French national police switch desktop computers to Linux

[froggyboy604]

France’s National Gendarmerie — a national law enforcement agency — is now running 37,000 desktop PCs with a custom version of the Linux operating system, and by summer of next year, the agency plans to move all 72,000 of its desktop machines to the open source OS.

To make the switch less abrupt, the Gendarmerie first moved to cross-platform open source applications such as OpenOffice, Firefox, and Thunderbird. That allowed employees to keep using Windows while they got used to the new applications. Only then did the agency move them onto a Linux OS running these same applications.

Read More

I think this is a good idea since it will save the police force in France a lot of money since Linux, Open Office, Firefox, Thunderbird, and other Linux software is free to use, and so are updates.

Plus, Linux runs faster on older computers, so the French could continue to use their old computers longer, or until they break.

 

[Guardian]

37,000 to 72,000? That is awesome! Even more using freeware. The future is finally being embraced, I support then.

 

[hissae2]

Not a bad idea.

 

[GSquadron]

I personally think that doing so, will make Linux guys happier. It is the best possible move and even though am a Windows user, I would do the same one day.

 

[Demon_Skeith]

I hope they have a good IT department, not easy using linux.

 

[froggyboy604]

Using Linux is pretty easy after you install it on a compatible PC, and the install is similar to Windows if you use a Linux OS like Ubuntu or Linux Mint. If you use a program to install Linux on multiple PCs at once by using a server, it would install very fast without much need for manual installation actions like "Click OK button" by a person. I been using Ubuntu for many years, and it has been pretty easy to use for everyday tasks like foruming, blogging, watching videos, uploading files to my forum, and Word Processing.

Dell, HP, System 76, and Mintbox also sells PCs with the Linux OS pre-installed on them, so installing Linux is not a problem when System 76 build, and install a Linux PC for you, and provide free technical support for a few years after the purchase.

Linux OS has Firefox, Libreoffice, Thunderbird e-mail software, and VLC media player, so if you used Firefox, Libreoffice/Openoffice, and varies Windows software switching to Linux is pretty simple since Firefox, Office programs, and other programs work the same in Linux.

According to the article, the computers will just be used for OpenOffice, Firefox, and Thunderbird by the police, so there is not much mods, and hacks needed to use Linux since it sounds like it would be mainly use to file police reports, e-mail, and use the internet to look up information with websites like Facebook.