It really depends on what you mean by “the real world”.

The most common use for Linux is on servers. For this scenario, not only does the terminal make sense, but it’s often required as there is no GUI installed.

For Linux on the desktop, the terminal is very much analogous to Windows PowerShell. More casual users can ignore it for most purposes, but may sometimes need it for troubleshooting.

If you are trying to say that you “know” Linux, say for career development, you absolutely need to know the terminal. Nearly all professional roles will require it.

Part of this is exactly why your boss exists. Raise your concerns with them, and get them on your side. They can also (vaguely) let you know if you are alone on it, or if it’s affecting the entire department.

Your boss is also in a much better position to talk to the other guy’s boss, or someone further up the chain. It also removes the emotional component (similar to how even lawyers should not represent themselves in court), and keeps it focused and level.

There are a lot of other good comments in this thread. Bring them to your boss as possible solutions, and let them fight the battle for you. It also shows you have a desire to solve this (rather than just gripe), and gives them options they may not have considered.

That’s where the “cheap bastard” part kicks in. The desire to spend less money outweighs things like social acceptance.

I have a problem with their methodology, although I concede that better metrics would be hard to find.

I’ve known a number of right-wing people that own and love their Prius. They are the “cheap bastard” type, and it’s hard to argue with the value (albeit not the styling nor associations) of a Prius.

Let’s not forget possibility number 3, that someone lied to him that we are doing it. How would he ever know?

Presumably they all are informed that they’ve been nominated. They could also ask them beforehand what their preference is if they win.

2am calls are why people leave their profession.

I get your point, and I’m not sure that’s any better.

Depending on your location and situation, you may have access to a nurse line or fast telemedicine (basically a zoom call with a random doctor). They can diagnose many ailments remotely, and at least tell you what the next steps should be.

In some places, yes, probably. It would most likely fall under anti-SLAPP protections.

IANAL though, so it could be more complicated.

Are you able to physically replace the HDD (preferably with an SSD)? If so, you can use the (Win10) Media Creation Tool to create a USB installer.

When it prompts for a key, just skip it. If you have an OEM mass activation laptop (i.e. anything from a major brand), it’ll activate automatically after. If, for whatever reason it still doesn’t activate, you’ll have a nag screen telling you to activate. It won’t significantly limit what you do.

It’s nearly certain. OEM activation has been stored on the motherboard since XP. XP-7 required a matching OEM cert (easily found online), while 8+ have a unique license in the BIOS. For these, you just reinstall the OS, skip the key during setup, and let it connect afterwards for all of the updates and whatnot.

Now, licenses to other apps, such as Word, are not so simple.

I need to clarify that you are talking about Lenovo’s consumer-grade lines, like the Ideapad. Their enterprise line (Thinkpad) is completely different.

Kind of. They will be multiples of 4. Let’s say you got a gigantic 8i8e card, albeit unlikely. That would (probably) have 2 internal and 2 external SAS connectors. Your standard breakout cables will split each one into 4 SATA cables (up to 16 SATA ports if you used all 4 SAS ports and breakout cables), each running at full (SAS) speed.

But what if you were running an enterprise file server with a hundred drives, as many of these once were? You can’t cram dozens of these cards into a server, there aren’t enough PCIe slots/lanes. Well, there are SAS expansion cards, which basically act as a splitter. They will share those 4 lanes, potentially creating a bottleneck. But this is where SAS and SATA speeds differ- these are SAS lanes, which are (probably) double what SATA can do. So with expanders, you could attach 8 SATA drives to every 4 SAS lanes and still run at full speed. And if you need capacity more than speed, expanders allow you to split those 4 lanes to 24 drives. These are typically built into the drive backplane/DAS.

As for the fan, just about anything will do. The chip/heatsink gets hot, but is limited to the ~75 watts provided by the PCIe bus. I just have an old 80 or 90mm fan pointing at it.

The one I had would frequently drop the drives, wreaking havoc on my (software) RAID5. I later found out that it was splitting 2 ports into 4 in a way that completely broke spec.

First, this approach is going to fail at some point. Depending on how far away it is, that could be a major issue. It also makes some very bold assumptions about connection speed and latency that are probably not true.

Second, IP doesn’t reliably show location. My cable ISP is typically geolocated to Chicago, despite it being 2 states away. Same for T Mobile connections.

Third, it’s incredibly unlikely that the employer is going to be looking at IP addresses to determine location. Even if they wanted to use tech for this purpose, they would use location services/GPS/etc. Which a VPN won’t conceal.

Fourth, changing the physical mailing address on file would be a bigger flag. But presumably he’ll list that family’s address, which could create other implications.

I don’t want to speak to your specific use case, as it’s outside of my wheelhouse. My main point was that SATA cards are a problem.

As for LSi SAS cards, there’s a lot of details that probably don’t (but could) matter to you. PCIe generation, connectors, lanes, etc. There are threads on various other homelab forums, truenas, unraid, etc. Some models (like the 9212-4i4e, meaning it has 4 internal and 4 external lanes) have native SATA ports that are convenient, but most will have a SAS connector or two. You’d need a matching (forward) breakout cable to connect to SATA. Note that there are several common connectors, with internal and external versions of each.

You can use the external connectors (e.g. SFF-8088) as long as you have a matching (e.g. SFF-8088 SAS-SATA) breakout cable, and are willing to route the cable accordingly. Internal connectors are simpler, but might be in lower supply.

If you just need a simple controller card to handle a few drives without major speed concerns, and it will not be the boot drive, here are the things you need to watch for:

• MUST be LSi, but it can be rebranded LSi. This includes certain cards from Dell and IBM, but not all.
• Must support Initiator Target (IT) mode. The alternative is Initiator RAID (IR) mode. This is nearly all, since most can be flashed to IT mode regardless
• Watch for counterfeits! There are a bunch of these out there. My best advice is to find IT recyclers on eBay. These cards are a dime a dozen in old, decommissioned servers. They’re eager to sell them to whomever wants them.

Also, make sure you can point a fan at it. They’re designed for rackmount server chassis, so desktop-style cases don’t usually have the airflow needed.

To anyone reading, do NOT get a PCIe SATA card. Everything on the market is absolute crap that will make your life miserable.

Instead, get a used PCIe SAS card, preferably based on LSi. These should run about $50, and you may (depending on the model) need a $20 cable to connect it to SATA devices.

I did this back in the days of Smoothwall, ~20 years ago. I used an old, dedicated PC, with 2 PCI NICs.

It was complicated, and took a long time to setup properly. It was loud and used a lot of power, and didn’t give me much beyond the standard $50 routers of the day (and is easily eclipsed by the standard $80 routers of today). But it ran reliably for a number of years without any interaction.

I also didn’t learn anything useful that I could ever apply to something else, so ended up just being a waste of time. 2/10, spend your time on something more useful.

Intel’s future hasn’t been looking great, for a bunch of reasons, unrelated to Trump.

I’m not saying you should avoid it (“Be greedy when others are fearful”), but you should really make sure you understand what you’re getting into.

It won’t officially work, but it’s not too hard to get it going. I just moved a similar box to 24H2 LTSC.

OP, you’ll probably need to run “setup.exe /product server”, or follow a recent guide. You’ll also need to do this for every major upgrade (i.e. yearly)

I agree though with the plan to use this as a test ground. I also recently upgraded a Lubuntu system to similar specs, and it runs pretty smoothly. But learning Linux takes a lot of time they don’t have.