I have 10-15 years of Linux experience for personal use and I have a few years of IT support work in the cloud but I still have some gaps in my tech knowledge, especially in regards to networking. I recently lost my job to AI and I’m interested in what comes next. I won’t touch windows. I don’t want to install it, image it, use it, support it, etc.
Is it possible to get into an IT career without ever acknowledging the existence of windows?
I’m in my 4th undergrad year of majoring CS, and I have never had to use Windows once.
All courses that require their special programs have Linux versions or are cross-platform due to them using languages like Java, like LogicSim, RISC-V, Ocaml, SQL Workbench, etc. Some courses even exclusively use Linux.
The closest thing I have to use Windows for would be .docx documents, but even that is handled by LibreOffice.
Of course, it depends on the institute.
Someone close to me went into a scientific field and had this experience at their school. 100% Linux. They taught them how to use it for everything from the ground up; regular usage, and things specific to their discipline. I would have loved to have had the same foundational experience. My Linux knowledge grew together as a patchwork of experiences breaking and fixing things, reinstalling, hacking together solutions that should never have worked, etc.
No 🤣
Get over yourself, you’re getting paid more than 95% of the planet being in IT.
I had an Apple laptop at the time, didn’t dual boot but did have to use some workarounds using Wine. I guess that’s kind of acknowledging Windows, but at least you’re not actually running it I guess? Basically it’s close to the way I use my Linux machine nowadays.
Chances are however that things have somewhat changed in the last 12 years and chances are it varies between (sub)degrees and universities. However I can guarantee you: you won’t be alone in not wanting to use windows. Being very OS picky is a tried and true tradition in the field. Find your kind of people and I’m sure you can troubleshoot any issues you encounter together.
honestly you have no business working in your field if that’s your approach to a fundamental facet of your job. that’s like a farmer refusing to use a spade because they prefer shovels.
Disagree. People are allowed to specialize. A lot of tech companies are macs and linux in the cloud these days anyway. There is no need to touch windows. And given it’s disrespect for privacy, it is probably a significant risk as an endpoint in a corporate environment.
I read that even Azure, which you would expect to have a ton of Windows machines deployed, is like 66%+ Linux VMs. I was surprised to hear that, but it matches my limited experience.
I would say yes, I haven’t dealt with windows in a professional way in over 20 years.
Also cert, lpic maybe? Feel free to follow up.
I have over 10 years as a software engineer, and the vast majority of that was Linux. The only two exceptions are my current job where we develop a software that runs on Windows so I need a Windows build box for it (although my laptop is Linux), and my previous job that had a weird windows only policy (didn’t stay too much after that got enforced). So it’s very much doable, depending on what you work with.
You absolute can become a professional computer toucher without having to engage with Windows. If you look at operating systems for cloud servers you will see that 90% of them are running on some Linux variant.
If you want to use your experience to work with linux desktop machines then that might be tricky. You will have to find a company that mandates to use linux machines. I think your best chances might be a tech startup that has not yet fallen into the windows trap.
I managed to get through most of my computer engineering bachelor’s using Linux. There were some specialized windows-only programs related to electronics design.
Theoretically? Probably, I rarely touched windows outside of Windows centric shops. Practically, you’re going to have to make that a much more blurry line
There’s going to be times you have to deal with Windows. That can be as little as “effectively never” depending on your path and choices, but if you’re a hardliner it’s going to close doors on you just for picking a dumb hill to die on
Not really.
I did not touch Windows during or after my CS degree. No clue what people are on about needing Windows. It was a challenge on my first job where they preferred us to use VMs instead (I did not and it became the norm because it is better).
Graduated in Europe. We had a bunch going through the same. Campus computers were running Linux too. You need someone to champion it in the year and others will join.
I think if you work in a server farm, that’s very possible
I did touch windows in my life, but did a lot with OS/2, Solaris and Linux. I currently also use windows because some tools have crappy license management that do not work in VMs.
Raise your dongles
Meh, if you’re competent enough a degree really isn’t worth anything.
Your portfolio is more important.
That portfolio is exponentially easier to build with a degree though.
the paper they use is so strong?
Geometrically.
Don’t think in term of IT. Look at R&D for big tech/cloud companies or even startups Devops or SRE type work
Source: 23 years doing sys admin, devops or SRE for major corps, still don’t have a bachelor or touched windows
I appreciate the tip about R&D and startups. I ride my bike a lot and sometimes when I go through office parks or light industrial I see boatloads of tech-ish companies that have no consumer name recognition or anything. Whether it’s R&D at a big cloud provider or something similar, the behind the scenes stuff is more likely to utilize Linux.
Yeah almost every company out there use Linux. Even Microsoft is on Linux these days. I’ve done farm stuff. Wireless stuff. Cloud stuff. Social network stuff. It’s almost 💯 Linux everywhere. And everybody always need devops or SRE types (whether they’ll admit it or not, I’m a software eng these days after they converted us) . Back when I was doing cloud stuff I would have killed for anybody with 10 years of personal Linux experience. All we could get were entry level people that barely understood bash
I appreciate your comment about my experience. Perhaps I’m not giving myself enough credit for what I know. I kind of know these things in isolation since my IRL friends, bar one or two, aren’t very technical so I have no benchmarks to compare myself with.
I did a little bit of cloud stuff in a past job. It was a mix of billing and tech support, nothing requiring a ton of experience or certs, though a general knowledge of computers and public cloud computing was needed. A lot of people who worked there did not have it so I floated to the top pretty quick. I work hard, but I don’t need the stress of being in a dysfunctional org.
