I’m getting sick every day at this Microsoft Windows slowness and bloat. I am trying to use as much Linux VMs as possible. I feel so unproductive on Windows. I also tried installing Linux on the office laptop. The problem is that Windows is officialy supported and the Linux is DYI. Once the IT departament changes it will sync up with Windows but Linux can be broken and you are no longer able to work. Next job I want to have full Linux laptop or at least Mac.
Besides:
- Microsoft Office
- Active Directory
- Some proxy and VPN bullshit Everything seems manageable and even better on Linux.
What are your experience?
I’d use Linux for homelab if there was native Fusion, since I need that for school.
Yes, I use Fedora and love to break the permissions of shared Office-Documents. /s
The only thing I have learned is not to go too deep into customisation. Because people watching me using hyprland are some kind of disgusted.
I just use KDE with dark breeze theme. That’s enough and nobody gets hurt.
Trueee Just get the job done and that’s all.
Can you elaborate? Why are people disgusted by Hyprland?
“Disgusted” was a fast choice for wording. They look confused. Someone told me he get a headache by the fast movings through the workspaces.
For explanation I use 3 or 4 workspaces with full max. Windows and switch through them with super + tab. And had this wiggle animation running, too. As an user it is really fancy but if you are watching, it could hurt.
Wdym with linux can be broken?
Don’t mess woth the system and go atomic. Fedora atomic kde or gnome or wm
Changes from the upstream can make your system nonfunctional. For example VPN for remote connection. They change something, push to Windows but on Linux you need to figure it out by yourself.
On linux you just put the ovpn into the settings. VPN connections are built into the system
Yes, I have used systems that broke. Yes I followed bad advice and broke my system. Ever since not touching my system, that didn’t happen again. If I would touch windows, I would brik windows as well.
Yeah that’s another thing that Windows can break in the same way as Linux.
With an atomic system it’s less likely to brick your system. You can stay in the debian world with vanillaos (I’ve never used it) but fedora atomic is very good. On a day to day basis you shouldn’t have/use admin rights to break your system
Fedora atomic or not is nice.
I got tired of manually installing Arch and was pleased with Fedora the most.
Wdym with linux can be broken?
Linux mint kept harassing me to install the official drivers for my wireless card, so I did. It broke my ability to use WiFi.
I told Linux while in presentation mode I did not want the screen to sleep, it took that as sleep after 5 minutes.
Every time the laptop sleeps/restarts my screen resolution is borked, half the time the correct resolutions are not available and I have to disconnect all my monitors, restart, then connect the monitors.
Most solutions I hear are use a different distro, learn command line, you should not be using Linux if you cannot fix this stuff.
That is what i mean when I say Linux can be broken.
Those things happen on windows as well
I would argue that they happen way more on Windows. I’ve never had any of that happen to me on Linux (mostly a Fedora user) but plenty of times on Windows from 7 to 11.
The worst part is it is not Windows fault. The pure kernel and the system without any bloat works great. I tried AtlasOS once and I felt bad for Microsoft engineers that their work is being spoiled with greed, bloat, enshititifaction. Everything was going smoothly and flawlessly.
But so many components are just… Hacky… Unnecessary… Just weird that it barely works especially so many companies don’t know what they are doing. Then the dependency hell happens of this software.
Linux on the other hand is so much transparent.
Yep, many people complain about Wayland and just graphic things in general. On Windows on the other hand sometimes I cannot click buttons. Example: unmute myself in Teams. Why? Because the docking station after some time cannot figure out where is the focus and also Electron sucks. And many other thing like weird behaviour with moving apps’ windows from one screen to another.
I moved to macOS full time now. Things work much better now.
Less bloaty? How much?
Corporate support for Macs is usually worth than on Windows.
It is a very risky move.
Nice, why risky?
If you’re on Mint still, that’s X11 fucking you over. AFAIK, Mint hasn’t moved to Wayland, though you might be able to install an experimental session, but I wouldn’t trust it like a distro that’s all-in on Wayland.
I used to contend with monitors jumping around like a jack russell terrier with X11, never keeping settings, dropping out due to ACPI. Wayland has fixed pretty much everything I had going wrong with that stuff.
Boot a live USB of some distros that default to Wayland like Fedora, and see how it reacts to screensaving, then make some choices from there.
I moved to macOS full time now.
How do you like it?
I like it a lot. The initial move was predicated by working in the entertainment industry and all the shows coming through our theater needed qlab.
But after that I started using it for personal use. I was unable to move my photoshop cs6 license over because I have been unable to get a copy of it in 64bit. But I have since switched to affinity. It has a steep learning curve, but I mostly use it for graphics for my shop so it does what I need it to do.
I have been using libre office since forever, that moved over with me.
Before getting my MacBook Pro I was doing most of my gaming on my ps5, so I am not missing a lot there. But most of the games I do play are available on the Mac (No Man’s Sky, FF14, Palia, mudlet, Apico, Mudborne).
When I connect a monitor it works, when I connect a TV through my 4x4 matrix it works.
all the windows shit runs in citrix, i run linux at work from home for the host system.
Most of our sysads use macOS. A few use linux but they have limited choices with distros and can only use fedora I think.
Maybe Ubunto too. Sometimes they allow you to use Linux as sys admin.
Right, but the distros employees are allowed to use are dictated by corporate IT so they are able to control them and have the required endpoint security tools. So people who prefer linux have very limited options.
MacOS. Systems doesn’t want to support Linux, and the only other option is windows 11. A few of my coworkers have Win11 with WSL and fight it every single day. They’re diehard windows people who have been seriously considering moving to MacOS for their next round of upgrades.
I think I’m also in this group right now. Just not Windows…
Also Mac here. I started with a linux laptop but still have to do some desktop support work for the company and since they all use Mac it’s just easier to dogfood it. At least I have a decent terminal emulator.
Try this terminal emulator then https://github.com/gnachman/iTerm2
Same here. I really really tried with WSL but the experience is miserable.
Swapped to MacOS and like night and day. I’d be perfectly happy with a £300 linux laptop though.
Yeah, it is slow in the end, not native, many things to configure (like proxies) and so on…
Great! Was it hard also to switch to MacOS as a Linux user for work?
I actually run away from Mac. Mac OS X is long time as not Linux.
WSL is a way better option than whatever VM option is on Mac.
What about the experience is miserable? I’m just curious as I really like it.
Yeah, I do all my development in WSL2 (Ubuntu) at work every day. I use VSCode on the Windows 11 host. It’s great!
Would I prefer to use Linux natively? Sure, but I also have to support some Windows-only legacy code and a D365 environment or two, so Windows makes sense.
I am happy with WSL as well. I don’t try to get Linux GUI running.
I use vscode remote ssh session. I run docker natively on Linux, not on windows.
The trick is to get DBUS services running in whatever flavor of Linux you install. Don’t try running a full UI session.
The biggest problem I have on Linux is time drift after laptop goes to sleep. it is easy to deal with manually.
Do you have a guide that makes this possible?
And what do you mean by using vscode remote ssh session? Does this vscode instance is started from the WSL via some kind of
ssh- Y?
When I could get away with it at work, I did.
In the last… I want to say six or seven years, issuing Macbooks to sysadmins has been a common thing in the sectors I work in. Rather than put up with us going rogue and messing up license tracking by rebuilding our stuff with a distro of choice, management just throws OSX at the problem (us, we’re the problem) because operationally it’s close enough for our purposes.
It’s not my choice or preference, but the money’s green.
What are your experience?
My last “real” Windows experience was with WinXP and every time I have to touch Windows at the PC of a customer, which happens sometimes when the stars align, I feel like the first human that ever walked the earth.
I have no idea how people get any work done on a system that is constantly nagging for attention, popups, restrictive Enterprise environment and non descriptive error messages. Nothing in this world seems to make sense or is presented in a unified way. Every dialogue or sub system seems to be it’s own isle stemming from another decade of tech. The experience for someone who is simply not used to Windows any more due to missing exposure is horrible.
Heck a Mac feels alien to me too but in the end that’s still a system I could deal with given some time.
Mebbe I’m spoiled by stuff like systemd, PipeWire, Wayland, btrfs and all that candy we get nowadays on a Linux desktop. I’m not even talking about privacy or FOSS principles at this point. Just the fact that the system doesn’t get in my face with ads or AI or “very important reboots” seems to be a revelation in 2024.
That was me 2 years ago. Now, I am wondering how I got the work done until now on Win11. It just takes longer and compensation for overtime helps. And by compensation I don’t mean money; I get my time back, working less on other days.
I will ask for a 4 day workweek. Every day without Windows is a good day. (:
I don’t use Windows anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those “Linux purists”, if other people wanna use Windows, go ahead. But I’m not using it. I swear to god, if it becomes mandatory to use Windows at my company, I’m leaving the next day.
Hah I don’t have that privilege but same mindset. It is weird to me that in many companies you were deprived of choice at least. Linux can be worse too but let me just try it and see.
The reason that most companies don’t want you to do that is because they don’t want people running around installing their own OS and doing whatever they feel like on company devices.
Letting people do that would be an IT and information security nightmare.
It’s the same reason that no (sane) company would give local admin privileges to everyone.
The reason why companies generally don’t have an official way to use Linux is because it’s hard to support two platforms simultaneously. Especially when you have, certificate and/or AD network authentication for wireless and wired like we do. You also need to consider how the two platforms should interact with each other. For example Linux devices should be able to connect to the AD domain with Kerberos and need to be able to access SMB shares and probably other systems.
In short it’s more complicated than “just let me try”.
MacOS, nearly everyone who does anything with development or ops is using a MacBook. Though lately more “normal” employees have been getting MacBooks too.
Most tech people actually use macs, because corporations prefer them for their tech employees, while the normal employees usually use Windows. Very few corps support linux on the desktop for their admins – even if their infrastructure is all on linux.
Shame but understandable.
You wish. Most tech companies will get you the cheapest laptop they can get away with.
I remember being denied a 64bit laptop when developing a 64bit only application lol.
I used to have a Linux laptop at work. I was even allowed to install my chosen distro. Then the IT department said “we don’t really know Puppet or how to manage Linux, but we know JAMF, so you’re all getting Macs now.”
My job satisfaction has gone down since then. However, in more positive news, they did end up giving away the old Linux laptops to the employees when they moved office.
It is always interesting to me that companies can afford new Macs but not use old laptops for Linux.
It’s a support question. It may cost $2k more for a Mac, but if it’s officially supported, auto patched, remote managed and they can prove it with security tools, force patching and restrict users, use standard well known tools for compliance and security monitoring/administration/etc, they will easily save thousands in corp licensing, training costs and legal costs. That $2k+ really becomes negligible.
Any source on that mac claim? I’ve not seen any proof of that at all.
(Edit: To clarify, I know people are saying they use MacOS here, but I don’t think the claim that most tech people in corporate settings use MacOS to be true. I only have my personal experience in a very large corporate environment, and am asking for information as every team I’ve worked with was using Windows.)
I used to live in the bay area. Know lots of people in tech companies. Most are on macs.
I am a software developer and work on Kubernetes based project.
I was given a Mac laptop when I joined. It was a few OS releases behind, because corporate IT didn’t support newer versions.
Macs have to run some sort of VM to do docker based development.
VMs are not that great.
When time came, I requested a Windows laptop. I installed Debian on WSL 2. Then got it to run systemd properly and installed Docker on WSL. Then vscode on windows host with remote ssh into WSL.
Vscode ssh integration is probably best least known feature of vscode. However, initial connection setup always requires tweaking to get that best experience.
By the way, official docker setup is through VM on windows. WSL is not a recommended route, but one can get it working.
This setup beats Mac any day for me.
I wish I could run Linux on work laptop, but corporate IT doesn’t know how to deal with it.
I use office 360 in the browser.
I’m not a typical sysadmin but I use linux anyway. Somehow I always found some workarounds, but I am also not the only one using Linux in our company so the IT needs to work with us to some degree.Haha nice. I heard that office 365 is okay but for let’s say 10000 rows Excel it lacks performance.
For 10k rows you should probably use a real database anyway ;)
Right now I’m stuck on a Mac laptop. I hate it, but after our Network team could not manage to get Global Protect working on Linux, and my boss decided keeping them happy was easier than keeping me productive, I didn’t have much choice (Mac or Windows). I’ve worked in environments before where I was able to run Linux on my laptop/workstation, so long as I was able to support myself and do the required work. I used remote desktop (Or a Windows VM) for my Windows work; my browser and Java for most everything else. Now even Office is a shitty webapp for the most part, and Teams “works” on Linux (As much as Teams works at all).
Even here, I have to wait until Helpdesk manages to build out support for new Mac OS releases, so I’m still on 14.6.
I told them prior that I would be leaving the company if they forced me to migrate to Mac. I’m currently looking for a better position elsewhere and will tell them exactly why when I turn in my notice. Not that it will change anything, it’ll help me feel better.
that’s odd, my (indirect, reported by others) experience with GlobalProtect on Linux was mostly fine, although when using SAML it only really works with the GUI version and not the CLI version
It’s not GP itself that’s he problem, it’s supposed to work on a few mainstream distris, but the Company admins responsible noped out. They had such a hard time making Windows and Mac work that they can’t be bothered for “a couple of Linux users”.
I use a Windows laptop because that’s what is supported by our infrastructure, our endpoint protection and our cybersecurity insurance.
Also, to help test changes before they are rolled out to users.Understandable.
I’m currently more of an generic sysadmin than linux admin, as I do both. But the ‘other stuff’ at work runs around teams, office, outlook and things like that, so I’m running a win11 with WSL and it’s good enough for what I need from a workstation. There’s technically a policy in place that only windows workstations are supported, but I suppose I could run linux (and I have separate laptop for linux-only stuff). At the current environment it’s just not worth the hassle, spesifically since I need to maintain windows servers too.
So, I have my terminals, firefox and whatever I need and I also have the mandated office-suite, malware protection/IDR/IDS by the book and in my mindset I’m using company tools for company jobs. If they take longer, could be more efficient or whatever, it’s not my problem. I’ll just browse my (personal) cellphone while the throbber spins on the screen and I get paid to do that.
If I switched to linux I’d need to personally take care of my system to meet specs and I wouldn’t have any kind of helpdesk available should I ever need one. So it’s just simpler to stick with what the company provides and if it’s slow then it’s not my headache and I’ve accepted that mindset.
Hmm that is also a nice a way to put it. However when you are slowed you can be demanded more productivity even though you cannot do anything about it. Maybe except unpaid overtime. Do you have anything for this?
I live in Europe. No unpaid overtime here and productivity requirements are reasonable, so no way to blame for my tools on that. And even if my laptop OS broke itself completely then I’m productive at reinstallation, as keeping my tools in a running shape is also on my job description. So, as long as I’m not just scratching my balls and scrolling instagram reels all day long that’s not a concern.
Same here, but in a small company a non-functional windows machine can be a pain although you get paid for overtime.
And, even in Europe companies exist that do unpaid overtime. Worked at one for almost 3 years, all Linux, but I had to prepare for work on weekends. It was not worth it and it did not have anything to do with missing Linux skills. It was just a very demanding job with too much travel time. I hate unpaid overtime.
So, it is easier to blame Win11 that s*** itself again when work could not be done in time.
