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I had to respond to this because I am also a person who switched from Mac OS to Linux for work. But I still have my Macbook pro at the office, it never leaves

I had to respond to this because I am also a person who switched from Mac OS to Linux for work. But I still have my Macbook pro at the office, it never leaves the desk there. My ambulatory laptop is a Thinkpad X260 running Fedora. I have none of the issues described in the article But you do raise valid points. I work in an organisation that loves Microsoft and store-bought solutions like Skype for Business. My answer is to use a tablet for video conference calls, a Pixel C in my case but any modern tablet will work. So with that solved the only major gripe I have with using Linux professionally is all the enterprise VPN solutions that in one way or another require Windows. Juniper JunOS pulse for example, I haven't been able to get that working on Linux. They do have an official Linux client but like you said, it requires some finagling. Other than that though I think Linux has come a very long way from the old mentality that you had to spend long nights getting everything to work. I used to do that, but the last 5-6 years I've been too busy with work to bother. So I was using mostly Apple until about 4 years ago when I bought a Thinkpad X230 and started using Fedora. Another issue that doesn't come up often but is quite debilitating is when I need to screencast to someone. Wayland isn't supported anywhere so I have to logout and log back in with X just to screencast. None of the other issues you mentioned affect me, projectors and hdmi screen sharing works just fine.

majewsky 9y ago
> My answer is to use a tablet for video conference calls "Can you please share your screen?"
- INTPenis 9y ago
  Well yes, I did mention that screencasting altogether is pretty crippled with Wayland. Not to mention that you won't be able to share if you're using a tablet. Obviously it's not for everyone but I've made it work for my situation.
  - majewsky 9y ago
    Screencasting should (with capital S) work on Wayland, but Wayland is much stricter about which processes are allowed to grab the framebuffer. At least for Sway (which is the Wayland compositor that I'm using) framebuffer access needs to be granted explicitly in the config, and only swaygrab (their own screenshot utility) is permitted by default.
    - INTPenis 9y ago
      So far it's been a matter of applications not supporting wayland yet. By applications I can only remember trying Google screencasting, through hangouts to youtube for example. But I think I tried one more that I lost the name to.
- rotten 9y ago
  Our company is switching to bluejeans. I'm optimistic because they actually appear to support linux. I made the switch from OSX to linux laptop last spring. I can do almost everything I did before... except share screens easily.
elFarto 9y ago
I have the Juniper VPN working under Linux. Pulse Secure (as it's now called) is supported by the openconnect package[1]. It was pretty straight forward to get working. There's even a Network Manager plugin to allow you to configure it via the GUI. Since you're running Fedora, you can probably do something like: sudo dnf install openconnect NetworkManager-openconnect [1] http://www.infradead.org/openconnect/ http://www.infradead.org/openconnect/
- BuildTheRobots 9y ago
  As I'm currently going through similar pain, I'd point out that the Juniper OpenConnect connectivity seems to require the Juniper firewall has WebVPN enabled for this to work on linux (Pulse Secure on windows, however, doesn't need it). The official PulseSecure client for linux manages to install but then fails to launch with ubuntu 16.04...
- INTPenis 9y ago
  I did eventually end up trying openconnect but our Pulse uses OTP and host checker. So I was lead down a path where I needed a script that would answer host checker. But couldn't get that working and gave up, only gave it one evening so far.
ghaff 9y ago
Generally speaking, you'll do pretty well with Thinkpads and Fedora. Thinkpads are Red Hat's standard company laptops so a lot of the configurations are pretty thoroughly vetted and tested. I loaded Fedora 26 and 27 on my new X270 and things went flawlessly. I won't say there are never any issues but it's pretty plug and play these days.
flukus 9y ago
> But you do raise valid points. I work in an organisation that loves Microsoft and store-bought solutions like Skype for Business. Is the situation any better elsewhere? On windows at work we constantly have issues with desktop sharing over skype freezing and have to fall back to WebEx and deal with it's sound not working properly, we'll often end up with a hybrid of voice calls on skype and screen sharing with webex and all the wasted time dealing with that. I had an hour long meeting on WebEx yesterday where I could barely hear anyone. These aren't things I've tried to do on linux so I can't comment on how well supported they are, but let's not pretend they work seamlessly in the microsoft world either.

majewsky 9y ago

> My answer is to use a tablet for video conference calls "Can you please share your screen?"

INTPenis 9y ago
Well yes, I did mention that screencasting altogether is pretty crippled with Wayland. Not to mention that you won't be able to share if you're using a tablet. Obviously it's not for everyone but I've made it work for my situation.
- majewsky 9y ago
  Screencasting should (with capital S) work on Wayland, but Wayland is much stricter about which processes are allowed to grab the framebuffer. At least for Sway (which is the Wayland compositor that I'm using) framebuffer access needs to be granted explicitly in the config, and only swaygrab (their own screenshot utility) is permitted by default.
  - INTPenis 9y ago
    So far it's been a matter of applications not supporting wayland yet. By applications I can only remember trying Google screencasting, through hangouts to youtube for example. But I think I tried one more that I lost the name to.
rotten 9y ago
Our company is switching to bluejeans. I'm optimistic because they actually appear to support linux. I made the switch from OSX to linux laptop last spring. I can do almost everything I did before... except share screens easily.

elFarto 9y ago

I have the Juniper VPN working under Linux. Pulse Secure (as it's now called) is supported by the openconnect package[1]. It was pretty straight forward to get working. There's even a Network Manager plugin to allow you to configure it via the GUI. Since you're running Fedora, you can probably do something like: sudo dnf install openconnect NetworkManager-openconnect [1] http://www.infradead.org/openconnect/ http://www.infradead.org/openconnect/

BuildTheRobots 9y ago
As I'm currently going through similar pain, I'd point out that the Juniper OpenConnect connectivity seems to require the Juniper firewall has WebVPN enabled for this to work on linux (Pulse Secure on windows, however, doesn't need it). The official PulseSecure client for linux manages to install but then fails to launch with ubuntu 16.04...
INTPenis 9y ago
I did eventually end up trying openconnect but our Pulse uses OTP and host checker. So I was lead down a path where I needed a script that would answer host checker. But couldn't get that working and gave up, only gave it one evening so far.

ghaff 9y ago

Generally speaking, you'll do pretty well with Thinkpads and Fedora. Thinkpads are Red Hat's standard company laptops so a lot of the configurations are pretty thoroughly vetted and tested. I loaded Fedora 26 and 27 on my new X270 and things went flawlessly. I won't say there are never any issues but it's pretty plug and play these days.

flukus 9y ago

> But you do raise valid points. I work in an organisation that loves Microsoft and store-bought solutions like Skype for Business. Is the situation any better elsewhere? On windows at work we constantly have issues with desktop sharing over skype freezing and have to fall back to WebEx and deal with it's sound not working properly, we'll often end up with a hybrid of voice calls on skype and screen sharing with webex and all the wasted time dealing with that. I had an hour long meeting on WebEx yesterday where I could barely hear anyone. These aren't things I've tried to do on linux so I can't comment on how well supported they are, but let's not pretend they work seamlessly in the microsoft world either.