Based on Ubuntu. Interface and functionality like Windows, users will not feel much difference. BRICS countries committed to their own Linux distributions. South Africa has been the exception.
Based on Ubuntu. Interface and functionality like Windows, users will not feel much difference. BRICS countries committed to their own Linux distributions. South Africa has been the exception.
But that should be a lesson to people as to why going Linux is foolhardy.
If the Germany government, with all its money and resources and knowledge, failed at switching (or staying switched), then why the bloody hell should an individual or business? I think the Germans have a well deserved reputation for being smart and tech savvy, so if they can’t do it, then why should some random individual out there bother trying? And blaming it on the distro is ridiculous. I have zero interest in Linux, but even I’ve heard of Debian (as well as Ubuntu and others), so there is no excuse why such a well known distro be incapable of handling what the Germans might have wanted.
As a German: LOL
Also this…
Sounds like someone who has not visited Germany.
Op has never installed Linux, never met a German, and once saw a Volkswagen driving down his street.
As an engineer, it irks to no end hearing marketers say “German engineering” as if it is some kind of superpower that makes that particular product automatically better, but I’m not going to take anything away from the German people. I’d give them a lot of faith that they would choose the most logical, best solution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astra_Linux
The choice of a distro makes huge - crucial - difference. It dictates the possibilities, limitations and future evolution of every ecosystem it’s supposed to support.
Wrong choice = a disaster.
That’s absurd. So installing a distro as a n00b and you happen to pick one because you’ve heard of it before only to find out it’s not the one you should have used. That’s not some obscure one that no one’s heard either.
You understand how frustrating that can be for a new user, right? I see all the Linux people have downvoted the hell out of me, and that’s fine, but Linux has a massive user-friendliness issue if you seemingly have to pick the right one, or your fucked. I’m sure the Germans didn’t take that selection lightly, and now someone is claiming that it’s because of that choice that the switch over failed.
Can this OS be any more user UNfriendly? It’s to the point of being user-hostile.
That’s not really a “Linux” issue.
“Linux” isn’t some singular OS, it’s an ecosystem. It’s just like choosing a car, just because most cars have four wheels and an engine doesn’t mean they’re all the same. Selecting the right car is rightfully frustrating and can and does make a huge difference.
It’s like selling a Tesla to a 90 year old grandma and then her complaining that it’s unfriendly. And just because the Tesla is unfriendly to a particular audience doesn’t automatically make it a bad car, but even if it was, that doesn’t mean that all electric vehicles are as bad as Tesla.
I would probably choos Debian over Ubuntu vecause “debian” is more fun yo say. Or even Arch. “Ubuntu” is just a clunky 3-syllable word that makes me sound like I have a speech imprdiment. I dont know the difference between any of those distros and would probably choose wrongly.
It seems like you need to be an expert to pick a distro, but how do you become an expert without actually using it.
I’m not sure about the scope and details of Germany’s attempt to switch to Linux, but for the average user, any of the popular distros would likely serve them well. I think there’s a huge difference between a user installing Linux on a general purpose PC vs. trying to incorporate it into an entire country’s worth of devices.
I’ve heard horror stories of people spending loads of time tinkering with their OS to fix obscure issues, but generally, these distros are often as easy-to-use (if not more so) than Windows these days. I think the main issues people have stem from software built specifically for Windows that won’t work on Linux, which hardly seems the fault of Linux imo.
Even the most complicated Linux distro is more user friendly than Windows 10 or later. And the mainstream linuxes are trivial to install and use as a daily driver. The only tech skills required are when you want to
Linux can be easy to use if it’s set up to be easy to use, and you have the right hardware. It’s the set up process that most people can’t get through on their own.
I tried installing Fedora the other day with the provided installer, and it failed to even launch from USB. Then I used the same image and wrote it with Rufus instead, and it worked fine. But your average person wouldn’t know to even try that.
Linux is almost never as easy to set up as techies make it out to be. And you can’t just hand wave issues like graphics drivers. Even after I installed the Nvidia drivers I still had to sign them manually so secure boot would actually accept them. That’s just too many hoops for most people.
You have heard about Debian because it’s a really good distro that has wide usage (especially in the server space). It’s however a bad distro to install on PCs that are to be used by office workers who aren’t necessarily familiar with it, and whoever advised the government should’ve known that Debian is picky about hardware compatability.
It was truly a baffling decision to go for Debian in this instance.
why would you think debian to be a bad distro for office workspaces? genuinely curious, as someone who uses debian for a daily driver for 10+ years
Good question…me too. Most office apps are browser based now. Sometimes you have to build things from source to get bleeding edge versions of things, but a good Linux admin will have no trouble rolling their own repo with their own packages for the bleeding edge stuff. Most of the time the repo versions are fine though. The only thing I maintain from source on my personal machine is GnuCash.
This is just wrong. Well, they might have the reputation, but let me tell you: Every aspect of German governance relies on fax machines and paper forms. You can hardly do anything online, and when you can, it’s usually not at all easy to use.
The latest thing they tried was electronic doctor’s notes. (In Germany, when you’re sick, you go to a doctor and let him write a note that you can’t work. You still get paid for your sick leave if you bring a doctor’s note.) Two months ago my colleage got ill and it took 8 weeks to have the deducted hours added again.
Why is Germany stuck in the 90s in particular? Why not other countries and why the 90s?
One important factor is that one of our biggest political parties (the CDU/CSU, the one Angela Merkel is in) is basically run by and for 60+ year old people who stopped caring about technology in their teens.
To them, the internet with its homepages and electronic mail is a very recent and poorly understood development that will surely require another few decades of observation before anyone will know whether it’s actually good for anything.
And that’s the party that ran Germany for almost two decades uninterrupted. They’re by far not the only reason but they’re a major one.
As a Japanese I can attest that at least one other country is stuck like that too, and likely many others
Because German culture despises progress.
German bureaucracy is notoriously obtuse, inflexible and old-fashioned. Think Little Britain’s “Computer says no”, but then on a countrywide scale.