3 ms·

> or are you in a non-tech job Believe it or not, many of us techies really like our windows desktops along with other machines.

shmerl 7y ago
I surely can't stand Windows for work. Some companies unfortunately force it in the work environment due to IT not willing to handle Linux. Better ones allow using Linux.
- tracker1 7y ago
  Well, when you've got over a hundred people at your company, and 20 of them are developers, and an IT staff (non-development) of 3 people, change doesn't come easy. Aside: I may be able to switch in a couple months... I'm literally working on isolating a windows tether in the primary app I'm working on into an isolated service. After that, it'll be separated enough that I won't have to support it. We also have some other projects that are k8s/docker/linux as the target, and some of the contractors are using macs. So may be able to make a case for a switch. edit: My experience (elearning, banking, govt) has been no companies supporting desktop users on linux. Though some VM deskop use for software on non-windows servers.
  - jve 7y ago
    > edit: My experience (elearning, banking, govt) has been no companies supporting desktop users on linux. It could partially be to maintaining a desktop OS. GPO / SCCM helps manage computers with scale. I'm sure there are Linux tools, but suddenly you have 2x more work to secure, patch and keep up with the best practices for your workstations. Moreover GPO and SCCM is IT friendly way of managing computers.
  - lucb1e 7y ago
    Change? Introducing a Microsoft ecosystem would be the change. Who worked first at that company: the developers or the sysadmin/sales/customer support/management/cleaning/finance/HR/recruitment/... people? Assuming that a company with 20% of its workforce being developers actually sells a software product or does contractual development, the first few employees were probably all developers working on whatever they pleased. At some point, someone makes the decision to make all developers work on something they don't please when they propose enforcing a monoculture.
    - tracker1 7y ago
      Up until about a year and a half ago when the company started working on a couple software solutions the company was print focused for several decades... over I believe about 10 years they got into smaller hardware print/scanning solutions, using 3-4 developers and 1-2 IT staff... They've been using Windows apps, with their core developers C# focused for most of that time... MS was the most natural fit for their environment. So, the monoculture was there when the new projects started.. the majority of developers and staff are from/in a windows and microsoft centric world view. Moving stuff away from that has been very hard, and something I've worked hard to make an effort on... I'm not sure where your dogma comes from, but Linux 20 years ago was not what it's been for the last decade even.
pbhjpbhj 7y ago
What's surprised me, coming back (obliged to for work) to MS Windows after 15 years away, is how the WM can't even put windows back where you left them, nor do basics like "always on top" (I swear, even recently, it used to do that; but it's application specific now). And how in generally great tools like OneNote you can't rotate a page printed to it (there's a workaround though, snip the page as an image [it's already an image!] then you're allowed to rotate), nor is there grouping of selections (ink in particular). Third party tools have fixes for all this, and more. These all seem like pre-1.0 issues to me.

shmerl 7y ago

I surely can't stand Windows for work. Some companies unfortunately force it in the work environment due to IT not willing to handle Linux. Better ones allow using Linux.

tracker1 7y ago
Well, when you've got over a hundred people at your company, and 20 of them are developers, and an IT staff (non-development) of 3 people, change doesn't come easy. Aside: I may be able to switch in a couple months... I'm literally working on isolating a windows tether in the primary app I'm working on into an isolated service. After that, it'll be separated enough that I won't have to support it. We also have some other projects that are k8s/docker/linux as the target, and some of the contractors are using macs. So may be able to make a case for a switch. edit: My experience (elearning, banking, govt) has been no companies supporting desktop users on linux. Though some VM deskop use for software on non-windows servers.
- jve 7y ago
  > edit: My experience (elearning, banking, govt) has been no companies supporting desktop users on linux. It could partially be to maintaining a desktop OS. GPO / SCCM helps manage computers with scale. I'm sure there are Linux tools, but suddenly you have 2x more work to secure, patch and keep up with the best practices for your workstations. Moreover GPO and SCCM is IT friendly way of managing computers.
- lucb1e 7y ago
  Change? Introducing a Microsoft ecosystem would be the change. Who worked first at that company: the developers or the sysadmin/sales/customer support/management/cleaning/finance/HR/recruitment/... people? Assuming that a company with 20% of its workforce being developers actually sells a software product or does contractual development, the first few employees were probably all developers working on whatever they pleased. At some point, someone makes the decision to make all developers work on something they don't please when they propose enforcing a monoculture.
  - tracker1 7y ago
    Up until about a year and a half ago when the company started working on a couple software solutions the company was print focused for several decades... over I believe about 10 years they got into smaller hardware print/scanning solutions, using 3-4 developers and 1-2 IT staff... They've been using Windows apps, with their core developers C# focused for most of that time... MS was the most natural fit for their environment. So, the monoculture was there when the new projects started.. the majority of developers and staff are from/in a windows and microsoft centric world view. Moving stuff away from that has been very hard, and something I've worked hard to make an effort on... I'm not sure where your dogma comes from, but Linux 20 years ago was not what it's been for the last decade even.

pbhjpbhj 7y ago

What's surprised me, coming back (obliged to for work) to MS Windows after 15 years away, is how the WM can't even put windows back where you left them, nor do basics like "always on top" (I swear, even recently, it used to do that; but it's application specific now). And how in generally great tools like OneNote you can't rotate a page printed to it (there's a workaround though, snip the page as an image [it's already an image!] then you're allowed to rotate), nor is there grouping of selections (ink in particular). Third party tools have fixes for all this, and more. These all seem like pre-1.0 issues to me.