I’m liking the recent posts about switching to Linux. Some of my home machines run Linux, and I ran it on my main laptop for years (currently on Win10, preparing to return to Linux again).
That’s all fine and dandy but at work I am forced to use Windows, Office, Teams, and all that. Not just because of corpo policies but also because of the apps we need to use.
Even if it weren’t for those applications, or those policies, or if Wine was a serious option, I would still need to work with hundreds of other people in a Windows world, live-sharing Excel and so on.
I’m guessing that most people here just accept it. We use what we want at home, and use what the bossman wants at work. Or we’re lucky to work in a shop that allows Linux. Right?
Most workplaces have switched to the cloud model. Google workspace, MS Teams (or w/e they call their work ecosystem?), Salesforce, etc. Pretty much everything these days runs in the browser. And fortunately almost all browsers run on Linux.
That being said, yes, they may provide hardware, and expect you to use it, and they probably wouldn’t allow for you to modify it.
It’s remarkable how 5 years ago, I would not have been able to do my job just with web apps. Just recently I used my personal Linux laptop for 3 weeks while away from home. It worked perfectly for the job with two minor exceptions:
‘1. There’s a proprietary web app that requires you to upload a specifically-formatted .xlsx file, couldn’t get that to work.
‘2. MS Teams - unless you have the web page pulled up and are looking at it, it will show you as Away instead of Available. Workaround was to just leave Teams open on my phone and have the screen always on.
Mine always says away. It’s none of your business where I am or what I’m doing. Send me a message and I’ll get back to you at my earliest availability.
But there is also a Teams for Linux app on Flathub that might solve that problem.