Recent events have had me thinking a lot more about which tools we will be allowed to use in the workplace.

It was difficult to undo the damage that using Windows for most of my life affected my perception of computers.

Using Linux has widened my perspective on technology in general and made it a lot more fun to explore low level and systems programming.

Do many of you get to use Linux tools at work? How would you feel about more small establishments and local shops using software that gives them more control?

I’d imagine payment software, and a whole slough of other services are now sold as SaaSes when historically they did not need to be digitized or have an unnecessary middle man.

Just a little Tuesday thought for discussion. Hope you all are doing well.

-G

  • the803@lemm.ee
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    13 days ago

    I switched to Linux 15 years ago and I work in the legal industry as a computer guy, so I’ve been trying. The main obstacle in my experience has been liability insurance; if an entity like a small law firm uses Linux instead of Windows, their liability insurance rates increase; with Linux and other FOSS software, there is no deep-pocketed corporation to sue if a technical failure costs you money. Recent changes to Swiss law might help convince insurance companies that Linux is genuinely better enough that this will change, but insurance companies are the heart of all that is corporate and conservative, and famously hard to sway without mountains of evidence gathered on their terms by their people. Microsoft products are defective by design because institutions that only care about the bottom line do not want their users empowered.

    • gronjo45@lemm.eeOP
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      13 days ago

      This makes a whole lot of sense… Will be interesting to see the direction the Swiss go, when it comes to supporting an enterprise with their software infrastructure.

      Really makes me treasure the nerds and bookworms in my life… 📕🪱

  • Carmakazi@lemmy.world
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    13 days ago

    My work issues Windows or Apple laptops, your choice. But we’re not an IT/CS company really, at least not my division. 99% of the time we are just accessing web-based apps for paperwork/inventory management.

    I use Linux at home but I don’t really care too much about using Windows for work. Not (truly) my computer, not my problem to manage.

    I think there are perceptions of a lack of security/reliability with Linux desktop and the programs associated. Enterprise companies want to use enterprise products. Raytheon wants to use Solidworks, not some FOSS project maintained by 7 people in Romania. Whether or not this perception is well-founded, I don’t know. Again, not my problem.

    • gronjo45@lemm.eeOP
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      13 days ago

      That makes a lot of sense from a company’s standpoint. Not really the best for reliability when you think of business scale support…

      Interesting that most computing activities are reduced to a web front end (is this the correct term?) and the web browser becomes the OS for the usual user.

      At my previous job, we were issued several devices, on which I just used to access the services the company wanted our department to use. Much of the software would take minutes to load… Updates nearly every day… Usually when you were presenting in a conference room.

      The frustration derived from all those times where the computer would freeze just because the OS was using so many resources radicalized me a bit more towards Linux. :)

  • chonkyninja@lemmy.world
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    13 days ago

    Not sure what year you’re living in, but Linux is absolutely everywhere.

    I guess what I’m saying is, if you want it to happen begin making it happen! Get a job in a position that gives you some creative freedom and begin embedding it everywhere you can.

    • gronjo45@lemm.eeOP
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      13 days ago

      I also have used Linux at my workplace, but I’d imagine most of the general populace does not. That is my intention behind this post.

    • fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      13 days ago

      What world are you living in? Linux is everywhere for servers, not end user computers. Unless you’re counting android/POS systems that are hyper locked down.

      • gronjo45@lemm.eeOP
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        13 days ago

        I think you’re misinterpreting my meaning behind this post. Maybe I could better rephrase it as… How do you believe the general person could become more informed, and engage with systems utilizing Linux with less user abstraction?

        • DDaveMods@lemmy.world
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          13 days ago

          The general person is not going to deep dive into Linux because they can access the deep inner workings of the OS.

          The general person would be attracted to something like Linux Mint. Functionality and appearance similar to that of Windoze, but stable and secure.

          And to attract the largest audience initially, simply ask the question, has your computer ever forced you to reboot so it could update itself at an inconvenient time? (Knowing well that there is no convenient time). Then follow up by informing that with Linux, you choose when the updates take place.

          That and Wi-Fi printers install automatically.

        • gronjo45@lemm.eeOP
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          13 days ago

          Hoping to spread the good word of Linux at my next employer… 😂 In any way I can suggest and assist someone in a transition to more creative freedom in their projects is a win for me.

          I’d imagine you’ve learned quite a bit working with FAANG companies. Very impressive background!

          A bit off topic… But is there a good starter resource/project for a VPS? Each time I revisit the idea of self hosting, the abstractions can get confusing. Interested in making a Pihole for one, but don’t want to make any tragic noob errors.

          • chonkyninja@lemmy.world
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            13 days ago

            Chase DevOps, it’s probably the path you want to. I’d write more but my focus is shit right now. Perhaps tomorrow if I feel less sick.

  • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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    13 days ago

    I love how this very specific topic is posted in an Autism community and not any of the tech communities and yet it’s getting potentially better engagement than if it was posted to a Linux/IT community

    But onto the subject at hand, I work at an MSP at the moment (and probably not for long due to management issues) and the one thing I’ve noticed is that the MSP industry is all about risk, and deploying something they’ve not deployed to customers before is a huge risk. They’d much rather work with “the devil you know” than take the risk on something they haven’t worked with yet. Commercial vendors also have the benefit of being able to hawk stuff onto their support to free up your own techs to take more tickets (and therefore make more money) plus of course the extra cost to customers is either a non-issue or a plus due to more margin (because everything an MSP sells you is sold with a margin, usually ~20%)

    I will say, this experience has further solidified my belief that paying for outsourced services will cost more than doing it in-house for most businesses. About the only way outsourcing makes sense is if you literally don’t have enough work to hire one dedicated employee to do the thing.

  • Lexam@lemmy.worldM
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    13 days ago

    I work on some routers and other equipment that utilizes Linux. But this is not uncommon in my industry.

    • gronjo45@lemm.eeOP
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      13 days ago

      Any suggestions for a noob in the router space? I’m looking to start with some basics, and wasn’t sure if Network Chuck would be the best starting point.

      Sometimes there are some graybeard HTML documentation sites laying around that are great at conveying fundamentals.

      Being in the in between age group that didn’t learn the way the web is structured from an earlier timeframe has garbled my understanding of where I should start and the roadmap of where I want to go.

  • Arkhive (they/she)@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    11 days ago

    I daily drive linux, but I don’t work in a field that involves computers much if at all. I’ve always tinkered with whatever OS I had installed. It was OS 9 then OSX and macOS as a kid. Then windows once I had my own computers, and now Linux. I jumped the windows ship “relatively” early. As in a good bit before copilot and such, still definitely “recent” on a broader scale. I’ve been on Linux for over a year full time.

    I’m now looking into helping other people around me adopt Linux and just FOSS in general. A friend and I have talked about opening a tech repair shop that also offers custom system/home/network builds. Would love to see more Linux being used in local businesses.

    I find Linux reacts better to my tinkering. Or at the very least gives me an actual error message to work with when I tinker to close to the sun. I dove right in with the Arch minimal installer, and built my system from the command line. Inevitably my first install had some jank, so I’m trying to make a more refined version in NixOS to see if I like the paradigm shift.

    I’ll also toss in that it was actually Syncthing that got me into Linux and also inspired trying NixOS. I got very fed up with the clunky options for running Syncthing on windows. That among other reasons sent me to Linux, and once I started learning more the idea of using Syncthing to manage NixOS configs across all my machines started to bounce around my mind. Syncthing already kind of gives this feeling that all my devices are just one big distributed file system. Carrying that over to the actual OS completes the process of making it a completely distributed single system, simply with different interfaces for accessing it.