Sysadmins dislike using personal laptops for work

“We have always done five years for desktops and three for laptops. We will do upgrades mid-life with more RAM or whatever as needed. [re: The sysadmin who argues against best practices]”

“3 year life cycle... must be nice to have that kind of budget. [re: The sysadmin who argues against best practices]”

“That’s the truth. I still think laptops should be on 3 year cycles; users beat the heck out of them. The rate of change in hardware though… It’s pretty safe to run desktops for 5 years if properly spec’d. I think most manufacturers are planning their BIOS and firmware support around that timeline. [re: The sysadmin who argues against best practices]”

“5 years is pretty fine if you're just dealing with emails and excel sheets. I tend to go 3 years when they use 3D stuff. [re: How do you handle broken laptops]”

“The only department that has a defined budget is of course IT and you guessed it, laptops are part of the IT budget. I’ve argued against that, but lost several times. That is super toxic. But if management could not figure out that this introduces very perverse incentives, management also needs to suffer the consequences. Set a reasonable budget for replacements out of your overall budget. If it's spent, people do not receive replacements before 5 years. It's that simple. Can't do th”

“Or some people work on big teams where upper management has decided "it's all the same, it's just computers" so now all 41 of you are sysadmins, field techs, help desk, network engineers, project managers, etcetera, etcetera.”

“laptop batteries have been known to catch fire in constant use so he has a point. a mini pc on the other hand is designed to stay on as a server.”

“It's probably because Autopilot has to download additional packages from the Internet, whereas MDT pulls from a local repository.”

“Good call on the IT sub; the remote wipe/buyback angle is probably cleaner than chasing every returned laptop acros customs.”

“Set a cutoff: if retrieval, verified wipe, storage and redeployment cost more than the laptop's remaining value, use certified local disposal rather than shipping it across borders twice. For international hires I'd keep the work in a hosted desktop so the endpoint is replaceable; full disclosure, we build these and laptop recovery is one of the reasons teams move those users there.”

“Here’s a crazy thought. The laptop you use for work isn’t your laptop. It’s the company’s laptop. They can put anything software they like on it. You don’t decide what gets installed, what runs on it or how it’s configured. Keep messing with it and they will find out you’re purposefully breaking tools on their hardware and they will fire you. I don’t get why workers think they have any right to the laptop they are given from a company”

“Standard rotation laptops we don't bill either, it's only when they want something we don't directly support. Same thing for iPads, and stuff like that it bills back to your Department.”

Arch and Gentoo wiki's have saved me many a time over the decades.

“Since you're in a small environment that can allow such things, maybe update your policy to require knowledge of the os they choose. It's not an opportunity to learn a new os. This is a self created problem.”

“That sounds like a failing on your part. Letting people install whatever OS they want on a work machine sounds like crazy talk to me.”

“doesn't mean it is a smart decision”

“Because some businesses love offloading capex on employees whenever possible.”

“" you can continue to use Arch on your personal device but any and all work must be on a work approved device" That's the only response this requires. Agreed”

“Had to scroll waaaaay too far to find the correct answer. Jfc, OP shouldn't be managing anyone. Issue a laptop, tell him to take his personal device home, problem solved. If for some reason you can't issue a laptop, you don't have the budget to hire more people.”

“I am kind of glad that he is trying to learn something. Don't take me wrong I would be happy to help with Ubuntu or Debian setup given that it is going to take some little extra time and in exchange we all learn something. I myself use Mint and Mac OS. I see the benefit. But I can't with clear consience tell the customer that we use the time meaningfully if we are spending 30 minutes trying to set up his vpn client. We are here to work not to spend hours trying to learn core linux featur”

Yeah it's my fault computer is a POS. You're right.

“I don’t have to work in the public sector to know exactly how Mac computers work, specifically how they work in enterprise environments. I personally use an m1 air at work for various tasks, with all the various endpoint agents on it. Have zero issues. And it still performs better than a windows computer with the latest intel cpu, even being years old and without active cooling. Also, I get told every Mac issue at my work. I am the person who manages the entire Mac fleet, solo. It’s not hot garb”

“I would describe myself as OS agnostic: I use Windows and MacOS at work because we use both. At home I mostly use Linux (currently Bazzite) with a dash of Windows. IMO - It's good to be at least reasonably familiar with all the major OSes.”

“Residuals are also great on Apple devices if you recycle or lease. We can't even give 5 year old Lenovos away, but will still get 15-20% back from recyclers on Apple products.”

“Work provides whatever laptop we ask for. The Apple is simply the best built and with the new apple silicon they are super efficient. What I hate is that running stuff in docker for local dev is so complicated and slow.”

“I mean for one, you can then start transitioning away from windows entirely. Microsoft is a financial mess? Open source is more stable, cheaper, better.”

“Nope. The contractor must install the required ZTNA software and use a sponsored account with MFA, with an internal staff member designated as the account custodian. These sponsored accounts will also go through audits every 6 months. Contractors may not share credentials. All of these requirements are clearly defined in their contract, so these are not unreasonable or difficult guidelines to follow. The contractor’s device must maintain the same security posture required of our computers. If wo”

“> They get away with this sort of nonsense because large corps have nowhere to go.I think a lot of large corps could function quite well with a model like: (a) allow employees to choose a MacBook instead; (b) use various macOS enterprise management tools (such as Jamf); (c) use Windows virtual desktops for Windows-only appsThe main reason many don’t isn’t because this strategy won’t work - it is because it would cost them significantly more than a Windows-only strategy. So they won’t do it, or t”

“No big deal. Back in ancient times we had to deal with winter transport. Take a "warm" computer outside, into the car, outside again, then into the building, and ... Drum roll please. The heat cold cycling at times could break the internal connections of the chips to the chip packaging. A problem long since solved. But back then could ruin your week.”

“I worked at Dell for over a decade and still have friends there, the part about only get paid on storage is not correct. Everything else you said seems pretty accurate though.”

really is the kernel, I swear

“Originally had decent Windows devices but ended up over powering that little guys to confusion too often so I went to my M1 permanently now I somehow have one for Work too 👀 (shhh, don’t tell anyone!)”

“This is really the most important thing. Also, when the support has drastically waned, usually because the company has been acquired one or more times, the writing is on the wall and it may be prudent to start looking for new options.”

“Agreed, in theory. In practice, computers controlling heavy machinery tend to run on outdated operating systems and good luck convincing the business to replace a multi million dollar machine because it's controller still runs windows xp and the vendor doesn't supply a new controller system without replacing the entire multi million dollar machine. This is where network isolation/segregation and risk waivers come into play.”

“For security reasons in the modern cybersecurity landscape absolutely. Simply being disconnected from the Internet is no longer good enough because lots of people do stupid things with USB keys and other such things and even isolated systems can be damaged. And usually the same mindset that won't replace a legacy system is also the same mindset that has absolutely no backup plan for how to operate the business profitably without it and so when the system dies it kills the company with it”

“A shit load that's a PITA to get set up on Windows. Try and do anything with serial on Windows, or access old interfaces that need very specific installations....”

“This happened to my employer. If it can happen to a multi trillion dollar company with all the precautions they take and hoops we have to jump through to get our work done, why do you think you're impervious? "But I have intune and MFA and it's not a DC bro" You think cookies don't get stolen? https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2023/07/11/mitigation-china-based-threat-actor/ https://msrc.microsoft.com/blog/2023/07/microsoft-mitigates-china-based-threat-actor-storm-05”

“Finally, some sanity in this thread, showing awareness of what it’s like to work in environment that you can’t just hide behind a shell all day. 😂”

“Citrix and VMWare are good enough these days that all the 'real' admin work should be done with a dedicated admin account on a virtualized PAW anyways. The only work I do on the other stuff is email checking and web browsing.”

“I switched to MacBook back in like '08 and they're cool. (I was a Linux guy before that.) It's BSD under the hood and I can run the majority of my native tools and it maintains my session post reboot.”

“I think the M4 is what I've got as well, and I almost never think about charging it. I just throw it on my phone charger every now and then while I'm in the shower, and I'm good to go for a couple days of RDP-ing into whatever server I'm working on.”

“I use a MB Air as my work laptop. At the end of the day, my "user" computer is just email, a web browser, and Citrix Workspace to access my admin VM. In the past, I've used a Chromebook, a gaming laptop, my desktop, and now a macbook. They've all done the same thing, so I just go with what's got good battery life and build quality. ETA: I totally understand that I'm not doing the "real" work on the MB, but my point is more that the real work is being done on a”

“We went from 0 MacBooks in 2016 to 11,000 of them today. Not gonna say windows will ever disappear, hell, we’re a 365 shop like everyone else… but on endpoint, Apple is deadly serious.”

Do you use Powershell in macos or in Linux?

“Nonsense. "Sysadmin" work is extremely varied and using the same platform as users makes senses only when it makes sense. Most of the tools I use are different from my users. I also provide technical support for which I don't need to use the same as them in my day to day. I have a cloud PC I use for tutorials, training videos or screenshot of applications, as well as testing new functionality or apps. There's no reason nor benefit from me using it always and the other part of m”

“I have been a sysadmin for 14 years and I have never worked long enough without being plugged in that it's a non issue.”

“Because it’s not all about the app, group policy doing something strange etc. plus, if you are going to be implementing anything you should also have to suffer the implications of what is about to be implemented. New or changes to a web filter? IT should be getting that first and no exceptions to what you are pushing out to users, there should be more of we, as IT, suffer the effects of what we do. When I was in smaller orgs where I sat closer to the c-level, it was published policy that the IT”

“I use one daily bc 99% of my tasks are just pointing a browser or SSH at something”

“The proportion changes when you go to corporations that are not tech-based or that were Windows-Only for many years before the 00s. But no serious corporation nowadays is mac-hostile because it would be idiotic. Some sysadmins may still define themselves by the platform they use t and the ones they hate, which may color the systems they personally manage. But in corporations this attitude was done away decades ago because it was unfounded stubbornness (that more often than not maskeraded ignoran”

“Nonsense. Any PC or Laptop connected to the internal network should be a client that is managed by IT. Why? Patch management, AV, user restrictions (you should not have local admin on workstations) and also to cover yourself should your workstation be the source of a security breach. So yes it does matter, and its like that because people like you clearly don't think of the bigger picture with your "As long as my desktop has an ssh client, it doesn’t matter what the window decorations l”

“Kinda in respect that if I have to remote in out of hours I use my MacBook - oh and the iPad MDM all hangs off my mac.....”

“I do my work in a Terminal emulator. With ZSH as the interactive Shell. I don't care which hardware runs and which OS execute that shell. It can be a MacBook (best batterylife), Workstation with OpenIndiana (best Stability) or Desktop with openSuSE Tumbleweed.”

Pretty much, unless it's infrastructural or strictly-utility machines.

If we need one for something, yeah, that's rare though.

“I use a MacBook, but I don't have to deal with Windows much. It's great for working with Linux servers. In fact, I think it's better than a Linux workstation or laptop for working with Linux servers.”

“i remote into stuff, as far as i can tell, not much of a difference when on mac, but i guess it would depend on what you work on.”

I do have one that lives in my bag, but it's not the same.

“i love my surface pro (best laptop ever) but it got so slow i couldn't use it. I tried to turn it into a thin client to remote into my desktop using a linux install. turns out the laptop is plenty fast enough to work on, and now i run linux basically everywhere - it's been almost a year now. i can't believe microsoft made windows unusable on their own flagship devices - it's even an expensive model with an i7. I actually wondered if the drive was failing or it had cooling issues,”

“Just because we host the hardware, OS, software, auth, security, etc, doesn't mean we need to be able to login to the App. Eg. If you don't add/remove/maintain users/computers/OUs/GPOs/Sites, you do not need Enterpise admin access to AD. You can still be a server admin without AD Enterprise Admin. It is absolutely normal to not have login to an application you do not have a need to admin. What you are looking for is testers. If changes, tickets, process in general, require testing then i”