I've got a major question...

[Ralf Mardorf]

Hi,

I don't want to discourage anybody to migrate to FLOSS operating
systems, but before doing so, it's worth the effort to take everything
into account. A few years ago some big German cities migrated from a
proprietary operating system to Linux and not that much later back to
the proprietary operating system.

Just take a look at the homepage of the German fiscal authority:
An important note mentions, that an option is only available for a
proprietary operating system. "Wichtiger Hinweis: Zur Zeit ist der
FormsForWeb Filler nur für Windows verfügbar."

Keep in mind that some software is not available at all for FLOSS
operating systems and if a replacement should be available, it's often
not that compatible as claimed. If you send a file to a printing house,
you need to generate a file that is 100% compatible to the common used
standard, a 99% compatible file could cause a lot of trouble. Apart
from that, users should understand a distro's policy, that's why I
posted the explanation for Ubuntu's "universe" repository, but there's
way more to consider.

In my experiences the first mistake usually is already done after
downlaoding an installation media. Not many users check it against a
signed checksum. I provided a script on some Ubuntu flavour mailing
lists [1]. However, even this script can't provide a web of trust.

Assuming FLOSS software was already successfully used on a proprietary
operating system and assuming the same software is available for a
FLOSS operating system, too and known to work without issues on that
FLOSS operating system, you still can't be sure that it will work
without issues out of the box with all hardware.

Regards,
Ralf

[1]
[rocketmouse at archlinux ~]$ cat luamd64_1610.sh 
#!/bin/bash

#luamd64_1610.sh 2016-10-27 rocketmouse

flavour=ubuntu-mate
release=16.10
hms=$(date "+%Y%m%d-%H%M%S")

use()
{
cat<<EOF

Usage: ./$(basename "$0") [FLAVOUR [RELEASE]]
'luamd64' gets the 'l'atest 'u'buntu desktop flavour 'amd64' iso for you.

  The default flavour is ubuntu-mate.
  The default release is 16.10.

Other desktop flavours available for at least 16.10

  ubuntu
  kubuntu
  lubuntu
  ubuntu-gnome
  ubuntukylin
  ubuntustudio
  xubuntu

Root can't run this script.

EOF
}

key ()
{
  printf "\033[7m\n"
  echo $@
  printf "\033[0m\n\n"
  read -n1 -p"Press a key to continue "
  printf "\n\n"
  $@
}

use

[ $(id -u) -ne 0 ] || exit

case $1 in "");;
  *) flavour=$1
     case $2 in "");;
       *) release=$2;;
     esac;;
esac
iso=$release-desktop

key mkdir /tmp/$flavour-$iso-amd64-$hms
key cd /tmp/$flavour-$iso-amd64-$hms
case $flavour in
  ubuntu)
    key wget http://releases.ubuntu.com/$release/{$flavour-$iso-amd64.iso,SHA256SUMS{,.gpg}}
    ;;
  *)
    case $flavour in
      ubuntustudio)
        iso=$release-dvd
        ;;
    esac
    key wget http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/$flavour/releases/$release/release/{$flavour-$iso-amd64.iso,SHA256SUMS{,.gpg}}
    ;;
esac
key gpg --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys FBB75451 EFE21092
key gpg --list-keys --with-fingerprint FBB75451 EFE21092
key gpg --verify SHA256SUMS.gpg SHA256SUMS
printf "\n\033[7m\nThe following validation might take a while\nsha256sum -c SHA256SUMS 2>&1 | grep OK     \033[0m\n\n"
read -n1 -p"Press a key to finish "
printf "\n\n"
sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS 2>&1 | grep OK
status=$?
if [ $status -ne 0 ]; then
  echo "$flavour-$iso-amd64.iso: Validation failed"
fi
echo

exit $status