Posted on 06/16/2025 11:52:14 AM PDT by ShadowAce
"We're done with Teams!" declared Digitalisation Minister Dirk Schrödter, speaking via an open-source video platform, in his announcement that the German state of Schleswig-Holstein will phase out all Microsoft software from government workplaces. The goal is to fully transition from Microsoft programs to Linux and open-source programs within the next three months.
Also: Why Denmark is dumping Microsoft Office and Windows for LibreOffice and Linux
The decision will affect nearly every civil servant, police officer, and judge, about 30,000 employees. Eventually, the rest of the civil service employees, primarily school teachers, will make the open-source shift. The radical change is being hailed as a major step toward "digital sovereignty" and a signal of growing European resistance to reliance on US tech giants. The move came soon after Danish officials had said they'd be leaving Microsoft behind.
Schleswig-Holstein's move has been in the works for a while. In April 2024, the state's cabinet had declared it would make the move. The reason, Schrödter said at the time, was that the government had "no influence on the operating processes of such [proprietary] solutions and the handling of data, including a possible outflow of data to third countries. As a state, we have a great responsibility towards our citizens and companies to ensure that their data is kept safe with us, and we must ensure that we are always in control of the IT solutions we use and that we can act independently as a state."
On the recent decision, Schrödter added: "The geopolitical developments of the past few months have strengthened interest in the path that we've taken. The war in Ukraine revealed our energy dependencies, and now we see there are also digital dependencies."
Also: 5 MacOS-like Linux distros that can rescue your old Intel Mac before support ends
Schleswig-Holstein had other reasons to dump Microsoft as well. By moving away from proprietary software, Schleswig-Holstein wants to ensure that sensitive government and citizen data remains within German jurisdiction and is not subject to potential access by US companies. This means, in addition to dropping Microsoft software, Schrödter said it will move its data from Microsoft Azure to a European-based cloud.
Needless to say, the state expects to save tens of millions of euros by eliminating Microsoft licensing fees and unpredictable costs of mandatory updates. For the latter, it appears Schrödter was referring to the migration from Windows 10 to 11.
The migration to Linux and open-source technology will happen in phases. The first stage, already underway, will replace Word and Excel with LibreOffice. The implementation of Open-Xchange will follow this phase, and Thunderbird will be used to replace Exchange and Outlook.
Also: Want to save your old computer? Try one of these 8 Linux distros for free
Finally, Linux is shoving out Windows. While no specific Linux desktop distribution was mentioned, the desktop interface will be KDE Plasma. Possible desktops the government may use include Kubuntu, the official KDE flavor of Ubuntu, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED), or openSUSE Leap. Additional open-source tools, such as Nextcloud, will fill gaps left by other Microsoft products.
Some will say such moves are doomed to failure. One popular example is Munich, the capital of Bavaria, Germany, which moved away from Windows to Linux in 2004. That move lasted for a decade before Munich returned to Windows -- in no small part because the mayor wanted Microsoft to move its European headquarters to Munich. However, a closer look reveals that, although LiMux was unsuccessful, today Munich still uses open-source software and, in particular, relies heavily on LibreOffice.
Also: Should you ever pay for Linux? 5 times I would - and why
Other European Linux programs, such as France's Gendarmerie, which switched to Ubuntu Linux over a decade ago, have proven successful. As of June 2024, 97% of its workstations, over 103,000 computers, are running GendBuntu, the Gendarmerie's custom Ubuntu-based Linux distribution. The project continues to be actively maintained and updated, with the latest upgrade to GendBuntu 24.04 LTS completed in December 2024.
In other words, as I've been telling you all along, you can move from Windows to Linux successfully. Now, with the EU's growing distrust of the US and its technology companies, we can expect to see more such moves.
But still, how does somebody dumb enough to be a liberal succeed in a career where stuff actually has to function? It seems mutually exclusive.
Lol, I get it. It is one of the few things that does because there are a lot of geeks. MS could absolutely work too if they did not sabotage their own customers like they do. Being liberals they have an inherent sadistic streak and it shows in MS.
It is good that they have that freedom of choice. I assume there is no issue with proprietary codecs and drivers
One could prevent any MS updates and thus do that, but it is against the license. Turning off all telemetry is also an option. And presuming one is on the Retail channel, that one need never buy anything from MS or any other software, thank God.
I have been using Thunderbird email program for over 20 years. I like that I can customize the look using css file that you create and put here:
C:\Users\your username\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\(yours will be different) 8jyu1eib.default-release\Chrome
It is just a text file named: userChrome.css
All Files > make sure the file extension is .css
You can change the look of Thunderbird with what you place in that file.
Google: thunderbird userChrome.css
Click on the AI Overview help
Tells you how to get Thunderbird to see the userChrome.css file.
Here is my code. Copyb then paste into your file then re-open Thunderbird to see the look. You can make changes: https://pastebin.com/Dw9wrHWY
I asked my questions at the link below to learn how.
This site will have people helping you with your questions.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Thunderbird/
Also: https://www.elevenforum.com/questions/browsers-mail/
Use the search box in the upper right: thunderbird userchrome
You want this add-on that makes the icons much better then the default ones.
Phoenity Icons
Phoenity Icons for Thunderbird
https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/phoenity-icons/
Also this add-on is great if you need to edit an email code.
ThunderHTMLedit
Thunderbird HTML editor. This add-on adds a HTML tab to the composition window where you can see and edit the HTML source of the message.
https://www.betterbird.eu/addons/
Awesome Emoji Picker
This add-on provides you with a modern emoji picker
https://github.com/rugk/awesome-emoji-picker
Linux has been the first operating system popped at BlackHat for the last decade. Often followed by MacOS.
The operating system has NOTHING to do with safety or resilience to vulnerabilities.
When you move an entire org to a CLI-based operating system and expect your GUI-knowledgeable admins to support them, you introduce a vector of attack. Lack of patching, installing packages or libraries with dubious pedigree, and the inability to properly configure products such as Apache make it trivial for threat actors to get in.
No unexpected (and uncontrolled) updates on someone else's schedule
If you think that ANY Linux distro can go unpatched, enjoy your ransomware. Why do you think VMware, a Linux-based hypervisor, is the most common ransomware target? Hint: because it's EASY.
No one saying that your hardware is too old
If you're running 10+ year old hardware in a business, again, enjoy your ransomware. See: Spectre or Downfall.
No financial demands unless you buy a commercial product
No, no of course not, because the financial demands of a threat actor are so much better.
The ability to lock down you computer so NO ONE except you can get root/admin access--even if they know the password and have physical access
Huh? Sudo isn't something magical that protects the OS from every threat under the sun.
I'm not shilling for any particular OS, but these common tropes for Linux are getting shot down pretty much daily. Linux isn't any safer than any other OS on the market, and in most cases I've seen, organizations are more vulnerable, because they can't find admins who are competent enough to manage a Linux environment.
Blackhat doesn't do virii. It concentrates on vulnerabilities.
But yes, I get your point. All OSes have issues. No denying that. Linux, though, seems more resistant to the script kiddies. And no OS can stop social engineering.
I neither said, nor implied, that Linux can go unpatched. I did say that the patching is entirely controlled by the user/admin--not some third-party vendor or company that you have no control over, like MS.
If you're running 10+ year old hardware in a business, again, enjoy your ransomware. See: Spectre or Downfall.
Why would the age of hardware relate to ransomware? I'm running RHEL 9/10 on 10+ year old hardware. No one can get into my systems.
Huh? Sudo isn't something magical that protects the OS from every threat under the sun.
No--sudo is a tool that allows regular users to perform actions as another user. I can still (and I DO) lock down systems so that any user can use sudo, but cannot become root--even with the root password and physical access. I, however, can become root any time I need to--root is not disabled.
I don't see this as a good thing. I've got a dozen Ubuntu servers running in my home lab, doing a variety of things with a variety of awesome programs, but too often I've gone to run apt and something broke in one of those custom libraries or those programs rely on a really old version of Python, for instance. Lack of patching represents persistence and lateral movement capabilities for threat actors. In over 90% of breaches, threat actors used unpatched machines to move laterally, including Linux.
Why would the age of hardware relate to ransomware? I'm running RHEL 9/10 on 10+ year old hardware. No one can get into my systems.
Spectre/Meltdown would like to have a conversation with you. For instance, if you're running on Intel procs older than Gen 8, even with patching, threat actors can sideload malware without your knowledge or permission by taking advantage of those vulnerabilities. The OS is immaterial.
No--sudo is a tool that allows regular users to perform actions as another user. I can still (and I DO) lock down systems so that any user can use sudo, but cannot become root--even with the root password and physical access. I, however, can become root any time I need to--root is not disabled.
You and I understand this, ShadowAce, but I could tell you stories that would make your hair curl about admins who script sudo -i into their logins. Sudo is useless for elevation if it's just bypassed. Can it prevent an "oops?" Sure. I've seen veteran Linux admins who've fat fingered something while interactive with sudo, so while it's meant as a protective measure, it's not foolproof. It's honestly no different than Microsoft's UAC or Apple's Gatekeeper subsystems.
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