Desktop Linux Dead!

[Ed P]

Well, it soon will be within the Munich local Government. El Reg link

Sadly the demise of Linux in this environment could be predicted right from the beginning. Unfortunately the migration to Linux was carried out with all the zeal of a religious IT bigot rather than a clear headed economics driven look at user requirements and constraints. Instead of small incremental user-driven changes, a big-bang ‘everything must migrate’ approach was implemented. Failure was pretty much inevitable over three years ago when the first interface issues started to emerge.

Any IT project that tries to steam-roller users is pretty much doomed from the start. It did not need 20:20 hindsight to predict this outcome.

[Dave Rice]

Just look at this comment from the Free Software Foundation.

Next year, he said civil servants would require more training and could delay citizens receiving help – the move “is a cause for failure”.

I never heard that said about the move from Windows to Linux.

Having moved the charity from Linux back to Windows the extra training was nil. People know how to use Windows & Office from their home machines.

[Richard]

Since one of the key drivers was said to be the absence of some compatible tools to interface with other systems, a number of users remained on Windows systems anyway. The costs and near impossibility of developing replacement Linux tools and integrating them was said to be a killer. They simply did not have the resources to perform the development tasks and usable known product was already on the shelf. Thus the training requirement for those staff would have been zero; they would be migrating from Windows to Windows, duh.

That said, I agree with the above comments, process is not just something – it is everything in a situation like this. Get the processes wrong from the start and the result is what you have there, failure.

 

[D-Dan]

As much as a Linux enthusiast that I am, thewhole Munich project was badly handled. Suddenly (comparitively) dumping everything familiar with so much that isn’t was always doomed to failure.

The better option would have been to stick with Windows, whilst introducing cross platform OSS piecemeal. Once staff are familiar with the OSS versions rather than closed and costly, then then they could start thinking about the underlying OS. Since open source generally works the same across platforms, the learning curve would have been much narrower.

All they’ve achieved is to tighten M$ grip on them.

Arch Linux, on a Ryzen 7 1800X, 32 GB, 5 (yes -5) HDs inc 5 SSDs, 4 RPi 3Bs + 1 RPi 4B - one as an NFS server with two more drives, PiHole (shut yours), Plex server, cloud server, and other random Pi stuff. Nice CoolerMaster case, 2 x NV GTX 1070 8GB, and a whopping 32" AOC 1440P monitor.

[Ed P]

D-Dan wrote:

As much as a Linux enthusiast that I am, thewhole Munich project was badly handled. Suddenly (comparitively) dumping everything familiar with so much that isn’t was always doomed to failure. The better option would have been to stick with Windows, whilst introducing cross platform OSS piecemeal. Once staff are familiar with the OSS versions rather than closed and costly, then then they could start thinking about the underlying OS. Since open source generally works the same across platforms, the learning curve would have been much narrower. All they’ve achieved is to tighten M$ grip on them.

I think that we are all singing from the same hymn-sheet, but your final comment is very apt. This has probably done a lot of damage to any CIO thinking of a strategic move towards desktop Linux. I’m sure that all M$ front-line support staff are now whispering ‘Beware of what happened in Munich’ to as many CFOs and CEOs as they can reach. The careers of some well-intentioned CIOs may well have been damaged as a result.

[wasbit]

The El Reg link is at least a month out of date.

– https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3019218/munich-takes-further-steps-to-ditch-linux-and-go-back-to-windows

An important sentence in the Inquirer article: “Last year a survey by Accenture found that the problem wasn’t with the OS, but the way it was being deployed an managed by the city’s IT departments.”
It “found that most of the problems stem not from the use of open-source software, but from inefficiencies in how Munich co-ordinates the efforts of IT teams scattered throughout different departments.”

– https://www.computermagazine.com/munich-plans-new-vote-on-dumping-linux-for-windows-10/

Whilst “The government of the state of Schleswig-Holstein (Germany) aims to increase its use of free and open source software, according to German press reports. The aim is a “complete replacement” of proprietary software.”
– https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/news/digitisation-open-source

 

--
Regards
wasbit

Rig 1: Optiplex 3050 SFF
Rig 2: Asus ROG G20CB (rebuilt wreck)
Rig 3: HP Elitebook 8440P

Dear Starfleet, hate you, hate the Federation, taking Voyager. - Janeway

[Ed P]

I think the Inquirer is also saying pretty much the same thing. When you have multiple systems sending data files/streams to a central database then a new interface will have to be written for each system/transaction type. From personal experience this can be a horribly messy job even when you are dealing with an uncomplicated set-up.(take for example the trivial case of two terminals updating orders for a single product item on a sales database – think deadlocks, rollbacks on failures, auditing, inventory control interfaces, live/dead data etc.). When you are trying to migrate old probably poorly documented systems and the introduction of completely new software then you can multiply all these problems and issues by a 1000%.

The root cause of problems is not the goal but the implementation scope and timescale.The scope itself can be deceptively large as it involves the replacement of working practices and systems that have been slowly built up since computers were first introduced to the enterprise. The project timescale is another huge issue. Management normally likes projects done within two years or less and wants the savings within six months! You need a very knowledgeable Board of Directors to get mega-projects such as this broken up into bite-sized chunks with little or no savings for many years during which time costs and disruption will be a daily fact of life.

[Author]

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