Every time I read an article like this on HN, I can't help but wonder, is anyone actually using a Linux/FreeBSD machine at their workplace? It seems these posts are all about personal machines.
I'd love to use Linux professionally, but convincing IT to let me run something outside of their management has always been impossible.
Edit: Geez HN, this is a legitimate question and it's currently at -2 karma. What's up with this place lately?
Good timing for the question. Last week I had corporate IT give me a Windows laptop after about 15 years of running Linux at work.
The days are gone when all I needed was a DHCP address on the network and I could do anything. Over the last couple of years we've added more layers of security at the network layer that would unexpectedly break me and corporate apps are increasingly tied into AD for authentication. Yes, these can all eventually be sorted out for a Linux workstation but without corporate support it became increasingly time-consuming and my harsh paymasters aren't interested in me spending time on that activity.
I think the last straw was when the Unix admins bailed and went to WSL for the desktop. They were my back-door resource for visibility on infrastructure changes that broke things for the non-Windows users.
WSL is fine, but it's lack of IPv6 is sort of a show-stopper for sysadmin work. If you're only using it for the coreutils then more power to you, but I still think I'd end up reaching for the trusty Arch Thinkpad when work needs to get done. To each their own, though.
I've been running Linux for the past 20ish years, professionally. In my previous company I was the only Linux-user, out of 50+ staff. In my current company there are approximately 100 employees and I'm one of two users.
I have had to jump through a couple of hoops now and again, installing an Antivirus scanner on my Debian laptop, and similar things. (Jumpcloud agent at this company too). But broadly speaking people have said "If you can take care of it, and if you have full-disk encryption then that's fine".
I've always mentioned it in interviews "I will expect to run Linux" and some people have grumbled, but nobody has said "no".
For what it's worth I'm a "devops person", rather than a developer.
Yes, most of the people in my group have FreeBSD desktops where I work. FreeBSD is kind of the odd-man out, as our IT folks support Linux as a first class citizen (along side MacOS and Windows). So we have to use a few workarounds, but it goes fairly smoothly.
Yes, we have FreeBSD desktops in use and our infrastructure runs on FreeBSD, OpenBSD and illumos. Linux is also in use but it has mostly been banished to SmartOS zones for those few applications that refuse to run on other systems than linux.
I've been using Linux on my work machine for nearly 5 years, and it's been great. I do cloud-based SaaS for a company that isn't exactly a tech company, but is always trying to move more in that direction.
I think it's an option many employers should consider supporting as a recruiting tool, and it makes a lot of sense if the target runtime for the software is Linux (as is the case for my company).
The thing is, any company that wants to make a serious investment in software engineering needs to have an IT department that can support the needs of developers separately from non-engineering staff.
> Every time I read an article like this on HN, I can't help but wonder, is anyone actually using a Linux/FreeBSD machine at their workplace?
I have been using Linux exclusively at my workplaces for over a decade now, and honestly it is a non-negotiable part of interviewing for a job for me. There is no way I would tolerate being stuck with Windows or macOS.
There are solutions for device management for Linux, if a company really wants to do it, but my most recent several employers haven't cared one way or the other.
edit: I say 'non-negotiable,' but obviously I think that for several tens of thousands of dollars I would be willing to use macOS or Windows. But it would have to be a big several, not a small one, and I doubt anyone would put together that compensation package.
I do. "I am IT", so it helps, but we're basically OK with anyone "technical" (read devs & co) who wants to use anything else than windows. But that means they're on their own if random issues crop up.
You can run Linux at my company if you want, there are probably two dozen or so engineers who do so, out of a few hundred. I'm still a fan of my mac personally, although i run plenty of Linux servers.
I know that it's not at all unusual for people to run Linux at Google where it has a lot of internal support, and i think there's a fair amount of adoption at Facebook
I run Debian as my development desktop here at my small company for embedded systems stuff, and run FreeBSD for my database, file, and network servers. Also run Windows for office stuff. Only major OS I don't run at work is MacOS (and Chrome OS), although I do have an M1 MacBook Air at home for personal use.
Most SWEs at my job (FAANG) run Linux on their workstations (not sure if there is even a other option), and a lot of them run it on their company laptops too (the other popular option is using a Mac laptop)
It's way more common to see people using multiple workstation instead. Usually a Windows/Mac laptop for everyday computing tasks in conjunction with a dedicated workstation for development.
I'd love to use Linux professionally, but convincing IT to let me run something outside of their management has always been impossible.
Edit: Geez HN, this is a legitimate question and it's currently at -2 karma. What's up with this place lately?