5 ms·

It's easier and quicker to deploy, no licensing or registration, full customization capabilities, runs on lighter and cheaper hardware, excellent Windows app su

It's easier and quicker to deploy, no licensing or registration, full customization capabilities, runs on lighter and cheaper hardware, excellent Windows app support via Wine... it baffles me that it hasn't become a standard business OS yet. I've never seen Linux on any company's computer that wasn't a server.

xen2xen1 4y ago
Because supporting it in reality is a nightmare?
- ElectricalUnion 4y ago
  On my experience, repairing Windows environments is so hard people just nuke everything and rebuild from a known good image. Why would Linux support be any different?
  - RockRobotRock 4y ago
    There are a lot of young entry-level help desk technicians that know how to do basic Windows troubleshooting. If you need an engineer to get involved in a tier 1 support issue, that's really a waste of everyone's time.
    - sleepymoose 4y ago
      >There are a lot of young entry-level help desk technicians that know how to do basic Windows troubleshooting. I'd guess that's largely due to the fact that a large amount of Windows troubleshooting boils down to one of 3 things: Reseting the software to default, reinstalling the software completely, or reinstalling Windows.
    - ElectricalUnion 4y ago
      To me the fact that you have a whole it outsourcing industry to do "basic Windows troubleshooting" is a giant Red herring that those systems are a pain to maintain. Not that Linux isn't also a pain to maintain when things go wrong, but at least on Linux, when something breaks it's because I broke it.
  - entropicdrifter 4y ago
    Yeah, agreed. Plus you can keep home folders as separate partitions, even synced to the network daily, so nuking a machine and restoring from a backup can be done remotely with just a few cli commands
    - tssva 4y ago
      The same goes for Windows.
      - entropicdrifter 4y ago
        Yes, but in Linux you don't have a registry to deal with, so nuking the machine and restoring it can be a lot simpler
        tssva 4y ago
        Folder redirection, roaming profiles and group policy makes this quick and easy on Windows too. This has been a solved issue on Windows for quite a long time.
        entropicdrifter 4y ago
        I didn't say it was unsolved, I said it's easier to deal with in Linux
        tssva 4y ago
        Let me clarify. It is long solved on Windows and easy to implement at this point. I don't agree that it is easier to deal with in Linux.
- SamuelAdams 4y ago
  It’s also easier to hire for. Everyone seems to forget this lol. If I’m hiring a team of accountants at 100k a year and they all have experience with Windows and Excel, the collective licensing cost is worth it to not have to retrain, troubleshoot, etc. Plus external vendors / B2B customers lock in the Windows ecosystem as well. It’s getting less common, but there are still plenty of businesses that send excel / word docs to each other via email. If your business sends a “word compatible” RFQ that has weird characters that couldn’t be decoded or logos that don’t render, that’s not a great look. The cost of bad impressions is greater than the cost of software licensing from Microsoft.
soupbowl 4y ago
I can't imagine trying to keep junky accounting and business software that is prone to breaking running on wine. Wine is great, but I dont want to add extra things to troubleshoot.
- freedomben 4y ago
  There are cloud-based SaaS alternatives to most of that stuff now. I much prefer a locally installed application myself, but the world is definitely headed toward a perpetual rental/subscription model. If I'm going to be paying rent for my software anyway, the convenience of SaaS is hard to pass up. Re: wine though, I agree that would be nightmare, but nice thing about deploying as a business is once you get a working image together you can deploy it out to everyone, and only bring in patches that are tested/working. After the initial effort I don't think it would be much more labor intensive than managing windows updates.
- oynqr 4y ago
  Wine is probably a more stable target than Windows.
ElectricalUnion 4y ago
> no licensing or registration RHEL and SLES enters the chat.
rascul 4y ago
> I've never seen Linux on any company's computer that wasn't a server. Most computers were running Linux at Lowe's when I left a few years ago.
- seanw444 4y ago
  Interesting. I'll have to ask an employee next time I have to drop in for something. It'll be very random, but oh well.
  - rascul 4y ago
    I believe it was RHEL. IceWM was in use.
- _-david-_ 4y ago
  Are you talking about all computers or just the checkout systems? Did the accounting department or whoever use Linux?
  - rascul 4y ago
    Most of the computers throughout the store, to include checkout. I think the kitchen section had one running Windows. Training room computers ran Linux. There were 3 or 4 offices and I'm not sure what OS was on those computers. There was no accounting department at the store.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
lysergia 4y ago
Yeah and some distros even come with Libre Office bundled in. In all my time using it, I’ve never run into problems apart from some tiny edge cases like not being able to use Windows-specific fonts like Impact etc But you can install Windows fonts in Linux for that situation. Then there’s ChromeOS Flex where you can open any Office document and edit and store in the cloud with Google Docs. There’s really no excuse for using Windows for office stuff anymore.
metadat 4y ago
Does Zoom desktop work on Wine? Slack?
- goosedragons 4y ago
  Both of those already have Linux versions.
  - entropicdrifter 4y ago
    This. No need for Wine to run those, they're native
_8j50 4y ago
Are you being clueless on purpose? You want to tell random regular office workers to mess with wine on Linux? Does it really baffle you? I use linux desktop and it is ridiculosuly janky and messy. I mean I assume you have no idea what sort of requirements IT shops and users at regular businesses have. I mean really? At least say MacOS or something but even with the excellent UI and managability and apple support it still would be a terrible fit as a default unless you are a startup with techies or s tech first business like uber, graphic designers, digital publishers and such. Let me tell you how absurd this shit is and how clueless you are all being here: even if you had a magic wand that mad linux nice and usable like macos and you managed to get every random business app to work reliably and in a managable way you still have people that want to run random windows programs because of preference or because a client requires it,etc... and the moment that internally developed app by a client doesn't work in wine what then? Is wine offering paid support and SLAs? Matter of fact are all the alternative apps that magically work also come with reliable support or are off to github issues begging and pleading devs? Been there, done that lol. Forget standard OS, outside of tech companies you can't even support Linux desktop for internal devs and IT people that promise they can manage it on their own. Let me say one final thing here: people like you are hurting Linux Desktop more than anyone else. You pretend it is great instead of calling it what it is so it can improve. All is well and only idiots don't like it puh! And each time someone thinks you know what you are talking about it becomes that much less likely to be supported for general use because general users are now alienated. It works, I like it and use it daily when it does. But relatively speaking it is bottom tier shit for general business use.
- kobalsky 4y ago
  I will agree that using wine is not something we would consider using, but >>> It works, I like it and use it daily when it does. But relatively speaking it is bottom tier shit for general business use. that's definitely a problem on your end. we've been running linux on laptops and desktops using puppet for configuration and native packaging to distribute our own modifications for almost a decade now and I wouldn't change it for anything. our software requirements are simple, but you did say "general business". some of our employees don't know the word linux, but they have been using it for years.

xen2xen1 4y ago

Because supporting it in reality is a nightmare?

ElectricalUnion 4y ago
On my experience, repairing Windows environments is so hard people just nuke everything and rebuild from a known good image. Why would Linux support be any different?
- RockRobotRock 4y ago
  There are a lot of young entry-level help desk technicians that know how to do basic Windows troubleshooting. If you need an engineer to get involved in a tier 1 support issue, that's really a waste of everyone's time.
  - sleepymoose 4y ago
    >There are a lot of young entry-level help desk technicians that know how to do basic Windows troubleshooting. I'd guess that's largely due to the fact that a large amount of Windows troubleshooting boils down to one of 3 things: Reseting the software to default, reinstalling the software completely, or reinstalling Windows.
  - ElectricalUnion 4y ago
    To me the fact that you have a whole it outsourcing industry to do "basic Windows troubleshooting" is a giant Red herring that those systems are a pain to maintain. Not that Linux isn't also a pain to maintain when things go wrong, but at least on Linux, when something breaks it's because I broke it.
- entropicdrifter 4y ago
  Yeah, agreed. Plus you can keep home folders as separate partitions, even synced to the network daily, so nuking a machine and restoring from a backup can be done remotely with just a few cli commands
  - tssva 4y ago
    The same goes for Windows.
    - entropicdrifter 4y ago
      Yes, but in Linux you don't have a registry to deal with, so nuking the machine and restoring it can be a lot simpler
      - tssva 4y ago
        Folder redirection, roaming profiles and group policy makes this quick and easy on Windows too. This has been a solved issue on Windows for quite a long time.
        entropicdrifter 4y ago
        I didn't say it was unsolved, I said it's easier to deal with in Linux
        tssva 4y ago
        Let me clarify. It is long solved on Windows and easy to implement at this point. I don't agree that it is easier to deal with in Linux.
SamuelAdams 4y ago
It’s also easier to hire for. Everyone seems to forget this lol. If I’m hiring a team of accountants at 100k a year and they all have experience with Windows and Excel, the collective licensing cost is worth it to not have to retrain, troubleshoot, etc. Plus external vendors / B2B customers lock in the Windows ecosystem as well. It’s getting less common, but there are still plenty of businesses that send excel / word docs to each other via email. If your business sends a “word compatible” RFQ that has weird characters that couldn’t be decoded or logos that don’t render, that’s not a great look. The cost of bad impressions is greater than the cost of software licensing from Microsoft.

soupbowl 4y ago

I can't imagine trying to keep junky accounting and business software that is prone to breaking running on wine. Wine is great, but I dont want to add extra things to troubleshoot.

freedomben 4y ago
There are cloud-based SaaS alternatives to most of that stuff now. I much prefer a locally installed application myself, but the world is definitely headed toward a perpetual rental/subscription model. If I'm going to be paying rent for my software anyway, the convenience of SaaS is hard to pass up. Re: wine though, I agree that would be nightmare, but nice thing about deploying as a business is once you get a working image together you can deploy it out to everyone, and only bring in patches that are tested/working. After the initial effort I don't think it would be much more labor intensive than managing windows updates.
oynqr 4y ago
Wine is probably a more stable target than Windows.

ElectricalUnion 4y ago

> no licensing or registration RHEL and SLES enters the chat.

rascul 4y ago

> I've never seen Linux on any company's computer that wasn't a server. Most computers were running Linux at Lowe's when I left a few years ago.

seanw444 4y ago
Interesting. I'll have to ask an employee next time I have to drop in for something. It'll be very random, but oh well.
- rascul 4y ago
  I believe it was RHEL. IceWM was in use.
_-david-_ 4y ago
Are you talking about all computers or just the checkout systems? Did the accounting department or whoever use Linux?
- rascul 4y ago
  Most of the computers throughout the store, to include checkout. I think the kitchen section had one running Windows. Training room computers ran Linux. There were 3 or 4 offices and I'm not sure what OS was on those computers. There was no accounting department at the store.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

lysergia 4y ago

Yeah and some distros even come with Libre Office bundled in. In all my time using it, I’ve never run into problems apart from some tiny edge cases like not being able to use Windows-specific fonts like Impact etc But you can install Windows fonts in Linux for that situation. Then there’s ChromeOS Flex where you can open any Office document and edit and store in the cloud with Google Docs. There’s really no excuse for using Windows for office stuff anymore.

metadat 4y ago

Does Zoom desktop work on Wine? Slack?

goosedragons 4y ago
Both of those already have Linux versions.
- entropicdrifter 4y ago
  This. No need for Wine to run those, they're native

_8j50 4y ago

Are you being clueless on purpose? You want to tell random regular office workers to mess with wine on Linux? Does it really baffle you? I use linux desktop and it is ridiculosuly janky and messy. I mean I assume you have no idea what sort of requirements IT shops and users at regular businesses have. I mean really? At least say MacOS or something but even with the excellent UI and managability and apple support it still would be a terrible fit as a default unless you are a startup with techies or s tech first business like uber, graphic designers, digital publishers and such. Let me tell you how absurd this shit is and how clueless you are all being here: even if you had a magic wand that mad linux nice and usable like macos and you managed to get every random business app to work reliably and in a managable way you still have people that want to run random windows programs because of preference or because a client requires it,etc... and the moment that internally developed app by a client doesn't work in wine what then? Is wine offering paid support and SLAs? Matter of fact are all the alternative apps that magically work also come with reliable support or are off to github issues begging and pleading devs? Been there, done that lol. Forget standard OS, outside of tech companies you can't even support Linux desktop for internal devs and IT people that promise they can manage it on their own. Let me say one final thing here: people like you are hurting Linux Desktop more than anyone else. You pretend it is great instead of calling it what it is so it can improve. All is well and only idiots don't like it puh! And each time someone thinks you know what you are talking about it becomes that much less likely to be supported for general use because general users are now alienated. It works, I like it and use it daily when it does. But relatively speaking it is bottom tier shit for general business use.

kobalsky 4y ago
I will agree that using wine is not something we would consider using, but >>> It works, I like it and use it daily when it does. But relatively speaking it is bottom tier shit for general business use. that's definitely a problem on your end. we've been running linux on laptops and desktops using puppet for configuration and native packaging to distribute our own modifications for almost a decade now and I wouldn't change it for anything. our software requirements are simple, but you did say "general business". some of our employees don't know the word linux, but they have been using it for years.