So I was wondering what someone of you guys think the biggest problem for mass linux adoption is. I was discussing it with a co-worker today, and I think we are looking at the problem wrong. Instead of trying to get linux boxes on shelves in walmart/best buy I think it might be a better idea to target desktop use in large companies. People will continue to use what ever they have to use a work at home. People are also more willing to learn something new if it is required for them to know for a job. Plus if linux becomes well used by corporations production software companies will start targeting it. Thus solving the issue with no one wanting develop the application that a lot of freelancers need for work as well.
So that raised the question what is the biggest problem for linux being adopted by large companies. Keeping in mind that I only see a small part of the picture as a level 1 agent I have noticed a couple of problems that windows solves better than linux.
The first, and more minor, being a lack of a solid remote desktop solution. At the company I work for we have a tool that links in windows remote assistance and remote desktop to an asset tag look up database. I have yet to see any decent linux solution for remote desktop. They all seem to have major latency issues/stability issues. Honestly we could probably fix this pretty quickly if we would just admit that SSH isn’t the solution to every problem. I need to see what a user is doing in order to diagnose their problem. Also sometimes even on a “break/fix” desk we answer how to questions. Hard to show a user what button to click when I can’t just show them.
The second which is probably a much harder fix, and a bigger issue, is lack a active directory like solution. Same thing as ra/rd, it isn’t that solutions aren’t there, it is that the solutions suck. I honestly think that instead of trying to develop a competitor it might be easier to convince MS to supply better support for linux in active directory. After all they Open source. I really think that we are little to far behind the curve to catch up quickly. If all the people saying that MS is going to develop their own linux distro are correct this is probably going to happen anyway.
So I am still wondering what you guys think. Do you think that we should be focusing on Walmart/Best buy, or should we focus on large companies? If the former then what are the road blocks there? If the latter, do you agree with my points? Would you add any that I am not seeing?
the biggest problem with linux adoption is UI design. The software is built by programmers without a lot of feedback from users. A perfect example of how UI fixes can help is to look at blender 2.8 compared to previous iterations. the new interface is slick and really helps folks to transition.
The main issue folks have is they move from one linux system to another and the DE is completely different. Most people don’t want to learn a UI, they want it to be intuitive.
To summarize:
Too many distros, software doesn’t have intuitive UI, feature bloat, and many different software choices for the same task hurts adoption.
No perfect solutions, but… why would you need one? Your use-cases is solved by the remote desktop built into gnome. Though maybe some tweaking needed for central management.
AD isnt one thing, its a collection of tools. So whats missing?
I use https://remmina.org right now over whats built into gnome. Does vnc and rdp. And some other things I didnt care about. Rdp is better with this compared to gnome boxes imo (since I didnt figure out how to make gnome boxes not use 800x600 as its resolution for rdp)
Spice just worked somehow without anything. Guess its also built into gnome. For the rest you have ssh for.
This hits something I just ran into last weekend- after a rebuild of a laptop I forgot what I used to actually rdp into a windows box. Here lies what IMO is an issue with mainstream addoption- I had to try 4 different applications, Google conf changes, troubleshoot, install additional packages, another package manager etc. THIS IMO is the issue, not some silver bullet “give it AD and RDP and everyone is on board!”. It’s that everything is as Normy friendly as theoretical physics.
IMO people on boards like this are not going to simulate Normy use case well- the 'i want to turn it on, it just works, and when what I want to do doesn’t work, a quick Google and double click later, it then works". Major adoption won’t happen when each and every use has to be a technology hobiest at the very least.
This applies to business as well, our Linux admins are in short supply as it takes a special mindset to go that direction vs easy learning curve, easy administration, easier to get the job. So many Linux people just don’t get why other people are not like them, and maybe there-in lies the problem.
I had to install a plug-in from a different package manager to get remmina to work. On Ubuntu it worked out of the box, on this debian built, no. That’s why I give Ubuntu a lot of credit, imo they do the most towards making someone’s experience “it just works”.
basically it all boils down to money.
The amount of money a company would have to toss a randomEmployee_01 to learn how to use the linux desktop, and programs is to much, basically anything above 1$ is to much when you ask the money spenders.
Active directory is a biproduct of monopoly held by M$, and it has been this way ever since i remember where basically my grandmom, and her generation dictates which technologies are used by my generation.
Even at my current job support doesn’t know how linux works, and this is on exclusive linux platforms, but appearently they have to use putty to reversessh instead of just learning the linux desktop and skip the middle man.
Commands are the exact same, but they’d have to relearn a workflow, from what they’re used to when facebooking at home.
We work with active directory via centrify, but ldap is an option in some cases as well. My work must have Linux for various reasons, and even with $$$ rhel licenses and support, it’s just painful whenever we need to break outside of a comfort zone.
TBH it already works. I set up a nextcloud server that auths via our ADDC. It wouldnt be too much to just rely on openLDAP and kerberos to auth windows users to linux accounts. Theres even policy handling to some extent. Powershell is also available on linux.
It wouldnt be identical but it could be similar.
The biggest hurdle is and always will be the software to me.
Second, I think lack of a unified distro/DE/package manager is the “biggest” problem. You’d risk stinting innovation but you would have a marketable, selling product.
IPA for user management, security, system access and control. foreman maybe or similar tools for config and deployment management. depends on how you like to do config management.
So say you had a windows client and you wanted to restrict access to control panel for a group. Would you just push a script to enforce with local GPO?
IPA and AD can share user/group info etc. so users would access a Windows system, and AD would apply the appropriate Windows controls. A users would access a Linux system and IPA would apply the appropriate controls.
That does not count. They buy it because it’s cheap. And at say a 500€ budget you’ll have a hard time finding a similar quality notebook for your browsing needs.
Also everybody on earth knows how chrome works. It’s not unfamiliar to anybody. It’s (mostly) just chrome going on and that’s about all it does apart from Android apps.
Open source. I really think that we are little to far behind the curve to catch up quickly. If all the people saying that MS is going to develop their own linux distro are correct this is probably going to happen anyway.
