[Aussie Keith]

Given how many applications now run in a browser, makes complete sense to me.

Tamil Nadu's XP migration plan: Go Linux like a BOSS ? The Register

The Indian State of Tamil Nadu will solve its Windows XP problem by adopting Linux.

Tamil Nadu is home to over 70 million people and its capital city is Chennai, a hub for India's business process outsourcing industry second only to Bangalore.

The decision to move to Linux is outlined in this letter (PDF) from the State's Information Technology Department. The letter points out what we all know about Windows XP support ending next week, notes that Bharat Operating System Solutions Linux is a fine replacement for XP and suggests to all department heads that they adopt the operating system.

The letter explains that “the support cost for BOSS is very minimal compared to other Linux flavours” and that is low, low price of $0.00 means “the huge investment cost involved in purchasing closed softwares may be avoided, which in turn translates into huge savings for the Government.”

And that's before we consider hardware: it sounds like Tamil Nadu has no plans to replace its current XP PCs.

Tamil Nadu's web site lists 37 departments, 125 municipalities and 1,127 “Firkas” or revenue collection areas. We mention those data points in an attempt to point out the scale of this upgrade. If we imagine that each municipality has 10 PCs and each Firka one, we quickly get to a couple of thousand PCs. If each department has 100 PCs we're at over 5,000 PCs about to get an injection of FOSS BOSS.

We've not been able to find a source describing the number of people Tamil Nadu employes, so those are pretty conservative estimates but even at 5,000 PCs this has the potential to be a significant Linux on the desktop implementation.

There's also Tamil Nadu's influence to consider: the State may only be home to about five per cent of India's population, but is among the more developed regions of the country. Where Tamil Nadu goes, others may follow. If more Indian states start to embrace Linux on the desktop, the many announcements Microsoft made about Windows this week may have less impact than it hopes for. ®

[Phil №❶]

Try and get Google Earth to run on Linux without resorting to Dos type commands. It's a nightmare.

Until Linux is totally GUI driven, it won't overtake Winders, even though it's much more stable, just sayin.

It is getting better all the time though.

[Aussie Keith]

Its just a matter of what a user is most familiar with.

How to install Google Earth in Linux with one command

Although some people share your view that its a nuisance they admit to not being familiar with Linux. For those who are its a snap. Same thing goes for Win users who try to use the Apple OS as well. Easy if you know how, otherwise it takes a bit longer. And its supposed to be easy. And even with a Mac you may still need to crack open the console from time to time to sort out issues, same as with Windows.

Getting back the the Indian situation, users won't be needing to install anything, just to operate it. Most things they need to do I expect will be browser based. You can even front Microsoft's brave new world of Office 365 with a browser in Linux. So one of the key arguments for needing Windows just went out the window.

Is Office 365 the best thing that’s ever happened to Linux? | PC Pro blog

For those welded to desktop apps, what about Open Office. There are plenty of other choices as well:

Best office suites for Linux: 5 reviewed and rated | News | TechRadar

I doubt that Linux is going to overtake Windows any time soon, but for organisations that have carefully considered their needs and weighed up their options, it is now a viable alternative. Individuals too in many cases.

[tla]

A few days ago there was a newspaper article reporting that around 80% of ATMs are running XP.  Many of the ATM manufacturers are deciding to go down the Linux path to avoid future upgrade problems similar to that currently faced with XP.   Of course, they also avoid the licensing costs of upgrading to Win7/8/CE.

I'm running Linux Mint, plus XP on a VirtualBox VM.  I tried using Win7 and 8 on the VM, but it is significantly slower and sometimes hangs.  So, I'll be sticking with XP until VirtualBox improves their support for Win7/8.

[The Gonz]

Woof!

[Phil №❶]

Nice

Puppy.