Munich council handing out free Linux distribution CD`s to replace Windows.

The Munich council is handing out free Linux CD`s to help replace Linux on the desktop. This can only be a good thing when Windows XP is no longer supported with upgrades on the desktop. There is a case study here: http://blog.credativ.com/en/2013/01/case-study-munich-city-council.html this describes the migration process of the council from Windows XP to Linux. This is using a distribution server to install and configure each desktop. This is a good way to distribute and configure each desktop computer. Another way is by using a PXE installation image. This page for Oracle Linux explains how to do this: http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E20815_01/html/E20821/gisti.html. This way you can just boot the installation image on each computer and install a Linux image to the computer. Here is how to do this with OpenSUSE. This page covers all of the steps required to create a PXE boot image for OpenSUSE Linux: https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:PXE_boot_installation. This is a way to boot a remote operating system over the network using a Preboot eXecution Environment boot method. If the Munich council had a network of thin clients wherever possible and they used these to boot a remote Linux distribution from a server, this would be a very cheap way to have a usable network of computers to create documents with Libreoffice and browse the web safely using Firefox.

Linux has more security than Windows XP by a long margin, the migration away from a proprietary Windows operating system to a secure and open Linux OS is the best thing that the Munich council has done so far. If only the local library I visit would move away from XP. They still use Windows XP in 2013, but I guess once the reality of no more patches and service packs sinks in they might move to Windows 7. Linux Mint or Fedora would be perfect for a LAN there, they just use the computers for office documents as well as Internet browsing. All of which works very well on Linux. This aggressive push by the Munich council should be something that other councils around the world could adopt. The open source world is one of security and regular patching of software as security issues are found. There are security problems on Linux as well as Windows, but they are dealt with more quickly. You do not need to wait for patch Tuesday to get a fix for the issue. That is a stupid idea, much like the architecture of Windows that makes it much easier for malicious software to get into the system. There is more information about Linux security on this website: http://www.linuxsecurity.com/. Read this site to get news on any security issues. This is why you need to make sure that your Linux system is always up to date with security patches. Use sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade to fetch and install security updates for your Linux system.

On an OpenSUSE system, type sudo zypper ref && sudo zypper up to install all pending updates. For Fedora systems, type su -c ‘yum update’ to install updates system wide. This is a good command to run daily to install all pending updates. Early adopters of Linux are enjoying the freedom and security that comes with an open source operating system that respects your rights. The Red Star Linux distribution that China created is one example of a country developing their own desktop solution to avoid the expense of deploying Windows on all of their machines. The NSA owned IBM Roadrunner supercomputer uses Linux as its chosen operating system. This is dues to the inbuilt clustering support in Linux. In November 2008, it reached a top performance of 1.456 Petaflops, this is quite impressive for a Linux supercomputer. So why are you running Windows again?