XFCE, and LXDE, and of course, XPde is extremely similar (as it's designed to be).
You can't away from the fact that OpenOffice isn't 100% compatible, but the latest version is very close, and I have met very few people who use more than the very most basic feature set.
Do you have any evidence that training for OOo is anymore expensive than anything else?
"The Linux desktop is more confusing than the Windows one"
Do you make it up as you go along or do you have any evidence?
Just wondering because back in the day, relevantive did a study comparing Windows XP v openSUSE 8.2 (11.4 is soon to be released) for existing Windows (98?) users changing to a new system
http://www.relevantive.de/Linux-Usabilitystudy_e.html
They found several sources of quickly resolved confusion for example, once people worked out not all wordprocessing software were called "Word" completing the task became equivalent. In some instances worse, in others better.
MS Office drives me scatty at times too.
There are things I can do on a Linux desktop (Gnome, since you ask) that make my life much easier (multiple desktops, always on top, roll up...). The pain of going from XP->Win7 has been much greater for me than learning how to use Linux (Win7 still does my box in).
Well, perhaps if people insisted that school turn out IT literate students rather than drones who can click MS buttons there would be less of an issue. And you also ignore the cost of retraiing from XP and then re-training for Win7. XP skills are not (IME) directly applicable to Win7.
And when it comes to expense, over what time period are you thinking of? And what ancillary costs (e.g. anti-virus)? How can a system that was rated (I paraphrase) "Pretty good with a few niggles" in 2009 suddenly become "A steaming pile of turds, please save use Mr. Ballmer"?
If they want users to be able to use ^h^h^h^h^h^h Win7 and Office 2010 efficiently, they'll have to pay for expensive training
There I fixed it for you.
(Just going through XP -> Win7 and Office 2003 -> 2010 refresh at the moment)
Also you said:
"If the training is more expensive than buying a bulk XP license, they'll buy XP."
While I thought that the unwillingness of MS to sell licenses for XP was one of the reasons that people were moving to Linux.
I run Linux as my main OS at home, I ran it for six months on my work machine despite company policy. I like Linux as my desktop.
However, OO still doesn't beat MS Office. The menus on 2007 are a pain compared to 2003, but at least it has a full function suite. The spreadsheet and presentation tools just about work but suffer terribly from interoperability issues. I flogged at it over and over again, but MSOffice in Wine was probably the closest Linux comes to being usable in an MS world of business.
It may be risking wrath but I also think Thunderbird could be more business friendly. There are few mail packages that mix mail, calendar and contacts as well ad Outlook, even if technically it is a bag of arse.
Plus there is NO replacement for Visio (no Dia sucks, as do the other dozen packages designed for generating UML rather than generic diagramming and vector drawing).
I am back to Win7 with 2007 since I changed my work PC last time and it is better. I would encourage the Germans to persist though, their patronage can really help us all.
@Anonymous Coward - 22nd February 2011 20:48
You said: "The spreadsheet and presentation tools just about work but suffer terribly from interoperability issues."
Interoperability issues with regards to ODF documents are not the problem of OpenOffice or LibreOffice (or KOffice etc). The problem is solely to do with Microsoft. It is this company who has obfuscated their document formats, it is this company who has made a document standard that is so confusing that hardly anyone can follow it - even Microsoft themselves because Office 2010 DOES NOT FOLLOW THEIR OWN STANDARD. And finally, it is this company who have deliberately implemented an ODF format that they have broken to create problems.
You said: "MSOffice in Wine was probably the closest Linux comes to being usable in an MS world of business."
Ahhh, Your first paragraph was a lie then, eh? For your information it is not an MS world of business! If you look at it that way then I can see why you have problems. I use LibreOffice without problems. It helps our company our when we need to rescue corrupted MS formats. But MS Office is poor poor poor. OpenOffice, KOffice, LibreOffice work do not show the same problems that I have to deal with with our MS Office users.
>> OpenOffice is *still* not as good as Office
So fucking what? 90+ % of the people who use Office don't need to. They could get by with edlin
and a 20 year old Amstrad. That platform wouldn't run a browser of course, so people wouldn't waste their working day surfing for smut and posting rants to El Reg. Result!
None of these "productivity" tools are any good. In fact they make people less productive. Try finding every place in a Word or PPT file where a particular font or point size gets used and change it to something else. Or combining two or more of these documents into one file. Cut and paste my arse!
Unfortunately the world and its dog are brainwashed into the mindset of reaching for this crap every time they have to use a computer. They get hopelessly lost when its not there and can't function without it. This Borg brainwashing starts in our schools. Kiddies are told "if you're compiling a list or table, put it in Excel. If you're writing an email, use MS-Turd and send it as an attachment."
Mind you, it's a very bad day for Linux weenies if their biggest customer dumps it. For XP. WTF?
This post has been deleted by its author
> OpenOffice *is* a steaming pile of dog turd, and none of the open-source apologists seem to realise or accept that a tool that is sufficient for writing to your granny is not necessarily sufficient for business .., Oliver Jones
Hey troll, this document was produced in OpenOffice ..
http://www.openoffice.org/product/docs/ms2007vsooo2.pdf
-------
key concepts: dog turd, open-source apologist, steaming pile of crap, writing to your granny
This post has been deleted by its author
Clearly the author was not intending to change the whole document to one font. I too find it infuriating that one can not give a simple, global change meaning, wherever you find Helvetica change it to Gill Sans, for example. Instead, I have to find each Helvetica string, select it, select Font, find Gill Sans, select, and so on to the next Helvetica string, repeat .... Aaaaaaaaarghhhh!
And by the way, OO and similar are good; but they really do have compatibility problems with MS products and, like it or not, most of the business world still uses MS Office. Even MS Office for OS X has some minor differences, e.g. in the handling of tables, though written by MS.
Anyway, what is wrong with vi(1) and troff(1), with a little help from tbl(1) and pic(1)? Whole books, e.g. K & R C, the original Perl books were written in that (plus reams of documentation in some of my old workplaces).
To the ageist creep mouthing off about being too old to change: you are so wrong. It's the yoof who are too inexperienced to learn outside the boundaries of what their teacher told them. Just look at any internet site in which such geniuses offer the fruits of their ignorance as "hints" and "tips".
Yes, but we have far more important things to do in our IT jobs than fecking about with program options!
Real IT stuff like, I dunno, fixing servers, recovering databases, restoring deleted office documents fixing screwed up desktop PCs because people can't stop fiddling with obscure options when they should be doing their work?
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