South Korean government plans to replace Windows 7 with Linux

linux

A few months after the end of Windows 7 support, andThe South Korean government plans to move to Linux instead of continuing with Windows 10, an option that seems logically less painful given the accounting of the operating system.

The Korean Ministry of Interior and Security announced a few days ago that it will test Linux before of being able to implement more open source operating systems in government, if the evidence is conclusive.

This decision follows concerns about Windows 7 maintenance costs, Since Microsoft's free technical support for the operating system will expire in January 2020.

The transition to Linux and the purchase of new PCs is expected to cost around $ 780 billion. But the head of the ministry's digital services bureau, Choi Jang-hyuk, said that they expect cost savings through the introduction of the open source operating system and also want to avoid relying on a system of

Pre-check to the adoption of Linux by the whole government It will consist of verifying that the system can be run on private network devices without security risk and that compatibility with existing websites and software designed to run under Windows is guaranteed.

This is surely an operation that will be followed very closely, not only by Linux fans, but also by those who, for different reasons, believe that migrating from Windows to Linux is an absurd decision.

It is not only to change the system, but also to adjust to the needs

Windows to Linux migration sounds goodn in the ears of many administrations and localities, but in practice it is a difficult procedure.

If switching to Linux is supposed to save money in the long run, any change has costs, sometimes very high, that should be assumed in the short term between them teaching employees to use the system, which requires training expenses.

Munich a case to learn from

Even so, it is necessary to estimate these costs from the beginning, which would not have been the case in the example of Munich, this city, announced as a pioneer of open source, decided to return to Windows from 2020.

It should not be forgotten that users are resistant to change. Therefore, care must be taken to adequately support users so that they can easily adopt this new change, otherwise it will be the assured fiasco.

In the case of Munich, en route, it was reported that 20% of LiMux users (your Linux distribution) was not satisfied or did not understand the use of the new system, while other reports spoke in place of 40%.

This could be explained, on the one hand, by the fact that user support was not directed correctly.

And on the other hand, the fact that it was difficult to exchange documents with other administrations in Germany.

According to a German policy, documents were supposed to be provided in an open format, but Munich regularly received documents in proprietary formats. So installing an open source system and training people to use it is not enough.

All of these factors, among others, make the risk of failure significant. The proof is that after Munich, a major migration from Linux to Windows was announced in Lower Saxony, a federal state of Germany.

In fact, Lower Saxony has decided to follow in Munich's footsteps and migrate, in turn, thousands of computers from Linux to Windows.

The authorities explained this decision by the fact that many of Land's field agents and helpline services were already using Windows and as such, it seemed quite logical to carry out standardization.

Therefore, one wonders if South Korea will start and fit better in the success stories of a Windows to Linux migration procedure.


4 comments, leave yours

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  1.   Juliosao said

    As they do it in one go it smells like a safe hostion, and of the fat ones.

    A migration with both user and features should be done little by little. First, for example, substituting office for libreoffice (this already saves a pasture) and then little by little the different programs that they use for their multiplatform equivalents. That way, users get used to it and the change is not so dramatic. Once this is done, if we are still interested we can move on to the next phase, and if not, then the failure is not absolute, we will have released a good part of the software and we will have saved a dough on licenses.

    Then once the applications are migrated, it is the turn of the OS, I think the best thing to do again is to do it little by little as old PCs are changed for new ones (that we know are compatible with Linux as standard). This has several advantages, on the one hand, being migration again does not generate a tsunami of complaints, on the other, users who have been with Linux for longer can support new ones in daily tasks where they have doubts (thus partly releasing to technical service) and finally, by doing it little by little we can detect and act on any problem before it expands too much and generates a lot of fuss.

    But that's what, going directly from windows + office + foo to linux + libreoffice + wine executing that foo is a guarantee of hostion and a failed project.

  2.   Miguel Mayol i Tur said

    Migrating at once is hyper simple. Libre Office and Chromium, which is the most used, is used IN THE SAME WAY the rest of the programs are the same.

    Users hardly ever configure anything relevant, and their desktop will have a lot more options if they want.

    And if they have employees so dumb that they only know how to write with the only version of MSO they know, better hire others.

    With the Munich thing they should be careful, that is, agree with the opposition to do this and to fine MS with banning its use in the country if it tries to bribe the opposition until it wins to reverse the changes. The aforementioned report was commissioned by the bribed government to justify the change, nothing scientific.

    PS: EVERYONE, that is to say 99, some hundred percent of large corporations are using Linux on servers, including MS itself in its Cloud services, that small companies do not, including desktops, is due to ignorance of their technicians , which does not usually happen in the administration or in large companies.

  3.   Jonatan said

    They should look for online alternatives like Nextcloud + onlyoffice / collabora for document management. Having our own servers at the local network level, training staff to use that and then the operating system and office automation tools of each local PC becomes irrelevant.

  4.   asgard said

    I don't see it feasible. Working for several years in Korea I have seen that they cannot do anything without Windows + Internet Explorer. Things like online banking, online appointments to the government, social security, immigration, the local system of the company, etc. need not only these but an amalgam of programs that also need NET and other Microsoft dependencies. Many times it is impossible to do anything with a firefox / opera / chrome and forget if you work on linux or mac. Changing all this is going to be impossible.