The 30,000 employees of Schleswig-Holstein's local government will be moving to Linux and LibreOffice as the state pushes for what it calls "digital sovereignty," a reference to non-EU companies not gathering troves of user data so European firms can compete with these foreign rivals.

Munich, the capital of German state Bavaria, switched from Windows to Linux-based LiMux in 2004, though it switched back in 2017 as part of an IT overhaul. Wanting Microsoft to move its headquarters to Munich likely played a part in returning to Windows, too.

[–] BCsven@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 month ago

Then they went back to Linux a few years pater

[–] CameronDev@programming.dev 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yeah, that's the one. Gnome 2 in 2017 would have felt pretty dated. And the political reasons can't have helped either.

[–] laurelraven@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

So, it didn't fail from a technical fault but a political one? I feel like you're arguing against it but I'm not following how that has anything to do with the viability of it (especially if it worked for 13 years)

[–] CameronDev@programming.dev 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Its not that I'm against it or don't think it can work, I just dont think its going to help drive adoption of desktop Linux. And I think there is a very real risk that it could negatively impact Linux mind share if the experience is particularly bad.

The Munich OS proves its possible. But I'm really curious about how the end users actually felt about it. Maybe I'm wrong and they love it, but I'm very skeptical.

Fwiw, I suspect the "Linux" that ends up being deployed will likely be a glorified thinclient/browser, and nothing like desktop Linux as most of us know and love.

[–] laurelraven@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 month ago

That's fair