The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?
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It really does depend on how you are using a tablet. You are looking for something to really just access cloud based everything. The Ipad Pro might be great for that. It is for me. But 99% of what I do is not tech based, it is MS office, and online everything for me.
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@Francesco-Provino said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@gjacobse iOS unfortunately lacks the ability to run any Windows or Linux specific software, or to virtualize them, of course.
Right, so if you are doing the thin client thing that @wirestyle22 is talking about the iPad does it as well or better than the Surface. None of us run software on our end points for Windows or Linux, even though that's what our platforms are, so that doesn't affect us. What software do you need to run locally?
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@Minion-Queen said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
It really does depend on how you are using a tablet. You are looking for something to really just access cloud based everything. The Ipad Pro might be great for that. It is for me. But 99% of what I do is not tech based, it is MS office, and online everything for me.
So you need a Windows machine even more than the techs. We just remote into things, so the platform doesn't matter. Only that it supports our graphical remote access tools and SSH.
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@scottalanmiller said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@wirestyle22 said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@scottalanmiller said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@wirestyle22 said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@scottalanmiller said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@Francesco-Provino said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
Ok, seems like a lot of problems with that device… I hope I'll be lucky with mine!
What do you use as an alternative?I skip the category, I've not found tablets to be that useful for system admin work. I use an iPad on the rare occasion that I need a tablet, otherwise I use a laptop since I need a stable, fast machine with a keyboard to do any real work.
Agreed but I think it suits what he posted initially: "I want to follow the philosophy of having a thin endpoint just to surf the web and doing basic stuff with text and cli, leveraging cloud or on permise servers for everything requiring big ram, CPU or GPU."
That's exactly where I find them not very useful.
Why out of curiousity? Text and CLI require virtually nothing
They require a stable device the same as anything else, and a good keyboard. Specifically the two things the Surface don't have. Nowhere in our concerns was performance one of them, so regardless of how much something "doesn't require" it wouldn't be applicable to our reasons for the Surface not being useful.
So, in the case that I'll find the Surface uncomfortable and return it, what devices can you suggest me?
I mean, in the class of very thin ultrabook or similar stuff. I like the new Macbook, but the keyboard is not so good and the single port leave me cold. And… the webcam! I looked at dell XPS 13 and some HP (Spectre and, uhm… that 13' ultrabook), also the Asus ux305 is nice. -
The keyboard case I have has always done well for me. What makes iOS unstable @scottalanmiller? Honest question. I have literally never had an issue
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@wirestyle22 Oh, and there's something related to the hardware of the iPad, also… of course I cannot connect anything ethernet or serial, and this is a BIG downside when some support is required. Neither I can use an USB drive the right way: lack of support for filesystem, I cannot burn an iso etc.
Way too inflexible for what I need. With a standard laptop I can install or virtualize any os and use at least standard usb, video output and ethernet. -
@Francesco-Provino said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@wirestyle22 Oh, and there's something related to the hardware of the iPad, also… of course I cannot connect anything ethernet or serial, and this is a BIG downside when some support is required. Neither I can use an USB drive the right way: lack of support for filesystem, I cannot burn an iso etc.
Way too inflexible for what I need. With a standard laptop I can install or virtualize any os and use at least standard usb, video output and ethernet.Right, which is why I use a laptop. With a laptop I can type easily and whatever. But unless I'm all set up at a desk or whatever where the laptop makes sense, none of those other things would I be doing from a tablet.
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@wirestyle22 said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
The keyboard case I have has always done well for me. What makes iOS unstable @scottalanmiller? Honest question. I have literally never had an issue
Surface is unstable, iOS is what I recommend.
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@Francesco-Provino said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@wirestyle22 Oh, and there's something related to the hardware of the iPad, also… of course I cannot connect anything ethernet or serial, and this is a BIG downside when some support is required. Neither I can use an USB drive the right way: lack of support for filesystem, I cannot burn an iso etc.
Way too inflexible for what I need. With a standard laptop I can install or virtualize any os and use at least standard usb, video output and ethernet.You can't do Ethernet without the dock on the Surface either.
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And the dock is super heavy.
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@Minion-Queen said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@Francesco-Provino said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@wirestyle22 Oh, and there's something related to the hardware of the iPad, also… of course I cannot connect anything ethernet or serial, and this is a BIG downside when some support is required. Neither I can use an USB drive the right way: lack of support for filesystem, I cannot burn an iso etc.
Way too inflexible for what I need. With a standard laptop I can install or virtualize any os and use at least standard usb, video output and ethernet.You can't do Ethernet without the dock on the Surface either.
This is where I'm getting confused too. That was my understanding.
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@Minion-Queen said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@Francesco-Provino said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@wirestyle22 Oh, and there's something related to the hardware of the iPad, also… of course I cannot connect anything ethernet or serial, and this is a BIG downside when some support is required. Neither I can use an USB drive the right way: lack of support for filesystem, I cannot burn an iso etc.
Way too inflexible for what I need. With a standard laptop I can install or virtualize any os and use at least standard usb, video output and ethernet.You can't do Ethernet without the dock on the Surface either.
Uhm? What about a 10€ usb-to-ethernet adapter?
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@Francesco-Provino said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@Minion-Queen said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@Francesco-Provino said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@wirestyle22 Oh, and there's something related to the hardware of the iPad, also… of course I cannot connect anything ethernet or serial, and this is a BIG downside when some support is required. Neither I can use an USB drive the right way: lack of support for filesystem, I cannot burn an iso etc.
Way too inflexible for what I need. With a standard laptop I can install or virtualize any os and use at least standard usb, video output and ethernet.You can't do Ethernet without the dock on the Surface either.
Uhm? What about a 10€ usb-to-ethernet adapter?
Outside of attaching a USB device to a VM I can't think of why I'd ever want to do this. If you need that you should have a laptop with an actual NIC IMO.
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The only Ports on the surface are :
full-size USB 3.0
microSD
card reader
Surface Connect
Headset jack
Mini DisplayPort -
@Minion-Queen said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
The only Ports on the surface are :
full-size USB 3.0
microSD card reader
Surface Connect
Headset jack
Mini DisplayPortUSB 3 gives you basically anything.
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@Francesco-Provino said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@Minion-Queen said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@Francesco-Provino said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@wirestyle22 Oh, and there's something related to the hardware of the iPad, also… of course I cannot connect anything ethernet or serial, and this is a BIG downside when some support is required. Neither I can use an USB drive the right way: lack of support for filesystem, I cannot burn an iso etc.
Way too inflexible for what I need. With a standard laptop I can install or virtualize any os and use at least standard usb, video output and ethernet.You can't do Ethernet without the dock on the Surface either.
Uhm? What about a 10€ usb-to-ethernet adapter?
Yeah I have tried those and they do not work great. And again as mentioned above the USB port doesn't work reliably on the Surface anyway .
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@wirestyle22 said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@Francesco-Provino said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@Minion-Queen said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@Francesco-Provino said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@wirestyle22 Oh, and there's something related to the hardware of the iPad, also… of course I cannot connect anything ethernet or serial, and this is a BIG downside when some support is required. Neither I can use an USB drive the right way: lack of support for filesystem, I cannot burn an iso etc.
Way too inflexible for what I need. With a standard laptop I can install or virtualize any os and use at least standard usb, video output and ethernet.You can't do Ethernet without the dock on the Surface either.
Uhm? What about a 10€ usb-to-ethernet adapter?
Outside of attaching a USB device to a VM I can't think of why I'd ever want to do this. If you need that you should have a laptop with an actual NIC IMO.
Laptop without a real NIC are huge compared to the ultrabook standard of today. I can live with an ethernet adapter.
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Serial console for iPad...
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@Francesco-Provino said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@wirestyle22 said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@Francesco-Provino said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@Minion-Queen said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@Francesco-Provino said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@wirestyle22 Oh, and there's something related to the hardware of the iPad, also… of course I cannot connect anything ethernet or serial, and this is a BIG downside when some support is required. Neither I can use an USB drive the right way: lack of support for filesystem, I cannot burn an iso etc.
Way too inflexible for what I need. With a standard laptop I can install or virtualize any os and use at least standard usb, video output and ethernet.You can't do Ethernet without the dock on the Surface either.
Uhm? What about a 10€ usb-to-ethernet adapter?
Outside of attaching a USB device to a VM I can't think of why I'd ever want to do this. If you need that you should have a laptop with an actual NIC IMO.
Laptop without a real NIC are huge compared to the ultrabook standard of today. I can live with an ethernet adapter.
Are they? Even my older ultrabooks have a real NIC and are tiny. How small are ultrabooks today?
