@MrCheese
The reason why most of these articles are written about Windows is because most of the networks I am asked to look after are Windows. I have a handful of non-windows networks in my care...but they don't tend to give me any problems worth blogging about.
The real problem is convincing people that they can live without tow things:
1) Excel
2) Outlook’s “public folders/public calendar/integrated presence.”
Excel can stand alone…but why would you? So that means the Office Suite. Outlook is unique amongst the Office suite in that it won’t run in WINE, so that means a Windows Desktop. To use all of Outlook’s features you need an Exchange server, which means it must run on top of a Windows Server. So suddenly you are (at least) into “small business server” territory simply because someone somewhere is addicted to Excel.
That’s before we get into “every industry in existence has industry-specific software that /HAS NO OPEN SOURCE ALTERNATIVE/, and the vast majority of this runs on Windows.”
So yes, there’s a damned lot of Windows out there, some for bad reasons, some for perfectly legitimate reasons. Personally, I don’t want to run Windows unless I can avoid it. In the instances I’ve been allowed to deploy Linux to address a problem, that problem tends to go away for good.
Now, some folks get uppity and say “well, if you were smart/”a real sysadmin”/more like me/etc.” then you would be paying developers to port your industry specific software to Linux. Except that’s about ten years out of date. Anyone who develops software for a fixed operating system and isn’t doing it for HPC/Big Iron style “every cycle counts” computing is delusional. If you redevelop an application in today’s world you do it for the cloud.
So all this stuff is slowly moving into the cloud, and the desktops are evaporating with them. With the desktops go the servers and then that network gets crossed off my list as a potential client. Linux is great; but it’s rare as hen’s teeth in the SME market and there aren’t enough deployments out there to provide enough work to feed my family. Where it exists, it “just works” and doesn’t need a babysitter.
Linux has its place in the large enterprise market, and most of the Linux deployments aren’t going anywhere. Least of all into the cloud! But there aren’t many large enterprises with datacenters or head offices in Edmonton. Those that are here chronically understaff their IT departments because we have such a glut of sysadmins that job openings at larger organizations turn into cage matches. You can burn through sysadmins like a box of cheap candles and there will always be more to take their place.
So yes, I work on Microsoft networks. Because they are what pays the bills. They also break often enough that they give me something to write about on El Reg. When all the Microsoft networks evaporate into the cloud, well…