2011 December 19 archive at Robert Pogson

Archive for December 19th, 2011

Walmart Sells Linux Online

Published by Robert Pogson December 19th, 2011 in technology. 116 Comments

I visited Walmart.com, plugged in “linux” and searched all departments.

So, they’re selling desktop boxes on the small side and the other 70 items? Mostly books and courses on GNU/Linux. They have it covered. Decent prices, too. Some spend more than that for a thin client. Add a monitor, keyboard and mouse and you have a very useful system. Free shipping to your home and they promise it will arrive by December 24. Lots of Android stuff too, tablets, smart phones and books.

Walmart.ca: “Your search returned 0 results.” Sigh. Android? One hit and it was out of stock. Price was good, though, $78. What does it mean when the stores are doing better than HQ? I know there’s lots of Android/Linux stuff in my local Walmart store.

Merry Christmas

- Robert Pogson

Munich has Migrated the 9000th PC to GNU/Linux

Published by Robert Pogson December 19th, 2011 in technology. 69 Comments

This is my fix to Google’s translation of a Munich IT Blog post by Kirsten Böge 14:12:11

The LiMux project is “on schedule”, and “over quota”

The project LiMux

On 12.12.2011 the 9,000th PC workstation in the Civil Engineering Department migrated to the new LiMux client. Thus the LiMux project is proceeding faster than expected: 8500 PC workstations were planned by the end of 2011. Similarly, substantially all MS Office suites are uninstalled, with few authorized exceptions. The municipal government change-over from MS Office to OpenOffice.org 3.2.1 will be a bit longer, because in some cases, the dependence on specialized procedures is still too large. But the more we succeed in being able to run the equivalent open source application to replace it or virtualize it, the more likely it will be the last MS Office suites replaced by OpenOffice.org.

In 2012, the rest of the planned 3,000 PCs will be migrated to the LiMux client and the migration completed. In addition, we shall continue to replace proprietary business applications with open source solutions.

Thanks to Google Translate and Dict. Even with that help, I had to guess in a couple of places. Corrections are welcome.

The meaning is clear: the end is in sight. It has been a long haul but Munich will finally have a GNU/Linux system working for them instead of Munich working for M$. While there has been much cost and pain in the process, the future is forever and the benefits from switching to GNU/Linux, open standards and more efficient organization will continue to roll in. If there is one lesson learned from the process in Munich it is that the sooner migration is started the better. Otherwise, you’re just digging a deeper hole. While that other OS can form a basis for IT it is an unstable one designed to bring profit to M$ above all else. With GNU/Linux, FLOSS and open standards, an organization has much more control over its destiny. Almost every “feature” that M$ created served to lock-in Munich more strongly. They recognized that and took action. Continue reading ‘Munich has Migrated the 9000th PC to GNU/Linux’

- Robert Pogson

My Mission

My observations and opinions about IT are based on 40 years of use in science and technology and lately, in education. I like IT that is fast, cost-effective and reliable. I do not care whether my solution is the same as yours. I like to think for myself.

My first use of GNU/Linux in 2001 was so remarkably better than what I had been using, I feel it is important work to share GNU/Linux with the world. I have been blessed by working in schools where students and school systems have benefited by good, modular software easily installed in most systems.

I have shown GNU/Linux to thousands of students and hundreds of teachers over the years and will continue in some way doing that until I die in spite of the opposition.