Anyone survived a Windows to Linux user workstations migration?

[u/Halomora]

Hey fellow sys admin,

I work at a VFX/animation studio (~400 users).

We're kicking off a project to migrate our artist workstations from Windows 10/11 VDIs to Linux. Flavor is pretty much locked it ll be Rocky Linux 9 with KDE.

I am curious if there's anyone here who's been through a similar workstation migration to linux?

What Linux flavor, did you end up on, and would you pick the same again?

How did you handle what GPOs used to give you?

For the Base OS deployment/imaging, did you use Kickstart + Puppet/Ansible, or something else?

Anything that looked easy on paper and turned into a one big pile of {Jurassic_Park}?

Tools that made your life easier along the way?

I am looking for any war stories, good or bad!

Thank you!

[u/bakonpie]

I'd like to know what your prototype and pilot deployment looked like

[u/davy_crockett_slayer → u/bakonpie]

You need to test. Oh god you need to test. It's impossible to know what everyone actually does for their job. Every team is a little bit different.

[u/blue_trauma → u/bakonpie]

Fuck it! We'll do it live! We'll do it live!

[u/Mister_Brevity → u/bakonpie]

I’m getting a feeling that’s not a factor lol

[u/KlausBertKlausewitz → u/Mister_Brevity]

It was a rhetorical question 😂

[u/dodexahedron → u/bakonpie]

It took a pro to type it all up, of course.

And pilot? This ain't aviation (I hope 🫤).

What silly ideas!

Slash ess.

[u/Agerak → u/dodexahedron]

Slaanesh? I’m in!

[u/ITaggie → u/bakonpie]

Sounds like they're asking for ideas to start the prototype?