Yes, unfortunately

We're a Linux shop at my work. We do have a windows PC due to corporate policies...but everything we do on our windows PCs we could do from Linux.

Outlook? Website. Excel? Website. Jira? Website. Teams? Website. Nearly everything we do front end wise is all web based. Which, I know electron sucks, but from a "Linux as a main desktop environment"...I'm pretty damn happy with everything being web based nowadays. It's all OS agnostic.

I've been lucky, at two of my previous jobs, I was permitted to use a Linux laptop instead of the default Windows ones, it was wonderful.

Sadly you're right though, at least in the US, even in the IT world, unless you're working specifically at a Linux company, you're almost certainly using Windows.

My current job is all Windows, even though my team spends a significant amount of time maintaining Linux systems. I just open up WSL and try to pretend It's running on bare metal. 😞

My main computer at work is Linux, I do have a Windows build box where I compile code for Windows, and to make my life easier I usually develop it there as well. But outside of platform specific code, or code related to a product that's Windows only, I don't have any issues.

As for other software Teams, slack, zoom, Google meeting and docs work well enough that I can use them daily without issues.

At a previous job for some reason they wanted me to use Windows, which was absurd since I worked on the backend of a site which would only be deployed to Linux, didn't last long in that job after that was made official.

In short, as long as my main machine is Linux, I don't mind having to have a Windows machine to do Windows stuff. But I get annoyed out of my mind if I'm either forced to use Windows as my main OS (it's just not ergonomic for me), especially if there's no reason for it.

Yes you are right, usually linux users that are not in IT have no choice but using bad microsoft computers (or Apple for designers/upper upper management) when they are employees.

But if you are general manager, or an independant contractor, you do whatever you want, and I have been on Debian, Void since 3 years now and it is just great.

People complain that "your files are not compatible" (i.e.: their excel version can not open a moderately complex xlsx file), and you use stupidly dumb webapp for Outlook and Teams, but otherwise if you don't need to commit for a specific software (built for windows or mac, like Adobe suite, 2D or 3D CAD softwares, some kind of old school ERP or CRM), you are all good. Basically everything done by management staff can be done using LibreOffice.

The "cloud revolution" at least has given us this good result : you can have basic business utilities solved through a webclient, hence GNU/Linux OS is ok to work with.

It depends on your work. I'm a web designer and I can use anything I want. I also work from home.

I am working in company where about 35% of users are on Windows, 40% on Linux and 25% on Mac. In Linux, official way to use MS Office is web apps, but Libreoffice is quite heavily used too.

I'm constantly looking for a way to convert the entire office. At the moment, it's 'how to replace Revit' and I found Bonsai but the 2d drawing elements are still being developed. If anyone has any suggestions on BIM software that can use IFC files, I would be most thankful.

Other than that, I'll bet our IT company will advise against using Linux because they won't know how to use it.

I use Windows at work and it reminds me of how much I love Linux.

I think it's certainly possible for us to move away from Windows and Mac, but convincing people isn't easy. The end users would be easiest to convince because most of them are just using the limited array of applications required for the business and don't much care what's under the hood. The people who really need convincing are the reat of local IT support and maybe vendors.

I think the path to broader business adoption of Linux runs through IT support.

All my jobs back to 2002 until now I have had full authority to run any OS I like on my work computer. I've run nothing but Linux on all my work machines and I have convinced many coworkers to do the same.

I have been on macOS at work since December of 2019. Before that it was Windows since 2014. If I had the choice for Linux I might take it over macOS, but I'd happily take either over Windows.

Mac, actually. Its a different kind of bad. At least I can use many of the same cli tools.

No. We are a proper engineering company.

Professor here facing the same problem. I am bounded by administrative procedures with grandma school administrators.

I use Linux at home, of course. Debloated my Win11 machine at work but hope to use Linux instead everyday.

If a company is particular about me using Windows for work, I'll be particular about choosing a company that uses Linux for work. But I'm in a unique/privileged position in this regard; my job involves making it easier for people to use Linux for business or personal use.

Our engineers can use Linux desktop if they want, and I suppose anyone else could as well, but Microsoft Office is really what keeps me on Windows at work. I could use the browser based apps for 80% but that last 20% is nasty. And yes, I use libreoffice at home. The cross compatibility just isn't there without loads of extra time that I don't have.

Debian at home. Red Hat at work. I have tried to talk them into better OS choices, but really I'm just glad to not be on Windows.

Keep your eye open for opportunities to advocate for Linux in the workplace, change will come.

No. I would never allow them to force me to use Windows

Web dev, Linux at home and work. Works fine for my scenario.

I'm allowed my own laptop cuz most of my work is ssh to a server and fix shit. You have to register your laptop on the network first though.

Office, Team: these can work via the browser if your company/organizations pay for the subscription. In fact, the web versions run much better than the standalone desktop ones for me.

Code editor, terminal, programing in general: These work much much better in linux. You open a terminal and you write commands to install stuff. Editors are even easier, i.e. nano, vim, vscode, emacs.... etc. just pick your poisons..

Email: now I login to my exchange email using the browser. That works for 100% of the stuff I need to do: basic emails stuff, accept/decline meetings...etc. Unless you absolutely need to use Outlook, there should be no problems.

Now... the real problem lies in specialized software like CAD, CAE tools. I like Linux but there isnt a free CAD / CAE tool that is comparable to what the industries are using. In academic? absolutely you can use for research.

I use an M2 Caddy with a 1TB NVME SSD to boot into Aurora Linux on my work laptop.

The laptop keeps it's Windows license intact and when I need to move to a new laptop, it's plug and ~~play~~ work.

CUPS works with every printer in my office out of the box.

I am the user with less IT support tickets, I don't require Windows, Office nor Adobe licenses.

IT is happy, I'm happy. Every day is pure bliss.

Its not my machine, so I don't really care. As long as it doesn't prevent me from doing the work, then that is the employers problem what OS they want to enforce.

On my personal computer, I run what I want and will continue to do so where possible. Hence, why I like using Linux.

Linux admin grey(ish) beard here, work provides a MacBook and I just use it as a web browser and terminal.

Internal chat, mail, etc are all browser based, Google Docs is the office suite of choice for anyone I have to work with.

I get a decent terminal (iterm2), together with ZSH, tmux and Python is all I really need. We do have a bunch of GNU core utils installed as well, although coming from a UNIX background, I don't mind the BSD versions that ship on MacOS either.

Would I prefer Linux? Yes, I would. But at the same time, the M4 performance is awesome, the touchpad is glorious and I don't have to foot the bill, so I'm not complaining!

No, instead I'm forced to use macOS at work.

And Microsoft Teams, which is terrible, but somehow still better than Cisco Webex, which we had before.

Yup, and every time I have to deal with Windows bullshit at work, I get a little bit happier that I don't have to deal with it when I go home.

Yes, I'm forced to use Windows at work and that's part of why I only use Linux in my personal life.

Window is so stupid and annoying. It needs to reboot like twice a day for updates. Not to mention individual apps that need to update in the middle of usage. Also the news/spam and stuff. It's garbage. I'm the guy who's constantly telling everybody that we should switch to Linux.

(Also, even though my work laptop is Windows, I do most of my real work connected to a Linux server/IDE.)