3 ms·

> Sure, distro X, _when properly tuned_, will be better than Ubuntu. But a lot of users, even power users, are in Linux to do their job, which is NOT tuning lin

by pxc 4y ago

> Sure, distro X, _when properly tuned_, will be better than Ubuntu. But a lot of users, even power users, are in Linux to do their job, which is NOT tuning linux distros. So let people whose job does include 'tuning' operating systems handle that. Does your company not have an IT department or something? > Open to changing my mind. But please, let’a discuss a default experience, not a ton-of-tuning-patches-installs experience. Again, where is this double-standard coming from? Since when do fleets of Windows laptops run without any 'tuning'? The work it takes to get a decent UX on Linux given known hardware, selected for the purpose, is extremely trivial for anyone who knows Linux at all. It's not hard to master your own install media for most distros either. Buy your shit from a decent Linux hardware vendor and they'll even install whatever custom OS you want before they send you the machines. This idea that a whole-ass company should be somehow helplessly captive to distro defaults is pitiful. Hire someone with decent Linux competency and prepare a suitable OS image! It's what you should be doing regardless of the Ubuntu question.

esperent 4y ago
> Does your company not have an IT department or something? Yes. It's me. And I'd rather spend my time doing my actual job rather than tuning linux distros.
- gtirloni 4y ago
  Isn't that your job too?
alanfranz 4y ago
> Since when do fleets of Windows laptops run without any 'tuning' My Ubuntu systems runs fine without tuning. My MacOS laptop runs fine without tuning, my company just installs its fleet management tools, but there's no actually tuning involved, just a couple of policies. I don't really know what to make of large Windows fleets and I don't use Windows since eons, but most laptops work OOB nowadays (barring removing some adware). BUT: I was comparing Linux-to-Linux, other OSes may be a bit different. I agree that finely tuning a Linux distro, in a large company, could be feasible. But it can be tricky: you need to override repositories or pin packages, otherwise things can break... and it's not a job anybody would like to do. And yes, some people used to do manual patch management for Windows workstation deployments, once upon a time. I don't know if it's still a thing, but it was very messy and the famous "mixed-patch environments" were a boon for attackers (some vulnerabilities could only be exploited in those unpredictable scenarios). I want my basic OS experience to be managed by whomever creates it.
- gtirloni 4y ago
  I've never had to fine-tune Fedora for many years. It just works. Last week I reinstalled my laptop and only restored my /home folder. All good.
- pxc 4y ago
  > My Ubuntu systems runs fine without tuning. My MacOS laptop runs fine without tuning Maybe I don't understand what you mean by 'tuning' here. The only tuning I can really see required if one chooses, e.g., Debian over Ubuntu, is the installation of proprietary and patent-encumbered codecs and drivers that are not legally redistributable for community distros. And can it really even be said that Ubuntu works free of tuning? I support a baby boomer relative on a Kubuntu system I built for them years ago. Upon upgrading to the latest release, I had to do some clunky apt pinning shit to purge Snap from their system to get their browsers working normally again after Canonical snapified them. > you need to override repositories or pin packages, otherwise things can break... This is not hard. I learned how to maintain a Linux repository in a few weeks at the age of 18 because I decided it was lame to be restricted to choice of distro by package availability. The first repo was up in a weekend and by the end of the year I was comfortable packaging for Gentoo, Arch, Ubuntu, and openSUSE. I bet most people reading this post could learn to do it competently in a similar timeframe. (Ubuntu and Debian here actually make such things harder, because apt is pretty much worst-in-class when it comes to managing multiple repositories.) More importantly, don't you already need to do this just for things like security agents and monitoring tools anyway? > and it's not a job anybody would like to do. Why not? I would. Maintaining an in-house repository for desktop Linux support is easier, more interesting, more satisfying, and potentially higher impact than many things IT and DevOps people do every day. Idgi. > BUT: I was comparing Linux-to-Linux, other OSes may be a bit different. The industry expectation is clearly that Linux users should do their own tech support... but that no one else has to. With a standard like that, of course many people are going to come away with impressions like 'I don't have time to run Linux on my workstation', 'only Ubuntu is really viable in a corporate environment', etc.— even when they are totally, totally false.

by pxc 4y ago

esperent 4y ago

> Does your company not have an IT department or something? Yes. It's me. And I'd rather spend my time doing my actual job rather than tuning linux distros.

gtirloni 4y ago
Isn't that your job too?

alanfranz 4y ago

> Since when do fleets of Windows laptops run without any 'tuning' My Ubuntu systems runs fine without tuning. My MacOS laptop runs fine without tuning, my company just installs its fleet management tools, but there's no actually tuning involved, just a couple of policies. I don't really know what to make of large Windows fleets and I don't use Windows since eons, but most laptops work OOB nowadays (barring removing some adware). BUT: I was comparing Linux-to-Linux, other OSes may be a bit different. I agree that finely tuning a Linux distro, in a large company, could be feasible. But it can be tricky: you need to override repositories or pin packages, otherwise things can break... and it's not a job anybody would like to do. And yes, some people used to do manual patch management for Windows workstation deployments, once upon a time. I don't know if it's still a thing, but it was very messy and the famous "mixed-patch environments" were a boon for attackers (some vulnerabilities could only be exploited in those unpredictable scenarios). I want my basic OS experience to be managed by whomever creates it.

gtirloni 4y ago
I've never had to fine-tune Fedora for many years. It just works. Last week I reinstalled my laptop and only restored my /home folder. All good.
pxc 4y ago
> My Ubuntu systems runs fine without tuning. My MacOS laptop runs fine without tuning Maybe I don't understand what you mean by 'tuning' here. The only tuning I can really see required if one chooses, e.g., Debian over Ubuntu, is the installation of proprietary and patent-encumbered codecs and drivers that are not legally redistributable for community distros. And can it really even be said that Ubuntu works free of tuning? I support a baby boomer relative on a Kubuntu system I built for them years ago. Upon upgrading to the latest release, I had to do some clunky apt pinning shit to purge Snap from their system to get their browsers working normally again after Canonical snapified them. > you need to override repositories or pin packages, otherwise things can break... This is not hard. I learned how to maintain a Linux repository in a few weeks at the age of 18 because I decided it was lame to be restricted to choice of distro by package availability. The first repo was up in a weekend and by the end of the year I was comfortable packaging for Gentoo, Arch, Ubuntu, and openSUSE. I bet most people reading this post could learn to do it competently in a similar timeframe. (Ubuntu and Debian here actually make such things harder, because apt is pretty much worst-in-class when it comes to managing multiple repositories.) More importantly, don't you already need to do this just for things like security agents and monitoring tools anyway? > and it's not a job anybody would like to do. Why not? I would. Maintaining an in-house repository for desktop Linux support is easier, more interesting, more satisfying, and potentially higher impact than many things IT and DevOps people do every day. Idgi. > BUT: I was comparing Linux-to-Linux, other OSes may be a bit different. The industry expectation is clearly that Linux users should do their own tech support... but that no one else has to. With a standard like that, of course many people are going to come away with impressions like 'I don't have time to run Linux on my workstation', 'only Ubuntu is really viable in a corporate environment', etc.— even when they are totally, totally false.