[HN Gopher] France to ditch Windows for Linux to reduce reliance...
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France to ditch Windows for Linux to reduce reliance on US tech
Author : Teever
Score : 419 points
Date : 2026-04-10 15:20 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (techcrunch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (techcrunch.com)
| josefritzishere wrote:
| We're going to keep seeing this due to destabilization and
| political changes in the US. It drives nationalization elsewhere,
| even among allies.
| _verandaguy wrote:
| It doesn't help that Microsoft seems to be doing everything in
| its power to alienate Windows users.
| recursivegirth wrote:
| This, I've officially been off Windows for a few months and
| will not be looking back. Microsoft has put a bad taste in my
| mouth as a developer.
|
| By luck and happenstance, I tuned into the Omacon conference
| this morning and my perspective on personal computing very
| much aligns with theirs. Would encourage a least watch the
| kickoff keynote if the VODs drop.
| htx80nerd wrote:
| this has been happening on and off for ~10+ yrs. MS cost are
| too high and you need more expensive computers to have the MS
| sub-par experience.
|
| the main thing that keeps people locked in is (a) "Im use to
| windows" and (b) MS gives them some special contract to keep
| them.
| stldev wrote:
| This is exactly what I'm seeing in working with companies in
| Belgium, Germany and France.
|
| It's not just about costs- managers are actively seeking to
| distance themselves from everything US.
|
| We've stopped treating them like allies. Who's to blame them?
| shafiemoji wrote:
| Wish the Bangladeshi government did this instead of relying on
| pirated copies of Windows 7
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| At least they know enough to have stuck with the outright best
| version of Windows.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| I hope it succeeds and I hope they document the experience and
| invite interested parties to see how it was setup and how (well)
| it works in order to encourage as many governments and
| organisations as possible to do the same.
| 1234letshaveatw wrote:
| For sure, I would love for this approach to spill over to the
| US and cause them to sever any contracts they have with the EU
| member nations
| Teever wrote:
| I've commented on this before but you'll know France is serious
| when there are Linux ports of Solidworks and Catia.
|
| France has a real edge over American companies by being the
| dominant player in the CAD world, it's always surprised me that
| they nerfed that advantage by tying to an American operating
| system.
| carefree-bob wrote:
| Autocad has 39% market share in CAD, Solidworks has 14% market
| share, and Fusion 360 has 9%.
|
| None of this is a major national advantage for any side. It's
| bizarre to think that the US or France would treat this as some
| kind of mark of national influence, since if anything happens
| to these top three vendors, there are lots of other vendors
| waiting in the wings. It's not like a national oil reserve,
| where it's important that you have a reserve of CAD software
| available for your engineers.
| Teever wrote:
| But what _kind_ of projects are people using these different
| pieces of software for?
|
| Are people designing aircraft carriers in Fusion?
|
| Don't get me wrong, I understand that AutoCAD is extremely
| important for architecture and the death grip that AutoDesk
| has over that industry needs to be broken for the benefit of
| all of us, but from my understanding Dessault Systems makes
| software that is used for totally different purposes and is
| of vital strategic importance for a nation that wants an
| independent MIC which France obviously does.
|
| So it seems foolish to me for them to have their own CAD
| software that can and is used to design weapons but be
| dependent on an American operating system produced by a
| particularly unscrupulous company who is obsessed with
| tighter and tigher control and has definite ties to the US
| intelligence apparatus.
| carefree-bob wrote:
| I doubt that the US military itself is using commercial CAD
| software, most likely they are using something in house.
| Again, CAD software is not Extreme Ultra Lithography, where
| it is a marvel of engineering and can only be produced by
| one firm. The netherlands can rightly be proud of ASML as a
| national achievement. But CAD software? Now that's just
| goofy.
|
| Check out: https://www.army.mil/article/249241/armys_powerf
| ul_open_sour...
|
| But I would assume defense _contractors_ -- the private
| firms like Lockheed -- are probably using commercial
| software. The US military is pretty bureaucratic and is
| filled with bespoke stuff, whereas the contractors are
| basically businesses and would use whatever is common in
| commercial business world.
| ThePowerOfFuet wrote:
| >Are people designing aircraft carriers in Fusion?
|
| I don't know, but I have watched people designing high-
| speed trains in CATIA.
| elteto wrote:
| Big players use CATIA and Siemens NX almost exclusively.
| I don't know many using Autocad, maybe architectural
| firms.
| vablings wrote:
| The idea that autocad has a "death grip" on the industry is
| laughable to me.
|
| Fusion360 -> PTC Onshape
|
| AutoCAD -> BricsCAD
|
| Inventor -> Easily outclassed by NX/SolidEdge,
| Solidworks/CATIA and Creo
| abe_m wrote:
| I'm curious where those number come from. Within the
| mechanical CAD world where Solidworks is used, I suspect the
| AutoCAD market share is very close to 0%. I haven't seen any
| company from small tool shops to major US defense contractors
| and automotive companies using AutoCAD for any significant
| mechanical design work.
| ezst wrote:
| Wasn't CATIA running on unix even before it ran on Windows?
| abe_m wrote:
| Yes, all the way up to Version 5.
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| What? Again?
|
| I lost count, it's how many attempts again? Fill me in.
| icfly2 wrote:
| The gendarmerie already switched.
|
| Only place I know that went back to MS is Munich city council.
| After MS put a big research office in the town.
| forty wrote:
| As far as I know it was successful for the gendarmerie and
| assemblee nationale for exemple. There are many public entities
| and apparently each migration is news worthy
| mrheosuper wrote:
| It needs just 1 successful attemp.
| moron4hire wrote:
| I wish the US Government would do the same
| markhahn wrote:
| I wonder if anyone in trumpland has thought of a T-branded
| distro.
|
| Considering that most distros are basically just a new set of
| desktop backgrounds, this seems like a sure thing!
| heyflyguy wrote:
| man, that's great - but can you imagine some bureaucrat lifer
| having to adapt to this?
| MegagramEnjoyer wrote:
| we need more tech literacy overall, so this might help with
| that also
| sometimes_all wrote:
| There are few things in life more satisfying than forcing
| bureaucrat lifers to expand their minds.
| yorwba wrote:
| Previous discussion:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47716043 (764 points 5 hours
| ago, 384 comments)
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| [dupe] Discussion on source:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47716043
| sherburt3 wrote:
| I'm sure there's a barely functioning business critical app that
| runs exclusively on Windows NT in their administration that would
| beg to differ
| psychoslave wrote:
| It can be ported to React under a single prompt by now, don't
| you know?
|
| But certainly we are already at stage where Windows NT can be
| regenerated on the fly from a prompt anyway, aren't we?
|
| Otherwise, there is also ReactOS that could be leveraged on for
| that kind of scenario. I wonder where it would stand by now if
| all the money that governments around the world spent in
| Microsoft license would have been invested in it instead.
| justinclift wrote:
| Sure. But if they can successfully convert 99% of their
| computers to non-Windows and non-Mac, that'd still be a massive
| win.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| Ideology may actually be the best way to cut off legacy
| bullshit like this. There's passion-energy, which really gets
| the creative problem-solving juices flowing.
| ang_cire wrote:
| If it only runs on NT, it'll work better under WINE than on
| Win10/11.
|
| Legacy app compat is actually an argument _for_ moving to
| Linux.
| yibers wrote:
| I am saying this as a very long time Windows user, and it saddens
| me. Politics aside, from a pure technichal, functional, privacy
| and UX perspective, the case for changing over from Windows to
| Linux is getting stronger by the day.
| lithos wrote:
| If you picked XFCE as your front end you get WinXP
| functionality, with the nice things from win10/11 (start menu
| search that's actually local only, multiple desktop workspaces,
| and graphical settings/updates I've only needed to go to
| command line twice in four years).
| yibers wrote:
| How does XFCE compare to KDE and GNOME? Also, does it has all
| the nice window snapping features that I'm used to fron
| Windows?
| lithos wrote:
| My personal PCs have enough screens that I haven't tried.
| Though I do really like Windows snapping features on my
| work laptop (can't change OS there).
|
| I haven't played with other windowing systems to judge too
| much. And just picked right from screen shots/gifs to not
| need to try.
| cwillu wrote:
| I don't think all the same shortcuts exist out of the box,
| although win-drag/win-right-drag to move and resize windows
| (might be alt by default) is _so_ much more convenient than
| the usual border/title dragging that you might find you
| don't miss them.
| mrj wrote:
| As a long time Linux user, this comment makes me sad since
| many of those features were copied from Linux (many from
| Unity) :)
| taskforcegemini wrote:
| I think most of its features predate unity (compiz was
| integrated but existed before)
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Unity really was a great project.
|
| KDE 6.6 is great to me, but there are some quirks I have
| found. Their "peek at desktop" feature is annoying, I
| want "minimize all" but you have to do some scripting to
| enable that.
|
| I've noticed that clicking the network button to see wifi
| status shows traffic rate, and that seems to lag and I
| suspect it has an impact on throughput.
|
| I'm interested in Cosmic when it matures some more.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| I am saying this as a very long time Linux user, and it saddens
| me. Politics aside, from a pure technical, functional, privacy
| and UX perspective, the case for changing over from Windows has
| been apparent for several decades.
| lousken wrote:
| Now nextcloud and libreoffice should give up the stupid drama and
| focus on beating microsoft.
| dleslie wrote:
| Canada has been using and developing FOSS for a while now.
|
| 0: https://www.canada.ca/en/government/system/digital-
| governmen...
|
| 1: https://events19.linuxfoundation.org/wp-
| content/uploads/2017...
|
| 2: https://github.com/canada-ca/
|
| There's still a great deal of Windows usage, but hopefully that
| will phase out with the passage of time. Canada's bureaucracy
| moves slowly, at the pace of generational attrition. It won't be
| until the last GenX retires that they could even meaningfully
| begin transitioning the average office worker away from Windows.
| realo wrote:
| Apparently not everyone got the memo...
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/federal-phoenix-pay-sy...
| dleslie wrote:
| The Phoenix contract predates the more recent efforts to
| switch to FOSS.
|
| But also, Canada loves to burn money on American suppliers.
| It's probably why the recent interest in _Buy Canadian_ has
| the American administration annoyed.
| simlevesque wrote:
| Phoenix was a literal trap laid by the Conservative
| government just before leaving knowing it would be a shit
| show for the Liberals in the coming years.
| unfocused wrote:
| I work in government. Link 1 (2018) is essentially a dream. All
| of government got forced to use MS Dynamics CRM. Basically,
| anybody with a software requirement for case management, had to
| use MS Dynamics. I recommended we use Drupal in 2011. That was
| killed because everything had to be MS. I'm kind of surprised
| that it is in there given that nobody was allowed to use.
|
| Link 0 and 2 are essentially from TBS and CDS. They coexist
| together. They are essentially working at the very top as
| entities that gather information from other departments. They
| can do whatever they want because they help write the rules.
|
| I'm not trying to discredit your post, just saying that as
| someone who has brought OSS tools to development at the
| government and tried to use OSS tools for client (I failed at
| that), it is nearly impossible at the moment. We are married to
| Microsoft and its cloud.
|
| I do agree, that it may take an entire generation because right
| now, 190+ departments are not exactly jumping to FOSS, and in
| many situations, they are down right told you are not allowed.
|
| In addition, the current de facto document management system is
| from OpenText. Although many just use Sharepoint Online.
|
| Ironically, as everything moves to the cloud, it would be
| easier to move to a solution that is FOSS based, and based in
| the cloud. Technology has matured enough that you don't need
| executables on a desktop, you just need a browser pointing to a
| website.
| sexy_seedbox wrote:
| We use Microsoft Dynamics 365 (model-driven app) at work,
| it's rarely mentioned on HN and people don't know how
| insanely bad this P.O.S. software is.
|
| From the botched implementations of AG Grid to their crippled
| version of CKEditor (with Copilot forced in of course), the
| daily bugs are an absolute nightmare.
|
| And then most support tickets (if you can even open one after
| a forced chat session with Copilot), get handled by a third-
| party, most likely in India with different timezones than you
| and the support calls are a crapshoot.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| The fact that open source is a national security concern should
| have been something that a crazy orange man should have
| triggered.
|
| Thus was obvious decades ago. And open source is the key model
| for collective development in a secure manner for disparate
| countries to secure their software base.
|
| Alas, I fear they will only concentrate on the server side. The
| securing of the desktop should be a parallel concern as well, to
| help prevent your citizenry from becoming DDOS slaves.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| >The French government did not provide a specific timeline for
| the switchover, or which distributions it was considering.
|
| Do they realize they need to pick a LTS distro now? You can't mix
| and match distros without having a massive IT and user retraining
| budgets.
| _blk wrote:
| They likely don't. It's a purely political move not a technical
| move. With the average length of the French work week, this
| will take a while to implement anyway. Don't get me wrong, I
| think it's a great thought but I don't think it's more than a
| short-sighted reaction. Munich unfortunately faltered after a
| few years.
| hirako2000 wrote:
| The french Gendarmerie already migrated to GendBunto, their
| own distribution. It took a while but it's now running on 97%
| of all workstations. I wouldn't call this just political
| fluff.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu
| yoyohello13 wrote:
| > With the average length of the French work week, this will
| take a while to implement anyway.
|
| 35 instead of 40? I don't think an extra 5 hours a week is
| really going to move the needle in a meaningful way.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| Why would you need any user retraining?
|
| All distros are basically identical. The only real difference
| is whether you spell "package manager" as apt, yum, or dnf.
| soiltype wrote:
| This comment is completely out of touch with how typical
| office workers use their computers. "Package manager" is your
| feldspars. But it's even worse than that, because you don't
| train for the typical employee, you train for the _least-
| technical_ employee lest they become completely useless
| overnight.
| zahlman wrote:
| > "Package manager" is your feldspars.
|
| I hate that I understood this.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| > because you don't train for the typical employee, you
| train for the least-technical employee lest they become
| completely useless overnight.
|
| "Click on the blue and orange spinny fox thingy" is easy
| for even the thickest user.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| >All distros are basically identical.
|
| Have you ever used the Linux OS??
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| Yes, since it came on two 1.44MB floppies.
| markhahn wrote:
| Let me guess, you're impressed by desktop decorations and
| which file-browser is the default.
|
| Ubuntu differs from Fedora only in newbie stuff, for
| instance.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| Fedora pisses me off more than Ubuntu does, and Ubuntu
| pisses me off least of all distros, except for Alpine
| which pisses me off in totally different directions for
| different reasons to all of the "proper desktop" distros.
|
| All OSes are shit.
|
| Even the ones you like.
|
| Even the ones I like.
|
| _Especially_ the ones I like, I guess.
| zahlman wrote:
| For people with a level of technical literacy that has them
| interested in posting on HN, sure. But for typical government
| workers? I imagine the differences are going to be pretty
| significant. They're not programmers or "devops" people.
|
| We're talking about users who are going to do almost
| everything through the GUI, and who will associate the
| "distro" with the default choice of DE/WM/etc. stack in
| whichever flavour of whichever distro it is. Understanding
| what a "package manager" even is, will be the responsibility
| of "IT" specialists. Assuming they don't decide that only,
| say, Flatpak-installable software can be approved.
|
| We're talking about massively bureaucratic institutions that
| have been steeped in Windows orthodoxy for decades. That's
| the administration policy they know, so it's what they will
| forcibly adapt to Linux.
|
| You're going to need user retraining because the GUI has its
| own file manager program and no matter which one you choose
| (and they _will_ choose exactly one) it is _not Explorer_.
| Because LibreOffice is _not the Microsoft Office suite_ , and
| neither is any of its FOSS competitors. And so on and so
| forth. There's no telling what idiosyncrasies people depend
| on. In organizations like this I really doubt you can count
| on everyone being generically computer literate. I really
| doubt that generic computer literacy (as opposed to
| demonstrated competence _with specific applications_ ) was
| ever part of the hiring requirements.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| > But for typical government workers? I imagine the
| differences are going to be pretty significant. They're not
| programmers or "devops" people.
|
| How much retraining do you need for "click on the orange
| and blue spinny fox thingy and wait for your email to come
| up"?
|
| > because the GUI has its own file manager program and no
| matter which one you choose (and they will choose exactly
| one) it is not Explorer
|
| Nobody is ever going to use it. They're going to use a web
| browser.
|
| > There's no telling what idiosyncrasies people depend on.
|
| Funny way of spelling "Firefox bugs", but whatever.
|
| > In organizations like this I really doubt you can count
| on everyone being generically computer literate
|
| Basic adult literacy is computer literacy. If you can read
| you can use a computer.
| phainopepla2 wrote:
| I get the sense you haven't worked with many non-
| technical people in government or enterprise contexts.
| I've seen people struggle with their workflows after
| upgrading to a newer version of Windows, to the point
| where company wide training sessions have had to be held.
| markhahn wrote:
| Yes. Noting that yum and dnf are basically the same.
| 0x457 wrote:
| Just pick nixOS and provide base nixosConfiguration. tada.
| MegagramEnjoyer wrote:
| I applaud France for this decision. Windows is basically legal
| spyware and adware at this point
| tombert wrote:
| Like most Microsoft products, Windows is a tool that benefits
| mostly from aggressive early marketing and successfully
| convincing everyone that they _need_ this product, and by the
| time everyone realizes how terrible the product is it 's too
| late because everything already depends on it.
|
| They have done this everywhere; Microsoft Office is everywhere
| and terrible. Sharepoint used to be everywhere and is terrible.
| I know they bought it, but LinkedIn is nearly required
| everywhere and terrible. Teams seems to be increasingly used
| everywhere and terrible. And of course Windows is everywhere
| and terrible.
|
| As far as I can tell, there is not a single thing that
| Microsoft does not half-ass. They're not a software company,
| they're a marketing company that sells software.
| hinata08 wrote:
| Now they somehow got the management of large companies to
| also push to adopt Azure, with an aggressive "no capex" /
| "you pay for what you use" campaign when everyone knows their
| offering work terribly and are overpriced.
|
| if Home Depot were to make an exam to pass a certification
| over their catalog, that would seem ridiculous. But when
| Microsoft does this, management ppl are happy and feel like
| they manage when they sign up everyone for AZ900
| "certification"
|
| Microsoft saw that users, power users and admins who are from
| the jobs are not making purchases, so you no longer need to
| design products for them
| somat wrote:
| I understand what they mean, linux offers freedom, enough that it
| divorces your tech stack from any one company.
|
| But isn't linux US tech? The blueprint, UNIX was a US project,
| torvolds works from the US. the original userland GNU was a US
| based project. The new userland systemd is a US based project.
| benterix wrote:
| > But isn't linux US tech?
|
| If you want to discuss it on that level, it if Finnish tech
| imported to the USA, inspired by a Dutch implementation of a
| research OS.
|
| On a more serious note, Linux has been developed by many
| individuals all over the world, you can't put a nationality
| stamp on it.
| nix0n wrote:
| Linux is a global project, and open source more broadly is also
| of course global.
|
| Linux Mint (the distro I use) was started and is led by French
| developer Clement Lefebvre.
|
| QEMU and FFmpeg are among the notable projects started by
| French developer Fabrice Bellard.
|
| VLC was started by students of Ecole Centrale Paris.
|
| These are just the things that I know about as an American, so
| I'm sure there are more.
| tensor wrote:
| The difference, of course, is that they can inspect the source,
| and should the US try to use it as leverage they can just fork
| and continue on.
| markhahn wrote:
| GNU was never anything but a flag-of-convenience. The number of
| people who take RMS seriously was and is small.
| simonask wrote:
| Please tell me this also means that they are redirecting the
| expenses currently going to Microsoft into funding open source
| development?
| sega_sai wrote:
| I think France seem serious in actually switching to open
| source/EU software. I recently had a telecon on Visio (France's
| Teams/Zoom substitute) and it worked well in a browser with ~ 10
| participants.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Desktop Linux's security and antimalware solutions are not ready
| for government usage. This is a cyber attack waiting to happen if
| they go through with this. They should at least switch to
| ChromeOS if they want to use Linux.
| bornfreddy wrote:
| You mean switch Windows by Microsoft for ChromeOS by Google?
| Weird suggestion.
|
| As for "security" and "antimalware" solutions being ready, I
| don't think there is much difference between the OSs there.
| Windows is no candyland either.
|
| As always, they will need competent people in the right places
| to pull this through. Tech is just an enabler.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Yes I do mean that. Google is one of the only companies in
| the Linux space who takes security seriously.
| TRiG_Ireland wrote:
| And switching to Google achieves the aim of getting away
| from American tech giants?
| charcircuit wrote:
| I don't think it's a wise thing to do at this point in
| time. There is more risk by not depending on America.
| AAAAaccountAAAA wrote:
| If that really is the case, why not stay on Windows?
| shimman wrote:
| There is no security when the US government can legally
| compel Google to do whatever they want. This is why foreign
| governments want to move away from big tech.
|
| Turns out the imperial boomerang impacts many things,
| especially when previous orders are easily destroyed
| (because only one country was benefiting).
| kpw94 wrote:
| Some might be tempted to brush aside that Server Linux threat
| model is very different from Desktop Linux (to snarkily reply
| "we'll it's powering a vast majority of GDP via all of AWS,
| Azure, etc.").
|
| However comparing apples to apples, what makes you say this
| isn't ready for government usage, when it's ready for trillion
| dollar big tech companies' majority of their _workforce_?
| (Aside from Microsoft, Apple obviously). Large employers like
| IBM etc also must be using red hat or some other distro
| Melatonic wrote:
| The age of the Linux desktop might actually finally be coming
|
| Personally I think we are at an interim period for a big player
| to emerge and take over this space. If enough governments in the
| EU start switching over to customized linux distros theres a big
| chance for someone like Nokia to come in and develop their own
| approved distro with proper MDM and GPO-like management
| functionality baked in .
|
| On top of that it could be great to see SteamOS continue to gain
| share and become more than just something people run on gaming
| purpose hardware.
|
| And thirdly would love to see a more simplistic but super lean
| and functional OS built on something like the BSD.
| upcoming-sesame wrote:
| honestly since the browser has more or less become the real
| operating system the host OS doesn't matter so much anymore.
| most people do 90% of their work in the browser anyway
| red_admiral wrote:
| There's an xkcd for that ;) https://xkcd.com/934/
| jodrellblank wrote:
| > " _theres a big chance for someone like Nokia to come in and
| develop their own approved distro_ "
|
| Microsoft bought Nokia's devices and services division for
| Windows Mobile in 2014.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Mobile
| bostik wrote:
| They killed any Linux device development at Nokia in 2011.
| Still salty about Elop shooting down a project we had spent 5
| years working towards.
|
| The holistic platform security for a combined phone/tablet
| base system would have been _really_ interesting.
| sn wrote:
| I'm not sure if I would have started using Linux but for
| buying an n800, so thanks for that.
|
| We never did get around to our funeral for Nokia, sadly.
| rbanffy wrote:
| I'll make sure I toast Nokia at Elop's funeral.
| bostik wrote:
| Hah, if you ever used the N800 media player you will have
| been exposed to a tiny bit of my code. Some of the UI
| polishes and usability tweaks were mine. (Well, someone
| else had figured out they needed to be done and the bug
| landed on my lap...)
|
| "/* Here be dragons */" in a particularly hideous
| d-pointer punching chain must have been a surprise for
| whomever eventually picked it up.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| > Personally I think we are at an interim period for a big
| player to emerge and take over this space...
|
| And even without a big player, the number of people who are
| entirely operational with just a browser at work is huge.
|
| Many SMEs already realized they can switch seamlessly between
| Windows and OS X / MacOS and I see people working on either one
| or the other. For example a desktop PC running Windows and a
| Mac laptop is not uncommon.
|
| I switched an employee at my wife's SME to... Debian! And the
| transition has been more than fine: they _live_ in the browser
| (Google Workspace, paid company subscription). Unattended-
| upgrades, a user account that cannot sudo, and that 's it.
|
| The number of desktop PC running Windows that are actually
| glorified browsers has to be through the roof.
|
| Once people realize there's no need to pay the double-whammy
| Microsoft tax (pay for a new Windows / also pay for a new PC),
| suddenly installing Linux becomes an option.
|
| Now I know: using Linux and Google is not "getting rid of US
| tech". But it's "getting of Microsoft" and that is fine with
| me. I'll never ever forgive the mediocrity this company has
| brought onto the world.
| jjcm wrote:
| I've been using linux as a daily driver since the start of the
| year.
|
| There's still a long ways to go before things "just work". It's
| about equivalent to windows right now in terms of frustrations,
| it's just that frustrations are more along the lines of "this
| is a bit wonky" instead of "this is malicious / was their
| intended behavior". It's gotten a LOT better, don't get me
| wrong, but it's still far off from what a typical user would
| need.
|
| I'd love to see either Valve or Nvidia really put in effort
| into creating their own hardware/software integration on a
| level that Apple does. I think it'd go a long way to
| legitimizing it.
| Terr_ wrote:
| Yeah, for example a bunch of my system updates began showing
| scary error notes because somehow there is a header
| inconsistency between the amdgpu driver and the kernel.
|
| I'm not regretting my choice, but it's also something where
| the average user can't just call Linux Support and get a "run
| X and it'll fix it" solution.
| chopin wrote:
| One can call Windows support? And get help?
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Arguably there are more support options for Windows
| because it's got fewer derivatives than Linux, and was
| historically more common on desktop.
| olivierestsage wrote:
| Do typical users care that much about a bit of jank, though?
| All the "typical users" I know are on spyware infested
| Windows laptops and just interpret the horrible shabbiness of
| the whole experience as being normal.
| rbanffy wrote:
| This is the saddest part - they actually think computers
| suck that much and don't know their lives could be a lot
| easier.
| tombert wrote:
| Thank you for saying something I've been saying for awhile:
| Linux definitely has jank, but I'm not convinced it's more
| janky than Windows.
|
| I think people are so used to Windows' awfulness that they
| kind of forget about how much bullshit is associated with it.
| Linux has bullshit too, though it's getting better, but when
| people talk about Linux jank they're always smuggling in an
| implication of Windows having _less_ jank, which I don 't
| concede at all.
| barney54 wrote:
| I don't think it's a question that Linux has more jank. I
| recently installed a fedora spin on a laptop that came with
| regular Fedora installed originally and the WiFi didn't
| work. That's some janky stuff right there.
| dismalaf wrote:
| > fedora spin
|
| Installing the equivalent of OS "slop" isn't Linux's
| fault... For better or worse the choice that is afforded
| by OSS licenses means that many of those choices will be
| bad.
| sph wrote:
| Meanwhile I haven't had a wireless issue on Linux since
| 2010 or so.
| tombert wrote:
| I've had wifi drivers not work with fresh installs of
| Windows as well, so that's hardly a unique Linux thing.
| I've also had to reboot Windows into special modes
| because apparently a driver from a Broadcom WiFi card was
| "unsigned", so I had to disable the check for that.
|
| I've also had registry corruptions, and I've had
| unprompted updates brick my hard drive because Windows
| Update is a terrible piece of software, because as far as
| I can tell the Windows "repair tools" have never worked
| for any human in history, and neither has System Restore.
|
| I've had updates in Linux break things but never so
| thoroughly as the time my mom got an automatic update
| where she literally could not boot in at all (because I
| think that the automatic update to Windows 11 that _she
| did not want or ask for_ screwed up the boot keys).
| Neikius wrote:
| After I replaced my last windows install a few years ago...
| Checking windows 11 on a friend's PC a few weeks ago was a
| nightmare. I considered myself a power user back in the day
| and I really struggled. So now I do have perspective from
| the other end and it fits the picture - windows is also
| jank it is just familiar jank for most people.
|
| There is another point too. The trend with Linux is up and
| improving slowly over decades. And for windows it seems to
| be the reverse and faster.
| vablings wrote:
| Ah the time old classic. Go into the registry and change
| these 3 keys that seeming have zero relation to the problem
| at hand and restart your machine TWICE then its fixed.
|
| Out of the box most popular distros require less tweaking
| and hammering into shape than a windows 11 install and that
| is a very important "feature"
| boznz wrote:
| Me too, I was a 30 year Windows developer and Electronics
| Engineer so I went pretty conservative with Kubuntu LTS and
| it's been a pretty slick experience. Gemini has been great
| tech support for all the CLI stuff and getting all of my
| weirder hardware projects interfaced (100% success rate to
| date). Just considering whether to delete my windows
| partition to put my MP3's on, as realistically I'm not going
| to get any more Windows Programming gigs.
| psadauskas wrote:
| I've been using Linux on the desktop off-and-on for 20 years.
| I used OSX for awhile 2008-2015 when they clearly had the
| best hardware, and the OS was pretty nice. I've been using
| KDE since then, and I recently installed Bazzite (Fedora+KDE-
| based) on my sans-windows gaming PC. I also started a new job
| this year, where I have to use the company-provided MBP for
| compliance reasons, after having not used MacOS since 2015.
| So all this is pretty fresh in my mind, and I'll say that
| 2025+ KDE is by far the best out-of-box experience for power
| users. It mostly just works, and anything you want to tweak
| is easy to find in the settings. Setting up modern MacOS with
| things like more keyboard shortcuts for window management,
| focus-follows-mouse or even remembering where windows where
| after waking up from sleep requires you to buy an app or pay
| a subscription.
|
| Linux may break more often, but you can almost always fix it
| with a quick google search. If it doesn't do what you want,
| there's certainly a setting or config or free app you can
| install that does.
|
| MacOS may break less often, but when it does you're mostly
| out of luck. It may do what you want more often, but if it
| doesn't you have to buy an app, if its even possible at all.
| DanielHB wrote:
| Have also been using Bazzite since march on my home desktop
| and you are spot on. I think the main reason for average
| person linux being difficult these days are laptops with
| weird hardware configurations.
|
| I use MacOS at work and although it is miles better than
| windows, if I had a choice, I would also use Linux for
| work.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| > Linux may break more often, but you can almost always fix
| it with a quick google search.
|
| And that's where the problem is: a quick google search.
| Laughably trivial for technical users. Non-trivial for the
| majority of the population.
|
| I love Linux and it is completely viable as a desktop
| operating system, but it's far from ready for mainstream
| without better support.
|
| For a rough analogy, I'd compare it to an old car before
| electronics. An old car is easy to work on and reliable if
| you do the maintenance. But an old car wouldn't be reliable
| for somebody who doesn't do any work on a car and
| outsources the maintenance.
|
| Linux excels when things go right. The failure modes are
| substantially worse and far more likely to occur. It
| doesn't matter if they're rare. They're not rare enough.
| And there isn't support when things go wrong.
|
| For example: It's difficult to make the macOS UI fail to
| start through configuration. You never need to directly
| touch configuration. (And you can't modify or delete macOS
| system files.)
|
| With Linux, some normal problems just have to be solved in
| the terminal. This allows you to put the system into a
| configuration where the GUI does not start.
| BobbyTables2 wrote:
| If you're using Fedora or Ubuntu, there may be some bumps.
|
| Use Debian or AlmaLinux and the ride is smoother.
| red_admiral wrote:
| big player + (standard) linux desktop may well be coming, but
| that means losing the semi-anarchist bazaar mentality. Will the
| standard be gnome or KDE or XFCE or ...? If gnome, version 2 or
| 3? Firefox or chrome as the default browser (or derivatives
| like waterfox or plain chromium ...)? AI integration?
|
| The moment you're developing for people with no IT experience
| and no CS degree, you're going to have to make tradeoffs like
| Microsoft or Google or Apple have to make today, and somehow
| deal with the "curl ... |sh" problem.
| fao_ wrote:
| > but that means losing the semi-anarchist bazaar mentality.
|
| The places you mention are already receiving huge doses of
| industry funding funnelled through the Linux Foundation.
| Honestly, it looks like the standard is going to be KDE. Even
| microsoft is copying it for their next DE:
| https://www.webpronews.com/microsoft-windows-ripping-off-
| kde...
| 1718627440 wrote:
| Why does there need to be a standard application for
| everything? Is there a default pencil vendor? A default
| printer vendor? Paper? Car manufacturer? Taxi company? Just
| let people buy/get whatever vendor/application they like. I
| rather see more interoperational standards.
| red_admiral wrote:
| I guarantee you, in a large enough organisation, there will
| be exactly one approved pencil supplier. That's how
| corporate purchasing works.
|
| There's a lot of cases where this actually makes sense for
| compliance, support, and service level agreements between
| your org and the vendor's among many other cases. It just
| gets annoying when you absolutely cannot buy coffee beans
| from shop B on the team consumables budget because we have
| an exclusive contract with shop A.
|
| In a governmental organisation, you might even need a
| public bidding process for any supplier contract big enough
| to cover printers and their ink/toner, as well as a support
| contract if something breaks.
| 1718627440 wrote:
| Yeah, and this is fine. This is basically what I meant, a
| company can just select and potentially make a contract
| for a specific application. That's how it works for
| everything. My point was that there doesn't need to be
| the unique single global vendor/application a priori.
| cineticdaffodil wrote:
| Personally i think there is a huge innovationspace for pipe
| connected agents doing work for the user.. a example:
|
| A firefox agent downloading pictures of cats.. piping them to a
| graphics program drawing mustaches on them piping them to a
| moviemaker piping them to a firefox video uploading "the
| longest catswithmustaches" shorts compilation ever.. all
| clicked together in a "incredibble machine" like explorer by a
| user who doesent even know how to code..
| tim-projects wrote:
| But you can do that already with bash pipes. Doing it through
| the GUI just adds mega complexity
| cineticdaffodil wrote:
| You can. I can. But with ai writing the glue code from a
| visible editor everyone can.
| dschep wrote:
| > "theres a big chance for someone like Nokia to come in and
| develop their own approved distro"
|
| SUSE is a German company, so probably nothing to even develop.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Does SUSE normally come up in conversations about "easy to
| use" linux distros for "normal" users?
|
| I'm not in that world, so this is a genuine question. The
| last time I looked at SUSE it seemed typically German in
| being uniquely complicated for no good reason, but that was
| years ago.
| alecsm wrote:
| Suse is easy to use, just not mainstream.
| Neikius wrote:
| I am suse user for 20+ years with a big break in between.
| To me it fits the best. Ubuntu I gave up on a while ago and
| came back to find things so much nicer.
|
| They have a slightly different take on immutable than
| redhat but it also works well (rollback and all). Also the
| tumbleweed rolling is quite stable for a bleeding edge
| rolling release distro. Using it on a few boxes for the
| last few years and also installing it for other PC noobs
| and they seem fine with it.
| dismalaf wrote:
| Yes. It was as easy to use as Windows was like 30 years
| ago. It's still easy to use.
|
| The only difficult part about Linux is the fact that people
| can't learn, so absolutely anything being different from
| Windows is a roadblock to the average person (I still
| remember the societal meltdown when MS changed the
| interface in their Office apps, or Windows 8...)
| looperhacks wrote:
| I remember SUSE not being harder to use then any other
| desktop distribution. But it has a lot, and I mean a lot of
| knobs to turn if you want to. But you don't have to.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| It was a pretty amusing comment to me. Not only has SUSE been
| around for over 30 years, it was the very first enterprise
| Linux and it already has MDM tooling in the multi-Linux
| manager, repository mirroring tool, open-build system, Kiwi,
| edge image builder. Everything to build out a full enterprise
| suite of servers, workstations, customized kiosk OSes,
| already there. I'm more of the "give me my terminal or give
| me death" crowd, but it even has YaST and JeOS for the GUI-
| driven installation and config management that is seemingly
| what the non-tech crowd wants. A world apart from what the
| "solo indie devs" of Hacker News are paying attention to,
| especially in the US, but if Euro governments don't know
| about this already, that's on them. France doesn't need to
| roll its own shit unless it just wants to for the hell of it.
| krsw wrote:
| Yeah, I think if Windows 11 is going subscription based (plus
| all the copilot pushing garbage and even more baked in ads)
| that will be a strong incentive to switch to Linux or SteamOS.
| I barely even play games enough anymore to make a desktop
| worthwhile. Might just jump to Mac only.
| wolvoleo wrote:
| They can't do that, when they've already sold you lifetime
| licenses.
|
| They could however introduce a subscription-only windows 12
| and have harsh cut-off requirements like they did with
| windows 11.
| boznz wrote:
| A subscription-only OS would effectively kill Windows, but
| MS have made enough pretty weird decisions to cripple the
| product I wouldn't put it past them.
| estimator7292 wrote:
| They also "can't" screengrab your credit card numbers or
| upload all your private data to their cloud for inspection,
| or steal your email password and download all your mail to
| a Microsoft server, or send fake emails about full OneDrive
| to trick you into subscribing.
|
| "Can't" only applies when someone is willing to stop them,
| and nobody is. Microsoft can do pretty much anything they
| want and there's basically nothing you can do about it.
| babypuncher wrote:
| I'm pretty sure "can't" in this context is legally
| binding. Windows licenses up to this point have been sold
| without expiration dates. If Microsoft suddenly started
| charging a subscription to keep using the same copy of
| Windows, evey law firm on the planet would jump on that
| in an instant.
|
| What GP proposed is the much more likely avenue they
| would take: New version of Windows with a new licensing
| model. It would probably kill their consumer business
| overnight, but at least it wouldn't get their lawyers
| laughed out of a courtroom.
| bccdee wrote:
| "Can't" means it would be bad for business. I think
| consumers are a lot less turned off by the idea of a
| OneDrive subscription than a Windows subscription. Better
| to stitch little services like OneDrive and Copilot into
| every part of the system and cajole people into paying
| for those instead.
| jaspanglia wrote:
| Wish it would succeed, other day was reading about stuff and
| figure out, how much European Tech is actually controlled by
| American/Israeli Hegemony.
| frugalmail wrote:
| Any closed source, centralized system is going to be higher risk
| than an open source distributed system that can be independently
| verified and audited by multiple parties.
|
| You just have to be willing to put in the investment to
| verify/review with parties that meet your needs.
| oscord wrote:
| Ditch iOS and Android for a Blackberry OS / Nokia ? Really, are
| there any alternatives?
| amarant wrote:
| SailfishOS, Ubuntu touch, and postmarketOS to name a few from
| the top of my dome.
|
| Nokia isn't really an alternative at all since M$ bought it.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Motorola and grapheneos? If only the French government weren't
| attacking Graphene.
|
| As for desktop, I suppose the only major European options are
| Ubuntu and SUSE with corporate backing.
| microtonal wrote:
| The French government _and_ Murena (makers of /e/OS). They
| are spouting nonsense that security hardening is only for
| pedophiles and spies:
|
| https://mastodon.social/@GrapheneOS@grapheneos.social/116353.
| ..
|
| https://www.clubic.com/actualite-604786-murena-e-os-
| intervie...
|
| It's ironic that a company that pretends to be for privacy is
| using the same _think of the children_ argument as those
| pushing Chat Control, age verification, etc. Of course, their
| privacy is mostly a farce, since they have also been caught
| uploading data to OpenAI for text-to-speechi
|
| I hope that more European governments will start supporting
| GrapheneOS, since it can compete with Apple on security and
| is better than Apple and GMS Android when it comes to
| privacy.
| selectively wrote:
| Political posturing that will never actually occur.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| So did the Great Country of North Korea.
| idoubtit wrote:
| The title is very far from the actual public statement that is
| linked in the article.
|
| The French government announced that its digital agency will
| switch to Linux during this year. This is about a few hundreds of
| computers owned by the agency.
|
| The second statement is that this agency is expected to publish,
| by the end of the year, a plan to reduce the digital dependency
| on the US. It's not "France to ditch Windows", it should be
| "French government promises to plan soon for possible ways to
| decrease digital dependencies, but calendar unknown". Also note
| that the government (and president) will change next year, so
| even if the present drive was real, a political u-turn could come
| soon.
|
| Overall, this statement could be the presage of a major upturn in
| a few years, but I think it far more probable that the policy
| change will be minor. There's already a small tendency toward
| Linux and Free Software in the public sector.
| PoignardAzur wrote:
| Uh, TIL the DINUM still used Windows. I wonder what held them,
| it's certainly not a lack of familiarity with Linux.
|
| I feel you're underselling the second statement a bit:
|
| > _Each ministry (including operators) will be required to
| finalize its own [migration] plan by fall_
|
| This sounds like there's actual pressure to start moving soon,
| especially for adopting existing DINUM solutions.
|
| (I agree the title is clickbait.)
| Chance-Device wrote:
| Who do they think writes Linux? The European Commission? They're
| on the US tech stack whether they want to be or not, and nobody
| in Europe has the will or resources to pull a China and make
| their own alternative. More's the pity.
| alecsm wrote:
| Linux was created by an European. And there are many European
| distros. Even Canonical is European.
|
| But that's besides the point. The point is no company owns
| linux so you're not tied to big tech even if they are the
| biggest contributors to the kernel.
| pragma_x wrote:
| Moreover for the folks in the back row...
|
| We may see Canonical or other commercial Linux vendors come
| forward with a government or enterprise-flavored solution for
| all this. But the important thing to keep in mind is that
| they're not selling Linux per-se. As the GPL prohibits this,
| these companies sell support for their Linux distro instead.
| That revenue goes into improving Linux and maintaining their
| distro (e.g. Ubuntu). But even with all that money changing
| hands, that they do not own Linux, the Linux kernel, or any
| other shred of GPL licensed stuff.
| dismalaf wrote:
| 2/3 major commercial Linux vendors are European, the author and
| BDFL of the Kernel is European and a ton of contributors of
| many projects are European (Qt and KDE come to mind). Yes IBM
| Hat has a lot of influence but they're not the only ones
| developing Linux.
| afewquarks wrote:
| I know this might be a controversial take but nevertheless I will
| state my opinion: I do not think "the year of the Linux desktop"
| is the good idea that most people seem to think. Everything that
| gets the eye of Sauron on it proceeds to become a complete mess.
|
| Resources always win. All that is needed to ruin an open project
| is dump money into heavy development up to the point where it
| becomes impossible to do without it. Plenty such cases already.
|
| This also ruins the development of the project akin to feeding
| wild life, you get them dependent on you, and if you stop feeding
| them they lose the ability to feed themselves in the wild. Such
| is the Linux ecosystem, based on a type of work that so far made
| a great project for people who have a bit of technical skills.
| Making it more accessible to the masses only brings that kind of
| bullshit into it. Inevitably. There is no way something of such
| importance, to the masses, won't get corrupted in one way or
| another. That never happens, if there is too much interest there
| will be funds dumped into corrupting it, one way or another.
|
| The best path forward for Linux was as before, to fly just under
| the radar, to bee a bit too complicated for most people. This is
| what protects it. Most, if anyone, don't seem to understand this
| very simple fact. No older Linux user gets anything worthwhile
| out of this deal, nothing relevant, just inevitable
| enshitification of it. Historically proven over and over again. I
| find "the year of the Linux desktop" to be a childish take in a
| world that functions on completely different principles.
|
| edit: To add a bit more context, Windows is not the mess that it
| is today because of evil Microsoft, it is a reflection of its
| user-base. Same with Linux. They did that to Windows, with their
| behavior, with accepting all that nonsense.
|
| You want to bring the very same type of people, with that kind of
| attitude, in Linux, what exactly do you thing is going to happen?
| They will adapt to Linux mentality or they'll proceed to ruin
| Linux with their behavior? I can take a good guess on what will
| happen. People will people, and corpos will corpo to milk them.
| phainopepla2 wrote:
| Linux is already integral to the tech and enterprise worlds,
| which have a lot more money to throw around the consumer
| desktop space. I'm having trouble seeing how Linux becoming a
| more popular consumer OS would lead to the types of problems
| you're talking about, if being a leader in the server space
| hasn't already led to them.
|
| Also, Linux has a built-in mechanism against enshittification,
| which is its open source and multiple flavors. Ubuntu becomes
| enshittified? Move to Fedora. You can have a dumbed down
| consumer-friendly distro without affecting Arch.
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| > The best path forward for Linux was as before, to fly just
| under the radar, to bee a bit too complicated for most people.
|
| Obviously with people like you, Linux would never be popular.
| Personally I'm fine with that, Linux is just too damn buggy and
| inconsistent for my usage, but I'm pretty sure that it could
| benefits people. Think of students or people in low income
| countries.
|
| And then, what prevents you from having a mainstream friendly
| distribution that just work, and another for the nerd who want
| to spend their day in the terminal ?
|
| Linux isn't just one distribution, one doesn't prevent the
| other but currently it sure isn't for mainstream usage.
| hackerbeat wrote:
| Good. The US is gone.
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| Side note but I had absolutely no idea that the USA sanctioned
| international justice court judges because they had put an arrest
| warrant on Benjamin Netanyahu.
|
| Its not a surprise from Russia but the USA. I guess we're right
| to cut all bridges as fast as possible with the USA.
| liendolucas wrote:
| All countries should follow suit.
|
| Nations and individuals can't depend or be held hostages of a
| handful of companies on the other side of the Atlantic that have
| the will to do whatever they want with their customers data.
|
| This is the right path to follow and wish that in upcoming years
| this initiative becomes a reality across the globe. Long success
| for Linux and all BSDs!
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