this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2023
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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They can't really do that, mostly because it's not "just 1 person".
There are a lot of costs going into maintaining the os, apps, custom software, and training for the employees.
Google is giant, and has a huge amount of money. They can afford to spend the costs of training, modifying software, or developing other software for their needs if it reduces their future costs.
A smaller company don't have all those funds, they wouldn't be able to invest as much into switching to Linux and maintaining the custom software or finding new software and training.
When people switch to another software, there is also a period of low productivity, when these same people are still discovering the software, and cannot do everything as fast as before. That is also creating additional costs.
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3245645/the-5-best-linux-distros-for-work-red-hat-suse-ubuntu-linux-mint-and-tens.html
Not that hard, not that expensive.
I said you can, but for companies that really wants to do it, 3 - 4 persons could be better to make sure everything works 7/24. For smaller companies they probably neither have IT, if they have, then they can manage Linux. If they hire people that don't know how to use Linux, then they are hiring people not prepared to provide to their workers the tools they need, and they will need to "stick with what they know" which is Windows.
Yup, right now I am having issues with Mac and Windows, issues like arch dependent tools (M2 is ARM) or Windows that can't deal with docker properly. All systems have their own costs.
If they had any issues they would undo it and go back with Windows, they didn't probably because the cost to "into maintaining the OS, apps, custom software, and training for the employees" isn't that expensive as running all desktops with Windows.
The tools exist, they just need to hire people that actually knows how Linux works, still will be cheaper than paying Windows licenses and support stuff.
Is that an argument for not giving support to Linux users? Every Linux user needs to lean how Windows or Apple works right now, and Windows and Apple is already an option to choice (normally), I don't know who would request to work with Linux if they don't know how it works...
The article only talks about deployment costs. What about the rest?
For you a company should just throw away it's employees to hire inexistent Linux experts or people using Linux software or whatever?
There is the server side. There I agree that using Linux is great.
On the client side it can be more complicated. A lot of schools in various domains teach the students how to use the software on windows. Not Linux.
Furthermore, a company doesn't pop into existence the moment where it thinks it needs to switch to Linux.
The company already exists, providing work to the employees, trained on windows. So switching on Linux may change the software if it cannot be used on Linux (not everything is a saas). And that can be a time consuming process for the employees too because they don't know how to use it efficiently.
There are Linux experts.
Not only great... xD
I never said all them needs to switch, I just said to provide support for people that never uses Windows or Mac, so we can keep working properly with our Linux tool and all our environment.
If they want to switch all from Windows to Linux, then it's a huge decision... because of Microsoft monopoly, everyone buys PC with Windows licenses and that's the only reason I see why companies uses Windows, the monopoly.