South Korean government will ditch Microsoft Windows for Linux

[P4-630]

Windows 7 support will end in January of next year, and that is a huge problem for both business and home users that are still running the aging operating system. Can't these people just upgrade to Windows 10? Well, yeah, but many just don't want to. Windows 10 has extreme telemetry that many people consider to be spying. As a result, they simply don't trust Microsoft's latest operating system. Not to mention, for businesses and organizations with many computers, the upgrade to Windows 10 could prove to be a costly affair.

And now, as a result of the upcoming death of Windows 7 support, the South Korean government has reportedly decided to ditch Microsoft Windows entirely. According to The Korea Herald, the Asian country's government will switch from Windows 7 to a Linux-based operating system.

Unfortunately, it is not yet revealed which Linux distribution will be used. What we do know, however, is South Korea won't act blindly -- they will test Linux extensively before switching. It is likely they will try various distributions before settling on just one.

Moving to Linux will be fairly pricey in the short term, as it is expected to cost more than a half billion dollars (including hardware upgrades). With that said, Choi Jang-hyuk, Service Bureau Chief of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, is predicting a long term cost savings by switching to an open source operating system.

Whether the South Korean government truly saves money from this move remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure -- they will no longer be beholden to Microsoft. That could be priceless.

South Korea will ditch Microsoft Windows for Linux

Windows 7 support will end in January of next year, and that is a huge problem for both business and home users that are still running the aging operating system. Can't these people just upgrade to Windows 10? Well, yeah, but many just don't want to. Windows 10 has extreme telemetry that many...

betanews.com

 

[Rahnak]

I've seen this story before. They're going to switch to some Linux distro and spend a lot of money/time training people how to use it. After 6-12 months they'll give up and spend some more money to switch back to Windows.

 

[Frick]

With WSL 2.0 Linux will soon be EEE'd to death (sarcasm). So pretty useless move there, Korea.

 

[micropage7]

actually linux is promising but if we talk about what is more familiar, of course windows and one that i still dont like is although it's GUI some you must run through CLI and if you move into linux in like one department, how about the cost that needed

 

[s3thra]

Like with any major enterprise software migration, it needs to be clear up front what the objective of the change is. A cost benefit analysis must be a significant deciding factor in the move, which in turn needs to be weighed up against things such as enterprise risk.

It appears in this case, Windows and Microsoft's approach to telemetry is a pretty big enterprise risk for the South Korean government, otherwise they wouldn't be looking to move.

Unfortunately for South Korea, and many other governments, organizations and businesses for that matter, it is VERY hard to move away from Windows. Windows is so entrenched in the enterprise space that it is damn near impossible to move away. I know in my organization, I've barely even considered the move due to various factors:

1. Software compatibility - our engineers need AutoCAD to work, our graphics designers need Photoshop and Illustrator to work, and our finance folk need Excel to work. And that's only a few of the scenarios. I won't even go into detail about all of the other moving parts - little niche bits of software that have been relied upon for years for very specific tasks which have become more or less mission critical to our organizational needs which will only ever be Win32 compatible.
2. User training - not just existing employees, but everyone coming out of the universities or people coming in from other businesses expecting to run Windows and knowing the basics of how things work. There's often no time to go through the basics, and organizations aren't geared up to train people on the basics as they walk through the door.
3. Administration - I'm talking about IT techs. I'd be okay, but I've been building enterprise Linux servers at work, and using Linux in the home for years. This simply isn't the case for a huge portion of the IT sysadmin community though.

Don't get me wrong, Linux is where it's at. It's lean, mean, open, private, configurable beyond belief, easy if you have the background knowledge, and hugely powerful. But unfortunately there are huge challenges involved if wanting to migrate an entire organization away in one fell swoop like South Korea are going to try to do.

It will be interesting to see how it plays out for them.

 

[Athlonite]

Good luck with that South Korea

 

[64K]

I don't know very much about Linux but I wonder, since it's open source, if that would open up the South Korean govt. to all kinds of hacking.

 

[dorsetknob]

"Don" Satya Narayana Nadella will make them an offer they cannot refuse ( or the Penguin's head is in the post ) ........(capisce)

 

[s3thra]

I don't know very much about Linux but I wonder, since it's open source, if that would open up the South Korean govt. to all kinds of hacking.

https://opensource.com/open-source-myths

 

[R-T-B]

I don't know very much about Linux but I wonder, since it's open source, if that would open up the South Korean govt. to all kinds of hacking.

Most likely the opposite. Open source helps with auditing.

Good luck with that South Korea

Most distros today can do anything I picture a government needing to do fine. I don't see them having much or any issues provided they don't game... lol.

 

[johnspack]

Any version of Ubuntu will do far better than any win 10 installation. Easy to use, free, and doesn't spy the f* out of you. Win, win.

 

[blobster21]

it's just the governement making this move, not the inhabitant, so we're talking about what, 10000-100000 computers affected by this migration ?

 

[ShiBDiB]

Speaking as a government employee (US) I know that if we switched from windows to a linux flavor we'd be screwed... Teaching some people I work with how to sign into their email or connect a printer is a struggle on an OS that does it for you.

 

[64K]

Speaking as a government employee (US) I know that if we switched from windows to a linux flavor we'd be screwed... Teaching some people I work with how to sign into their email or connect a printer is a struggle on an OS that does it for you.

Where I work there are around 7,000 employees and we have an IT dept capable of maintaining around 10,000 PCs but we would have to hire an outside firm to retrain all of the employees on Linux and it's just not in the budget to do so. In addition, new hires would have to go through some training because most people only know Windows and MS Office. We are stuck with Win 10 and MS Office.

Almost all of the employees have a Bachelors degree and some have a Masters or a Doctorate but that doesn't necessarily equate to picking up new tech quickly.

 

[Ferrum Master]

Where I work there are around 7,000 employees and we have an IT dept capable of maintaining around 10,000 PCs but we would have to hire an outside firm to retrain all of the employees on Linux and it's just not in the budget to do so. In addition, new hires would have to go through some training because most people only know Windows and MS Office. We are stuck with Win 10 and MS Office.

Almost all of the employees have a Bachelors degree and some have a Masters or a Doctorate but that doesn't necessarily equate to picking up new tech quickly.

They are a very competitive nation. For each workplace they have like two breathing on your neck. It will iron out really fast for them.

 

[ratirt]

Speaking as a government employee (US) I know that if we switched from windows to a linux flavor we'd be screwed... Teaching some people I work with how to sign into their email or connect a printer is a struggle on an OS that does it for you.

Well I used Linux some time ago. Knoppix, Ubuntu and others and to be honest it isn't that difficult as you say. The IT would have to configure an image and set it up but after that is done if you use proper layout for the users it can look basically like windows. The problem I see is the application they are using. For instance Finance department. There are so many of these applications and some of them might not work on Linux based system. That would be a problem. That's just on top of my head as an example but there are hundreds more in various departments in a company. That also depends on the servers they are using which some of the features they need may not be supported but also some features may have better support and extended functionality. I'm sure if the Koreans said they want to switch to Linux, they have done the background research and I don't think they are screwed.

 

[R-T-B]

Teaching some people I work with how to sign into their email or connect a printer is a struggle on an OS that does it for you.

I really wonder sometimes what people think modern linux does...

 

[Ferrum Master]

I really wonder sometimes what people think modern linux does...

I also wonder... because the browser is the same everywhere... i would agree about some obscure vintage corporate active X controls, certificates, DRM like trustNET to access some sites... okay, I agree it would cause pain.

But else? As long you are the admin to cherry pick the HW in order not to stumble to some crap realtek driver that are the only ones in my experience that are pushed into the kernel and doesn't work for ages...

 

[hat]

I wonder. We had Linux machines as well as Windows machines in my school. I mostly remember the Linux machines being in the library. There would be 4 screens to a single computer. It was surely a cost cutting measure for the school, but I never heard other students complaining about the Linux computers...

 

[ShiBDiB]

I really wonder sometimes what people think modern linux does...

I also wonder how the linux fanboys still think it's comparable in ease of use to windows...

 

[R-T-B]

I also wonder how the linux fanboys still think it's comparable in ease of use to windows...

I mean, have you used a distro recently? The tasks you quoted are.

I'm not a linux "fanboy" (It's still inferior for gaming) but I toy with it on occasion and man, it's apparent some people have not used it in quite a while.

 

[ShiBDiB]

I mean, have you used a distro recently? The tasks you quoted are.

I'm not a linux "fanboy" (It's still inferior for gaming) but I toy with it on occasion and man, it's apparent some people have not used it in quite a while.

It's still nowhere close. Simple things like plug and play compatibility with most printers/wifi dongles/etc.. is non-existent. The process of manually finding and installing drivers is a pain in the balls on a good day. The lack of a microsoft office suite for linux should be enough to turn professional agencies away, libreoffice (or whatever knockoff flavor you like) is a knockoff for a reason. The lack of name brand support (or half assed support) for most products.

It's not a daily driver for the non tech inclined. To say otherwise is asinine. Windows sucks for numerous reason, but as a mainstream OS it's lightyears ahead of any nix flavor out there.

 

[R-T-B]

It's still nowhere close. Simple things like plug and play compatibility with most printers/wifi dongles/etc.. is non-existent.

I haven't found anything that isn't detected immediately. At worst, it needs firmware from the package manager.

The process of manually finding and installing drivers is a pain in the balls on a good day.

That's because "drivers" are a foreign concept on linux. If they aren't in the package manager, you shouldn't be installing them, and nearly all "drivers" ship with the OS other than the nvidia binary ones and a few very rare holdouts.

Honestly it sounds like a case of RTFM and don't apply windows concepts to a nonwindows OS. Linux doesn't use "drivers." You break things thinking like that. You use the package manager. And it almost always has a GUI.

It's not a daily driver for the non tech inclined. To say otherwise is asinine.

No, it's actually easier because 90% of the time things just work plug n' play. I can't remember the last time I had to load a "driver" other than nvidia.

What it isn't easy for is an experienced WINDOWS user treating it exactly like Windows, which it is certainly not.

 

[ShiBDiB]

"Your rant"

All your counterpoints are reasons why linux is not a daily driver for the non tech inclined.

 

[Solaris17]

On the contrary, I run entire *nix infrastructures and while I am very much an advocate for all OSs (right tool for the job) I would argue its easier for me to secure my linux servers than it is my Windows machines.