City of Munich throws Ubuntu lifeline to Windows XP holdouts

Confused

Making available free upgrades? Ubuntu is always free

Making it available for download? Canonical did that already

Isn't it about time

That there was just one thread on the whole Internet of MS versus Linux, and clever deduplicating software to remove all redundant posts, just incrementing a score pointer each time a given argument was rehashed? First one to overflow a 64 bit unsigned into wins.

The fantasy of hardware support

"Therein lies the problem - the eight hundred thousand slightly different distributions. Most people don't want to try them. They just want their computer to work, which is why XP has had such a long life."

Yup, but people who say "they want their computer to just work" and then say Windows is the way to do this gloss over that, in the Windows world (assuming enough RAM and CPU power), the XP-compatible hardware may or may not work in 7, newer systems are compatible with Windows 7 but not XP. Of course the really old ones would have 95 or 98 or 2000 drivers but no support for XP. This idea you can just stick whatever verison of Windows on whatever hardware you want and expect it to run is sheer fantasy. You can keep running the same version for ever if you want, but of course, you can do this with Linux too.

Ubuntu tossing out some compatibility, I do give them a "thumbs down" for this, and just saying "you can run some other distro" is not helpful, but the fact of the matter is you DO have the choice of an up-to-date distro that supports older hardware rather than just sticking to an old distro (as happens in Windows if a newer version drops support for older hardware). BTW, I'm pretty sure Geforece 4 MX440 is now supported in 12.04 at least by NVidia's driver.

"The idea that rpm and dpkg are anything like as user-friendly as setup.exe is a joke. Truly, this year and the next hundred years will not be the year of the Linux desktop."

Yeah, it's easier. Pick the software you want to install and it installs, versus finding the exe, scanning it with a virus scanner (wait, you don't do that?!), and then persuading the installer "No, I don't want a toolbar, no I don't want this 'extra bonus software', and no I don't want you to send my E-Mail to a spammer". Then it will also be yet another thing that pops up to hassle you when there's an update, since there is no central update mechanism like a package system like rpm or dpkg have. Not running a random executable to install software takes major getting used to, but your argument against it is basically you don't like it because you aren't used to it.

Anyway... I'm a little mixed on shipping Ubuntu 12.04 to people. Unity is AWFUL, the first thing I did was install the "gnome classic" desktop --- except they call it's package "gnome-session-fallback" so if someone installs Ubuntu 12.04 out of the box, they are unlikely to figure out how to find it. (Basically, similar to Microsoft trying to shove a tablet interface down people's throats with Windows 8, Canonical tried to shove what is clearly a tablet interface down people's throats in Ubuntu 12... once you kick the tablet interface to the curb everything is quite nice however.)

I've got several people now running Ubuntu... I didn't replace *working* XP for them, but virus-shredded non-functional XP (and of course they have no recovery partition and no CD.) A surprising number of people have a "laptop" (which they call it that even if it runs far to hot to ever put on a lap), they use it to do junk on facebook, play facebook games, watch streaming videos, and watch downloaded videos. Seriously, that's it. They have enjoyed having their machines run faster than they were before even when clean, having only *one* thing hassle about updates, and not getting viruses so frequently (I assume from porn sites, but maybe misclicking on free video sites.) They don't miss a thing from not running XP, and these systems would run 7 VERY poorly.

"There are a couple of guys in this thread that really need to shake your heads a little. My comments were an "example" of what a newbie might just have to go through when installing [insert favorite distro here].

One or two of your answers were exactlly the kind of "I'm an expert let me show you how to do that properly" neck beard kind of answers which genuinely do not help newbies or anyone else for that matter.

It is an unfortunate fact that there are relatively few *nix users on forums that actually know what pedagogy actually means. I can see that you are happy keeping up the tradition."

But this "This MIGHT happen when installing a distro" stuff is useless. Honestly, for each example someone comes up with I can probably come up with 5 ways Windows could blow up, in much more confusing and unhelpful ways. The fact of the matter is if you have a Linux distro CD, and you have a OEM Windows CD for your machine, you probably just click "next" a bunch of times to install for both, reboot, and (if you didn't have Ubuntu pre-install the updates) then run a ton of updates. I think no noob should run a OS install without someone to help "just in case", since both Linux and Windows if something goes wrong fixing it may be over their head.. and then once it is fixed it will not be a problem.

"Windows XP users in Germany’s third largest city are being offered free upgrades to Ubuntu ahead of termination of Microsoft support for the OS next Spring."

The "free" upgrade that is available to everyone for free?

Epic Eyeroll...

Half of the comments on this article are polarized polemic bullshit. They really are, they ignore reality to suit what seems like a Religious or Political agenda and its coming mainly from the Linux side, though there are Microsoft supporters who are acting the same way here. I dont get the religious devotion and refusal to be objective when dealing with an issue like this.

Ive never had an issue with an MS install, and I've never had an issue with a Linux install either. Its not that hard. And since I use Fedora, I get to use what is probably the most arcane and confusing installer in the Linux world. It still gets the job done if you know that a checkmark means you're finished. Hell, even installing a BSD isn't THAT hard anymore.

And some background, I got Windows Vista the day it came out and my drivers worked fine, just as well as they worked on the W2K system that upgraded to Vista. Windows XP for me was a dog, Windows 2000 for Idiots as I used to call it. I hated it. Windows 7 works great and always has. Its better than XP and Vista, but its not as good as Windows 2000 was because there are still missing features. But the common thing between all of these various Operating Systems was that they installed easily.

The only distro that gave me problems later (after install) was Ubuntu but it may have improved. I dont know and I wont find out because Fedora, CentOS, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and RHEL all work for me for my use cases. If I was going to use something like Ubuntu nowadays (basically something using APT), Id use either Debian or Mint, I disagree with too many of Canonical's recent decisions (Unity, and especially Mir) to support them.

12.04 LTS? Why?

If you're not going to provide help and support, you might as well just give them 13.04 and get it over with.

That said, Ubuntu is so dumbed down that even my normally-computer-illiterate uncle could use it daily without complaints, so I don't think there'd be any real issues with the switch.

Linux, fine - but why Ubuntu?

Giving away free Linux CDs to people still on XP is a nice idea, but why the hell does it have to be Ubuntu? It's made by shitheads (Canonical) breaking stuff as they go along, and it has a crappy UI that has zero resemblance to XP's user interface.

They could have taken another Linux distro which happens to have its main development done only 100mls north of Munich: openSUSE. With KDE it comes much closer to the XP look and feel than Ubuntu, and in my experience it works much better than Ubuntu.

Good on them

I say lets hope more cities follow the trend and ditch a closed system like Windows. I did the same over 10 years ago and never looked back. In fact I laugh quite a bit at how similar the problems with Windows are today as they were in the year 1998. It's quite pathetic really that people/companies can be bought out by pure FUD

Bad choice

Ubuntu's Unity interface is as bad as Win8, so the "XP holdouts" might as well go for broke and get Win8.

Or a Linux with good interface, like, say, Mint with Cinnamon.

Well..

.. I started using Ubuntu in 2008 when I got a new PC pre-installed with Vista. It's been my main OS on and off since then. In that time I've learnt some things;

* AMD's Catalyst graphics drivers for Ubuntu are utter crap (Nvidia's are pretty rock solid IME though).

* WIFI never really works properly (especially RealTek). I just tether through my phone's WIFI nowadays.

* KDE is very buggy. Try running Kubuntu and see how many segmentation faults you encounter.

* Canonical seem only to happy to drag its users through whatever half-finished idea they toss out (ala Unity circa 2010-2011).

* They're are way to many fucking distros. Choice is great, too much choice is irritating & confusing.

* Installing drivers is way to difficult for noobies. Want to install that latest Nvidia graphics driver because a certain Steam game needs it? Hope you enjoy - CTRL + ALT + F1 -> sudo bash (enter password) -> service lightdm stop -> cd /home/username/Downloads -> sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-xxx.xx-pkg1.run -> follow onscreen prompts (some confusing to a noobie) -> reboot. Oh, but when you run the update manager & install a new kernel, then reboot, be prepared for a borked system because you forgot uninstall the fucking driver before rebooting. Vs download, press next a few times, reboot (Windows).

Linux still has some MAJOR issues.

Signal to noise

"...please calm down; it's just software." as Jeremy Bicha once put it in a slightly different context.

What we need now is one of the good citizens of Munich to pop up a YouTube video about using one of the freebie CD-ROMs (remember it is try before you 'buy' in the sense of running a live session).

Linux Vs Windows

In my previous comment I got downvoted a bunch of times and from subsequent comments it seems people thought I was being unfair to Linux. I was not.

I am a supporter of Linux. I want it to succeed. It is pointless to mislead people (including ourselves) about its ease of installation and use relative to Windows. For people migrating from the world's most used operating system it is a big and nasty learning curve that they simply cannot climb easy enough to switch.

In actual practice, most people have Windows installed for them and as crappy as it works it generally works. They can do stuff. Linux on the other hand presents them up-front with the fallacy of choice and it goes downhill from there.

How can we realistically expect to improve the end-user experience of Linux if we don't even think it needs improvement? It needs improvement.

Last I looked, Ubuntu had about the least hostile user experience of the Linices. Here is their handy page on troubleshooting installation problems:

https://help.ubuntu.com/lts/installation-guide/amd64/boot-troubleshooting.html

Bear in mind that those hurdles are all 100% more than is required for a pre-installed Windows OS. Never mind whether it is fair that Windows has that advantage. The fact is, it does have that advantage.

You could shoot a bullet down the Tokyo subway without hitting anybody who understood all those instructions, let alone were willing to do them.

The way to overcome issues with Linux is to recognize they exist and address them head-on.

I would like to see a live CD where you insert the disk under Window XP, click 'Yes' one time and it runs smoothly toward a complete installation that migrates applications, virtualizes the old XP OS, sets up dual boot defaulting to the new OS and boots directly into a new OS that looks so much like the old one they just continue working where they left off. It's a big job, but its doable.

I'm NO MS supporter, but can't figure out why corporates haven't moved to Open office ?

Respected IT Gurus and other folks like me

I'm NO MS supporter and this post is NOT to support MS, but to understand and improve my world view

I can't figure out why corporates can't move to Open office ? or Libre Office ?

I can NOT imagine that a slightly re formatted word document or a slightly different looking power point slide will bring down a company so the downside or risks (of moving) should be small ....

95% of folks (including me) do NOT use advanced features (in office products), and since Open officec, Libre, all do the basic functions pretty well, that (lack of 'this' special feature or that one) should NOT be a problem

open office is completely free, while corporate versions of MS office is approx $ 125 ~ $ 250 depending on config / country

If you have 1000s of employees that MS office cost is going to be prohibitive ....

So.... I can't figure out why corporates are NOT rushing en block to open office

My view of corporates NOT moving stems from the sales #s that MS keeps reporting quarter after quarter (sort of birds eye view) and NOT by any interview or census

Moving a whole OS with from windows to linux, changing drivers , servers, communications ..... and / or moving ERP front ends etc etc is much more difficult than moving office ? no ??

again .... this is NOT a pro MS ...anti MS post !!!

thanks in advance to all those who reply

regards

Subu

what are the best value for money linux pre installed Laptops ?

Dear Folks

I recently tried buying a laptop

I thought buying a NON windows laptop [*Linux pre-installed* ] made a lot of sense as I don't have to pay for the windows which was almost 20 ..25% of some mid range laptop cost

But surprisingly I found most linux *pre-installed* laptops from reliable manufacturers (like Lenovo, Dell, HP, etc etc ] were at or about the same price in many cases costlier than linux pre installed ones

the other option I was given was to buy a windows laptop and install linux on a partition, which defeated by basic idea of NOT paying for window$

I'd be grateful IF some one could guide me to good , value for money linux pre installed laptops

thanks and regards

subu