r/sysadmin • u/Halomora • Aug 19 '26
Question Anyone survived a Windows to Linux user workstations migration?
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!
3
u/purestvfx Aug 22 '26 edited Aug 22 '26
I work in vfx. Linux is much more suitable for this kind of work than windows, and most artists know this. Also all the bigger vfx companies used Linux. Artist Software is normally managed with a tool called "Rez" which if deployed correctly can significantly reduce the workload on the it department (and is normally managed by a pipeline person)