Wednesday, February 5th, 2014, 11:48 pm
Ryman (Large UK Chain) Switches to GNU/Linux on Desktops
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arlier today I went to Ryman, which a well established and widely known stationery shops chain in the UK, in order to get special prints. I was greeted by a young woman standing in front of a machine with Ubuntu GNU/Linux (version 12.04 by the looks of it) and lots of Free software like LibreOffice 3. She explained to me that the company switched to that for security reasons, after an infection had spread through the whole company. Well, given what NSA and GCHQ are known to be doing through USB ports, one would be irresponsible to use Windows to accept files from USB devices of arbitrary customers. Prior to Ryman I used similar services in a prints store (local family business) that uses Mac OS for accepting files over USB.
It should be noted that using Ryman for prints is not wise. They charge £2 (more than $3) for the service of just extracting a single file from a USB key, even if one prints just a single page. Copying the file takes just a few seconds, so they charge far more than a prostitute (pro rata).
Anyway, the good news is that UK businesses — even very large businesses — are adopting GNU/Linux on the desktops. It is rarely — if ever — being announced.
