I made this post because I am really curious if Linux is used in offices and educational centres like schools.
While we all know Windows is the mac-daddy in the business space, are there any businesses you know or workplaces that actually Linux as a business replacement for Windows?
I.e. Mint or Ubuntu, I am not strictly talking about the server side of things.
Before Chromebooks, my towns school system had netbooks which were pitifully slow on Windows. They installed Ubuntu instead. The netbooks still sucked, but probably sucked a lot less.
In two of my previous jobs (I’m a software engineer) I could officially install any Linux distro to the company laptop (which I did of course) fully replacing the wintoys. Could use the machine as I liked, no corporate mandated BS spyware or anything. On of the provides a SaaS product and used Linux server/virtual machines. Otherwise it was mostly MS bits + sprinkle a little Atlanssian horrors to it.
Unfortunately in my current job I’m limited a VirtualBox Linux running a corporate restricted wintoys machine in a MS environment. A long for the days when I was more productive with my Linux installation.
It’s just sad and funny how corporate world is that MS products it has to be (because reasons).
I could officially install any Linux distro to the company laptop (which I did of course) fully replacing the wintoys. Could use the machine as I liked, no corporate mandated BS spyware or anything.
Yes, and when the company gets hacked they can sue you for not keeping “your” computer secure enough. When I started my career on the field I also had those ideias that companies are evil and want to spy on everyone and enforce stupid policies on computer and whatnot.
Eventually I moved to heavily restricted environments where once you see what’s going on there you simply wouldn’t even open WhatsApp on that machine, let alone surf unknown websites. You wouldn’t do it not because the fear of being monitored but by the amount of liability you would be exposing yourself if you did. Trust me, the company isn’t bad, predatory but at a certain level you simply think twice. In fact they even reconize that people might want to surf random websites or use some personal accounts and provide a secure virtualized extra browser (restricted from the internal network) but still no way in hell people even think about using it for something so simple such as WhatsApp.
To be fair, this way of thinking might be the best. Just assume people will want to have a personal messaging app, email or whatever on the side and deploy some virtualized / restricted local or remote solution so they can do it without creating risks for themselves or to the company. At least this way you’re still under control and people wouldn’t be trying to bypass your security everyday…
i’m stuck with windows, but i moved everything inside WSL… so at least vscode it’s on Linux.
i’m a heavy multitasker used to tiling WMs, multiple desktops on windows is torture.
I was stuck in MacOS hell for some time. Now I won’t accept jobs that mandate an OS for devs. It’s either free choice, or I’m gone. Fuck that noise.
Was also in a company where Linux in a VM was the only option because it was a windows shop. Glad I quit that.
May the virtualized penguin bestow you with strength!
From what I’ve heard, it’s more common in Europe and parts of Asia. I’ve personally never seen significant Linux use of any kind in the IT environments I work in, sadly.
It’s all Microsoft product stacks, the servers, the endpoints, the cloud environment, all MS. Sometimes their Hypervisor would be VMWare, and their NAS was a Synology. But other than that, basically all Microsoft garbage.
I did work at one place that had a fair bit of Linux infrastructure. The lead network architect was a hardcore Linux/FOSS grognard. Really smart guy and was fantastic at his job, I learned a lot from him. But the only reason that company had Linux servers and a few FOSS implementations was because that guy insisted on it and managed all of it himself.
I also worked at another place where one of the older IT guys had installed a handful of SUSE thin clients at various locations for employees to clock in with. But right after I started there, management wanted me to switch them out for Windows thin clients. I pushed back but they insisted, so there went the tiny bit of Linux at that company.
I work in cyber security. Loads of businesses will do all the cybersecurity stuff using a combination of tools on Azure and security OS’s like Kali and Parrot.
Myself and several of !y coworkers use Linux at work bit, to be fair, it is a tech job.
I think there are a few small companies that use it. Additionally it is used by some developers.
Don’t be so humble. You know, I started out exactly where you are, and to be honest, you know, my heart is still there. So I see you’re running Gnome. You know, I’m actually on KDE myself. I know this desktop environment is supposed to be better but you know what they say. Old habits they die hard. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. I’m an executive. I mean why am I even running Linux? Again old habits. It’s gonna be fun working with you. I should join the rest of the group. Bonsoir, Elliot.
At my company, we use ubuntu for the simple reason that our servers are running it.
When I worked in VFX it was mostly Scientific Linux. A few macs were around for concept artists using Photoshop, and editorial using a proprietary video codec with Final Cut. Most business folks (in vfx called “coordinators” and “producers”) used tools that were web-based and cross platform (for example, Autodesk Shotgrid, Confluence, and Jira). A lot of internal development is done in Python so no worries there, either.
In game dev unfortunately it’s exclusively Windows. If you bring up even using
os.join, instead of hardcoding \\ into paths, devs who have never worked in another OS look at you like some sort of paranoid maniac.My past 2 jobs have been Linux Desktop. The one before that was WSL (ew)
I use Linux at the office. I’m the only employee at my company who does.
I haven’t had many issues collaborating with others using libreoffice while they use MS office. I do keep a Windows VM running for those somewhat rare instances where I need Windows for something though. I also needed to invest quite some time to figure out Linux alternatives for everything (how to use company VPN, how to get MS Teams working, how to connect to network drives, etc).
But so far so good. Been 100% Linux at work for maybe ~1.5 years?
you should keep a list and tell management how much software costs youre saving and how that can be scaled for every employee
We have primarily used windows servers, but our datalake, data warehouse and internal apps are on Linux servers.
This might be cheating a bit since I am a computer science student, but we have Linux servers we can access for classes, and our university library has a maker space that has some computers running Ubuntu in it.
I have attended or been involved with five different state universities and a few different community colleges. For computer science, aside from one glaring exception, the default has been some flavor of Linux. The earliest for me at a school was Fedora 7. I think they had been running Solaris in the late 90s; not sure what was before that.
The only glaring exception is Georgia Tech. Because of the spyware you have to install for tests, you have to use Windows. Windows in a VM can be flagged as cheating. I’m naming and shaming Georgia Tech because they push their online courses hard and then require an operating system that isn’t standard for all the other places I’ve been or audited courses.
If you are talking about the computers themselves having Linux on them by default or dual bootable, then I’m kinda jealous. At the community college I attend, the computer lab for CS and IT related classes has only windowss 10.
The universities I’ve physically attended have had dedicated computer labs with Linux. My undergrad math department was all Linux, come to think of it. Easier IT and not a huge need for Word.
It’s much the same where I come from.
The high quality institutions have Linux in their labs (either a separate lab or dual boot) and a server with say access for training ML models etc.
The dodgy ones have only Windows with no software and require students to buy a second laptop and install Linux. If they don’t the students fail. Those tests were done in handwriting but they are still an accredited university :(
Well, I wouldn’t really say that it’s used as a Windows replacement at the company I’m working at, because all the business stuff is still being done using Windows, but almost all developers are using Linux. I was even allowed to replace Ubuntu with Arch, because I was annoyed by outdated packages. Because of the higher freedom, I can even tolerate the slightly smaller pay rate and benefits that I could earn elsewhere.
We are mostly working on EDA tooling.
