German State Is Ditching Windows For Linux

The German state of Schleswig-Holstein is moving all their government computers to open source software.

Timestamps:

00:00 Overview
00:40 Viewer Comment
01:50 When Munich Used Linux
09:43 Schleswig-Holstein
17:25 Comment About Futility
21:38 Windows Losing Market Share
24:16 The Process Of Switching IT Services
29:42 Outro

Link To Article:

[adrian___a]

I spent 3 weeks as a replacement guy at MS HQ in Munich. At that time that MS HQ was the best equipped in EU. I mean all the brand new stuff and gadgets MS tried to sell they had them there in Munich. Even Satya took a visit during the opening and gave a speech at the small theater room on the 3rd floor. I mean the whole building was beyond impressive (I'm more of an Apple guy when it comes to laptops and Linux for servers), they had quite a few server rooms as well. I was always wondering what the intent was of that building complex. Now I get it.

In regards to the problem MS is running itself into:
- they tried to push up the corporate machine price/security/data collection policies to their profit that just go beyond most EU legislative regulations
- due to the spreading of cloud services you are no longer bound to specific operating systems on your end machines. LDAP/Kerberos-based SSO logins are cumbersome, took more resources and difficult to maintain. Most MFA is either Oauth/OIDC-based or SAML, but only the legacy ones are still via the old Windows Server ways. Or another example Intune/MDM.
- for most users at the office they use emails and word-spreadsheet and document scanning apps, so you don't really need anything else
- more and more companies are scaling down what a user is allowed to do while using those machines and the data collection/hidden policies and updates of MS is just makes it extremely vulnerable.
- some would argue that then use macs, but most macs are used either in engineering or creative departments and way more expensive on a larger scale then the Linux based clients.
- in regards to security, I've never seen any forensic machine that was solely windows-based, all were Linux with added windows exploits.

[kayf]

As a former Munich citizen, if I remember it right, the switch back to windows was connected with Microsoft moving its headquarters to Munich so the city would get their tax money. Also the new mayor was a fan of windows while the old mayor was a fan of Linux.

[satyamevajayate]

Imagine what you could do with 86 million Euros in Linux. We could fund whole lot of developers to make new open source software in Linux. We have enough of Apple, Microsoft and Google . Choose freedom from these companies.

[rafbarkway]

They had NO choice, there is so much spyware and bloatware in windows 10/11 that it is becomming un-usable. Well done Microsoft. we want computers that work, not NEW faster computers to be able to run software that slows the computer down.

[louisfifteen]

In my city, the 2. largest in Denmark, our public libraries all run Ubuntu. It serves 300.000 people in 17 local libraries. I think since 2014.

[diecksl]

We're not getting rid of SharePoint or Word. We're getting rid of the cloud. Greetings from the Schleswig-Holstein IT-Team.

[deegaming]

The e-waste Microsoft and Apple causes really pisses me off. Perfectly good computers being thrown away just because it's not powerful enough to run bloat processes.
When my gaming laptop runs Windows, it's permanently running the fans. When it runs Linux, it's completely silent, because there aren't nearly as many processes running in the background.

[StarryNightSky]

Munich did not move back bc of technical issues... M$ opened a branch there and had great connections to local politicians.

[bbdgl]

One security aspect thats rarely brought up is that you can shrink down a custom linux distro immensely, less attack surface, more performance. I´d say 98% of the typical government office job is Web, Email, a word processor and some kind of excel. Microsoft keeps putting BS features into their office lineup that no one uses, slows down the systems and create security holes that have to be fixed by bloatware antivirus. The familiarity aspect really makes no sense for most users using 4 apps on their daily jobs

[ACuteAura]

I have seen a police station in lower saxony in 2014 use Fedora. Never read about it anywhere else, just saw it. Asked an officer if they were happy, and I got a noncommital "it's a computer, it computes, we don't care"

[jimcabezola]

A couple of months ago, I got one of those old desktop machines you mentioned. It was a 2020 model with a 10th Gen i5 in it.
I wanted it so I could put tons of RAM in it to run my VMs. It had Windows 10 installed already; I ran that without without a Microsoft account, no problem.
Oddly, when Microsoft *graciously permitted* me to upgrade to Win11, I was able to upgrade it...without even being asked to make a Microsoft account.
"Woo-hoo!" I happily shouted.
I was doing yet another Linux distro hop the other day, and I though Mint might be fun. Well...Mint (the Ubuntu edition) wants me to turn off RST, but the UEFI BIOS doesn't seem have a switch to turn it off. Instead Win11 has to receive a few RegEdit entries to do this, and...
Well...I gave up!
I ripped out the NVE and stuffed in a fresh one. Now it's a nice, uncomplicated Linux-only box.
Mind you...this was my first Windows adventure in a number of years.
Having lived in Germany for 6 and half years...I can certainly feel their pain. Once they return to Linux, they just need to shoot on sight any Microsoft sales teams trying to sell their wares in that country. AI and Microsoft (and Google...and Apple) will be the death of us all...

Aloha and take care!

[jsonkody]

Linux Mint is the reason why Linux is now more accesible to BFU than windows .. my mom, absolute tech antitalent run Mint for about 5 years now.
A few months ago I updated her PC to new version.
She has zero problems using it - she just watch movies, browse web and make some documents in office software.

If she run windows, the system would be definitely slower, it would crash sometimes, it would show her commercials after update and it would bother her with updates all the time

[TulgaD]

Im working at one of countless government organizations in Germany. The thing is, that every city has their own IT contractor or IT solution. We can't know which city used which OS for server or for clients. But in our case (a federal organization, not local organization), we use Linux for servers whenever it's possible and we only use Windows Server if it's not possible to run a service on Linux. Also to prevent nepotism / corruption we're obligated to do an invitation of tenders when choosing which software to use for a new service or continue a service after the end if support, and we must choose the cheapest offer, which tend to be not compatible with Linux.

For our clients, dispite countless complains about Windows 11, we didn't make any progress on switching to Linux and unfortunately, we just bought Windows 11 licenses. I hope Munich will be successful with their migration to Linux and that all government organizations will switch to Linux eventually.

[grokitall]

A major point not mentined here is that there have been various studies over the years of the costs of moving to the next major version of windows verses the cost of moving to linux, and the findings have all been that the retraining and format incompatibility costs are not very different. This means that if you time your transition to coincide with the next microsoft forced update, you do not have significant extra training costs.

Another advantage is that you move away from proprietary data formats to open ones, making future access to legacy files much easier, which matters for government work as lots of governemts mandate data retention and availability.

[davidkachel]

"cost efficiency" : When spoken by a politician or bureaucrat means, "they haven't yet slipped me enough money under the table"!!

[dafff]

i find it more crazy that not more governments are using linux.
windows ich such a swiss cheese in terms of safety.
critical infrastructure should not be run with software and oses that could get a virus just by typing a wrong address in the browser, let alone riddled with backdoors.
theres already been countless cases in germany where some hackers crippled entire cites.
the only reason why i still use win10 is for the gaming aspect.
however, whenever i visit sketchy sites i boot up my linux vm.
i also have a linux based laptop, which runs quite fine despite having a intel atom cpu inside.

[TarlachOakleaf]

I'm 71 years old and I've been using Windows since it first came out so many years ago my old brain can't quite remember the year - and I'm too lazy to look it up. The last thing I want to do, after years (decades) of getting things just how I like them, is change over to a completely new Microsoft has finally done it to me. I'm already looking into Linux and planning how I'll go about this.

I didn't leave you Microsoft, you left I've had enough. Go to hell, Gates.

[KenHarrisio]

FYI for some people that had left comments here. I got notifications about them and was going to respond, and they are no longer here. I don't know why they got removed.

[jaronnamir]

This is why I plan on makin the jump back to Linux, not only did I learn better by reading manuals about my system & processes but I was doing more hands-on things.
Just to think come next year when W10 stops support all these companies and schools getting rid of perfectly good hardware. Bad for them good for me I suppose cause I can get my hands on cheap hardware.

[GolfWangMedia-incorporated]

Windows NT was a whole kernel change from DOS. More than just a business oriented OS. It’s the backbone of Windows to this day.