back to article Munich council: To hell with Linux, we're going full Windows in 2020

Munich city council's administrative and personnel committee has decided to move any remaining Linux systems to Windows 10 in 2020. A coalition of Social Democrats and Conservatives on the committee voted (PDF, auf Deutsch, natürlich) for the Windows migration on Wednesday, Social Democrat councillor Anne Hübner told The …

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  1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

    Not sure about Office?

    Hübner said "no final decision has yet been made" on whether LibreOffice will be swapped out for Microsoft Office. "That will be decided at the end of next year when the full cost of such a move will be known."

    Of course they will go for Office 365 when MS makes it cost nothing for the first year.

    Then they will put the price up so that any losses they make early on are more than covered in future years.

    By then the MS lock in will be total and Munich will just be another cash cow for Microsoft.

    Many of us have seen this many times before in the past.

    MS will no doubt be hoping that this 'victory' will stop any other companies/local or national governments/etc from even thinking about ditching windows and office even though some major companies are openly saying that the TCO for a Windows environment is more costly than others.

    1. petur
      Black Helicopters

      Re: Not sure about Office?

      Yes, MS is upping the marketing effort...

      They are also doing a Wordperfect tactic here, with some bizarre deal that gives all kids of all the schools in my city(*) an Office365 account, all homework and communication is done on it so no escape for the brainwashing of the kids.

      Only years before we had managed to move the school of my kids to linux, everybody happy, and then this move came in from above.

      Curse lobbying...

      (*) Gent, Belgium

      1. MR J

        Re: Not sure about Office?

        Worse for my kids school.

        They use a music application that cost about $600 and is several versions behind, the new versions refuse to export to the old version so the school will only let you work with that old version or none at all (so I picked none at all). I am not paying that amount of money for my kid to use a non-supported program at home.

        Then, like you say, office. Well currently the kids can get it free (but that's because the school is paying out the nose for services), but the IT department in my kids school, nearly 1k children, didn't know that the children could get it free. I only discovered it when I argued to get access to the children's school mail so they could do some work at home, the "option" is not in a great place but it is there. Funny part is that the school is using older versions of office, and they want all parents to buy the older versions so the kids can work from home!... Laughable that they are paying the cost of office for all the kids and themselves, but not using it at all.

        I tried for years to get their earlier school to move to PDF files instead of Publisher 2003, they found it confusing that so many parents couldn't open an email with a publisher 2003 file - it was sad they didn't understand.

        Too many people use ONLY windows, and ONLY Internet Explorer. You deviate away from that and they say they are unhappy or feel that things are not good. Schools get kids to do everything in windows-only environments and that feeds through until they are young adults. There comes a point when the children are unhappy to do anything that doesn't work on a windows machine, because that's all that they know.

        1. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge

          Re: Not sure about Office?

          @MR J

          Then, like you say, office. Well currently the kids can get it free

          Get them hooked whilst young with some freebies. I guess that's the same business plan of your local drug dealer

          1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
            Big Brother

            " I guess that's the same business plan of your local drug dealer"

            Pretty much.

            Also get them used to the "THere is no OS but Windows. There is no email but Outlook. There are no office apps but Offce365 (or however many days it runs before their DC goes TITSUP)"

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            At Fruit And NutCase, RE: drugs.

            I object! I'm a perfectly respectable cocaine

            dealer & I vehemently object to having my product compared to Microsoft!

            1. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge

              Re: At Fruit And NutCase, RE: drugs.

              @AC

              Please accept my humble apologies. I am sure you are a purveyor of the finest Colombian marching powder with ethical business practices. No doubt Certified Organic and Carbon Neutral too

            2. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: At Fruit And NutCase, RE: drugs.

              "I object! I'm a perfectly respectable cocaine

              dealer & I vehemently object to having my product compared to Microsoft!"

              Really? Surely Microsoft is like uncut product - hard to stop using and expensive, but it does the job properly!

          3. Andrew Barr

            Re: Not sure about Office?

            Surely thats the same as saying hey. Linux and LibreOffice is free, come get hooked on this!

            1. Jakester

              Re: Not sure about Office?

              Okay - Linux and Libre Office is free the first year. The price doubles every year after that. So, if you have busines with 500 computers, after 3 years that comes to $0 + 500x2x$0 + 500x2x2x$0 .... which comes to, let me see now ... carry the 1 ... hmmm ... that's $0 ...

              I've been using Libre Office exclusively since shortly after the split from Open Office Org (just didn't trust Oracle when they acquired it). The only time I use Microsoft Office is when I have to provide tech support. The usual solution is to open the problematic document with Libre Office, reformat as necessary, and save it back into the Microsoft format to fix the errors Microsoft puts into document.

              Sure, there is some difference in operation between Libre Office and Microsoft Office, but usually less confusing with Libre Office with the massive moving of menu items, hiding functions, removing features, etc. It's one thing to have to deal with the headache of the new Microsoft 'features' with each release, but another to pay for those headaches.

              1. tom dial Silver badge

                Re: Not sure about Office?

                Before I retired I transported draft documents fairly often between work PC (Windows/MS Word/MS Excel/MS PowerPoint) and my home PC (Debian/Open Office or Libre Office) to do a bit of catchup in an environment where I would not be disturbed. There were portability issues, mostly quite minor and none actually hard to circumvent; and after a couple of iterations of a document, spreadsheet, or slides, no more issues remained. These were not overly fancy items, as is the case with nearly all such things done in and for an environment where substance outweighs form and appearance.

                Overall, I also preferred OpenOffice and LibreOffice, as I had a many years war with Word documents that had embedded font and background information that often metastasized after inconsequential edits and that the department admin support could not fix despite having fairly extensive training and long experience with a product that had several times the necessary features and at least two or three flaky patches to try to make them work together.

            2. This post has been deleted by its author

            3. grumpy-old-person

              Re: Not sure about Office?

              Free vs wildly expensive - how is that the same?

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Not sure about Office?

                "Free vs wildly expensive - how is that the same?"

                Free only if your time has no value and your support has no cost....You often get what you pay for!

          4. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Not sure about Office?

            "Get them hooked whilst young with some freebies. I guess that's the same business plan of your local drug dealer"

            Give them the good stuff first and then when they rely on in, substitute inferior cut stuff you mean? Sort of like trying to give them Libre Office instead of MS Office!

          5. Captain Badmouth
            Windows

            Re: Not sure about Office?

            "I guess that's the same business plan of your local drug dealer"

            Hey, little kid, wanna buy 10p worth of heroin...?

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Not sure about Office?

          'Schools get kids to do everything in windows-only environments"

          Well that is what they would actually need to use in 99% of workplaces!

          1. nijam Silver badge

            Re: Not sure about Office?

            > Well that is what they would actually need to use in 99% of workplaces!

            And that is the very exemplar of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

            (Or would be, if it were actually true.)

          2. P. Lee

            Re: Not sure about Office?

            >Well that is what they would actually need to use in 99% of workplaces!

            Shouldn't they be in school?

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Not sure about Office?

              "Shouldn't they be in school?"

              Isn't a primary objective of attending School commonly to make you employable in a better job than if you didn't?

              1. Terry 6 Silver badge

                Re: Not sure about Office?

                Hmm I take your point. But really education should be about getting educated, and being educated ought in turn also make people more employable. But employability shouldn't be the primary purpose. Having an educated, thinking population should be. Otherwise we end up with a kind of utilitarian skills based training system for the masses rather than a broad based education, which becomes reserved for the rich and powerful who don't need to seek jobs, either not needing to work or going from public school to Oxbridge then into a privileged, reserved niche. As was once the case. And it looks more and more like we're going back to those days.

              2. Kiwi
                Headmaster

                Re: Not sure about Office?

                Isn't a primary objective of attending School commonly to make you employable in a better job than if you didn't?

                I thought the primary objective of attending public school was to make sure you're so uneducated that you can't get a better job (or at least can't challenge TPTB)...

                1. jake Silver badge

                  Re: Not sure about Office?

                  The primary objective of public schooling is to ensure that as many bureaucrats as possible make as much money as possible. Or so it would seem.

                2. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: Not sure about Office?

                  "!I thought the primary objective of attending public school was to make sure you're so uneducated that you can't get a better job"

                  Better than running the country you mean?! The majority of our politicians went to public schools like Eton, Rugby, Harrow, etc. etc.

        3. StargateSg7

          Re: Not sure about Office?

          I've used and developed almost EVERY major operating system out there from Unix (AT&T version) to Xenix to Linux to Novell to Amiga OS to NextSTEP to BeOS to PDP-11 to Vax VMS, OS-400, RTOS, QNX, Theos, Android, iOS, MacOS, and yes EVERY version of MS-DOS and Windows...I do must say.... everything else OTHER THAN WINDOWS basically SUCKS THE BIG ONE !!!!

          Windows 10 Desktop and Windows Server 2016 with an open Command Line Interface window are basically the BEST Desktop and Server Operating Systems out there in terms of EASE-OF-USE and it just works!

          I've worked with so many OS'es I am sick and tired of using DUMB command line names! WHO THE HECK names an install program SUDO? ... What IDIOT searches for text using something named GREP? Seriously what idiot even programs in a language whose variable names, identifiers and function names are CASE-SENSITIVE (i.e. C/C++)?

          OMG --- everything else SUCKS that ISN'T Windows...!!!

          At least I can right click on a program icon and get it;s properties or single-click to install.What other OS mere asks me to provide a destination folder for an app instead of make me type:

          tar -xyz dev/os3/archive/dimsungapp.tar.gz

          cp dev/os3/archive/dimsungapp.tar.gz /dev/os3/opentext/datatech.pkg

          sudo apt-get install /dev/os3/opentext/datatech.pkg

          SERIOUSLY? Who DESIGNS CRAP LIKE THIS ?????

          Even MS-DOS had a muchsimpler system

          Install Lotus123.zip C:\MyApps

          It's gotten SO BAD with Linux and C/C++ our company said screw this and went ahead and developed it's own Windows 10-like OS shell and remade the command line interface of Linux to PROPER ENGLISH! We remade LAMP into custom Windows 2016 server-like environment with a decent Active Directory WAN/ALN management system analogue!

          We also REPROGRAMMED ALL OF LINUX using a customized version of EASY-TO-READ PASCAL SOURCE CODE that is FULLY COMMENTED !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

          Everything works JUST THE WAY WE WANT IT NOW !!!!

          1. Adrian Midgley 1

            To install software on Linux I type

            apt install packagename

            You may be doing it wrong.

            1. Teiwaz

              Re: To install software on Linux I type

              You may be doing it wrong.

              May? Look at the inappropriate use of CAPS, of course he'd be incompatible with a case sensitive O.S.

            2. TheVogon

              Re: To install software on Linux I type

              "apt install packagename"

              After finding the exact package name and repository, then opening a shell, running sudo, checking for and adding the repository if needed and maybe having to run "apt-get build-dep packagename" though. Not to mention maybe having to run "apt-get install base-config" and then "apt-setup" the first time you want to do that....

              On Windows just type the app name in the store, click install

              Or for non Store Windows apps, click download from Edge, click Run and accept the elevation prompt all from the GUI...

          2. just_me
            Facepalm

            Re: Not sure about Office?

            @StargateSg7

            Your comments put a question as to your claimed 'accomplishments' or which architectures you worked on. For example;

            Your arguments for 'tar', there is no option 'y'. However the command:

            "tar -xvfz dev/os3/archive/dimsungapp.tar.gz"

            Would work - however someone who has worked on Linux and or Unix type architectures would know that. The 'tar' command listed above would extract to current directory unless the files in the 'tar' archive are full path. BTW; tar stands for 'tape archive' - it also has the ability to write to a file as well as a tape drive ie /dev/rmt0, /dev/scsi/0/rmt0... etc depending upon OS variant and generation. After you have extracted the contents of a tar archive, you would not need to copy the tape archive to another directory as in;

            "cp dev/os3/archive/dimsungapp.tar.gz /dev/os3/opentext/datatech.pkg"

            Or did you mean to copy the contents of the current directory where you extracted the tar file to that new location? That would be;

            "cp -r . /dev/os3/opentext/datatech.pkg"

            Though considering that install packages 'pkg' are self contained compressed items, I don't see why the need for putting it into or extracting it from a 'tar' file - as well as compressing the tar file. You could install the package directly.

            Your comment that sudo is a weird name for a installer(install program) is complete bullocks. 'sudo' is a way to run something as an administrator when you currently aren't. Some people think it stands for 'Super User Do' or run as a super user. In reality it allows you to run a program as any other user than your current user id (provided you have the correct creds). A better way to think of it is 'Set UserId and Do'. The rest of the line following sudo is the actual install command for the package - however also invalid. The tar and copy being unnecessary. 'apt-get' normally doesn't install from a file name, therefore your example below is invalid;

            "sudo apt-get install /dev/os3/opentext/datatech.pkg"

            Would actually be

            "sudo apt-get install datatech.rpm"

            NOTE: the suffix is actually rpm for packages handled by the Advanced Package Tool, and it will actually do a download and install. If you want to install a package from a file that has already been downloaded.. it is a different command.

            StargateSg7, I think you cobbled up some crap that you thought would fly by people and then threw it out there; nope -doesn't work.

            BTW: Most Linux's have a GUI interface for their package managers.

            1. lpartan

              Re: Not sure about Office?

              when I look at the nits picked on the poster's post, and read about the poster's failures to have adequately memorized and/or understood the flags, and the poster's failures to have understood the possible interpretations of nicknames, and the poster's utter failure to grasp the subtleties of seldom used but unavoidable utilities, I must conclude that you have solidly made the poster's point.

              1. Denarius

                Re: Not sure about Office?

                and there was I thinking the post was a mere troll I mean writing A Windows clone GUI in pascal when LXDE, Xfce and other desktop GUIs exist.

            2. Gerardo Korndorffer

              Re: Not sure about Office?

              Clearly the "sudo installer" gave us all a good laugh but he does have a point, Windows is easier to use.

              Albeit, some Linuxes are quite easy to use, (my kids are using Ubuntu + Libre Office at home), Windows is still easier to use and they only know about Windows & iOS at their school.

              The real problem is fighting perception that there are no real alternatives. Perhaps they should have considered a mixed environment with Linuxes and Windows on a need to use basis...

              Everyday Office needs can be Happy handled with various Office Suites like Libre Office while some specific applications Will requiere Windows.

              I personally have a problem trying to understand why should I have to choose between going full Windows or full Linux...

              1. Kiwi

                Re: Not sure about Office?

                Clearly the "sudo installer" gave us all a good laugh but he does have a point, Windows is easier to use.

                I know a string of older people who will tell you otherwise. None yet over 85, but several over 70, not one of which came from a computing background.

                The real problem is fighting perception that there are no real alternatives. Perhaps they should have considered a mixed environment with Linuxes and Windows on a need to use basis...

                I've built a few small setups like that - left the secretarial/managers machines with Windows and set up the factory/servers/engineers/whatever with Linux, as needed. If I'd come across a CAD use I would've looked at what they needed and gone with the best choice I could find, yes biased towards Linux but if a Windows solution was more appropriate (interoperability, functionality, whatever) that's what they would've got.

                You don't give the secretaries a full CAD suite. You don't give a server a full desktop. You give each machine/user what they need to do their job.

                I personally have a problem trying to understand why should I have to choose between going full Windows or full Linux...

                I haven't yet - there are a couple of games i sometimes play that I haven't yet got running under Linux (and haven't tried). But I now start Windows less than once per fortnight on average, maybe less than once per month. When I first started with Linux I had it on servers (not sure why I chose it over BSD, probably whichever ISO finished downloading first) and windows as the desktop machine. Eventually I actually put a distro with a full desktop on a machine and started using it, and fell in love with it pdq. My windows use has gradually dropped off and now W7 only exists (outside VM) as a plaything.

            3. wayward4now
              Linux

              Re: Not sure about Office?

              "StargateSg7, I think you cobbled up some crap that you thought would fly by people and then threw it out there; nope -doesn't work."

              I thought exactly the same thing. This guy hasn't got a clue. Typical Win user.

          3. Kiwi
            WTF?

            Re: Not sure about Office?

            @SG7

            I thought you built all your own hardware and wrote all your own software from the ground up?

            But despite the stuff in your posts that turn bullshit detectors to overloaded slag, perhaps if you want to claim that you've coded in various Unixes esp Linux you might want to learn a few things about the language you claim, eg that there is NOT an program for installing software named "SUDO"? Even just tried it in my Linux Mint's terminal : "SUDO: command not found"..

            Perhaps, if you want us to believe you... Try learnign of what you speak?

            Oh, btw, you owe me a new bullshit detector. Please send one to my address forthwith...

          4. The Original Steve

            Re: StargateSg7 / Not sure about Office

            Whilst I can do basic sys admin task to BSD, Linux, Windows and Android, I'm at my heart a Windows sys admin.

            So whilst I think most of what StargateSg7 wrote sounds like bollocks, I can sympathise with what I believe he was trying to get across.

            Being that the usability of Linux is still poor. Personally the biggest challenge is the mental names used for certain commands and even items in the various X window mangers. Names like yum, grep, sudo, apt, grub and applications like Thunderbird, The GIMP, Kate, Synapse, Pidgin etc. don't help usability.

            I'm happy to use them, as I know what they do and how they work - and generally they are awesome. The tools on Linux is one of the reasons I love it so much. But for a new user, you need to spend ages learning what each command or application does as the name has little bearing.

            Whilst nowhere near as powerful or flexible, Windows applications and commands like Mail, Explorer, Maps. Photoshop is a stark contrast to the names of tools and applications often found in a GNU environment.

            I don't need to hear that there's alternative with more descriptive names, nor to have the examples above explained to me. I prefer to work in Linux/GNU, and I know why certain applications / commands are named that way, and I'm very happy to keep using them.

            I'm merely highlighting that for someone moving from Windows to Linux/GNU there's a hell of a learning curve which I know does put a lot of people off. Rectifying this wouldn't be a be idea if trying to encourage more people from the dark side into the light.

            My 2 pence worth.

            1. Pompous Git Silver badge

              Re: StargateSg7 / Not sure about Office

              "I'm merely highlighting that for someone moving from Windows to Linux/GNU there's a hell of a learning curve which I know does put a lot of people off."
              Having moved several friends from Win7 to Linux Cinnamon Mint with no major issues whatsoever, I'm wondering what you're whittering on about. Ordinary Windows users don't come across the underbelly of Windows, nor do ordinary Linux users need GREP, APT etc. BTW it's GREP in Windows too, as well as InDesign.

              "But for a new user, you need to spend ages learning what each command or application does as the name has little bearing."
              That's true of any computer OS/system. "Abort, Retry, Fail..." “Error #some-large-number: There is no message for this error”...

            2. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: StargateSg7 / Not sure about Office

              I'm merely highlighting that for someone moving from Windows to Linux/GNU there's a hell of a learning curve which I know does put a lot of people off. Rectifying this wouldn't be a be idea if trying to encourage more people from the dark side into the light.

              The difference between the two is where you waste time and resources. With Unix, the fist couple of months are going to hurt because you're working with building blocks. Once you are familiar with it, you are set to solve IT issues with the shortest, most resource-efficient path from A to B, but have multiple options of solving the same issue.

              With Windows, it's easy to get going but you are heading for a setup that will always demand far more resources to be stable and to achieve EXACTLY what you want. Where Windows wins is that it sort of gets you more or less what you were thinking of, and you will soon learn to give up getting any closer to what you actually need rather than what Windows let you do - you just develop Powerpoint skills to explain away the difference (which is, I assume, why Powerpoint is a default install).

              Note: I'm talking services here, not desktop. IMHO, the Linux desktop is just not going to happen as it's in a chicken and egg absence of commercial applications.

              If you're in the "good enough" business and you have creative accountants you can make Windows look good. If you're in the "this. must. deliver. and. not. fail." business, Unix is still the way to go. If you want to see why, just look at the enormous pain the Process Control industry is going through now they have discovered that going Windows has left them with a gaping security problem.

              If you have the Unix skills inhouse, adopting it to modern needs is trivial and you add MacOS desktops to it so you never have to deal with the tangled hairball that Microsoft coughs up. If you don't have the skills, you will probably also lack the expertise to recognise that's you're being sold a technical tapeworm that will drain money and efficiency from your company so you're easy prey.

              In that case, enjoy the costly tapeworm of inefficiency Windows and all that comes with it. With luck you do an eval in later years when you have picked up some knowledge, but by them you're so entangled there's no way out. The good news is that you're not alone.

              The only thing lacking is a Microsoft re-edcation camp for those who stray, but that's only because they've all been working in Munich for the last few years..

              1. nijam Silver badge

                Re: StargateSg7 / Not sure about Office

                > With Windows, it's easy to get going

                Who the f*** told you that?

            3. tom dial Silver badge

              Re: StargateSg7 / Not sure about Office

              It is quite as difficult for one moving from an IBM mainframe/Unix/Linux environment to Windows. I decided in the end that, Gnu/Linux being what it is (and as far back as around 1995 was), the effort had insufficient payback, and I persist in knowing no more about Windows than is necessary to install it vanilla and patch it regularly. My spouse, who feels she needs to know even less, is as happy using Firefox, Thunderbird, and LibreOffice on Windows 10 as she would using the Windows counterparts, and I am far happier with that.

            4. DuncanLarge Silver badge

              Re: StargateSg7 / Not sure about Office

              Complaining about an applications name is just being a bit silly.

              I'm sure most users of microsoft products today would not know the standard programs that come with DOS. They would have to do what they did with windows and get a book to teach them. When I moved from using a C64 to a PC that I built from spare parts I had a WHOLE book on windows 3.1 to teach me what the hell I could do with Program Manager, this was after I went to the library to find books on DOS. When I went to linux I did the same thing mostly with these things called man pages.

              I also had to read a book to help me learn to drive a car. I mean I had been driven in a car by my dad for years, plus rode my bike on the roads for decades yet I still had to do all that silly learning to use a the every so slightly different interface to the roads called a "car". I fully expect to do the same should I upgrade my road interface to a truck...

              Back to applications...

              "The GIMP" certainly does not describe anything about what the application does. This is true also of "Adobe Acrobat" - obviously software related to gymnastics. Safari is not a browser, its a game for kids set in Africa. What about Adobe After Effects? That must be something to do with teaching kids not to do drugs? Or Sony Vegas which is most likely something to do with gambling.

              Here are a few more examples:

              WinAmp = Lets you plug in your kids electric guitar so he can play it on the computer?

              Excel = Training program to help your employees excel at their work.

              Publisher = Lets you publish your book direct to the stores avoiding all that faffing about with human publishers!

              Word = A scrabble dictionary.

              Access = Gives you access to locked buildings, used by hackers in films etc.

              Frontpage = Lets you design your books front page, remember to use this before you run publisher!

              Outlook = Gives you the weather outlook for the week ahead.

              Firefox = A game where you hunt fox hunters using a flame-thrower.

              Chrome = Who the hell knows?

              Anything "Lotus" = racing

              Nero Burning Rom = A sequel to Firefox where you play as a guy named Nero.

              I could go on and on and I would love to as it amuses me.

              However, looking at my start menu, the only applications in windows that even suggest what they do are the ancient ones that were there all the way back to the beginning. Paint (well it kinda suggests its usage), calculator, notepad etc. We all know that to do anything actually with a computer you must use other more complicated applications. If we all just got buy using notepad why do we even need windows 10? Notepad was on windows 1.0 back in '85 so why do we need multi core CPU's? Why does my pc have 16GB of RAM?

              I'll tell you why. Its all to use those incomprehensible programs I listed above. The ones where you need to LEARN what they are used for. The ones where you DISCOVER them when you are trying to fulfill a need.

              How do you discover them? Must I? Ok here we go:

              - School

              - Word of mouth

              - Magazines

              - Adverts

              - By accident

              - Further education courses in the subject you are learning about.

              But no. You need the OS and application name to be so simple that anyone who has read the famous five can create the next Harry Potter without learning anything about word processing. Its a dream. An old one yes, but a dream.

            5. wayward4now
              Linux

              Re: StargateSg7 / Not sure about Office

              "for a new user, you need to spend ages learning what each command or application does as the name has little bearing."

              AH! I see your point!! We need to dumb Linux down! Then the knuckle-walkers and droolers can make their contributions to polite society. Sorry, maybe dumbing down ist the answer. Develop a one button keyboard, a one button mouse, and three screen selections: browser, email, and search. No more complaints.

          5. post-truth

            Re: Not sure about Office?

            "our company said screw this and went ahead and developed it's own Windows 10-like OS shell and remade the command line interface of Linux to PROPER ENGLISH! We remade LAMP into custom Windows 2016 server-like environment with a decent Active Directory WAN/ALN management system analogue!"

            You may be onto something there. Use Linux o/s with Windows-like UI. Just make sure you avoid exactly the same names (to avoid MS legal stupidity). A perfect solution?

            When I was young, and dinosaurs roamed the earth, I used to do something similar when teaching my youthful underlings hard lessons about computer security. Basically I'd quietly shoehorn my own pseudo-Unix shell into theirs at login. This mimicked their own. Their commands would act exactly as they expected (simply by passing them through to the real UNIX)... except when they simply failed harmlessly for peculiar reasons. Over time the frequency of failure slowly would increase, and increasingly silly random explanation messages would emerge, referring to say "logic overflow at segment xxx, booleans restored from swap", progressing ultimately to things like "Memory hole detected in BitBucket 3.0, install patch 3.0912". Etc. Cruel? Not entirely. The point was to eliminate a dangerous level of arrogance and replace it with the deliberately paranoid assumption that we're always being played. And the ultimate objective was to motivate them to bring themselves up to the level at which they could do the same to me...

            1. jeffdyer

              Re: Not sure about Office?

              Reminds me of writing code to simulate a login prompt on the old Pr1me mini computer terminals, capturing usernames and passwords and then logging off and hiding. Great fun.

              1. tom dial Silver badge

                Re: Not sure about Office?

                One of my co-workers did the same with the ADR ROSCOE login panel for an IBM 370/158 in about 1981 or 1982. I wonder if there is a system where this was not done early and often.

          6. Andronnicus Block

            Re: Not sure about Office?

            Many others have said or will likely will say it but sudo is not an install command. It is a command used to prefix another command and so gain higher level privileges than available from a normal user account. So, for a normal user wanting to install say firefox from the command line (and why not?) the command would be

            "sudo apt-get install firefox"

            Job done. Having said that, - again as others may point out - most normal users wanting to install Linux software would probably:

            a.) use the software centre - aka the app store or, if feeling adventurous

            b.) use something like synaptic package manager

            c.) use the command line - particularly if following advice as most people tend to give the text which can be easily copied and pasted from a website page in to the terminal and is almost guaranteed to work.

            Of course, unless their administrator had given them the necessary privileges, then they are not going to be installing new software anyway.

            The funny thing is I know this yet I am not an IT professional - my profession is engineering.

          7. tom dial Silver badge

            Re: Not sure about Office?

            Anyone who SHOUTS so freely deserves a downvote or two.

            Have another.

            I cannot help calling uttermost BS on "We also REPROGRAMMED ALL OF LINUX ..." This baseless claim shows relatively total cluelessness about the structure of operating systems in general and Gnu/Linux in particular.

            1. Kiwi
              Trollface

              Re: Not sure about Office?

              I cannot help calling uttermost BS on "We also REPROGRAMMED ALL OF LINUX ..." This baseless claim shows relatively total cluelessness about the structure of operating systems in general and Gnu/Linux in particular.

              He's rather consistent, but I'd suggest some weird form of troll.

              Or heavy drug user.

              Or both maybe.

          8. John Crisp

            Re: Not sure about Office?

            "We also REPROGRAMMED ALL OF LINUX using a customized version of EASY-TO-READ PASCAL SOURCE CODE that is FULLY COMMENTED !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

            Really??

            Best speak to Linus and tell him to retire immediately.

            <slapshead>

          9. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Not sure about Office?

            "It's gotten SO BAD with Linux and C/C++ our company said screw this and went ahead and developed it's own Windows 10-like OS shell and remade the command line interface of Linux to PROPER ENGLISH! We remade LAMP into custom Windows 2016 server-like environment with a decent Active Directory WAN/ALN management system analogue!"

            And how long did that take and cost versus - uhm - maybe just using Windows / IIS ?!

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