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I am a IT solutions provider for the public and small business. I think the changes to Windows 11 is gearing up to work with organizations to create a surveilla

I am a IT solutions provider for the public and small business. I think the changes to Windows 11 is gearing up to work with organizations to create a surveillance state. So I have to decided to promote Linux over Windows for computers I build for customers. If you have any suggestions on how I can make this promotion, better let me know.

potsandpans 1y ago
How could they create something that already exists?
rolph 1y ago
you should look into the idea that you are a business, using linux installs in a way that may be subject to license. if you promote, facillitate, provide resources for installation free of charge, thats probably fine. providing a system for sale, with linux pre-installed, may require, at least some attribution.
- trinsic2 1y ago
  Ok thanks for that reminder. I'll look into that.
  - gerdesj 1y ago
    Don't bother - no idea what your parent is up to. Linux - the kernel is GPL 2 - that means you can use it to your heart's content. If you make changes, it would be nice if you shared them, please do. A Linux distro will generally have a similar license. Again the idea is that positive changes that you make are made available to everyone. That is the idea of the GNU Public License: If you take our freely available stuff and add to it, you should make your changes public too. Seems fair!
    - rolph 1y ago
      so if someone takes our freely available stuff, bundles it with a newly assembled system, and sells them, at a marked up price, like normal business does, it wont be an issue if no mention is made of GPL2 and what that means for the end user. the idea that positive changes are made available to everyone, is not yet broadly salient. at least now, poster is probably aware of that condition. you seem to be up on GPL2 , what happens when someone packages distros on disk or stick, and sells them for profit ? thats something to be aware of as well.
      - bee_rider 1y ago
        Can you say specifically what you this there is to be concerned about, and why you think it is a problem? Just asking questions like this is not an effective warning, I think. We should be direct, to avoid spreading uncertainty and doubt.
      - whartung 1y ago
        They stick the licenses in the back of whatever pack of documents are used during the sale. Heck, print it on the back of the work order in small print with a gray font. On my motorcycle, there’s an option to view the software licenses used on the bike. The GPL is in there somewhere. So are a lot of other things. And, no, during checkout at the dealer, we didn’t spend any time talking about software licenses. As a bundler you’re obligated to provide the licenses. You’re not obliged to point them out, highlight them, point folks to links, or archives, or explain how they work or what rights users may have. They just have to be available.
        rolph 1y ago
        ok, so someone makes the license available for end user to read or not, thats one down for providers responsibility. now the next is the nature of linux as a common good, generated by many contributors over some time. is it acceptable for anyone to turn a profit from distributing copies of linux on media, or as a component of a retail unit, for an additional price ? how does that scale up? suppose thousands of ISOs or live distros are sold, enriching the seller by some thousands of dollars, is that ok? could i, or you, or anyone, burn a couple hundred disks, or rufus thumbdrives, then sell them for $40 each, and have no concerns ? the submission, links to what is clearly, a profit oriented business. what limitations exist? none if you just pack a GPL2 in with it? can he charge a fee as if he is selling linux to the end user? is public awareness, and availability a suitable contra for financial profit from sale of a product of many contributions from many individuals over many years? just how philanthropic is the community?
Loughla 1y ago
Choose the right distro and automate updates of possible. Mint is the softest landing for Windows users. But they never ever ever ever update anything on their own. Ever. Forever.
- trinsic2 1y ago
  Yea I need to think of a good way to automate updates..
  - gerdesj 1y ago
    "automate updates" A device can be woken up at silly o'clock and "apt update && apt upgrade && apt autoremove && shutdown -r now" can be run via cron. apt as deployed by Debian itself has options for automatic updates (via cron), which is the better option. Have a look under /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/
    - trinsic2 1y ago
      I was thinking about setting up a package as part of the system build to do remote maintenance and I wondered if manually doing those updates every six months would be too long of a window. That way if something breaks, I can visit the customers location to fix it if I have to.
    - encom 1y ago
      upgrade and autoremove can be combined in one command. My usual line is: apt full-upgrade -V --auto-remove --purge -V is just for verbose old/new version info.
    - Orygin 1y ago
      > A device can be woken up at silly o'clock It can't. The device is in my room and making noise when on. If that device wakes up and wakes me up, it's either getting a force shutdown (breaking the update) or getting in the trash. Plus the device is generally left in suspend mode, so shutting it down would interrupt my workflow.
PostOnce 1y ago
Make sure libreoffice is included, and ublock origin. Show them how much faster it is, with fewer ads, and no subscription to Microsoft required just to write a document. The business customers might want to know that databases are a lot cheaper on Linux, especially for small business. Literally spoke to an automation company the other week that told me "we have to delete a bunch of stuff every time the database gets near 10GB or we'll have to pay Microsoft". Plus there's no license cost for linux itself either. This stuff might not be viable for hundreds of employees in a business where MS is already entrenched, but for a small business it absolutely is a better deal.
- gerdesj 1y ago
  You have sqlite, mariadb/mysql, postgres and more just for mostly traditional SQL. Then you have the others ... 8) It's time for change. VMware have tossed themselves off into limbo and MS seem hell bent on alienating a vast swathe of humanity with W11's requirements - weirdest A/B test ever. I'm working on some bigger clients ...
- trinsic2 1y ago
  Yeah. I just tried LibreWolf recently and it comes with Ublock preinstalled. I think I am going to install that with some relaxed privacy settings. Libreoffice by default for sure.
- zrobotics 1y ago
  I wouldn't recommend deploying ublock on customer machines. Or at least ask what their workflow is first. There are a ton of SaaS sites that break with ad locking enabled. I run firefox+UBO+privacy badger on my machines, and the only sites I've had to disable my privacy extensions in the last few years for were work related, B2B SaaS apps. A few years ago I pushed UBO to user machines (Chrome on win10) at work, and had a ton of user issues. I finally had to disable it, it wasn't a net benefit to us. It's not just a 'turn it on and leave it alone' thing, and people don't always think or remember to try toggling it off and reloading the page when they encounter issues. That said, it's insane to me to be paying MS for a database with a 10GB limit, but I've seen their price lists. I've also worked with small businesses that don't have in-house IT, and they just end up overpaying for crappy service for many of those things. I hope this win11 migration causes more MSPs and consultants to move small businesses over to linux though, MS has been predatory on pricing for business customers for far too long and with as much work has migrated to a browser there will be way less issues switching than there were years ago.
heavyset_go 1y ago
If you're going to do this, set them up with something they can get commercial support for. IMO, if a user's needs can be met with a Chromebook, Linux + a browser + email + Zoom/or whatever would suit them well. I think you're going to have a hard sell if they rely on Office or other Windows-only software, and although well meaning, it might be doing them a disservice if they can't run the software they're accustomed to.
- weq 1y ago
  > something something Chromebook something something Why wait for mass survellience and remote attesention when u can have it today!!! :D
- trinsic2 1y ago
  Yeah I was thinking of ZoroOS. The have a pro package.
- tharmas 1y ago
  Wine to run Office on Linux?
  - heavyset_go 1y ago
    Only old versions of Office work on Wine, unfortunately
    - jimbob45 1y ago
      Office 2007 was the peak and it’s been all downhill since then.
- somenameforme 1y ago
  What are the arguments for Office at the small business or individual level, as opposed to Libre Office? For most users, they'll be able to reacclimate in a matter of hours to near 100% competence. And they now are in an ecosystem that won't constantly try to squeeze you for rent. I think this is even more true in the era of LLMs, because on the rare difference somebody might get hung up on - there's no longer real need for support. LLMs absolutely excel at questions like 'In MS Office I can do [x] to achieve [y]. How do I do that in Libre Office?'
jmholla 1y ago
I thought I heard that TurboTax is moving to web only, but maybe that's only for personal use and not corporate?
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
edg5000 1y ago
The Snap store on Ubuntu is quite good. Has Spotify, VS code, Blender, Chromium. LibreOffice has a tabbed UI setting that mimics Office (easy to enable). Personally I love LibreOffice, something about it resonates with me. Everybody who liked office 2003 and could never get used to the newer weird ribbon UI in Office will love the default LibreOffice. Those who love the ribbon can enable the tabbed UI bar in LibreOffice. Only complaint is that performance is not as fluid as it could be. I avoid snap myself because I use apt, but apt is a hard sell and arguably not ideal as well. E.g. I added Spotify repos which in theory could break other packages. In practice this doesn't happen (probably due to Ubuntu essentially freezing major versions for packages in their releases).
morshu9001 1y ago
The article lists 4 Linux distros. I think the most important thing is to recommend just one distro, DE, window server combo, don't know which one but it has to be carefully thought out. They're all coming from the same thing. The Linux choice matrix is confusing even for programmers. Like I can understand the pieces in theory, but in practice with hardware, user-installed software, varying degrees of compatibility between components, and updates...
hn111 1y ago
Perhaps https://zorin.com/os/ https://zorin.com/os/ might be a nice distro for your customers. It has 2 UI options: one that is close to macOS and one that looks more like Windows.
cess11 1y ago
If it makes their decision makers fuzzy in the stomach to pay for a suite of office software, consider SoftMaker. Create a 'showroom', virtual through network screen sharing or physical if possible. Demo machines where you can let customers get a bit of immediate experience with GNOME, Xfce and possibly something more. You can walk them through checking their email, creating a document and doing a bit of web browsing. Don't front 'Linux', it's a tainted word that is of no use to typical public sector and small to medium business people, preferably don't mention it. Instead talk about your solutions being secure, cheap, enterprise grade, customisable, long term supported, things like that.
npteljes 1y ago
For office software, consider ONLYOFFICE. Free software, and it uses Microsoft file formats by default, and has a pretty good compatibility with it.

potsandpans 1y ago

How could they create something that already exists?

rolph 1y ago

you should look into the idea that you are a business, using linux installs in a way that may be subject to license. if you promote, facillitate, provide resources for installation free of charge, thats probably fine. providing a system for sale, with linux pre-installed, may require, at least some attribution.

trinsic2 1y ago
Ok thanks for that reminder. I'll look into that.
- gerdesj 1y ago
  Don't bother - no idea what your parent is up to. Linux - the kernel is GPL 2 - that means you can use it to your heart's content. If you make changes, it would be nice if you shared them, please do. A Linux distro will generally have a similar license. Again the idea is that positive changes that you make are made available to everyone. That is the idea of the GNU Public License: If you take our freely available stuff and add to it, you should make your changes public too. Seems fair!
  - rolph 1y ago
    so if someone takes our freely available stuff, bundles it with a newly assembled system, and sells them, at a marked up price, like normal business does, it wont be an issue if no mention is made of GPL2 and what that means for the end user. the idea that positive changes are made available to everyone, is not yet broadly salient. at least now, poster is probably aware of that condition. you seem to be up on GPL2 , what happens when someone packages distros on disk or stick, and sells them for profit ? thats something to be aware of as well.
    - bee_rider 1y ago
      Can you say specifically what you this there is to be concerned about, and why you think it is a problem? Just asking questions like this is not an effective warning, I think. We should be direct, to avoid spreading uncertainty and doubt.
    - whartung 1y ago
      They stick the licenses in the back of whatever pack of documents are used during the sale. Heck, print it on the back of the work order in small print with a gray font. On my motorcycle, there’s an option to view the software licenses used on the bike. The GPL is in there somewhere. So are a lot of other things. And, no, during checkout at the dealer, we didn’t spend any time talking about software licenses. As a bundler you’re obligated to provide the licenses. You’re not obliged to point them out, highlight them, point folks to links, or archives, or explain how they work or what rights users may have. They just have to be available.
      - rolph 1y ago
        ok, so someone makes the license available for end user to read or not, thats one down for providers responsibility. now the next is the nature of linux as a common good, generated by many contributors over some time. is it acceptable for anyone to turn a profit from distributing copies of linux on media, or as a component of a retail unit, for an additional price ? how does that scale up? suppose thousands of ISOs or live distros are sold, enriching the seller by some thousands of dollars, is that ok? could i, or you, or anyone, burn a couple hundred disks, or rufus thumbdrives, then sell them for $40 each, and have no concerns ? the submission, links to what is clearly, a profit oriented business. what limitations exist? none if you just pack a GPL2 in with it? can he charge a fee as if he is selling linux to the end user? is public awareness, and availability a suitable contra for financial profit from sale of a product of many contributions from many individuals over many years? just how philanthropic is the community?

Loughla 1y ago

Choose the right distro and automate updates of possible. Mint is the softest landing for Windows users. But they never ever ever ever update anything on their own. Ever. Forever.

trinsic2 1y ago
Yea I need to think of a good way to automate updates..
- gerdesj 1y ago
  "automate updates" A device can be woken up at silly o'clock and "apt update && apt upgrade && apt autoremove && shutdown -r now" can be run via cron. apt as deployed by Debian itself has options for automatic updates (via cron), which is the better option. Have a look under /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/
  - trinsic2 1y ago
    I was thinking about setting up a package as part of the system build to do remote maintenance and I wondered if manually doing those updates every six months would be too long of a window. That way if something breaks, I can visit the customers location to fix it if I have to.
  - encom 1y ago
    upgrade and autoremove can be combined in one command. My usual line is: apt full-upgrade -V --auto-remove --purge -V is just for verbose old/new version info.
  - Orygin 1y ago
    > A device can be woken up at silly o'clock It can't. The device is in my room and making noise when on. If that device wakes up and wakes me up, it's either getting a force shutdown (breaking the update) or getting in the trash. Plus the device is generally left in suspend mode, so shutting it down would interrupt my workflow.

PostOnce 1y ago

Make sure libreoffice is included, and ublock origin. Show them how much faster it is, with fewer ads, and no subscription to Microsoft required just to write a document. The business customers might want to know that databases are a lot cheaper on Linux, especially for small business. Literally spoke to an automation company the other week that told me "we have to delete a bunch of stuff every time the database gets near 10GB or we'll have to pay Microsoft". Plus there's no license cost for linux itself either. This stuff might not be viable for hundreds of employees in a business where MS is already entrenched, but for a small business it absolutely is a better deal.

gerdesj 1y ago
You have sqlite, mariadb/mysql, postgres and more just for mostly traditional SQL. Then you have the others ... 8) It's time for change. VMware have tossed themselves off into limbo and MS seem hell bent on alienating a vast swathe of humanity with W11's requirements - weirdest A/B test ever. I'm working on some bigger clients ...
trinsic2 1y ago
Yeah. I just tried LibreWolf recently and it comes with Ublock preinstalled. I think I am going to install that with some relaxed privacy settings. Libreoffice by default for sure.
zrobotics 1y ago
I wouldn't recommend deploying ublock on customer machines. Or at least ask what their workflow is first. There are a ton of SaaS sites that break with ad locking enabled. I run firefox+UBO+privacy badger on my machines, and the only sites I've had to disable my privacy extensions in the last few years for were work related, B2B SaaS apps. A few years ago I pushed UBO to user machines (Chrome on win10) at work, and had a ton of user issues. I finally had to disable it, it wasn't a net benefit to us. It's not just a 'turn it on and leave it alone' thing, and people don't always think or remember to try toggling it off and reloading the page when they encounter issues. That said, it's insane to me to be paying MS for a database with a 10GB limit, but I've seen their price lists. I've also worked with small businesses that don't have in-house IT, and they just end up overpaying for crappy service for many of those things. I hope this win11 migration causes more MSPs and consultants to move small businesses over to linux though, MS has been predatory on pricing for business customers for far too long and with as much work has migrated to a browser there will be way less issues switching than there were years ago.

heavyset_go 1y ago

If you're going to do this, set them up with something they can get commercial support for. IMO, if a user's needs can be met with a Chromebook, Linux + a browser + email + Zoom/or whatever would suit them well. I think you're going to have a hard sell if they rely on Office or other Windows-only software, and although well meaning, it might be doing them a disservice if they can't run the software they're accustomed to.

weq 1y ago
> something something Chromebook something something Why wait for mass survellience and remote attesention when u can have it today!!! :D
trinsic2 1y ago
Yeah I was thinking of ZoroOS. The have a pro package.
tharmas 1y ago
Wine to run Office on Linux?
- heavyset_go 1y ago
  Only old versions of Office work on Wine, unfortunately
  - jimbob45 1y ago
    Office 2007 was the peak and it’s been all downhill since then.
somenameforme 1y ago
What are the arguments for Office at the small business or individual level, as opposed to Libre Office? For most users, they'll be able to reacclimate in a matter of hours to near 100% competence. And they now are in an ecosystem that won't constantly try to squeeze you for rent. I think this is even more true in the era of LLMs, because on the rare difference somebody might get hung up on - there's no longer real need for support. LLMs absolutely excel at questions like 'In MS Office I can do [x] to achieve [y]. How do I do that in Libre Office?'

jmholla 1y ago

I thought I heard that TurboTax is moving to web only, but maybe that's only for personal use and not corporate?

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

edg5000 1y ago

The Snap store on Ubuntu is quite good. Has Spotify, VS code, Blender, Chromium. LibreOffice has a tabbed UI setting that mimics Office (easy to enable). Personally I love LibreOffice, something about it resonates with me. Everybody who liked office 2003 and could never get used to the newer weird ribbon UI in Office will love the default LibreOffice. Those who love the ribbon can enable the tabbed UI bar in LibreOffice. Only complaint is that performance is not as fluid as it could be. I avoid snap myself because I use apt, but apt is a hard sell and arguably not ideal as well. E.g. I added Spotify repos which in theory could break other packages. In practice this doesn't happen (probably due to Ubuntu essentially freezing major versions for packages in their releases).

morshu9001 1y ago

The article lists 4 Linux distros. I think the most important thing is to recommend just one distro, DE, window server combo, don't know which one but it has to be carefully thought out. They're all coming from the same thing. The Linux choice matrix is confusing even for programmers. Like I can understand the pieces in theory, but in practice with hardware, user-installed software, varying degrees of compatibility between components, and updates...

hn111 1y ago

Perhaps https://zorin.com/os/ https://zorin.com/os/ might be a nice distro for your customers. It has 2 UI options: one that is close to macOS and one that looks more like Windows.

cess11 1y ago

If it makes their decision makers fuzzy in the stomach to pay for a suite of office software, consider SoftMaker. Create a 'showroom', virtual through network screen sharing or physical if possible. Demo machines where you can let customers get a bit of immediate experience with GNOME, Xfce and possibly something more. You can walk them through checking their email, creating a document and doing a bit of web browsing. Don't front 'Linux', it's a tainted word that is of no use to typical public sector and small to medium business people, preferably don't mention it. Instead talk about your solutions being secure, cheap, enterprise grade, customisable, long term supported, things like that.

npteljes 1y ago

For office software, consider ONLYOFFICE. Free software, and it uses Microsoft file formats by default, and has a pretty good compatibility with it.