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 is your experience?
My current company is being absorbed into a much larger company right now, got bought out earlier this year.
I was the only IT for the smaller company, and I was using 100% Linux (Debian with KDE Plasma) on my laptop to administrate everything in our environment, which is mostly Windows.
- Our DC with AD on it, I used Remmina to RDP into it for admin tasks.
- O365 and Azure/Entra stuff was all in the browser.
- Our ERP system is cloud-based, so browser was fine for that too.
- Our access control system was cloud-based and the RFID card reader/writer was plug-n-play on Linux.
- Our company SMB share worked fine with Linux in Plasma using my AD credentials.
- I set up my company OneDrive sync using rclone, it also worked flawlessly.
- Our Fortigate firewall VPN has a native Linux app which, although ugly as sin, works without issue.
- I used OnlyOffice for a while, then switched back to LibreOffice. Both worked basically perfect, a few very minor font bugs, (bullet lists having a slightly different style for the bullets, etc.)
- Teams, I used a wrapper flatpak for a while, which worked fine, then switched to the browser version of Teams. No major issues, I had a bunch of meetings, screen shares, webcam, presentations all on Teams in Linux, pretty seamless.
- Email, Outlook in the browser is fine. I also used Thunderbird for a bit, but didn’t like how buggy it was in the Flatpak version, and the Debian package was way too out of date for my taste.
Now that we got bought out, I am being forced off my Linux laptop and onto the new company’s Windows laptop, which really sucks. I am planning on quitting soon, as I hate using Windows and I am very underpaid at my current job as it is. Only real perk was not having to report to any IT manager/CTO, and being able to use Linux.
MacOS, nearly everyone who does anything with development or ops is using a MacBook. Though lately more “normal” employees have been getting MacBooks too.
At least they have some kind of choice…
If this what works for work stuff, then more power to ya. I just hope you don’t do any personal stuff on there…
We have some client’s engineers who use MacBooks. I’ll just say that I’m wary of anyone technical using MacOS at this point.
Though some of our devs use them too, but from what I’ve seen, they could just as well use Linux.
Wary why? I work remotely in IT and manage a ton of Linux systems with it. Because my company has a large number of remote employees they limit us to Windows or Macs only, and have pretty robust MDM, security, etc. installed on them. Since MacOS is built on top of a unix kernel it’s much more intuitive to manage other unix & linux systems with it.
Personally I haven’t used Windows really since before Windows 10 came out, and as the family tech support department I managed to switch my wife, parents, brother, and mother in-law all to Mac’s years ago as well.
I’ve met some folks who’d use an Apple laptop as part of their general attempt to look more competent than they actually were, for managers and such. Or maybe just for their ego.
If your choice is between Windows and MacOS - I dunno. Depends on how AuDHD-tolerant one can make MacOS. What I usually see doesn’t inspire confidence.
This is very anecdotal, but both myself and the vast majority of my peers use macOS as their base host system. I work in cybersecurity, specifically offensive penetration testing. Myself, most of my coworkers, and probably half of my peers I’m competing against at local conference CTFs or that I know at local meetups are using a MacBook host with VMs spun up to need.
Something like 75% of my job is done in a Linux VM. Doing it on a MacBook is infinitely more pleasant than any other laptop I’ve ever tried using, regardless of what OS it’s running.
Also, and again extremely anecdotal, the most technical people I’ve ever known were all using hackintoshes when I knew them, and would use MacBooks when away from the home/office.
I really don’t understand where this “Mac products are for non-technical people who want to appear technical” trope comes from. MacOS is a phenomenal product for non-technical people. My partner is the least technical person in the world, but they started using macOS in art school and found it intuitive and easy to use. As a technical person, I appreciate the polished UI built on top of the Unix kernel and that I can do everything I need to do from a terminal shell. The fact that the product is excellent for both wildly disparate types of users is testament to how great it is imo.
It’s different between countries, I suppose.
Also people want different things. For me customizable desktops (say, FVWM however I want to script it) are important, because I easily get distracted and overloaded. I also can’t ignore aesthetics, and in my subjective taste Apple style is concentrated bad taste combined with arrogance. Also there’s something in their UI design making me feel nausea and get tired faster. I don’t know what it is.
Other people want something else.
It comes from subjective experience in a country where Apple is traditionally not very popular.
I also can’t separate their disgusting advertising from their products, subjective again.
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”.
I understand your point but I disagree. My senior head of security department uses Linux with Windows VM for Microsoft stuff like Office, Outlook, Teams etc. Besides that many things are handled through configured LDAP with AD and many pain points through Linux and Windows interchangeability is solved through Samba like fileservers. I also hear more and more about FreeIPA thing. I only heard and read of Kerberos that is hard to do.
For everything else like
- proxies
- certificates
- VPNs
Everything is the same or even better and more secure on Linux. SSL stuff just comes from it… Even from BSD systems I think that is known for simplicity and security. With so many bloat on Windows there is so much vulnerabilities and things to manage while you can KISS. (Keep It Simple Stupid)
I don’t need 80% things on Windows but I do have them as I’m forced to and they also are like some ticking security bomb.
I don’t ask for a perfect Linux support, but at least an ability to do so. I tried it and in the end it came out that Microsoft likes Windows more than Linux (I know surprising). Intune crashed, certificates were weirdly Windows specific and after that I gave up.
Isn’t freedom about doing whatever you want especially when you want to get as much of your system, hardware so they just can squeeze as much productivity as possible from an employee?
Most places seem to issue Mac’s now for the role. I just create a 90% cpu & memory Linux VM on them and work from within that, with the exception of teams or zoom meetings being native on the Mac (no echo cancellation on linux VM’s, it seems). Works mostly well, but it is arm64 based linux, as the Mac’s currently are M series.
Ended up going with Arch for arm64, as it had the simplest way to add widevine support to my browsers.
Much better than being native on the Mac… Mac doesn’t give me the two select&paste linux 2nd copy buffer, doesn’t provide focus follows mouse, no auto-raise, and type in partially covered windows without raise. Essential for my workflow.
Well… i am feeling somewhat heretical writing this… but i am a happy ChromeOS user for years now. In my opinion its a very good middle ground between a super stable platform that JUST WORKS and with the integrated Linux VM i have the opportunity to Install the necessary tools for my work.
Interesting… But you use it at work and it is allowed?
Yup, i use it for work and its not only allowed, but the company is at the moment evaluating if it would be feasible to move all our clients to ChromeOS(-Flex).
I understand the general sentiment regarding Google, and it is somewhat earned, but if you compare Windows and ChromeOS (or the whole Google ecosystem) then its interesting to note that Google is (at least in my opinion) much, much more user friendly than Microsoft. No dark patterns, hassle free updates… it surely has its upsides.
When I got into the company I was allowed to use Linux. But a few years ago the company was bought and merged with a much bigger company and the new IT policy made Windows mandatory.
I’m sorry for your loss.
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’m in the lucky position that I always could work with Linux. I was working with people that couldn’t be bothered to run Windows on their Desktops (administering mostly Linux Servers anyway). In my first job we had a “Standardized” Fedora desktop that was actually attached to our AD so you could log in at any desktop with your domain user. However we did have internal tools and some software requirement that only were available on Linux meaning everyone in our department had a Windows VM for using those tools (kinda overkill but ok). My last job we didn’t have any standard other than the system had to be encrypted and had Eset installed other than that we could set it up he was we liked.
Could I work with a Windows desktop? Sure I’m on the Terminal sshing into systems 98% of the time anyway but at the end of the day I love to simply be on Linux having a workflow I’m used to.
Regarding Office I was just using Office online for anything that needed it.
Getting Linux Systems into AD is possible (but of course requires cooperation on the side of the IT department)
Proxy and VPN should mostly be doable (but of course might not be able to be deployed via Group policies)
Ive just started in a government IT role; everything is windows, I use windows myself at home for games, but run WSL for hobby dev, home server management and stuff like that.
This is my first sysadmin role, having come from a Dev background, and administration on windows feels like such a chore. Everything takes ten steps to do, lots of issues, and feels very counter intuitive. I am not enjoying it at all. I suppose actual large scale Linux adminning probably has the same issues and I’m putting it down to lack of experience, but there’s so many small niggly issues that I know I could solve if this was a Linux environment that I can’t due to how windows is set up.
I’m hopefully getting to move into a more hybrid dev/admin role for some web stuff, but I firs thave to convince my boss to let me install WSL so O can have a sane dev environment for web dev.
Sounds like you need to familiarise yourself with PowerShell and Group Policy.
What cruelty is this, to not allow devs to use WSL?!
I got my IT department to allow me to use WSL2, because I have to clone and patch the Linux kernel for our embedded linux device.
😁now I can install stuff, for which I otherwise would have need windows admin privileges, into WSL2, like steam (just for the fun of playing a windows game over proton on a ubuntu install on WSL2 which is just linux hyper-v emulation on windows -> games run very bad and seem do not use the nvidia card in the laptop 🤭)
So my setup is for work windows running WSL if needed, at home, I have a macbookpro11,3 dual boot BigSur and up to date endeavourOS(Arch+KDE) as allrounder devices, a game PC running endeavourOS(Arch+KDE) (NVIDIA 970), a raspberry Pi W2 running my homebridge, an iPad pro for easy webapps (configure *arr services) and streaming. Other not so much PC coputing devices available are PostmarkedOS pine phone, TvOS running Atv, various game consoles with most CFW installed, and many iPhones (collected over time, self bought is only iPhone 4s, 5, 6, X and 12mini)
So, I use them all big OSs 🤔 well, not really android anywhere… 😁 I just recognised that my router is BSD based (OpnSense)
all big OSs*
👌🏻fixed
🫸🫷
all the windows shit runs in citrix, i run linux at work from home for the host system.
I am a Windows admin but two of my colleagues who are Linux admins use Linux machines that are running Ubuntu+a few internal tweaks to make it better fit us. The Linux platform is developed primarily by one of the developers at the company and some others (primarily developers) also use Linux. The vast majority of the company uses Windows.
There are also a few hundred Macs.
I have been considering getting our flavour of Linux installed on a VM or maybe even dual booting for testing.
I’d use Linux for homelab if there was native Fusion, since I need that for school.
Windows 11, and the group policies doesn’t allow us to use WSL. We also can’t directly SSH into any servers so we have to go trough a Citrix session to a Windows 10 “admin server” and then SSH or RDP to a Linux server. And Windows Terminal isn’t installed on the Windows 10 server, so it’s either CMD or the Powershell terminal.
It’s absolutely fucking miserable. I’m a Linux sysadmin who do a lot of automation (ansible etc) but also Python development. Try it yourselves and see how long you last! I’m jumping the fucking ship in a month though, thank the gods.
All the result of an over confident “security organization”, with a lot of hubris.
But the best part? It’s a $5000 work laptop, and my 6 year old Thinkpad (with Linux) runs laps around the thing any day of the week. Opening the file explorer takes, most of the time, 5+ seconds…
Fuck my life, and fuck this company.
But the best part? It’s a $5000 work laptop, and my 6 year old Thinkpad (with Linux) runs laps around the thing any day of the week. Opening the file explorer takes, most of the time, 5+ seconds…
In my previous job I was doing Java development on e-commerce (Hybris, then renamed to SAP Commerce) and the laptop (a beefy thinkpad) took ages from powering on to being able to work, also Java compilation could take 30 min and just starting up the project on local another 5.
Had the opportunity to install Linux (the policy was that dual boot was required and don’t disturb IT with Linux issues) and oh boy, from turning on to being able to work was incredible fast. Compiling went from 30 to 5 min (with same Java official version from oracle in order to avoid any implementation discrepancies between openjdk and the oracle JDK in prod), and starting tje local server went from have enough time for preparing a coffee to seconds.
Unfortunately my current job only allows Windows and the policies are too strict.
I have a fairly new, expensive (not $5000 expensive though) laptop from work. It’s quite a high powered laptop. It’s full of administration crap that constantly runs in the background using 8 GB of RAM and at least 20% of the CPU, nonstop. Daily I run out of RAM and it freezes. I have a 15 year old laptop that, without exaggeration, is faster to use and can run more programs without running out of RAM.
I nearly threw up reading first paragraph 😂
I have several clients with this kind of setup. I’m always baffled at the amount of hoops I have to go through to connect to my Linux server. Sometimes I have to remote desktop to a windows virtual desktop and then use the citrix session to another windows machine VIA BROWSER so I can finally ssh to the machine. Are they trying to bore attackers to death?
LOL
They are trying to bore only your customers, attackers have direct access (=
Oh my that sounds even worse than at my company. I don’t understand also why disallow WSL. And yeah I don’t think that this is laptop’s fault anymore, just has been enshititifacted with software bloat.
