4 ms·

I disagree, Windows is very painful for me to use at a basic level compared to Linux. I would be very unlikely to take a job that forced me to develop under Win

by larrik 6y ago

I disagree, Windows is very painful for me to use at a basic level compared to Linux. I would be very unlikely to take a job that forced me to develop under Windows.

simiones 6y ago
The same is mostly true for me when trying to use a Linux desktop. However, if I'm using IntelliJ or Emacs and Firefox, I don't really need to care what OS is running underneath too much. Edit: of course, Linux and Mac are available for devs that prefer them. It's still much easier for IT to manage 7000 Windows desktops and a couple hundred Linux ones than it would be to manage 7000 Linux desktops.
- Icathian 6y ago
  I'm not sure I agree with that. 7k "normal" machines for any given value of "normal" seems like it would always be easier than 7k "normal" machines and 200 oddballs. Is the sysadmin tooling for Windows really that much better?
  - simiones 6y ago
    Are there even systems for managing many desktop machines running Linux? - Could you push a patch to Linux systems and have it install at the user's convenience (with some end date)? - Can you do that in waves without manually configuring things? - Can you remotely wipe a system if required? - Is there any popular anti-virus software for Linux, to protect company files in home folders from user mistakes? - Can you help users install some software without giving them full access, but also without requiring IT intervention for every installation?
- toohotatopic 6y ago
  > It's still much easier for IT to manage 7000 Windows desktops and a couple hundred Linux ones than it would be to manage 7000 Linux desktops. Why? I have never seen Windows being managed entirely hands-off whereas Linux just works.
  - simiones 6y ago
    I don't understand what "being managed entirely hands-off" means. I can assure you there is no manual intervention from IT on every desktop system in the fleet, so I would call that exactly "being managed hands-off". I am certain there are always a few systems that do need some manual intervention for whatever reason, but that seems to just be the way with computers. It's not like Ubuntu updates never break, or no one ever gets to install a broken package before it is retracted.
    - toohotatopic 6y ago
      I mean with 'entirely hands-off' that the computer just keep on running. On Linux, most packages are part of the repository and update automatically. On Windows, those packages have to be updated manually. Even if everything is automated, the computer will have to be restarted quite regularly. At least to me, Windows seems to be more difficult, especially if you have a fleet of desktop systems that can be chosen to be perfectly Linux compatible. Where does the complexity on Linux come from that makes managing them more difficult?
      - simiones 6y ago
        Even on Linux, you need restarts if you want the updates to shared libraries to actually happen. You can't just apply a critical security update to OpenSSL for example and hope that the user actually restarts their programs at some point - if you care about the update being applied, you need to know that by some date all of the programs on that system are actually restarted, and a scheduled reboot is by far the simplest way to do this. Then there's the question of pushing an update to all managed computers. Maybe it's not a package update, but you want to change some SELinux policy for all users, or update some DNS server or the default search domain and so on. Never mind the question of how you can instruct one of those Linux computers to delete all data it holds whenever it next connects to the internet (to handle the case of a stolen company laptop). There are so many things that you need in an enterprise setting that have common (though probably quite expensive) tools available for Windows. Maybe some of these exist for Linux as well (I would expect RedHat to have some), but I'm not sure. Linux admin is usually reserved for servers much more than desktop computers.

by larrik 6y ago

I disagree, Windows is very painful for me to use at a basic level compared to Linux. I would be very unlikely to take a job that forced me to develop under Windows.

simiones 6y ago

The same is mostly true for me when trying to use a Linux desktop. However, if I'm using IntelliJ or Emacs and Firefox, I don't really need to care what OS is running underneath too much. Edit: of course, Linux and Mac are available for devs that prefer them. It's still much easier for IT to manage 7000 Windows desktops and a couple hundred Linux ones than it would be to manage 7000 Linux desktops.

Icathian 6y ago
I'm not sure I agree with that. 7k "normal" machines for any given value of "normal" seems like it would always be easier than 7k "normal" machines and 200 oddballs. Is the sysadmin tooling for Windows really that much better?
- simiones 6y ago
  Are there even systems for managing many desktop machines running Linux? - Could you push a patch to Linux systems and have it install at the user's convenience (with some end date)? - Can you do that in waves without manually configuring things? - Can you remotely wipe a system if required? - Is there any popular anti-virus software for Linux, to protect company files in home folders from user mistakes? - Can you help users install some software without giving them full access, but also without requiring IT intervention for every installation?
toohotatopic 6y ago
> It's still much easier for IT to manage 7000 Windows desktops and a couple hundred Linux ones than it would be to manage 7000 Linux desktops. Why? I have never seen Windows being managed entirely hands-off whereas Linux just works.
- simiones 6y ago
  I don't understand what "being managed entirely hands-off" means. I can assure you there is no manual intervention from IT on every desktop system in the fleet, so I would call that exactly "being managed hands-off". I am certain there are always a few systems that do need some manual intervention for whatever reason, but that seems to just be the way with computers. It's not like Ubuntu updates never break, or no one ever gets to install a broken package before it is retracted.
  - toohotatopic 6y ago
    I mean with 'entirely hands-off' that the computer just keep on running. On Linux, most packages are part of the repository and update automatically. On Windows, those packages have to be updated manually. Even if everything is automated, the computer will have to be restarted quite regularly. At least to me, Windows seems to be more difficult, especially if you have a fleet of desktop systems that can be chosen to be perfectly Linux compatible. Where does the complexity on Linux come from that makes managing them more difficult?
    - simiones 6y ago
      Even on Linux, you need restarts if you want the updates to shared libraries to actually happen. You can't just apply a critical security update to OpenSSL for example and hope that the user actually restarts their programs at some point - if you care about the update being applied, you need to know that by some date all of the programs on that system are actually restarted, and a scheduled reboot is by far the simplest way to do this. Then there's the question of pushing an update to all managed computers. Maybe it's not a package update, but you want to change some SELinux policy for all users, or update some DNS server or the default search domain and so on. Never mind the question of how you can instruct one of those Linux computers to delete all data it holds whenever it next connects to the internet (to handle the case of a stolen company laptop). There are so many things that you need in an enterprise setting that have common (though probably quite expensive) tools available for Windows. Maybe some of these exist for Linux as well (I would expect RedHat to have some), but I'm not sure. Linux admin is usually reserved for servers much more than desktop computers.