Who says Linux is not growing? Everyday somewhere around the globe people ranging from personal businesses to government agencies are switching to Linux. Governments are also encouraging the use of it.
Recently the Munich government have started distributing Ubuntu 12.04 LTS version CD’s to its citizens. Because of the end time of Microsoft Windows XP.
The news all over the web about governmental, security, military agencies and others migrating thousands of computers to Linux distros ranging from Ubuntu, Debian, and others daily.
One of this big adaption is the France Gendermerie and GedBuntu.
“GendBuntu is a version of Ubuntu adapted for use by France’s National Gendarmerie. The Gendarmerie pioneered the use of open source software on servers and personal computers since 2001 when it adopted the OpenOffice.org office suite, making the OpenDocument .odf format its nationwide standard.”
A publication by JoinUp on September 30, 2013 covers how it all started and how Open Source software packages and OS over weighs proprietary software packages, and the number of computers that have been migrated to Linux so far from Windows XP. Also the number of computers to be reached by September 2014.
Below is a full coverage too of the timeline.
Timeline of the Adaption of GedBuntu by France Gendarmerie
2004 – OpenOffice.org software replaces 20,000 copies of the Microsoft Office suite on Gendarmerie computers, with the transfer of all 90,000 office suites being completed in 2005.
2006 – Migration begins to the Mozilla Firefox web browser, on 70,000 workstations, and to the Mozilla Thunderbird email client. The Gendarmerie follows the example of the Ministry of Culture in this decision. Other software follows, such as GIMP.
2008 – The decision is made to migrate to Ubuntu on 90% of the Gendarmerie’s computers by 2016. Ubuntu is installed on 5,000 workstations installed all over the country (one on each police station’s LAN), primarily for training purposes.[2]
2009 – Nagios supervision begins
2010 – 20,000 computers ordered without a pre-installed operating system
January 2011 – Beginning of the large scale phasing in of GendBuntu 10.04 LTS
December 2011 – 25,000 computers deployed with GendBuntu 10.04 LTS
February 2013 – Upgrade from GendBuntu 10.04 LTS to GendBuntu 12.04 LTS. The local management and IT support teams will phase in the upgrade in such a way to not disrupt the running of the police stations.
May 2013 – Target for end of the migration to GendBuntu 12.04 LTS – 35,000 computers upgraded.
December 2013 – 43,000 computers deployed with GendBuntu 12.04 LTS.
February 2014 – Beginning of final stage of the migration of existing Windows XP computers to GendBuntu 12.04 LTS
September 2014 – Migration completed. 75,000 computers deployed with GendBuntu 12.04 LTS.”
