Ransomware & HSE

Hadron Collider

Cordell wrote: »

That's about 30 years worth of development and still it can't make any headway into desktop market.

There must be a reason for that.

Schools are dominated by proprietary systems like Windows, macOS, iOS and ChromeOS. When children move on to university and work, they tend to stick with what they learned previously. That's why there's such a pitched battle over what systems get adopted in schools: vendors know it's their chance to hook a consumer and lock them in for life.

Moreover, there's a myth that Linux is difficult, the domain of geeks and not ordinary people. This may have been true in the 90s, and the reputation has stuck even if distros have become eminently more usable.

plodder

zom wrote: »

Using gnome didn't change much. And terminal did not changed much too. I still suspect monkeys getting more intelligent here.

System administration is vastly improved, though not quite up with Windows yet. Upgrades, base installation, and patching are immeasurably improved and as good as or possibly better than Windows.

Hadron Collider

Hadron Collider wrote: »

Moreover, there's a myth that Linux is difficult, the domain of geeks and not ordinary people. This may have been true in the 90s, and the reputation has stuck even if distros have become eminently more usable.

I run multiple Linux servers on DO. I am perfectly comfortable with the cli. On my last Asus laptop a couple of years ago, neither Mint nor Ubuntu could recognise the brightness setting. None of my stackoverflow results worked. Can you imagine that with Windows?

It's not an OS to dish out to regular users. Screen brightness should just work. Google shouldn't be filled with people having that problem.

crazy 88

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Is there anything more insufferable than a Linux fanboy with absolutely zero grasp of the reality of dishing it out to 12-year-olds?

An apple fanboy.

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Linux as your OS is complete and utter garbage. It's like these people have a blindspot for how much they had to Google in order to get proficient at it. Dunning Kruger effect.

Are you still using a Linux CLI from the early 90s? They have progressed a bit since then. The moment you open Ubuntu its look and feel is highly intuitive. Windows like start button and taskbar with a cog wheel (which is obvious to most as the settings area) that has everything you need to configure neatly categorised - power, display, network etc. I honestly don't know how simpler it could be.

crazy 88

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I run multiple Linux servers on DO. I am perfectly comfortable with the cli. On my last Asus laptop a couple of years ago, neither Mint nor Ubuntu could recognise the brightness setting. None of my stackoverflow results worked. Can you imagine that with Windows?

It's not an OS to dish out to regular users. Screen brightness should just work. Google shouldn't be filled with people having that problem.

Never used an Asus but any laptop and desktop I've used with Ubuntu (mostly Dells) all the hw integrated perfectly

crazy 88

Ash.J.Williams wrote: »

just to add, you don't simply buy a pc and introduce it to the network, it would usually be imaged with an in house build, so for linux the desktop eng team would need to develop a new build and test it against all their systems (some very old systems)

How are they saving time/money if they have to create a new image for every version of windows anyway? The same process and testing for creating a Linux image. Windows/Linux/MacOS, the work still has to be done

Hadron Collider

[Deleted User] wrote: »

It's not an OS to dish out to regular users. Screen brightness should just work. Google shouldn't be filled with people having that problem.

Screen brightness works just fine on my Linux computers.

Google is also filled with Windows users experiencing issues with their computers. So no point in acting like such problems are the exclusive domain of Linux.

crazy 88

Cordell wrote: »

92 I think. ~94 was the first time I had my hands on one (linux, not monkey).
That's about 30 years worth of development and still it can't make any headway into desktop market.

There must be a reason for that.

MS dug their heels in at the start of the computer boom with computer manufacturers. The open source software market was in its infancy and not making software for the ordinary user. People became institutionalised to windows and didn't like change when open source eventually became user friendly.

I used to work in Dell and they tried to offer Ubuntu as an option which would take a few hundred off the device you're buying. But MS didn't like that so they had to withdraw the option.

We're just lucky MS didn't get a foothold in the mobile market or we'd be paying the likes of Samsung and Huawei an extra hundred or more because they have to pay MS for "windows mobile".

kippy

crazy 88 wrote: »

MS dug their heels in at the start of the computer boom with computer manufacturers. The open source software market was in its infancy and not making software for the ordinary user. People became institutionalised to windows and didn't like change when open source eventually became user friendly.

I used to work in Dell and they tried to offer Ubuntu as an option which would take a few hundred off the device you're buying. But MS didn't like that so they had to withdraw the option.

We're just lucky MS didn't get a foothold in the mobile market or we'd be paying the likes of Samsung and Huawei an extra hundred or more because they have to pay MS for "windows mobile".

How did Ubuntu take a couple of hundred of the cost of the device? You think the OEM's are paying a couple of hundred for a windows client license?

Sorry, this is totally OT

But really, using a *ux in a corporate environment on client devices has many many pitfalls, using it at home is similiar and yes, some of that is actually down to familiarity.

Well my phones been ringing all day with a recorded computer voice about An Garda Siochana cancelling my pps
Press 1 for more information...
Can't keep up with the blocking

ineedeuro

Marine Layer wrote: »

Well my phones been ringing all day with a recorded computer voice about An Garda Siochana cancelling my pps
Press 1 for more information...
Can't keep up with the blocking

Tuniaia
+216 97 309 385
by any chance?

zom

Deleted User wrote: »

I run multiple Linux servers on DO. I am perfectly comfortable with the cli. On my last Asus laptop a couple of years ago, neither Mint nor Ubuntu could recognise the brightness setting. None of my stackoverflow results worked. Can you imagine that with Windows?

Had similar issue with windows running on Apple with bootcamp. Moving slider in power settings did nothing but I discover changes were applied after windows rebooted Bit go-around but it worked.
I also tweaked oce printer driver to make it printing on Mint few years ago. My first look will be graphic card driver if you like digging in code

ineedeuro

ineedeuro wrote: »

Tuniaia
+216 97 309 385
by any chance?

It shows up as an 083 number

ineedeuro

Marine Layer wrote: »

It shows up as an 083 number

Oh they have stopped, now replaced with above this week

ineedeuro

In regards to the Linux conversation it has gone off in a direction, it was just about giving the old laptops to kids> that was all

In regards to the "problems" people are discussing, sorry but they are not linux issues but user issues.
If I can get linux up and running on any device going back to Pentium 1 & 2 desktops without any issue then everyone should be able to because I ain't any technical expert.

kippy

ineedeuro wrote: »

In regards to the Linux conversation it has gone off in a direction, it was just about giving the old laptops to kids> that was all

In regards to the "problems" people are discussing, sorry but they are not linux issues but user issues.
If I can get linux up and running on any device going back to Pentium 1 & 2 desktops without any issue then everyone should be able to because I ain't any technical expert.

So versions of linux not having drivers easily available for certain pieces of hardware is a user issue?

Various government depts have agreements with third parties to process aged hardware.

AndrewJRenko

plodder wrote: »

Printer support is improving all the time and I think the world has been moving more and more towards the web as being the platform rather than Windows or Linux, which is good for Linux. Are school book apps not more likely to be targeted at ios or Android? I agree about external devices generally. Windows has always had far superior device driver support. Also, the hold that MS Office has on people's brains has always been a wonder to me. But, if you've grown up with it (maybe since an ECDL at school) I can understand the reluctance to change.

I think it's fair to say that Linux is improving at a faster rate than Windows. That's been my experience anyway.

By the way, the Munich city council story is not over yet. They've recently decided to switch back to Linux, it seems.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-not-windows-why-munich-is-shifting-back-from-microsoft-to-open-source-again/

I wouldn't put too much store on one organisation like Munich, when the other 99.99% of organisations are on Windows. There's a reason for that.

Cordell wrote: »

You can train a monkey to use linux these days, that's not the problem. Also, it's not the solution either.

With students, teachers and parents, you generally don't have time to train anyone in anything. You need it to work, and when it doesn't work, you need to know that untrained people will be able to sort it.

ineedeuro wrote: »

I started on a ZX Spectrum. Never seen or touched a computer before when handed it. I managed to work it out myself and my parents hadn't a clue. Ended up spending days putting in code just to draw a circle on the screen to the amazement of everyone :-)

My kids are using linux on a desktop, no problem with it....and imagine they can even use a printer with it :P

This is the 'I'm all right, Jack' school of design, where the person decides - well it worked for me, so it must work for everyone. It's a classic design mistake. You don't design for yourself. You design for everyone.

If you've ever spent a day writing code, you're an edge case when it comes to technology. The vast majority of the population has never done that.

Hadron Collider wrote: »

During lockdown, I wiped an old laptop that was dog slow under Win 10, installed Ubuntu, and gave it to the kids. They made heavy use of it for school work and video chatting with friends/family. There were very few issues. Setting aside the uber-geek distros like Gentoo and Arch, most mainstream Linux distros these days are fairly user-friendly and plug-and-play.

Kids in the 80s had systems like the Atari, Commodore 64, and ZX Spectrum that were far less user-friendly than Linux in 2021, and yet figured them out and learned a lot in the process -- despite having teachers and parents who were largely clueless about tech.

Sometimes it's a useful thing if tech doesn't work perfectly out of the box. Kids can learn valuable skills that way.

If you're the kind of parent that can wipe a laptop and install Ubuntu, you are again an edge case. The vast majority of parents won't be able to do this. They won't be able to sort the issues arising.

crazy 88 wrote: »

Everything you described here works in Ubuntu which is very intuitive these days and more intuitive than windows in some areas.
Libreoffice and Google docs can run PowerPoint. Office 365 is also an option is MS is an absolute necessity. Ubuntu wine also runs MS software locally. Most learning software can be accessed via web these days e.g. Moodle

It's easy to say that 'Libre Office works'. When you get down to the nitty gritty, the actual experience can be very different. Does it work for PPTs with embedded videos, and with quizzes set up using animation? Does it display every font in the same way as MS PowerPoint, or is the teacher going to have to review years of materials to ensure they all fit and are laid out properly. It's a long time since I used Libre, but I recall some nightmares with Excel macros and Word heading fonts. Any savings made on software costs will be more than eaten up by additional user time and additional support costs.

limnam

Not sure why all the focus is on Linux here.


IBM was brought up before. IBM have done something similar with MacOS and shown they could bring the TCO down on mac compared to PC's


This took into consideration the reduced people to manage the MacOS fleet.
Reduced calls to helpdesk etc.


Look it's not an easy thing to do and somewhere like the HSE is a complex beast. Can they do better? abso fcking loutley.


But it seems any criticism of the HSE is utterly frowned upon in this case.

Hotblack Desiato

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

With students, teachers and parents, you generally don't have time to train anyone in anything. You need it to work, and when it doesn't work, you need to know that untrained people will be able to sort it.

The idea that Windows / MS Office users don't need training is laughable, and the idea that they don't need trained support and lots of it is even more laughable.

Hotblack Desiato

ineedeuro wrote: »

Ended up spending days putting in code just to draw a circle on the screen to the amazement of everyone :-)

Err, on the Spectrum that was a single BASIC command...

now drawing anything never mind a circle on a C64 with code you wrote yourself, that would have been an achievement!

davetherave

The merits of Linux Vs Windows for schoolkids aside..which I'm curious what that has to do with the price of turnips.

HSE press release from earlier on today with where they are at.

https://www.hse.ie/eng/services/news/media/pressrel/hse-cyber-security-incident.html

plodder

davetherave wrote: »

The merits of Linux Vs Windows for schoolkids aside..which I'm curious what that has to do with the price of turnips.

HSE press release from earlier on today with where they are at.

https://www.hse.ie/eng/services/news/media/pressrel/hse-cyber-security-incident.html

Very vague. No actual figures as to where they are at. There has been reports in the media with better information than that.

Necro

Can we move on from the Windows VS Linux discussion please, it's completely derailing the thread.

Tow

kippy wrote: »

How did Ubuntu take a couple of hundred of the cost of the device?

From memory is was about 60 quid cheaper and was offered a way of selling PCs without Dell having pay MS a Windows licence fee.

Ash.J.Williams

Tow wrote: »

From memory is was about 60 quid cheaper and was offered a way of selling PCs without Dell having pay MS a Windows licence fee.

back in the day HP and the likes thought the money was in hardware! then boom.... Bill Gates fooled them all!

amen

davetherave wrote: »

The merits of Linux Vs Windows for schoolkids aside..which I'm curious what that has to do with the price of turnips.

HSE press release from earlier on today with where they are at.

https://www.hse.ie/eng/services/news/media/pressrel/hse-cyber-security-incident.html

2,000 Patient IT systems :eek:

I wonder how many times a patients details are replicated ?

Why so many systems?

kippy

amen wrote: »

2,000 Patient IT systems :eek:

I wonder how many times a patients details are replicated ?

Why so many systems?

Welcome to the complex world of national healthcare with decades of history, political decisions and an ever changing environment to take into account.

AndrewJRenko

amen wrote: »

2,000 Patient IT systems :eek:

I wonder how many times a patients details are replicated ?

Why so many systems?

Because there is no one system that meets the end-to-end need of the health service. And if there was one, the cost would be so astronomical that we'd never be able to afford it.

Because different medical devices come with their own proprietary systems.

Because if you try to control every single software purchase and ensure that you're buying the software that meets the needs of ALL users, you freeze the system into not buying anything for a couple of years.

Corruptedmorals

IT systems have so many functions in hospitals. You're going to have separate ones for patient administration and booking, radiology, bloods, pathology, electronic medical records, A&E sometimes have their own, specialist blood services might have their own, scope track and trace, other specialist equipment might need its own programme, alerts/reports/policies, accounts, payroll, theatre, referrals - Healthlink.

Private hospitals have far more integration but those systems are astronomically expensive. Public hospitals only share NIMIS and PACS- radiology. Other than that, public hospitals will buy their own systems although many will use the same admin software.

Seshlord2020

How long do blood tests from a G.P take due to the cyber hack. Got my bloods taken recently and curious about the new timeframe.