What kind of hardware are you "simply install[ing] Linux" on? Was it really that simple?
The reason I ask is because every single time I try to install Linux on actual hardware, it's a nightmare.
Meanwhile, everywhere that I install Windows - it just works.
In fact, in most cases it "just works" these days, but the range of hardware I attempt it on isn't great. I've had trouble with a low-end Toshiba of a friend's in the past, and even on the Thinkpad I'll sometimes have issues with rarer configurations - namely a complicated multi-display setup using the Lenovo dock/port replicator.
It certainly isn't the Apple "don't make me think" experience I would love to present people with, but it's been far from a nightmare for years in my experience.
Indeed! Lenovo Thinkpads in my company as well, and everything mostly "just works".
There are also some Samsung Ultrabooks (I heard they have some trouble with the boot partition) and some poor quality local brand clones which break down if you stare at them too hard (but that's independent of the installed OS).
The Thinkpads give no trouble. No idea why they're phasing them out. Cost savings maybe? :(
As I learned years ago with my experience putting OSes on shitty hardware: if you want your OS to run well, buy good hardware. Stayed away from Broadcom, Realtek, Lenovo Ideapads, Dell Inspirons etc. Bought a ThinkPad. Never had a problem with Linux on it.
Not sure what else we'll be able to find on HN...
Did your laptops have dual graphics/Optimus (Nvidia+Intel)? Every spare laptop I've had includes Optimus and that's one issue I couldn't overcome and tried with various popular distros.
I have one old IBM desktop workstation that I can install most Linux distros on without problems. It's usually laptops that I have a problem with and I asked because that's what I hear most working devs are using these days.
At home, I've been using Linux exclusively for more than a decade now and I also use it for gaming. I had an HP Envy laptop with a Radeon GPU and it mostly worked, though there were glitches in some games. Recently it broke down so I bought a Lenovo Ideapad with an Nvidia GPU -- I know Nvidia is problematic on Linux, so I'll let you know how it goes ;)
This makes sense, because our software stack is now mostly open source software running on Linux servers (Ubuntu or CentOS). The developers who choose to say on Windows end up using tools like gitbash or SSH'ing to Linux machines anyway. Some use Linux VMs. But like I said, most simply install Linux.
The company used to be Windows-only (.NET), but migrated to Java+Linux some years before I joined. I suppose the main reason was cost, but I also heard from senior tech stuff that Windows was simply too opaque, that they couldn't "see" what was going on in production in the same way they can with open source. And of course, you cannot make your own modifications to closed source. This was before .NET was opened up, by the way.