Basically title. Do you know of any companies that use desktop Linux?
I can think of two in my area in Brisbane - Adfinis and Red Hat. Both have a pretty small presence here from what I last heard (several employees each).
My employer allows the Linux team to use Linux but it’s discouraged and our lives are made somewhat difficult.
My last 3 employers have let me use Linux on my work laptop, I’ve gone with Ubuntu each time, it has worked really well for me. I’m lucky that I get to use Linux since I work as a web dev, it often matches production more easily that way.
Removed by mod
When I was working for Averitt Express, a trucking company out of Cookeville, Tn, our yard trucks had computers in them (for yard and dock management) that ran Ubuntu. This was 10ish years ago.
That’s awesome - great to hear about Linux desktops bring used by non-techies especially in a company.
How was it received out of interest?
They didn’t care. You know non tech folk, they don’t care so long as it works. If you’re lucky, they know enough to hit the button with the power symbol to turn it on, but make sure you have step by step instructions printed out for those that can’t figure it out. I wish that was sarcasm.
In our location it was mostly used for passive tracking of equipment via a scanner on the roof of the truck and tags on the trailers and we didn’t use the software much beyond that. From what I saw of it, it was some native custom application. Used the default Gnome interface and design scheme of the time. Looked to be pretty idiot proof.
I’m a contractor and I use linux if that counts :D
My 4 last employers have used desktop Linux to some extent:
- Ericsson (Swedish telecoms), default was to have a Windows laptop with X server (Citrix?) but a few of us were lucky enough to get a Linux laptop.
- Vector (German automotive), Linux dev. environment in a VM on Windows laptops.
- Opera Software (Norwegian web browser), first day I was given a stack of components and told to assemble my PC and then install my Linux distribution of choice.
- And a smaller company, which shall remain unnamed, also used Windows laptops with Linux dev. env. in VM.
Sure most of it was on top of Windows, but if you fullscreen it you can barely tell the difference :)
Opera Software (Norwegian web browser), first day I was given a stack of components and told to assemble my PC and then install my Linux distribution of choice.
Not Swedish?
Nope, Norwegian company until they were bought by Chinese investors a few years ago. They did have a lot of developers in Sweden and Poland though.
Failed attempt at an IKEA joke, considering the was given a stack of components and told to assemble my PC part. 😥
Ahh, now I get it :P
Yes. At one employer, we had an entire domain in our AD forest that was Red Hat / CentOS / Ubuntu workstations for the developers.
When I was at Driver’s Village, a fairly large dealership in central New York, I noticed the salesman was using a computer with wallpaper that said Windows 11. This was before Windows 11 was even released. It was very obviously a Gnome desktop. I’m guessing IT just put the windows 11 background on it so the people using it wouldn’t complain that they didn’t know how to use Linux.
How well did it work?
The salesman I was dealing with seemed to have no trouble using it, but all he was doing was using a web browser and some database access.
What do you use for database access?
This is hilarious.
In 3 of my last 4 jobs as developer I could use Linux as desktop. The 1 exception did not have the admins that could think ahead of what Amazon or Microsoft has told them. They where also struggling with other ‘modern’ ideas.
Maybe a German thing, but Linux for a dev is quite common here.
We have both Linux and Windows machines in my team. We do all the work in Linux, and register hours in Windows. We also all have iPhones that we only use for 2FA.
We also all have iPhones that we only use for 2FA.
That’s some expenses right there.
register hours in Windows. We also all have iPhones that we only use for 2FA.
Without background information that sounds kind of insane. Switching to alternative time tracking software and getting YubiKeys or alternatives instead for 2FA would’ve saved so much money as well as time every day.
I’m assuming they meant that they were company phones, and that additionally they were required for any work related MFA requirements.
If that’s the case, it would be YubiKey in addition to, not instead of.
As for the time tracking software, those are often part of a much larger accounting, payroll, and/or HR software suite. Having his team spin up Windows vms, or even have separate older windows boxes somewhere, probably makes more financial sense than not. At least, until they can switch to a more modern suite that has a web portal.
Hostpoint, one of the largest hosting companies of Switzerland uses Linux Desktop Clients.
I used Linux for work. It was fine until we migrated to O365 from workspace. I’ve found enough workarounds that no one complains.
In the US, a lot of Lowes Hardware Stores use Linux on their employee computers. Most movie theater projectors are running CentOS, and most movies that come in on hard drives are formatted to Ext2.
Not us. And worse the guy in charge loves edge and hates firefox.
I work for a major network infrastructure company. We can choose from Windows, macOS, or Ubuntu for work laptops. I chose macOS, but I’m probably going to switch to Ubuntu with my next laptop refresh since a lot of our internal tooling works better on Linux.
I work for a very small company. We do embedded development. They gave me a Windows machine. After a few months I ditched Windows for GNU/Linux and after a couple years the other two fellow developers followed suit.