Using Gnu+Linux at work
Using Gnu+Linux at work
Hello everyone, my company (our department is of around 150+ developers/machine learning people/researchers) is currently considering switching from Windows to Gnu+Linux for company devices (as in the machines we use in our daily work) and we are currently in the phase of collecting requirements. I'm not in charge of the process or involved in the decision phase, but as an enthusiast I'm curious about it. We handle data and other sensitive resources, so the environment should remain managed by the IT department (what's possible to install, VPNs, firewalls, updates and similar). What do companies generally use in this kind of scenario? I'm assuming they generally do some stuff with either Canonical or Red Hat, but are there alternatives? Are there ways to do something that works across distributions by using flatpak or the nix package manager? What are your experiences?
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There are numerous ways to approach this.
Canonical:
- Cheap finance-wise
- Low upfront cost skill-wise
- Medium ongoing cost skill-wise
- Occasionally breaks without being touched
RedHat:
- Medium cost finance-wise
- Low upfront cost skill-wise
- Medium ongoing cost skill-wise
- RedHat is not what it used to be. Has QA been sacked?
And, of course, my favourite đ
Gentoo:
- Cheap finance-wise
- High upfront cost skill-wise
- Medium ongoing cost skill-wise
- Only breaks when multiple warnings are ignored
From my experience, though - you'll probably end up on Ubuntu. Because everyone knows it, right?
Yep, Ubuntu was mentioned as an example in a few meetings and I think they will end up doing that. And it's fine, give me literally anything other than Windows and I will be happy, however I'm a spoiled kid, so I also don't really want Ubuntu.
The disappointing thing about Ubuntu is that the Ubuntu in everyone's minds is very different from Ubuntu that's actually getting installed. Snap is atrocious on desktop. Random inconsistencies across a fleet on a few hundred identical desktops. A dodgy campaign to onboard everyone onto Ubuntu Pro (I don't mind them charging for a service, but the way they do it is disgusting.). Incredibly inflexible if you want more than just the barebones desktop.
Every day there's something annoying popping up.
"I've heard of that, let's use it!"
Please please please tell your bosses how stupid that attitude is.
What about SUSE?
I never could forgive them the microsoft deal