Basically title. Do you know of any companies that use desktop Linux?
I can think of two in my area in Brisbane - Adfinis and Red Hat. Both have a pretty small presence here from what I last heard (several employees each).
My employer allows the Linux team to use Linux but it’s discouraged and our lives are made somewhat difficult.
I wish my employer (state government) would use Linux. But unfortunately, they are all in with Microsoft. Everything has gone that way. SharePoint, Microsoft hosted Exchange, OneDrive, etc… And it’s as horrible as you can imagine. It’s awesome when I can’t access my personal files because Microsoft servers are down. And don’t get me started on the CrowdStrike fiasco!
That sucks :( I’m pretty much in the same boat. I get to use a Linux desktop at work on the proviso that I don’t raise support requests. We use Microsoft for nearly everything so naturally it’s an uphill battle. The web UI is quite buggy and “not recommended” by my org. Teams doesn’t support Firefox so I have to run a separate browser especially for it.
But aside from interfacing with Microsoft everything just works, and really nicely.
When I was working for Averitt Express, a trucking company out of Cookeville, Tn, our yard trucks had computers in them (for yard and dock management) that ran Ubuntu. This was 10ish years ago.
That’s awesome - great to hear about Linux desktops bring used by non-techies especially in a company.
How was it received out of interest?
I think they are a bit harder to manage
I can’t say I’ve managed Linux desktops at scale (so technically I should leave it there) but I do manage several hundred Linux VMs with Ansible, and I manage all of my PCs with Ansible. Desktops are a different ballgame to servers, dealing with end users and all, but I still don’t think it would be that hard once it’s been set up.
It is just less established which means it would be hard to get the ball rolling. It is doable but would take more time than just using a basic Windows environment with AD. You also have the issue with vendor support and end user knowledge but that’s a problem for another day.
That’s probably a fair point. I can’t say too much as I haven’t touched Windows desktop or server too much.
Could be apples vs oranges here though as we’re talking about getting started versus well established setup, but my current employer is looking at adopting Ansible + Packer for imaging and partially Ansible-managing Windows servers where it makes sense because of limitations in SCCM and GPO. As far as I can see across the divide Windows Server isn’t all smooth sailing.
