[CuriousRose]

Microsoft's holistic direction is so bad I have moved all of my on-prem Windows Server clients that will listen to Windows 11 Enterprise LTSC 2024, and all desktop clients out of M365 to Office LTSC 2024.

This was after dragging many endpoint users by tooth and nail that just use Xero or web based apps to MacBook Airs (which are going down a similarly terrible direction post Tahoe).

Is there no saviour for modern software? I'm obviously technical but my adolescent quest for customisation and tinkering is behind me. I want software that works and keeps up with hardware, not degrades its margin of improvement.

[estimator7292]

At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious: Linux and other FOSS

[CuriousRose]

Linux has terrible UX, no cohesion in design and quite frankly I can't understand how it could possibly be considered a replacement for macOS.

Expecting business users to use a terminal to install apps (yes I know AppImage exists) is so far removed from reality it's not worth entertaining the "year of the Linux desktop" joke for anyone without at least a mildly technical background.

To clarify, I'm speaking about business users not the people we commonly interact with in the IT space - although in my market they are also just as siloed in their knowledge and while they may be great at DevOps or development, good luck getting them to do anything outside of drag an app from a Disk Image to the Applications folder (which will stay mounted for the next 8 months).

[defrost]

> Expecting business users to use a terminal to install apps

would be akin to expecting business users to install their phones, lines, and office switches, like expecting them to assemble their desks and chairs, expecting them to stock the fridge, swap out water bottles, repair the HVAC, etc.

Who is it that expects business users that have PA's to make them a sandwich struggle to install apps rather than take a long lunch and expect it to be done upon their return?

[CuriousRose]

I understand your point, and I might just be out of touch, but I don't know of any MSPs in the Australian market that support desktop Linux users. Even internal IT support teams I've come across only really deal with the Linux server environment.

Throwing GNOME/KDE/xkfc/mate/whatever flavour it is this month really starts to make things complicated for UX. I'm sure yes you could centralise it, mass deploy, have a stable config, etc, but these are low level things that when go wrong really interfere with the day-to-day of non-technical employees.

What do you do about drivers, obscure one-use PDF converters they want, Excel macros? The tools they are familiar with are lucky to have a macOS alternative these days, let alone a Linux build that is compatible with the distro they are on. Supporting most users is questions like - "where was the button that was there yesterday?", "why are my emails sorted backwards?", "whats this virus I have? (clicked allow notifications in Edge)".

Linux/BSD has incredible merit and I would love to see the duopoly in the desktop market broken up, but it requires a directed approach to fixing UX, a single opinionated distro that has enough traction to warrant developers to create turn-key apps and builds for it, and users to feel familiar with the interface without it changing for a long time. I don't see this happening due to the inherent communal aspect of Linux where everyone wants to make their mark and has their own opinions on design not just at the OS level but at the application level also.

[defrost]

While I've free lanced in office suport on and off across the years it's not been my main focus.

I have observed that office workers tend to get on and work with what tools they have, be that old school unix-like point of sale sytems, Wang wordprocessors, god-awful microsoft access hacks, TCL-forms on Sun workstations, cross platform ARC-GIS / ERMapper photogrammetry pipelines, etc.

Drivers, PDF conversion, et al seem to be the bug bears of all platforms I've encountered.

To advance your argument it's really the Excel Macros that serve you best - those things that have developed in-house and are peculiar to a singular anchor software suite.

Offices with no legacy ties binding them to one OS are more agile wrt change, several European countries (Germany at least, there are others) have many offices that are already long time Red Hat (and other) users.