[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Why does Linux suck on laptops? (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 2/4/2017 1:32:54 PM EDT
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Maybe I should rephrase it to "Why does Linux suck on MY laptops".
I'm a small business owner and self-appointed IT manager. I've got a whole lot of experience with computers spanning most of my life (though I've never held a degree). My corporation needs Windows to run some specialized software, however keeping Windows clean is a royal pain, and sooner or later some employee will do something stupid and I'll have to take down his/her workstation to reimage it. I have no doubt that one day they'll take down one of our Windows servers (since almost everybody works in Remote Desktop). A few years ago I purchased around ten Lenovo laptops (mainly T520's and a couple of W520's). I started thinking to myself, "Windows should really be run in a VM, atop a Linux base". I figured that if the laptops were a success with this approach, I'd migrate my servers using a similar method (possibly using ESXi). So I began experimenting with different Linux distros on the laptops. I've tried most of them, and they all ran fine after some tweaking. The problem is that every so often they would crash (or lockup), almost always upon startup or shutdown. REISUB never worked, most likely due to the way Lenovo implements the Print Screen key. If I had deployed them like this, I would have had twice the problems than with Windows. To the best of my knowledge (and research), this appears to be a problem with the GPU drivers. Yes, all of these laptops use Nvidia Optimus, however I have tested them in all possible configurations: - Optimus on. - Optimus off. - Optimus off, Nvidia card only. - Optimus off, Intel card only. They all eventually crashed (though the configurations with Intel GPU lasted the longest). It has been some years since I have done these experiments, but I remember trying almost everything possible (changing drivers, configuring boot time parameters, etc.). I would really like this idea to work, so any possible insight would be appreciated. |
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Mainly because laptops always seem to use strange and special hardware many manufacturers don't write linux drivers for and are guarded about releasing specs and information for due to non-disclosure agreements with upstream hardware and software providers. Linux doesn't represent a large enough market segment for them to cater to and in many cases Microsoft is pushing them to only support windows 10 (and not even older versions of windows) to convince people to use their newest platform. Linux developers have to reverse engineer and guess how the hardware works and its difficult to get 100% correct.
Take nvidia for example. They try to release a closed source binary for their cards under linux. They want their stuff to work under linux. But due to agreements they have with software companies that help optimize their drivers and not wanting to leak clues about how their hardware functions to competitors they will not open source it. They can't. Binary drivers suck for linux because the kernel's inner workings are always changing due to bug fixes, new hardware, etc. For open source drivers someone maintains the drivers and ensures they work. nvidia tries to do this themselves but making a driver that works across all the various kernel implementations and versions is an uphill battle. |
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Mainly because laptops always seem to use strange and special hardware many manufacturers don't write linux drivers for and are guarded about releasing specs and information for due to non-disclosure agreements with upstream hardware and software providers. Linux doesn't represent a large enough market segment for them to cater to and in many cases Microsoft is pushing them to only support windows 10 (and not even older versions of windows) to convince people to use their newest platform. Linux developers have to reverse engineer and guess how the hardware works and its difficult to get 100% correct. Take nvidia for example. They try to release a closed source binary for their cards under linux. They want their stuff to work under linux. But due to agreements they have with software companies that help optimize their drivers and not wanting to leak clues about how their hardware functions to competitors they will not open source it. They can't. Binary drivers suck for linux because the kernel's inner workings are always changing due to bug fixes, new hardware, etc. For open source drivers someone maintains the drivers and ensures they work. nvidia tries to do this themselves but making a driver that works across all the various kernel implementations and versions is an uphill battle. Thanks for your response. I figured that was why, but I also feel that I'm missing something. For instance, I just checked System76's website, and they have multiple laptops with Nvidia GPUs. They are also running Ubuntu, which was the first distro I tried, and also the one with the most crashes. Surely their laptops don't behave so poorly, so what are they doing different? Also, when I was testing out Linux, I found others on the Web running the same configuration as I was attempting, without trouble. I added the configuration changes they suggested, but I kept experiencing the crashes (though to a lesser degree). In addition, while I recognize that laptop manufacturers do add special hardware, most of it is standardized. For ANY OS to work correctly will require some degree of standardization. Are you saying that Microsoft has hidden hooks into Nvidia's hardware? I'm not looking for Linux to support a special webcam or wifi card, I am just hoping that it would boot and shutdown normally with standard video cards (which it didn't with either the Nvidia nor the Intel chip handling things). These laptops are "certified" to run with RHEL, which probably explains why they ran the best (but not perfect) with CentOS. My question is, why? What particular line of code makes them more stable with Red Hat? If I knew this, I might be able to do something to stop the crashes. It is frustrating when I hear everyone say how stable Linux is, whereas my experience shows it to be the least stable. |
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Mainly because laptops always seem to use strange and special hardware many manufacturers don't write linux drivers for and are guarded about releasing specs and information for due to non-disclosure agreements with upstream hardware and software providers. Linux doesn't represent a large enough market segment for them to cater to and in many cases Microsoft is pushing them to only support windows 10 (and not even older versions of windows) to convince people to use their newest platform. Linux developers have to reverse engineer and guess how the hardware works and its difficult to get 100% correct. Take nvidia for example. They try to release a closed source binary for their cards under linux. They want their stuff to work under linux. But due to agreements they have with software companies that help optimize their drivers and not wanting to leak clues about how their hardware functions to competitors they will not open source it. They can't. Binary drivers suck for linux because the kernel's inner workings are always changing due to bug fixes, new hardware, etc. For open source drivers someone maintains the drivers and ensures they work. nvidia tries to do this themselves but making a driver that works across all the various kernel implementations and versions is an uphill battle. Plus the fact that Linux software writers don't want to pay for Rights to use anything. 
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You have Windows servers?
Why fuck around with Linux on Laptops, then? Setup an AD Domain, reload the LTs with Windows 10, join them to the domain, and lock them down. 97% of your problems go away with that configuration, some decent AV/Anti-malware, and a business-class firewall with some common-sense rules. |
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Maybe I should rephrase it to "Why does Linux suck on MY laptops". I'm a small business owner and self-appointed IT manager. I've got a whole lot of experience with computers spanning most of my life (though I've never held a degree). My corporation needs Windows to run some specialized software, however keeping Windows clean is a royal pain, and sooner or later some employee will do something stupid and I'll have to take down his/her workstation to reimage it. I have no doubt that one day they'll take down one of our Windows servers (since almost everybody works in Remote Desktop). A few years ago I purchased around ten Lenovo laptops (mainly T520's and a couple of W520's). I started thinking to myself, "Windows should really be run in a VM, atop a Linux base". I figured that if the laptops were a success with this approach, I'd migrate my servers using a similar method (possibly using ESXi). So I began experimenting with different Linux distros on the laptops. I've tried most of them, and they all ran fine after some tweaking. The problem is that every so often they would crash (or lockup), almost always upon startup or shutdown. REISUB never worked, most likely due to the way Lenovo implements the Print Screen key. If I had deployed them like this, I would have had twice the problems than with Windows. To the best of my knowledge (and research), this appears to be a problem with the GPU drivers. Yes, all of these laptops use Nvidia Optimus, however I have tested them in all possible configurations: - Optimus on. - Optimus off. - Optimus off, Nvidia card only. - Optimus off, Intel card only. They all eventually crashed (though the configurations with Intel GPU lasted the longest). It has been some years since I have done these experiments, but I remember trying almost everything possible (changing drivers, configuring boot time parameters, etc.). I would really like this idea to work, so any possible insight would be appreciated. Stopped reading there. you need a new IT manager if your transition to server virtualization is based on the success of workstation virtualization. Your inability to keep windows workstations clean has nothing to do with windows it has everything to do with how much control you give to the staff that uses it. lock that shit down. |
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Thanks for your response. I figured that was why, but I also feel that I'm missing something. For instance, I just checked System76's website, and they have multiple laptops with Nvidia GPUs. They are also running Ubuntu, which was the first distro I tried, and also the one with the most crashes. Surely their laptops don't behave so poorly, so what are they doing different? Also, when I was testing out Linux, I found others on the Web running the same configuration as I was attempting, without trouble. I added the configuration changes they suggested, but I kept experiencing the crashes (though to a lesser degree). In addition, while I recognize that laptop manufacturers do add special hardware, most of it is standardized. For ANY OS to work correctly will require some degree of standardization. Are you saying that Microsoft has hidden hooks into Nvidia's hardware? I'm not looking for Linux to support a special webcam or wifi card, I am just hoping that it would boot and shutdown normally with standard video cards (which it didn't with either the Nvidia nor the Intel chip handling things). These laptops are "certified" to run with RHEL, which probably explains why they ran the best (but not perfect) with CentOS. My question is, why? What particular line of code makes them more stable with Red Hat? If I knew this, I might be able to do something to stop the crashes. It is frustrating when I hear everyone say how stable Linux is, whereas my experience shows it to be the least stable. I'm not saying Windows 10 has special hooks. I'm saying the drivers know about the hardware and how to properly utilize it without crashing the system. It doesn't even take an entire line of code to cause that. I use a lenovo t520 with the nvidia/intel cards. I disabled the nvidia and just use the intel. Never had trouble with crashing. I'm using linux mint on it. |
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Stopped reading there. you need a new IT manager if your transition to server virtualization is based on the success of workstation virtualization. Your inability to keep windows workstations clean has nothing to do with windows it has everything to do with how much control you give to the staff that uses it. lock that shit down. The transition to server virtualization will happen, regardless of the workstation situation. This whole thing with Linux was (and still is) an experiment. Our workstations are locked down (as much as I can given some of our app requirements). We are a relatively small corporation, and all of our users need different privileges (which are constantly changing). Eventually, I have just resorted to giving everyone a little higher privileges than they need, just to avoid the constant nagging from my employees. I am the IT manager, but my primary job is to run the company (and keep unions out). 
At any rate, my question still stands; why can't I get Linux to run well on a laptop, if for no other reason than my curiosity? Also, as a more overarching question, what can be done to make Linux successful on the desktop? |
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Mainly because laptops always seem to use strange and special hardware many manufacturers don't write linux drivers for and are guarded about releasing specs and information for due to non-disclosure agreements with upstream hardware and software providers. Linux doesn't represent a large enough market segment for them to cater to and in many cases Microsoft is pushing them to only support windows 10 (and not even older versions of windows) to convince people to use their newest platform. Linux developers have to reverse engineer and guess how the hardware works and its difficult to get 100% correct. Take nvidia for example. They try to release a closed source binary for their cards under linux. They want their stuff to work under linux. But due to agreements they have with software companies that help optimize their drivers and not wanting to leak clues about how their hardware functions to competitors they will not open source it. They can't. Binary drivers suck for linux because the kernel's inner workings are always changing due to bug fixes, new hardware, etc. For open source drivers someone maintains the drivers and ensures they work. nvidia tries to do this themselves but making a driver that works across all the various kernel implementations and versions is an uphill battle. If one wanted to buy or build a system designed to work as well with Linux as possible, what would that entail? |
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No I didn't mis read you
You wanna run Linux on a laptop That means using Linux as a desktop operating system Short of Apple that's just not a good idea How many years of "This is the year of the linux desktop" press release are gonna happen Well the truth is linux - headless in a server farm that's what it's good at and that's all it's good for But honestly if you insist on trying - skip that Lenenvo garbage and get a decent starting point for 1 (Dell Latitudes are a decent starting point) find what version of linux you aim to run and make sure it's got drivers for the nics and such and you'll be better off Since IBM sold the PC division to China those computers have been shit |
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If one wanted to buy or build a system designed to work as well with Linux as possible, what would that entail? I know this wasn't asked towards me, but I have the answer. If you are building, you should google every single component to make sure it is compatible, and if possible, combinations of components (motherboard, video card, cpu, etc.). If you are buying, look for a machine that is certified by your chosen distro (with all the components matching the certified list), or buy a machine that is offered with some version of Linux pre-installed. |
| This isn't likely to help much, but the two laptops I installed Linux on worked fine with my favorite distro, Gentoo. The current one I have next to me is just a cheap Gateway laptop that for a while did have some problems relating to suspend and hibernate. I managed to fix those problems though with newer kernels and options within the kernel. Laptops have always been hit and miss with Linux. You really have to do your research and you may still have problems. The laptops you have likely run better with RHEL/Centos/ and quite possibly Fedora because the vendor took the time to work with RedHat and submitted drivers and/or kernel patches that make the hardware in those laptops work well under those operating systems. RedHat's kernels are very heavily patched and have a lot of support. |
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No I didn't mis read you You wanna run Linux on a laptop That means using Linux as a desktop operating system Short of Apple that's just not a good idea How many years of "This is the year of the linux desktop" press release are gonna happen Well the truth is linux - headless in a server farm that's what it's good at and that's all it's good for But honestly if you insist on trying - skip that Lenenvo garbage and get a decent starting point for 1 (Dell Latitudes are a decent starting point) find what version of linux you aim to run and make sure it's got drivers for the nics and such and you'll be better off Since IBM sold the PC division to China those computers have been shit False. Linux on the desktop is fine. I run Linux on all of my desktops, though I mostly use Windows 10 on this computer. This computer does have Linux on one of the hard drives. Year of the Linux desktop isn't likely to happen anytime soon, not because it's not good at it, but because most people aren't good at it. |
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Any particular reason you need to run Linux directly on the hardware? Graphics performance? Can you use VMware? I use VMware for just about everything and I'm as happy as a pig in shit. Everything is in a sandbox and I can spin up a new vm if it craps out. You've got the idea, except in reverse! I would like to run Linux bare metal, as a stable, malware-proof base, and then run Windows virtualized via VMware. In my particular use case, this would be perfect. An easily corrupted OS (Windows) as a simple file (or set of files), which I could easily replace with a few mouse clicks (and without having physical access to the machine). Citrix actually has a linux-based hypervisor which would work as well (sorry, I've forgotten the name of their product), but it has some limitations that would be overcome by using a full Linux/GNU package. |
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No I didn't mis read you You wanna run Linux on a laptop That means using Linux as a desktop operating system Short of Apple that's just not a good idea How many years of "This is the year of the linux desktop" press release are gonna happen Well the truth is linux - headless in a server farm that's what it's good at and that's all it's good for But honestly if you insist on trying - skip that Lenenvo garbage and get a decent starting point for 1 (Dell Latitudes are a decent starting point) find what version of linux you aim to run and make sure it's got drivers for the nics and such and you'll be better off Since IBM sold the PC division to China those computers have been shit OK, now I understand what you were trying to get across (and I agree with you on many points, although I'm not sure where you're going with that Apple comment, and I was not blaming the laptops as much as I was blaming Linux). The Lenovo laptops I'm currently running are not bad machines, but I'm turning towards Dell for my future purchases. However, I have run many different brands; Dell (currently have 2 Precision's deployed, as well as 2 servers), HP (Which I consider below Lenovo, sadly), Apple, IBM, Microsoft's Surfaces, etc. I'm the boss so I get all of the new toys first. 
I would personally love for one of these years to be "the year of Linux", but I kind of doubt it's going to happen in the near future. If you'd look at the last part of my previous post, I was curious as to what actually needs to happen for Linux to be successful on the desktop. |
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I'm not saying Windows 10 has special hooks. I'm saying the drivers know about the hardware and how to properly utilize it without crashing the system. It doesn't even take an entire line of code to cause that. I use a lenovo t520 with the nvidia/intel cards. I disabled the nvidia and just use the intel. Never had trouble with crashing. I'm using linux mint on it. What version of mint are you running? I was trying out linux when my hardware was fairly new, so perhaps they have patched somethings that were causing my problems. Mint was one of my favorites, and was more stable than Ubuntu (though not nearly as much as CentOS). |
| I've had the best luck and least hassle with OpenSuSE on the desktop, and I've run it on several laptops. The machine I'm using right now ran it for a couple years until I decided to try Win 10 on it. I haven't run OpenSuSE now in probably 2 years though (the laptop is getting kind of old). I've been thinking about firing it up again. |
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The key seems to be buying the most stripped down laptops you can find - you know the ones they sell by the pallet as "refurbished".. I do what you do, only on a smaller scale with friends, family and the occasional small business.
I have had very good (read stable) luck buying refurb business class laptops (integrated graphics, no do-dads like fingerprint readers, and certainly no discrete graphics) and then sticking in as much memory as they will hold and a 120-250gb SSD. Then I load the current stable version of Mint - Cinnamon, Open Office, GIMP and a couple other bits, and off they go. It takes me about 3 hours to train an individual, 4 to train a group, and then they are typically as proficient as an office drone, but since it is linux, I get away with the "you cant do that" answer more often when users want to do things that would mess up their PC. The only thing that has ever given me issues has been wireless drivers, to the point where I have started buying the USB nub wireless adapters instead of having to mess with the onboard crap. I have had a couple of issues with printers, but those had nothing really to do with the laptop or distro - they were the printer style that required PC CPU time to print, and they all suck. You might see if you can disable any of the special graphical stuff in the bios, so the OS does not even see it. Granted, I am not even sure your lenovos will do that, but it was the only way I could get a sony laptop to run, was to go into the bios and shut off every graphical accelerator, and widget I could find - and the integrated wi-fi / cell card... |
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You've got the idea, except in reverse! I would like to run Linux bare metal, as a stable, malware-proof base, and then run Windows virtualized via VMware. In my particular use case, this would be perfect. An easily corrupted OS (Windows) as a simple file (or set of files), which I could easily replace with a few mouse clicks (and without having physical access to the machine). Citrix actually has a linux-based hypervisor which would work as well (sorry, I've forgotten the name of their product), but it has some limitations that would be overcome by using a full Linux/GNU package. XenServer & XenClient & OpenXT All of which are giant bags of dicks. Up until Vsphere 6.0u1 the vGPU implementation was trash so for certain projects we had to use XenServer. That has changed so now we're 100% vsphere. If Op is interested I can toss together a linux VDI delivery demo to show you what I'm talking about. If you want to use a hypervisor that isn't esxi/vsphere use either Hyper-V or KVM. Since you seem to be more of a linux fanboy for some reason I would use KVM 
One thing you might be interested in is XenDesktop, it's VDI but XenDesktop supports linux based VDI's now. Unlike Citrix's hypervisor platforms their desktop delivery stuff is top notch. |
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The key seems to be buying the most stripped down laptops you can find - you know the ones they sell by the pallet as "refurbished".. I do what you do, only on a smaller scale with friends, family and the occasional small business. I have had very good (read stable) luck buying refurb business class laptops (integrated graphics, no do-dads like fingerprint readers, and certainly no discrete graphics) and then sticking in as much memory as they will hold and a 120-250gb SSD. Then I load the current stable version of Mint - Cinnamon, Open Office, GIMP and a couple other bits, and off they go. It takes me about 3 hours to train an individual, 4 to train a group, and then they are typically as proficient as an office drone, but since it is linux, I get away with the "you cant do that" answer more often when users want to do things that would mess up their PC. The only thing that has ever given me issues has been wireless drivers, to the point where I have started buying the USB nub wireless adapters instead of having to mess with the onboard crap. I have had a couple of issues with printers, but those had nothing really to do with the laptop or distro - they were the printer style that required PC CPU time to print, and they all suck. You might see if you can disable any of the special graphical stuff in the bios, so the OS does not even see it. Granted, I am not even sure your lenovos will do that, but it was the only way I could get a sony laptop to run, was to go into the bios and shut off every graphical accelerator, and widget I could find - and the integrated wi-fi / cell card... Thanks for your reply (and for everyone else's). In my first post I described everything I have tried. I've tried Nvidia Optimus enabled, disabled, discreet graphics only, Intel only, along with many configuration changes. The BIOS on these machines will only reveal what I will let it. It seems that I've had the worst luck running Linux on these machines, but it might be the fact that they were state of the art when I was attempting all this. Linux generally runs about a year behind when releasing drivers. What makes this more frustrating is the fact that some of you have had success! Let me ask some of you with stable linux laptops: are they truly stable, like 100%? When I am building an Windows install for my personal laptops, I consult the system reimaging guide, and I install all of the drivers in the recommended order. I do everything by the book (and it is quite time consuming, which is why I only do it this way for MY personal laptops). When I am finished, my laptop is 100% stable, literally. If I get one blue screen, one crash, one lockup anytime I am using my personal laptop, I will endeavor to track it down, and if I cannot find what caused the problem, I will reformat and start all over. If the problem occurs again after this, the machine either gets returned to the manufacturer or gets kicked down to someone who doesn't care how their machine performs (which is any and all of my employees ). This how I expect my laptop and my two Windows servers to run.
Now, I am not quite this picky when installing linux on my employees workstations, but the longest I could get any distro running without a crash was one week, one freaking week. If Linux is so much more stable than Windows, than why has one of my backup DC's been running for nearly a year without a reboot?! So, have any of you had a Linux install on a laptop meet my personal specs for 100% reliable? (BTW, This is not a challenge or a knock against linux, I'm genuinely curious.) |
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also Op you shouldn't be starting over per say, you should be imaging.
Find a distro that has the right drivers for your hardware, make images and redeploy when something goes awry. Not sure of your environment, but at the very least have your users save their files to a share or just map their profiles to a file server. that way when/if it shits the bed just re-image. |
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FIFY 
Bad chassis parts from any vendor is a close second. CVEs and new kernels come in third. |
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XenServer & XenClient & OpenXT All of which are giant bags of dicks. Up until Vsphere 6.0u1 the vGPU implementation was trash so for certain projects we had to use XenServer. That has changed so now we're 100% vsphere. If Op is interested I can toss together a linux VDI delivery demo to show you what I'm talking about. If you want to use a hypervisor that isn't esxi/vsphere use either Hyper-V or KVM. Since you seem to be more of a linux fanboy for some reason I would use KVM
One thing you might be interested in is XenDesktop, it's VDI but XenDesktop supports linux based VDI's now. Unlike Citrix's hypervisor platforms their desktop delivery stuff is top notch. Yes, that's the product I was looking at some years back. It didn't seem so great back then (and you've now confirmed it). I'm honestly not a Linux fanboy, but everyone ranting and raving about it has got me curious. In my honest opinion, operating systems are worth what you pay for them.
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also Op you shouldn't be starting over per say, you should be imaging. Find a distro that has the right drivers for your hardware, make images and redeploy when something goes awry. Not sure of your environment, but at the very least have your users save their files to a share or just map their profiles to a file server. that way when/if it shits the bed just re-image. Yes, I do image (once I've got a stable build). Most of the users files are already on the server, since most of their work is done on Remote Desktop (server). I'm just curious if linux on the desktop (laptop) is really something that could work for us (which primarily means being stable). |
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OP, you do know you can use policy restrictions in Windows to lock down a system so tight, no one can fuck it up. Would take a while of tinkering with the needed software and policy settings t do what you want but you could easily keep a 'clean image' as needed. Outside of hardware failure, you shouldn't have many issues but you'll need a Windows server setup to enforce policies.
I'd do that before running Linux and a VM on a lappy. |
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If you virtualize the server use HyperV instead of ESXI. HyperV is free.
Most importantly whe are your users connecting back to the server via Remote desktop? There are very few use cases where this makes sense. What you need is a good firewall and AD to lock down your workstations or if there is a valid reason for the RD sessions you might look at VDI. Also if you have a DC that hasn't rebooted in a year then there is no way it's secure and up to date on critical patches. |
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Try linux mint on the laptops - I just made a bootable Live USB with the most recent version of Mint (Serena) in the Cinnamon user interface last night. After a little tutorial that explained that I needed to reset my Win10 power options to deselect the Fast Start option, and when I hit re-start, hold down the shift key. That gets you into the boot menu to select USB or other device. 10 seconds later, I was cooking with gas, with all graphics and peripherals on my laptop working. Just had to go to mouse settings and set my scroll preferences. Amazingly fast and simple. If you decide you like it, you can install right from the USB. I'm no IT wiz, but it is a lot easier than it used to be with RedHat 7!
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If you virtualize the server use HyperV instead of ESXI. HyperV is free. Most importantly whe are your users connecting back to the server via Remote desktop? There are very few use cases where this makes sense. What you need is a good firewall and AD to lock down your workstations or if there is a valid reason for the RD sessions you might look at VDI. Also if you have a DC that hasn't rebooted in a year then there is no way it's secure and up to date on critical patches. Hyper-V is garbage compared to vsphere but if you can't afford a vsphere license go HyperV CIFS is also garbage when it comes to IO scalability compared to NFS so be mindful when dealing with thousands of IOPS. your storage may handle it but the protocol itself can't, it'll fall on its face if you're overload a single CIFS instance. DaaS is a very legitimate use case and very prevalent. Walled garden management is another use case. If you use VDI from Microsoft you're still just RDP'ing but now with the added resource sprawl of VDI instead of managing shared desktops from one or more servers in a collection. If you use XenDesktop VDI then okay sure ICA/HDX is considerably faster more compressible than RDP, a bit better especially if using vGPU, if you use vmware VDI you're still using RDP (or PCoIP which is trash over WAN) I'm unsure why VDI is as popular as it is, increases management complexity 20 fold, increases resource cost exponentially. Considering you're provisioning at a minimum 4GB of RAM per user with VDI where as you can load up 32GB of RAM and get 25 - 50 users on a single server as opposed to 8 users with the same amount of RAM. If you handle server provisioning you get all the benefits of VDI without the resource consumption sprawl. You can also save on licensing cost. |
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One of Linux's biggest weaknesses: drivers which, ironically is also it's biggest strength. I can take a typical Linux distort and get it up and running on just about any hardware, laptop, desktop, etc. Windows will stop if you don't have the right driver for your NIC and will ask you if you want to down load it from the internet, over the connection it just killed because it decided it didn't like your network card. Linux will install, and then offer to look for a specific driver. the drivers will work (mostly)...it's the mostly that kills you. |
In my experience, it's media and webpage clickbait that kill stability. Users always want to view some web content or media so badly that they will click "OK" to anything. No word processor or spreadsheet has ever rendered a system unbootable on it's own, without outside interference. I call it job security for myself  Supporting windows I would get a call about once a week, that about half of the time required rebuilding/reimaging a machine (I usually would not keep an image until the second rebuild). Now it's once a month and my users are thrilled with my efficiency.
I will admit that I have one laptop that I have the SSD configured as a "Live" drive so every time the user reboots it is fresh and new, and the mechanical drive is data storage only. The user is a one person mortgage broker shop that spends 85% of their time on the internet and will absolutely click ANYTHING. Click To View Spoiler Stability is relative, at my day job, we support around 3k laptops, and we have at least one pack up and die every day, with 1/2 being hardware failure (including unscheduled user level impact resistance certification) and 1/2 being windows 8 being windows 8. One round of software failures, however, we tracked down to Verizon sending out some type of bad update to our aircards that totally janks up our vpn software. They wouldn't admit it, because it was not 100% failure rate, but it proves that shit happens and even the most locked down system is still vulnerable. The best you can do is try to keep up. If you want 100% uptime and reliability, command line only unix is what you seek... |
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Problem isn't Windows or Linux... it's the shade tree IT guy who can't keep win machines locked down or clean... Lookin at you OP. Too many company owners think they can handle IT and suck ass at it. Allow me to explain my problem one more time and respond to your "accusations". "Shade Tree" - Fair enough, I don't have an education in this, and it is not my primary job function. Although I began coding at age 9 when my father brought an IBM XT home from work and I have been managing Windows networks for the last 15 years. And yes, I know how to lock down Windows machines. My problem is that some of my employees need a ton of freedom on their workstations, both because of the jobs they perform and the apps thay use. My idea is to give them freedom (especially for their Web surfing job functions) on a Linux machine, and then virtualize Windows on top of it. But then, that is not the question I asked, either. My question is in my first post. If you have an answer to it, please, feel free to enlighten me. And to the guy that caught the fact that my backup domain controller has not been getting updates, yes that is true (and I figured someone would bring it up). This particular server is running some legacy programs that Windows Update always breaks. I've tried updating it, only to have to take it down and manually find the particular update that breaks it and then uninstall it. Yes, it is a vulnerability, however we are working to move from these older apps. Thank you to everyone who gave me some insight into the Linux situation. |