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Linux Sys Admins, do you work on Linux or Windows office laptops?

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?

136 comments

  • 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.

    • 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 constant struggle. On Linux I can say it's good enough.

    • 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.

      • 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.

  • 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.

  • Mixed environment, bunch of windows servers and a bunch of Linux servers. I currently run NixOS on my company owned Framework laptop, with the caveat that I have to deal with or work around any weirdness that comes up.

    I've been wanting for a while now to fix up my config (weird sleep waking issues, broken hibernate, implement full disk encryption) or maybe switch to Fedora. Just haven't had the time.

    Remmina is great for RDP, OnlyOffice preserves Microsoft office formatting well, KDE's network manager has working VPN connections for Cisco and Palo Alto, and I do a lot from the browser (email, O365 admin,etc).

    There is friction, though. As mentioned the sleep issues. Never fun getting to a site and finding a hot, dead laptop in my bag because it decided to wake up and not go back to sleep.

    For things that HAVE to be done in Windows I have a VM I haven't powered on in a months or two, and a "tech" server to rdp to with more network access.

    I'd also like to get more familiar with Nix. I can handle system settings and packages from the Nix repositories, but packaging my own software is something I'd like to learn (software and printer drivers for Ubuntu/fedora, etc).

  • 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 currently more of an generic sysadmin than linux admin, as I do both. But the 'other stuff' at work runs around teams, office, outlook and things like that, so I'm running a win11 with WSL and it's good enough for what I need from a workstation. There's technically a policy in place that only windows workstations are supported, but I suppose I could run linux (and I have separate laptop for linux-only stuff). At the current environment it's just not worth the hassle, spesifically since I need to maintain windows servers too.

    So, I have my terminals, firefox and whatever I need and I also have the mandated office-suite, malware protection/IDR/IDS by the book and in my mindset I'm using company tools for company jobs. If they take longer, could be more efficient or whatever, it's not my problem. I'll just browse my (personal) cellphone while the throbber spins on the screen and I get paid to do that.

    If I switched to linux I'd need to personally take care of my system to meet specs and I wouldn't have any kind of helpdesk available should I ever need one. So it's just simpler to stick with what the company provides and if it's slow then it's not my headache and I've accepted that mindset.

    • Hmm that is also a nice a way to put it. However when you are slowed you can be demanded more productivity even though you cannot do anything about it. Maybe except unpaid overtime. Do you have anything for this?

      • I live in Europe. No unpaid overtime here and productivity requirements are reasonable, so no way to blame for my tools on that. And even if my laptop OS broke itself completely then I'm productive at reinstallation, as keeping my tools in a running shape is also on my job description. So, as long as I'm not just scratching my balls and scrolling instagram reels all day long that's not a concern.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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)

  • I'd use Linux for homelab if there was native Fusion, since I need that for school.

136 comments