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?

  • The Doctor@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    26 days ago

    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.

  • MXX53@programming.dev
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    27 days ago

    I manage the few linux servers at my company. I use a windows laptop to ssh to my servers. Windows for me is fine, but I do very little on it outside of ssh or emails. However, I would never use windows outside of this.

  • GunnarGrop@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    edit-2
    27 days ago

    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.

    • ILikeTraaaains@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      26 days ago

      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.

    • Psyhackological@lemmy.mlOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      27 days ago

      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.

    • pathief@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      26 days ago

      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?

      • mb_@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        26 days ago

        LOL

        They are trying to bore only your customers, attackers have direct access (=

    • Kethal@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      edit-2
      25 days ago

      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.

  • GravitySpoiled@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    27 days ago

    Wdym with linux can be broken?

    Don’t mess woth the system and go atomic. Fedora atomic kde or gnome or wm

    • Kualk@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      26 days ago

      Fedora atomic or not is nice.

      I got tired of manually installing Arch and was pleased with Fedora the most.

    • Psyhackological@lemmy.mlOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      27 days ago

      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.

      • GravitySpoiled@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        edit-2
        27 days ago

        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.

    • nocturne@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      27 days ago

      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.

        • Psyhackological@lemmy.mlOP
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          27 days ago

          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.

        • youmaynotknow@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          27 days ago

          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.

          • Psyhackological@lemmy.mlOP
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            edit-2
            26 days ago

            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.

      • ikidd@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        27 days ago

        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.

      • IHave69XiBucks@lemmygrad.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        27 days ago

        Lol i think most of us Linux people just forget how basic most peoples computer usage is. An example, i wanted a program yesterday. Im on Manjaro and it was a .deb so i had to look it up in the AUR, clone it, compile and install it. All in command line. To someone who is used to that its not a big deal just some copy and paste and searching. To someone who is used to windows where you download .exe, and click install thats a herculean task.

        I disagree that people shouldnt use linux if they cant fix stuff on their own etc. I fully support making some distros entirely GUI and really easy to use because some people just need that and theres nothing wrong with not wanting to get all into the weeds setting up a computer. Thats the whole point of distros is to have various options for different use cases. I hope youll be able to find a linux setup that works for what you need. As of now a little bit of terminal may be needed even in the easier to use distros depending on what your doing tho.

  • thejml@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    27 days ago

    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.

    • barkingspiders@infosec.pub
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      27 days ago

      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.

    • tyw0kki@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      27 days ago

      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.

        • marlowe221@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          26 days ago

          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.

          • Kualk@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            26 days ago

            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.

            • poinck@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              0
              ·
              26 days ago

              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?

              • Kualk@lemm.ee
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                0
                ·
                25 days ago

                Vscode is installed on windows. Then you install vscode ssh plugin from Microsoft and open ssh connection from vscode to any Linux including WSL hosted Linux.

      • Psyhackological@lemmy.mlOP
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        26 days ago

        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?

        • Kualk@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          26 days ago

          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.

  • proton_lynx@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    26 days ago

    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.

    • Psyhackological@lemmy.mlOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      26 days ago

      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.

      • lud@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        26 days ago

        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”.

  • pimeys@lemmy.nauk.io
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    26 days ago

    Not a sysadmin, but a programmer. My work machines have been:

    • 2003-2008 Windows 7
    • 2008-2011 Ubuntu
    • 2011-2019 Arch
    • 2019-2024 NixOS

    Probably going to keep using NixOS. This is a very cool OS.

  • edric@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    27 days ago

    Most of our sysads use macOS. A few use linux but they have limited choices with distros and can only use fedora I think.

      • edric@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        27 days ago

        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.

  • Jeena@piefed.jeena.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    27 days ago

    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.

  • dino@discuss.tchncs.de
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    27 days ago

    Using linux hardware, pretty much one of the requirements for my job, otherwise I look elsewhere. For RDP the only downside being wayland not working with it, so you have to stay with X11.

    • Psyhackological@lemmy.mlOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      27 days ago

      Sometimes you can’t afford to be picky but with more skills and experience I want it too. And yeah for now X11 is just better supported than Wayland.

  • eldavi@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    edit-2
    27 days ago

    i use a linux laptop; but then they got bought out and our new overlords won’t let me keep using it.

    i’ve had it for 5 years now since i didn’t want switch to mac during the last 2 refresh periods; but it’s only a matter of time before it dies.

    i think i’ll just switch jobs when it does. lol

      • Manzas@lemdro.id
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        27 days ago

        I have tried using my pc as a hackintosh for the heck of it (it was surprisingly easy) it feels bad like everytime you have a untrusted app you need to allow it in settings and even windows 11 feels better. But this is just my opinion maybe mac os has changed and is better now.

      • eldavi@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        27 days ago

        i’ve had macbooks for work before and they work okay like windows does; but i think i’ll end up with windows since i do 99% of my work in a terminal emulator with keyboard mapping customizations and re-mapping the keyboard in mac takes weeks/months of trial and error to get it right since it requires me to shift all of the other keys & their shortcuts around to get it work like it does in linux.

        i’ve also used wsl in windows for work before too and that worked better for me since i didn’t do anything extra besides copy/paste of my keyboard map. also: since i only use the laptop for work, i don’t care about microsoft being evil; i’ll let the infosec guys handle that.

  • penquin@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    27 days ago

    Software dev here. The only Linux I ever hear of at my job is Open shift. That’s about it. We are neck deep into windows. And honestly, I don’t care. It’s a job and my bills are paid. My house is full of Linux, and I don’t care what a big corporation wants to use for their software.

    • poinck@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      26 days ago

      This mind set has it’s limit when you need to get something done, see your family after 8h of work and don’t log overtime for some stupid windows s****.

      But, yes, in most cases I just log additional unproductive time in my timesheet. It would suck, if I couldn’t compansate the overtime and leave work earlier on Fridays or so. Management has to live with the fact that working with Windows is not as efficient.

      • penquin@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        26 days ago

        Right. But what can you do if your job has absolutely no interest in Linux? Force them? I’ve talked to some leads and managers and they laughed at the idea of using Linux. They just don’t need it for whatever they do. And 100% of our backend is SQL and C#. And you know how much they drool over visual studio and all those MS products.

        • poinck@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          26 days ago

          Our dev stack could totally run on Linux, but management wants standardization for security reasons. We have a mixed environment of Win10 and Win11 and our scripts to setup and update the dev environment produce sometimes unpredictable results even on the same version of Windows. <_<

          We’re not even using WSL2 to speed things up because we don’t get enough time to adapt our scripts to configure docker to use WSL2.

          My next move will be asking to get Fridays off, because they denied my whish to use Linux. If they deny my part-time request, I will look elsewhere in 2025.

        • Metju@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          25 days ago

          C# on Visual Studio is a fucking nightmare. Switched to Rider on WSL the first chance I had, not looking back.

          Then again, if this is running on .NET Framework, there is no choice, afaik. You get a buttplug made of barbed wire in Windows + VS, and you’ll like it

    • Psyhackological@lemmy.mlOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      27 days ago

      True but I miss quickness of Linux, being native with my apps and just having my environment. I don’t think I ever gotten a nice working environment as it is constans struggle. On Linux I can say it’s good enough.

  • PseudoSpock@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    25 days ago

    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.

  • Eugenia@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    27 days ago

    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.

    • Peffse@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      edit-2
      27 days ago

      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.)

      • Kualk@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        edit-2
        26 days ago

        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.

        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.

    • toynbee@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      27 days ago

      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.

        • thejml@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          27 days ago

          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.

    • pathief@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      26 days ago

      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.