Comment by richardwhiuk
8 years ago
Windows is extremely well sunk into the enterprise market, and neither Linux nor Mac are at all focusing sufficiently on it to displace them.
Linux isn't user friendly enough, and Mac's support policy is a complete no go for enterprise.
If a Ubuntu in 2017 isn't user friendly I really don't know what that phrase is even supposed to mean.
As someone that only works on linux systems....
The state of Linux is not great. We still can't get the basics like sound, wifi, etc out of the box. I get why it's a problem, and it's generally not the fault of Linux devs, but it's still a problem that turns people away.
I really want to see Linux take over on the desktop, but turning a blind eye to our problems is a poor way to do it.
>We still can't get the basics like sound, wifi, etc out of the box.
Complete and total fabrication. Video for gaming is still trouble, but I have no more issue with Linux wifi or sound output than I do with Windows. In fact, Linux networking to me is better than Windows.
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But in the enterprise you'd only have a few tested laptops and the would be tested and configured by IT. It may be an issue for home users, but this doesn't make it not user friendly enough for enterprise users.
I just installed the latest version of Linux Mint and the default graphics card driver had a bug that caused my entire system to freeze after a few hours of inactivity.
To be able to replace Apple or Microsoft, not only do you need user friendliness for how the machine works, but you also need to get rid of all the miscellaneous tech and configuration problems that crop up.
As I understand it, Linux laptop sleep/suspend/hibernate is still a big PITA.
I am on high Sierra. Just today I clicked on an update which broke while updating. First it was displaying Mac os not found. Restart again. Restart would hang up and say some installer is missing. I had to Google, run some commands to eventually make it work.
On clean of windows I used to download drivers from ubuntu since windows did not load them.
To be fair the Mint maintainers are well known for doing a bad job for a while now. Why they still tend to be recommended is a mystery to me.
I lost access to my netbook $HOME, when Ubuntu just refused to acknowledge the existence the file system after freezing in X.
It required a boot direct into the GRUB root console and running fsck from there.
Not something that regular macOS and Windows users expect as user friendly.
I've helped people who lost access to their Windows 7 home directory. It didn't mean they ended up in commandline mode, but it meant their home folder was recreated from scratch. Many things didn't work anymore.
I bet 99% of Windows users can't solve that by themselves. I don't see any difference with your problem.
The problem you describe is bad as you can't use the computer at all, while my problem created a false illusion that the home folder was OK as it was still there. That the old one was renamed, made invisible, and then the new one got the old name - didn't help at all.
Just one example: every few weeks I need to manually remove old images as described here [0], otherwise security updates won't be installed. Four versions and four years later, it's still not fixed.
[0] https://askubuntu.com/questions/298487/not-enough-free-disk-...
Publishing software – especially close source software – for Linux has always been, and still is, a huge pain. Beside all the nightmarish things you have to do to package something.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PmHRSeA2c8&feature=youtu.be...
Ubuntu did not enable the energy saving options by default on my notebook and did not install the wifi drivers out of the box.
Which was a "bit" painful because the office is wifi only and getting online then is impossible. Had to hunt down the driver, put it on a stick and install them. Never again.
And the laptop was 5+ years old ...
The unfortunate reality is that the most friendly thing one can do for users is never ask them to change.
I use Ubuntu but after spending a day trying to fix display drivers I can confirm it's not user friendly. An OS is more than just the software, but the support received from other software/hardware companies.
Very good example actually. Take a look at driver issues within the Windows "Support" community forums. Then do the same with Ubuntu or any Linux really.
For a more enterprice thought, try giving Microsoft a call with a Technical issue and then do the same to the Ubuntu Enterprise team.
One is obviously better than the other in this field. Feel free to decide yourself
Every enterprise I have worked at had both linux and mac available to developers. Is this not your experience? You seem to present as truth the opposite of what I have lived.
"Developers" are a miniscule share of "enterprise". We are talking about the billion computers on corporate office workers' desks, not about the maybe-a-million computers of web/network/systems developers.
Counter-anecdote: every place I worked at including 4-5 major companies in various industries had compulsory windows desktops for everyone. The few of us that also had a Linux (or AIX/HP-UX/...) machines that we did our work on, SSHd into those machines.
I never worked on an enterprise with GNU/Linux worstations on their IT policy, on some companies IT tolerated rebel developers provided they took care 100% of integration issues with the company network and official tools.
Macs are usually only available to upper management, unless required for iOS development, in which case they are part of a pool shared among project teams.
Is this not your experience?
Not at all. Linux can sometimes be made available on servers if necessary, but if you want Linux on your desktop you have to use a VM (ideally without telling IT). Never worked at a large place where Macs where readily available. Macs used to be more popular ~10 years ago or so with the marketing and communications people doing a lot of DTP and design work, but even that seems to have greatly decreased.
In my experience, it’s depressingly common for companies to have one single Mac that they dust off once a year to test something in Safari.
In my (bigcorp) experience, its all windows all the way with macs available only to developers who have a need (iOS dev usually).
And don’t forget that developers are a tiny minority of employees.
As seemingly ubiquitous as Macbooks are, their market share has never really budged. It's been 3-5% for the entirety of the OS X era.
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Developers make a very small percentage of overall enterprise market.
What OS were the other 98% (i.e. non-devs) of employees using?
Usually Mac in my experience because nobody on their right mind would bother with Windows in a working environment.
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