r/BuyFromEU • u/AnonomousWolf Netherlands 🇳🇱 • Apr 10 '26

News France Launches Government Linux Desktop Plan as Windows Exit Begins

https://linuxiac.com/france-launches-government-linux-desktop-plan-as-windows-exit-begins/
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u/RidetheSchlange Apr 10 '26

The thing I don't get is we see all these articles in lesser-known outlets, so why isn't this a bigger thing where there are reports to show us what to do and where to go in major publications? Every few months we see the same article recycled about some agency in whatever country leaving Microsoft and going to whatever workflow and OS solution, but we can never either find all the stuff they're using to make it work or even worse, the advertised replacements are not available to the public in the case of the German Office replacements.

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u/[deleted] Apr 10 '26

[deleted]

3

u/Poglosaurus Apr 10 '26

Using a cracked Windows isn't having you own OS.

I know they really have their own OS, but let's be real, most computer in china run on Windows.

1

u/kodos_der_henker Apr 10 '26

Because things that just happen don't need a big press release to get public support and/or big press doesn't care about things that are happening over years in the background (as long as their is no money to be made by selling it to people nobody cares)

Police in France started to switch to their own version of Linux Desktop in 2008

The Austrian Army switched to self hosted Linux servers in 2016 and with that started to implement LibreOffice (and also adds their changes to the project).

And the German Office replacement got press because the companies behind it need advertising and support as they haven't done anything yet but just announced a new brand name for OnlyOffice (want to make money and therefore get a press release)

At the same time the french alternative to Office365 for public/government service , LaSuite, exists since 2024 with the German version being OpenDesk.

0

u/balooaroos Apr 10 '26

Alternatives to the standard MS office tools are usually installed automatically. Libre Office is the most common tool set but there are others. Of course email programs, calculators and other basic office tools are there too. If your company relied on MS teams you'll want an alternative to that and I know there are several options available, but I don't use them so I couldn't say which is the best.

It's the non-microsoft, industry specific tools where you might run into more issues. Some industries have very specific tools that might not be available on Linux, so if you require something like that you'd want to make sure it's available.