Then you know we lost most fried food while GWB was president. The short order line pretty much died except on the weekend so it has nothing to do with the president and everything to do with the DoD.
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U.S. Navy just spent $9.1 million to keep running Windows XP
- Thread starter aaronvan
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That is just silly. Ubuntu is just Debian with some extra junk stuck on top. You could just set up Debian with Gnome or KDE or OpenStep or whatever. The extra junk Ubuntu adds is really stuff the military does not want in their systems.
Most DoD *nix instances are CLI anyway. If there is a GUI it's a very lightweight one.
Of course you are correct and pedantic. I picked Ubuntu from the thousands of ditros because it is more well known outside the Linux world. I do believe you missed the point of my recommendation.
Being that the navy and most of DoD runs on Linux there is no Linux mess
In most cases Linux is taking over the server function. The argue ent is the ten feet to the users!
In working on DOD Contract for over ten years I bet this has to do with some kind of software hacks they can't easily redo. Plus the last thing they want is buy new computers if the current ones can still do the job required.
That or custom software. It wouldn't surprise me at all for DoD to leave Windows altogether in the next ten years. Our NIPER computers are so locked down that we might as well just use dumb terminals they cannot run standalone any more so paying for enterprise Windows seems silly. Windows10 will require retraining anyway so we might as well switch. The only complication I can think of is SharePoint.
When I first worked at NSA in the 90s all our workstations were Solaris. Eventually, they migrated to Windows. Today, NIPR, SIPR, JWICS, and NSAnet workstations are all Windows.
I don't go beyond NIPR and SIPR and yes they're all Windows, the only thing I was really getting at is that since local storage is pretty much taboo and they all have to be network connected to use it seems silly to use windows.
Another way to look at the problem is that corporations don't support software for the truly long term. For some applications, software written in the 1960s or 70s may still be completely adequate.
I don't see why we have to accept software corporations's product life cycles as law. Those are marketing decisions that may have little bearing on the functional value of a product.
I don't see why we have to accept software corporations's product life cycles as law. Those are marketing decisions that may have little bearing on the functional value of a product.
Another way that most corporations I've dealt with (both internally and as a consultant) is to do the "every other release" of Windows...
Windows 3 -> 95 was the first one
Windows 95 -> 98 was the second one... (then the rule started to kick in)
Windows 98, Skipped ME to XP
Windows XP, Skipped Vista to 7
Windows 7, Skipped 8 to 10
Businesses know that there is a huge cost to upgrade (even going from Windows to Mac), including:
Licensing cost (by far, the cheapest part of this)
Productivity (Windows 8 comes to mind... WHERE IS THE FREAKING START BUTTON???)
Compatibility of applications (Vista comes to mind with MSDE application incompatibility)
Training
After several Rochefort 10's, I've come to understand why the government uses Windows.
Hacks.
The government can easily intercept any information relayed on Windows computers. Just as any other government can. Our government uses this to track and monitor packet theft and destination to facilitate our own counter measures. BBQ memos to staff are a mitigated loss to information gathering tools and fine tuning.
If we switched everything to Unix core systems, this would all change. We wouldn't be able to run up centrifuges, listen in on conversations, ect as effectively.
This is just the quad talking and completely baseless, I'll have another to see what it has to say.
Hacks.
The government can easily intercept any information relayed on Windows computers. Just as any other government can. Our government uses this to track and monitor packet theft and destination to facilitate our own counter measures. BBQ memos to staff are a mitigated loss to information gathering tools and fine tuning.
If we switched everything to Unix core systems, this would all change. We wouldn't be able to run up centrifuges, listen in on conversations, ect as effectively.
This is just the quad talking and completely baseless, I'll have another to see what it has to say.
This is very true. I had an internship with a federal government organization and they would not leave XP. They had recently purchased new laptops for assignment that came with Windows 7. They removed Windows 7 and installed XP on all the machines leading to some stability issues with drivers.
Hm. I can well imagine that.
Well, XP actually worked, as indeed, did Windows 7.
Personally, I loathed Vista, and detested Windows 8.
Sometimes, even greater problems can arise when a bureaucracy gets it into its collective head (or is ordered to do so by someone who thinks that they are a moderniser) that they need to upgrade, and choose to do so in a chaotic, unplanned, and highly incompetent manner.
There are other issues as well, which are that Governments, or organisations, or companies, are reluctant to spend the fortune that may be required to upgrade the computers themselves; having made an initial outlay, they find it hard to accept that these things need to be upgraded regularly, and that even the best computer in the world may struggle after a number of years.
In this context, viewing computers in terms of equipment should perhaps be considered as something that is not quite the same as typewriters, (used by secretaries, often female, and bought once and never replaced until written off), but as something vaguely akin to company cars.
The problem here, is, of course, is that while company cars used to be seen as a - or, an often male - perk, nobody loves company computers, - which are often heavily used and treated with nothing approaching the babying and tender loving care some of us lavish upon Our Little Apples - and they can suffer from ill-use.
Indeed, in my last few jobs, I managed to be able to use my personal MBA, - faster, more reliable, more mobile - as my work computer.
I'd like to see the US gov't at least partly transition to Linux. But all they've done in the last decade plus is swap most of their remaining UNIX computers for Windows.
Reminds me of this story http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/14/amiga-controls-school-district-hvac/
I guess if you don't need to upgrade you don't need to upgrade. I was happy on Windows XP up until 3 years ago when I had to upgrade due to the software I use. I only upgrade OSX because it's so cheap and Apple's services are fantastic (and require the latest OS to run, heh).
I guess if you don't need to upgrade you don't need to upgrade. I was happy on Windows XP up until 3 years ago when I had to upgrade due to the software I use. I only upgrade OSX because it's so cheap and Apple's services are fantastic (and require the latest OS to run, heh).
Yeah but I'm sure people used to say that about cutting a road through a mountain too. Once you do it, maintenance is peanuts. Plus you don't have so many search and rescue operations from idiots driving off cliffs at the hairpin turns.
I'd love to have the money the government wastes keeping ancient software systems talking to each other or not talking to the hacker units of foreign states and domestic teenagers, or trying to learn how to talk to an external device that's not a tape drive. Could fix all the potholes on the entire interstate system and have something left over for bridge replacements.
The US Government is currently moving all their servers to Red Hat as a server dies. This has nothing to do with they think Red Hat is better but they don' t want to pay the jackup fees for current Microsoft Server. So just think when a server dies, a Red Hat Server replaces it just because of the money for licences fees!
Plus now back into the real world now the same outfit I work for in Radio is now seriously considering replacing their server 2008 server (the machine is on it's last leg) with a new Dell Red Hat Server since all their recording machines are Linux and Mac Minis running open recording software. Their worker stations are slowly changing to Mac Minis and if they need a Windows Software then just VM Windows and run in coherence mode!
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