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The state of Schleswig-Holstein is consistently relying on open source

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597 points doener | 1 comments | 07 Dec 25 13:21 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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mapontosevenths ◴[07 Dec 25 14:24 UTC] No.46181864[source]▶
Its been a very long time since I was a Sysadmin, but I'm curious what managing a fleet of Linux desktops is like today? Has it vastly improved?

When I last tried in a small pilot program, it was incredibly primitive. Linux desktops were janky and manual compared to Active Directory and group policy, and an alternative to Intune/AAD didn't even seem to exist. Heck, even things like WSUS and WDS didnt seem to have an open version or only had versions that required expensive expert level SME'S to perform constant fiddling. Meanwhile the Windows tools could be managed by 20 year old admins with basic certitifcations.

Also, GRC and security seemed to be impossible back then. There was an utter lack of decent DLP tools, proper legal hold was difficult, EDR/AV solutions were primitive and the options were limited, etc.

Back then it was like nobody who had ever actually been a sysadmin had ever taken an honest crack at Linux and all the hype was coming from home users who had no idea what herding boxen was actually like.

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finchisko ◴[07 Dec 25 14:39 UTC] No.46181979[source]▶
I really don’t get why there’s always this group of people who feel the need to constantly manage everything for others—like sysadmins, for example. Sure, there are valid scenarios where management makes sense, like printing or shared drives, but most of the stuff is just over the top. As a developer, I’m sick of all the constant restrictions—broken VPNs, stealth monitoring, and antivirus software that slows everything down. These "security measures" are supposed to help, but they just kill performance and cause frustration. At the end of the day, I just want my system to work smoothly without constant interference.
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1. mapontosevenths ◴[07 Dec 25 14:56 UTC] No.46182112[source]▶
> I’m sick of all the constant restrictions

I think everyone hates it, but they're often legally required. Even when they aren't legally required, they usually are by insurance companies.

Nobody wants to be on the news the first time Becky in Marketing opens an email attachment she shouldn't.

*EDIT* I left out one of the biggest benefits: Dummies & Newbs. The world is filled with people who have never used a mouse before they started this job Last week and people who actually NEED the stupid warning stickers on their toasters. If you don't lock down their desktops your support costs will be astronomical and downtime will be constant. We know this because there was a time before these tools, and it largely sucked for everyone.

Did you know that you can bypass the windows 98 login screen by just clicking 'Cancel' instead of 'OK' at the login prompt? Nice and simple, right? That stupid button not only wrecked security it caused 10's or 100's of thousands of hours in lost work because people forgot their passwords, clicked Cancel, and then would call the help desk wondering why network shares didnt work. It would sometimes take hours to figure that all they had to do was reset the password and login properly.