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.
Linux in corporation fails in multiple ways, the most prevalent is that people need to collaborate with others that use proprietary software such as MS Office that isn’t available for Linux and the alternatives such as LibreOffice aren’t just good enough. It all comes down to ROI, the cost of Windows/Office for a company is cheaper than the cost of dealing with the inconsistencies in format conversions, people who don’t know how to use the alternative X etc etc. This issue is so common that companies usually also avoid Apple due to the same reason, while on macOS you’ve a LOT more professional software it is still very painful to deal with the small inconsistencies and whatnot.
Linux desktop is great, I love it, but it gets it even worse than Apple, here some use cases that aren’t easy to deal in Linux:
- People who need the real MS Office because once you have to collaborate with others Open/Libre/OnlyOffice won’t cut it;
- Designers who use Adobe apps that won’t run properly without having a dedicated GPU, passthrough and a some hacky way to get the image back into your main system that will cause noticeable delays. Who wants to deploy GPU passthroughs for others? Makes no sense;
- People that run old software / games because not even those will run properly on Wine;
- Electrical engineers: Circuit Design Suite (Multisim and Ultiboard) are primarily designed for Windows. Alternatives such as KiCad and EasyEDA may work in some cases but they aren’t great if you’ve to collaborate with others who use Circuit Design Suite;
- Labs that require data acquisition from specialized hardware because companies making that hardware won’t make drivers and software for Linux;
- Architects: AutoCAD isn’t available (not even the limited web version works) and Libre/FreeCAD don’t cut it if you’ve to collaborate with AutoCAD users;
- Developers and sysadmins, because not everyone is using Docker and Github actions to deploy applications to some proprietary cloud solution. Finding a properly working FTP/SFTP/FTPS desktop client (similar WinSCP or Cyberduck) is an impossible task as the ones that exist fail even at basic tasks like dragging and dropping a file.
If one lives in a bubble and doesn’t to collaborate with others then native Linux apps might work and might even deliver a decent workflow. Once collaboration with Windows/Mac users is required then it’s game over – the “alternatives” aren’t just up to it.
Windows licenses are cheap and things work out of the box. Software runs fine, all vendors support whatever you’re trying to do and you’re productive from day zero. Sure, there are annoyances from time to time, but they’re way fewer and simpler to deal with than the hoops you’ve to go through to get a minimal and viable/productive Linux desktop experience. It all comes down to a question of how much time (days? months?) you want to spend fixing things on Linux that simply work out of the box under Windows for a minimal fee. Buy a Windows license and spend the time you would’ve spent dealing with Linux issues doing your actual job and you’ll, most likely, get a better ROI.
From a more market / macro perspective here are some extra reasons:
- Companies like blame someone when things go wrong, if they chose open-source there’s isn’t someone to sue then;
- Buying proprietary stuff means you’re outsourcing the risks of such product;
- Corruption pushes for proprietary: they might be buying software that is made by someone that is close to the CTO, CEO or other decision marker in the company, an old friend, family or straight under the table corruption;
- Most non-tech companies use services from consulting companies in order to get their software developed / running. Consulting companies often fall under the last point that besides that they have have large incentives from companies like Microsoft to push their proprietary services. For eg. Microsoft will easily provide all of a consulting companies employees with free Azure services, Office and other discounts if they enter in an exclusivity agreement to sell their tech stack. To make things worse consulting companies live of cheap developers (like interns) and Microsoft and their platform makes things easier for anyone to code and deploy;
- Microsoft provider a cohesive ecosystem of products that integrate really well with each other and usually don’t require much effort to get things going - open-source however, usually requires custom development and a ton of work to work out the “sharp angles” between multiple solutions that aren’t related and might not be easily compatible with each other;
- Open-source requires a level of expertise that more than half of the developers and IT professionals simply don’t have. This aspect reinforces the last point even more. Senior open-source experts are more expensive than simply buying proprietary solutions;
- If we consider the price of a senior open-source expert + software costs (usually free) the cost of open-source is considerable lower than the cost of cheap developers + proprietary solutions, however consider we are talking about companies. Companies will always prefer to hire more less expensive and less proficient people because that means they’re easier to replace and you’ll pay less taxes;
- Companies will prefer to hire services from other companies instead of employees thus making proprietary vendors more compelling. This happens because from an accounting / investors perspective employees are bad and subscriptions are cool (less taxes, no responsibilities etc);
- The companies who build proprietary solutions work really hard to get vendors to sell their software, they provide commissions, support and the promises that if anything goes wrong they’ll be there. This increases the number of proprietary-only vendors which reinforces everything above. If you’re starting to sell software or networking services there’s little incentive for you to go pure “open-source”. With less companies, less visibility, less professionals (and more expensive), less margins and less positive market image, less customers and lesser profits.
Unfortunately things are really poised and rigged against open-source solutions and anyone who tries to push for them. The “experts” who work in consulting companies are part of this as they usually don’t even know how to do things without the property solutions. Let me give you an example, once I had to work with E&Y, one of those big consulting companies, and I realized some awkward things while having conversations with both low level employees and partners / middle management, they weren’t aware that there are alternatives most of the time. A manager of a digital transformation and cloud solutions team that started his career E&Y, wasn’t aware that there was open-source alternatives to Google Workplace and Microsoft 365 for e-mail. I probed a TON around that and the guy, a software engineer with an university degree, didn’t even know that was Postfix was and the history of email.
Lots of justification in this. Just be the change you want to see.
I only work with libre formats at work. If someone wants to collaborate, they can easily install libre office or gimp or freecad or gnu cash or whatever. Most libre software is free and cross-platform.
I salute you. Not many that are willing to do so. Maybe because most people don’t have very deep convictions on using FLOSS. It is easier to just do what everyone else does, after all.
I think the opposite. Working on windows is a pain in the ass. Like the system is not made for working and barely support it for actual computer work.
If you only use office or play video games, it’s good, certainly, and it’s good for the security team to have everyone with it because the system is built to only allow specific actions to be done. It’s completely inapt for actual engineering and technical work.
Like the system is not made for working and barely support it for actual computer work.
Have noticed the same.
One example why windows is bad for a developer. Lets say you work with
node.jsEventually you’ll end up withnode_modulesdirectory in you project with tens of thousands of files and thousands of directories. If you delete that directory in windows it takes minutes. In Linux it’s instantaneous.It’s completely inapt for actual engineering and technical work.
Depends on the engineering field, I have out a few specific examples of highly payed engineering fields that can’t get away from Windows.
Depends on the engineering field, I have out a few specific examples of highly payed engineering fields that can’t get away from Windows.
Do share what they are.
Already did on the comment.
Ok, my mistake here. I was talking about computer engineering and technique. Other fields use a software. Windows is barely relevant to the question.
You can’t do whatever you want if you’re an employee in a big enterprise, there are company-wide rules and standards that you have to respect, you can’t expect your colleagues to adapt to you nor you can decide which OS to install on your company PC.
That’s not to say you can’t use Linux at all, you can ask your IT to be allowed to install Virtualbox and use Linux in a VM, that’s what I do, there are a lot of things that don’t strictly require Windows and I use Linux for those.
your colleagues to adapt to you nor you can decide which OS
Sometimes its not even about colleagues, check my reply before https://lemmy.world/comment/6509728
Yeah and sometimes it’s not even just about customers, some people don’t realize big enterprises (as in dozens of thousands of employees) are very different from smaller companies, they’re like a “different world” on their own, not everything you can do on a smaller scale is feasible. They would probably need to work in one to really understand.
I make it very clear at the interview stage that I use Linux. Its never been an issue.
If someone tried to force me to use proprietary software, I’d say no. If they wanted to fire me over that, it would be ridiculous. It’s free and easy to support FOSS. Its costly & difficult to support proprietary software, so its not a hard sell.
You have more power than you think.
I only work with libre formats at work. If someone wants to collaborate, they can easily install libre office or gimp or freecad or gnu cash or whatever. Most libre software is free and cross-platform.
Okay so tell me, you’re working on a budget with a potential customer that uses MS Office. You want to win that customer and do a big project for him, would you “bitch” about him about using MS Office and ask him to install LibreOffice whenever the spreadsheet formulas don’t work properly?
What if said potential customer is a big company with strict IT policies? What if the person can’t even install software or is older and unable do it but very proficient with Excel?
Are you willing to lose a potential big customer, a project that will pay your bills for months just because a boomer can’t or won’t be able to install LibreOffice?
I tell customers to use Libre Office. I tell them its free, cross platform, give them a link to download it, and ask if they have any further questions.
If they said IT issues, I’d ask to talk with their IT department. Its not difficult to get IT to install trusted, open-source software.
You’re delusional or only deal with very low stakes because frankly if your costumer is a 1000+ employee company on industries like banking and whatnot you’ll just lose the customer right there.
Sometimes you have to do what is right instead of what brings you the most money
deleted by creator
I have worked for companies with thousands of employees, yes. It helps to be right about the cost, security, and usability benefits of using FOSS and be able to stand your ground and argue valid points.
But I do prefer companies with less than 100 people.
I’ve been a sysadmin for years and I worked longer on Linux than I did on Windows.
Many of your points are management bullshit. The proof? In France the gendarmerie (country police) moved to Linux about a decade ago.
The thing with windows is usually that management want a whole solution out of the box, from a renowned editor, so basically Microsoft. The key point is that they want a contract with a company so they can discard the responsability of failures on someone out of their own company. The second feature is that they are boomers or anti-nerds, so they are never going to be seen using something on a computer that’s not mainstream.
The last problem is from Microsoft that worked hard these last years to remove any compatibility between office and other softwares of this kind. They also enshitified office365 very hard so that is doesn’t work well on Linux.
The question of the price is a fraud. Large companies need an it service for Windows on top of the licences and infrastructure. It’s way cheaper with Linux. The biggest work with an enterprise Linux is to make it compatible with the shitty Windows environment, and the compliance with the useless security thought for windows.
Many of your points are management bullshit.
Yes, they are and I never said they weren’t management BS. Nevertheless management pays the bills, management makes the decision.
The key point is that they want a contract with a company so they can discard the responsability of failures on someone out of their own company.
You’re just saying what I said before…
The last problem is from Microsoft that worked hard these last years to remove any compatibility between office and other softwares of this kind
Yes, but the end result is that nobody sane would even risk not using MS Office and that’s what it is.
Large companies need an it service for Windows on top of the licences and infrastructure. It’s way cheaper with Linux.
It depends, integration between MS products and services usually comes out of the box or working with minimal setup while with open-source solutions / Linux that isn’t always the case. Also Windows sysadmins are usually cheaper because you can get more and they require less training to be “efficient” than Linux ones.
The biggest work with an enterprise Linux is to make it compatible with the shitty Windows environment, and the compliance with the useless security thought for windows.
Yes but you still have do it and it has a cost. Simply going full Windows is cheaper at that point.
That’s where we disagree : anybody sane would use Linux rather than windows. Windows usage is based on ignorance.
You have zero idea about Windows system integration if you think it comes out of the box. Or you live in America. In Europe, data safety is a concern, and it raises many, many problems with Windows “out of the box”.
There are still use cases for windows. We have a predominately Linux environment (server and desktop), and a development team that build 80% of our operational software. That team are not fans of windows, but come across quite a few use cases where they have to use it because a 3rd party program won’t run on Linux; or an external connection requires a windows service; or there is no comparable product available on Linux (MS Excel is the one thing keeping me on windows). Even ignorance plays a part, because end users can still have had limited access to technology over their lives and in Australia that usually means windows computers in schools. I deal with staff in their 20’s and 30’s who know nothing of how technology works outside of “push that button and the thing happens”, if that button is a different colour, or shape, or location, shift is over, go home - they don’t care why it’s changed and definitely don’t want to learn a new way to do it. We’re somewhere between American data cowboys and the GDPR when it comes to data safety in Australia, which MS can be BS at and the integration burns more of our teams time than it should, but it’s still a necessary evil - even if it’s just when dealing with customers and vendors
If excel is keeping you on Linux, you’re doing it wrong. The problem here is undoubtedly ignorance and nothing else.
If it’s another program, wine made immense progresses these last years. You want to check about it.
Now, if you’re saying Linux is not ready out of the box, that’s true, but neither is Windows. Not if you have any important need. Windows is good for a customer, not for a company.
BTW Linux changed in the last ten years. It’s not the neckbeard system it used to be.
Now that I have a work laptop, I’ve installed Linux on my home computer and it was simple and runs fantastically - actual results may vary as I work in IT and have grown up with a high tech involved family. However, the hill I’m happy to die on, is the fact that using Excel above a basic level in business, where information needs to be shared with non-technical staff cannot be replicated in Linux, and that Excel is still the best product to do this.
This is wrong about excel. Most thing excel do can be done with libreoffice. People are lazy to learn and convert their documents, and Microsoft does everything possible to make this harder.
People saying libre office is a full replacement for Excel haven’t seen what excel power users in offices can do. It’s usually people who in another life would be programmers but for whatever reason they can’t/won’t make the leap out of excel and into full fat programming. Expecting these same people to convert to a free clone of excel that uses slightly different syntax and has less polish is a great way to lose a very valuable employee extremely quickly.
I absolutely love the environment that Linux affords one, and I would financially support the developers of the tools I rely on (which of course includes libre office) if I were in the financial position to do so, but I’m not delusional when it comes to the role Excel plays in the 21st century office. The business world is run from poorly backed up, undocumented Excel spreadsheets on anemic desktops, and that ain’t changing anytime soon
i mostly agree except its leagues ahead for sysadmins and devs, it isnt even a contest. to counter your specific example, filezilla works great. i havent used a tool for this specific niche on linux that wasnt much better.
affinity photo is great on linux too if you are not too stuck with adobe. cant say much about other usecases you mentioned.
also wine runs old software better than windows in some cases. i have better luck with it on linux. funnily enough old linux software is a pain on linux in the rare situations where i need it.
funnily enough old linux software is a pain on linux in the rare situations where i need it.
Oh yes ahaha
I know lowes uses linux for there registers and help desks.
I forgot about that. Thanks for the reminder
deleted by creator
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’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 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…
Yes, and when the company gets hacked they can sue you for not keeping “your” computer secure enough.
Sounds very American point-of-view. Installation and usage was officially sanctioned. Most developers in both companies preferred to use Linux, some used Macs, wintoys users were a minority. Neither company had any super restrictive corporate BS on their wintoys installation. Neither company is based in the Americas. Both are local companies in the EU.
Yes but doesn’t change the issue. That scenario will happen and no CTO on his right mind would allow indiscriminate and random tool usage as it opens the company to a ton of possible liability. If someone does then that person is just bad at their job.
usage was officially sanctioned
What do you mean by this? Is there an entire set of guidelines and security policies for both Windows, macOS and Linux users on the company? Like AV software they’re required to run, do they lock Linux machines with policies like they do with Windows ones? How does it work? If they don’t to any of the above then we’re back to my previous asessement.
The point here is that the company trusts their employees to use the best tools for them, be secure and do the right thing. Be the most productive. Windows needs that kind of third party snake-oil like AV software and restrictive policies to run it somewhat secure. Most Linux distros are already secure by design out of the box. Drive-by malware and hacking are a thing in windows not Linux.
Of course there are best practices and guidelines for running your system securely, how to handle sensitive data etc.
This. Linux Management is a thing and needs to be more implemented. Immutable Distros and more can help here, and should totally be used.
Immutable distros are yet another future money grab attempt.
What? Dude thats some uninformed conspiracy bs. Ubuntu maybe, but the rest?
You’ll remember my comment soon enough.
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.
Hello friend
Hello friend
We spent 1 year negotiating implementation of secure Linux workstation, and now after endless meetings and agreements I can proudly say we have 5 people with fully GNU/Linux laptops! Dell XPS, to be precise.
Nice! We are looking into it with my boss and one other colleague. Im really hoping it goes through and I can finally use Linux at work!
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.path.join, instead of hardcoding \\ into paths, devs who have never worked in another OS look at you like some sort of paranoid maniac.While I’m told such places exist, I have yet to knowingly interact with a business officially doing this for employee computers.
Any web hosting company will use Linux for all servers, and many developers will use it as their workstation as they tire of kludging together dev environments in windows. The devops engineers will most certainly be on Linux as that is where their tool chains live.
There are government agencies that use Linux exclusively. The DoD used to have a mandate to use oss. I’m not sure if it is still the case.
Scientists, HPC.
There was an interview with Dreamworks ( i think that was the Animation house) they use linux for everything.
In engineering CAD and large manufacturing corporations RHEL and SUSE are the two certified distros for running Teamcenter Product Lifecycle Management softare and Siemens NX CAD/CAM/FEA software (up to version 12) it is a smaller market than Windows versions, but probably took the place of the original unix versions prior to 2000
My past 2 jobs have been Linux Desktop. The one before that was WSL (ew)
I have only ever used Linux at work. I tried amacbookd once, then switched back to Linux.
Honestly I deal with a lot of windows environments but I just run Windows VMs for everything.
KVM and Virtio or great
At my current job, our department (DevOps), uses Linux (arch). A couple of devs too (Ubuntu), the rest use a mix of Macs and Windows. The Online versions of Office work just fine, there is Teams, Azure login and even Intune for Linux now.
At my previous job, most of the company used Windows, but the devs were using 90% Linux (Ubuntu), some of them with 2 machines (laptop and workstation with GPU, point cloud stuff). Ah, the good ole days of Ubuntu 16 and Nvidia drivers 🥲
The job before that, a very small company, mostly devs, we were using half Windows, half Linux (mint).
This is Germany btw.
I tried intune on Linux and it was hell incarnate, with edge dependencies and ton of background services, and crashing every now and then.
Did it ever get better with time?
I mean, it still wants edge, which is okay for the online office stuff (SSO), but it’s pretty bare, when compared to Windows. No policies and stuff. Install it and forget it situation, mostly used for reporting. Ah, we also use defender for endpoint, on all 3 oses, which is rather decent.
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.
Several years back, I was 100% Windows based, and only knew Linux from the web hosting scene and running VPS Systems. I landed my current job which uses 100% Linux based OS’s on their customer’s equipment and software, Since then, I’ve gained a mountain of knowledge in the Linux admin and user space to feel comfortable enough to use it full time 100% in my household and administer it.
I think you would be surprised to see Linux more widespread out there, for example, a Raspberry Pi running Raspbian out in the wild mid reboot on signage or other displays, or being part of the brain boxes in industrial machinery. Then of course, - if you have an Android phone - well…that’s a form of Linux as well. :)
Well plenty of VMS in enterprise or corporate environments use Linux. Tenant appliances, User access gateways, DNS forwarders, web app servers in docker containers, maybe even some load balancers and siem appliances. For corporate Desktops however I’ve only really seen thin clients running Linux before sign in to windows VDI, and that gets phased out with Windows for IoT
