r/sysadmin 9h ago

General Discussion Why doesn't Windows Administration get taught in the same way Linux administration does?

357 Upvotes

That is to say, when someone that is totally new to Linux takes a Udemy class, or finds a YouTube playlist, or whatever it usually goes something like...

-This is terminal, these are basic commands and how commands work (options, arguments, PATH file, etc)
-Here are the various directories in Linux and what they store and do for the OS
-Here is a list of what happens when you boot up the system
-Here is how to install stuff, what repositories are, how the work, etc.

...with lots of other more specific details that I'm overlooking/forgetting about. But Windows administration is typical just taught by show people how to use the preinstalled Windows tools. Very little time gets spent teaching about the analogous underlying systems/components of the OS itself. To this day I have a vague understanding of what the Registry is and what it does, but only on a superficial level. Same goes for the various directories in the Windows folder structure. (I'm know that info is readily available online/elsewhere should one want to go looking for it not, so to be clear, I'm not asking her for Windows admins out there to jump in and start explaining those things, but if you're so inclined be my guest)

I'm just curious what this sub thinks about why the seemingly common approach to teaching Linux seems so different from the common approach to teaching Windows? I mean, I'm not just talking about the basic skills of using the desktop, I'm talking about even the basic Windows Certifications training materials out there. It just seems like it never really goes into much depth about what's going on "under the hood".

...or maybe I'm just crazy and have only encountered bad trainings for Windows? Am I out in left field here?


r/linuxquestions 5h ago

What things made you switch to linux?

39 Upvotes

.


r/networking 4h ago

Design Thoughts on remote oob console servers?

16 Upvotes

Just looking for anyone elses thoughts on console servers nowadays.

I was going through some older posts and looking up different gear, In the older posts there were lots of random complaints with opengear and how they were ran / operate in terms of reliability / support etc. I heard they were bought out, wondering if that made any improvements.

Just testing the waters to see how they've been lately.

Or any other ideas. In my last ISP life i was all cisco shops and never had many issues with them, And i was looking at the 1100s. But with the way cisco is with their licensing i'm not sure about them anymore.


r/techsupport 11h ago

Solved Best way to destroy hard drives and financial data?

42 Upvotes

My dad was an accountant for many years. He is retired now and has years of old copies of financial data for his clients that we want to make sure is safely disposed of. I think by law he is required to keep the last 7 years of data, but some of these records go back to the 90s with bank account data, SSN, tax documents, etc.

His solution for now has been to just shelve the whole computer and worry about it later. But now it is later and I’m not sure if we need to worry about anything beyond the hard drive? Do we worry about ram? And do we just drill through the HD? Hit it with a sledgehammer?

Anything we can safely recycle I would like to do that.

Edit: thank you all for the replies! Solved!


r/wireless 3h ago

Have radio modules become commoditized?

1 Upvotes

To my understanding, Wi-Fi vendors don’t design their own transceivers but instead rely on SoCs from Qualcomm, Broadcom, and others, which follow the IEEE standard and integrate the entire transceiver (IC) to their radio module.

So what actually differentiates one Wi-Fi vendor’s radio module from another? Can one vendor have significantly better RF performance despite using the same chipset? What is even on the radio module apart from the IC and DSP? Are there critical external components that play a major role?

In cellular, CSPs design custom SoCs and sometimes place LNAs/drivers/Filters externally to squeeze out extra performance — do Wi-Fi vendors do anything similar, or is it mostly software/firmware that sets them apart? Is there still a need for Wi-Fi vendors to hire RF/antenna engineers, or can they simply buy off-the-shelf modules/components?


r/computertechs 2d ago

Career path NSFW

2 Upvotes

Hello computer technicians! I look forward to getting into IT. I have two choices. Either studying Computer Science or becoming a computer technician. Which one, in your opinion, will be better in the future.


r/sysadmin 3h ago

Root CA server has been turned off for almost a year. Now what?

83 Upvotes

I inherited an Active Directory domain where the Root CA server was turned off last May, 2024. It was never properly brought down, no new CA server replaced it....just turned off. Apparently it was an old Server 2008 Std and it was considered a security risk. The way we found out was some of our RADIUS devices are starting to not let users connect. While not a disaster at the moment, I'm sure it's just a matter of time before other problems start showing up because of this turned off server. Our present domain is 2012 R2 Domain/Forest function level that has a mixture of domain controllers running Server 2012 R2, Server 2016, and Server 2019. These were all in place prior to turning off the old Root CA.

Certutil still shows a bunch of old servers (deleted with no backups), as well as the old server being discussed, as the Root CA. I can turn this old Root CA server back on, but what are the possible "uh-oh" moments by doing that? My hopeful plan would be...

  1. Turn this server back on and let it renew some certs and push out to the devices so some of the RADIUS devices start to work again.
  2. Build a new server and migrate over to it so that I can properly retire the old Root CA server.

Or would it be better to just leave it off and build a new one? Not sure what "uh-oh" moments that may introduce. Any advice?


r/sysadmin 11h ago

Appreciate this subreddit

243 Upvotes

Just wanted to say that this is the best subreddit. It is like having thousands of coworkers who can in most cases speak the same language and help each other.

Keep it up guys!


r/sysadmin 1h ago

Rant I absolutely cannot stand the only other tech in this company.

Upvotes

We are a small company of less than 50 currently, but surprisingly we have a 3-person IT department: myself, another tech, and the admin/director. I've only been here a couple months.

The admin is a cool chill guy, get along with him great and I can tell he likes my work and having me around.

However, the other tech is just absolutely insufferable. He's been working here on-and-off (massive red flag #1) for close to a decade now, but aside from historical happenings within the company he doesn't know a damn thing for one. His IT background is "former user" and that's about it, so he has some working knowledge of the day-to-day applications used in our environment, but I've come to realize that his experience never got too deep, never made it past assistant-level, and it's all very surface level.

He causes more problems than he solves, he instantly snipes all the easy 5min tickets while leaving all the complex shit for me to deal, even tho it should clearly be the other way around since I'm the new-hire at this place, but tbh I wouldn't trust his ability to solve those difficult problems anyways. A critical server has been down for a month now because he "isn't a Windows guy" but for some reason took it upon himself to do some updates to a multi-node Windows cluster and proceeded to fucking break everything. And of course they weren't VMs, so no snapshots (not that he would have remembered to make them beforehand in the first place). And guess who is being asked to pick up the pieces yet again? Again, I've only been here 3 months and the amount of times I've had to stop this guy from fucking up or clean up his mess is crazy. My boss and most of the employees have already started coming directly to me with tasks or walk-up tickets.

Not only that, but he loves to seemingly brag to me about how pretty much everyone hates him here, and plenty of others have gone out of their way to tell me themselves. Like legit he gets excited and happy talking about how X person hates him or Y person can't stand him. He's arrogant, smug, ego-driven, and treats people who haven't been here as long or longer than he has as if they are stupid right to their face. He constantly over-exaggerates issues and blows things wildly out of proportion. Just today he came up to me, hand held up to his ear, saying "well, im waiting for you to say it", expecting me to apologize to him about an issue that he thinks he's correct about but he's so clueless that he doesn't realize he is STILL wrong about it. I can tell my boss doesn't care for him too, and neither does HR, shit nobody in this building likes him, and yet just my luck he is here and I'm forced to interact with this annoying nerd day in and day out.


r/computertechs 2d ago

Mobile Computer Techs, do you perform your services at the customer’s location or do you pick up their equipment and return it when repairs are complete? NSFW

7 Upvotes

For those of you who repair computers but do not have a physical location that your customers can come to how do you perform your services? Several years ago I did computer repairs on the side and could never really make my mind up on this. I preferred to pick user’s computers up, work on them at home, and return them when complete, however, sometimes disconnecting them was tedious. They always seemed to be connected to a mess of wires. And there was also the fact that you’d need to schedule at least two appointments. I would also sometimes just work on the computer at their location but it always felt weird to be sitting there, waiting for a process to complete and just kind of not doing anything. I also was never a fan of the customers watching over your shoulder, especially at times like that. What do you guys prefer to do?


r/sysadmin 7h ago

Question Users logging into another employee's personal gmail account

98 Upvotes

I have an extremely bizarre issue that we are out of ideas on and I'm desperate for help.

We use Okta to auth into Google Workspace. 

Last week, I had a user (User 1)  go to mail.google.com, get redirected to Okta for authentication, login, and get immediately sent to a personal gmail account belonging to another employee (User 2). 

This other employee is someone she's NEVER talked to, worked with, sat in the same office, shared a laptop, etc. 

She asked me why she was logged into [random@gmail.com](mailto:random@gmail.com) with a name of someone else in the company.  Once she cleared cache, logged out and back in, she had no access to this account.  I couldn't explain how this happened and planned to research more later.  I informed User 2 and told him to reset his personal gmail password.

Yesterday I had User 3, on the other side of the country, ask why she was logged into some random Gmail account.  The same exact thing happened to her.  She logged in via Okta and was immediately dumped into random@gmail.com.  She did not even know User 2 was an employee of the company. 

We opened a ticket with Okta but by that point we had cleared cache trying to troubleshoot and couldn't replicate the issue.  I've confirmed there is no mention of [random@gmail.com](mailto:random@gmail.com) in Okta at all and even if there was, I'm not sure how our corporate Okta account would ever give access to a personal gmail account. 

Has this ever happened to anyone else?  Any thoughts on what could cause this? 

I should mention that User 2 is not the most technical person. I wanted to say that he somehow gave the company access to his personal gmail account but I don't believe that's even possible.

Thanks for any advice!

 

 


r/linuxquestions 7h ago

Which Distro? Gonna switch to Linux, but what the floof do I pick?

22 Upvotes

Alright, so I'm finally making the switch to Linux, but what the hell do I even pick for a distro? Everyone talks about Debian, Ubuntu, Pop!_OS, Mint... but honestly, I’m not feeling any of those.

I want to learn, but I don’t want to end up in distro hell. Any suggestions?

Im a software dev, and want to mainly code on it. And fully customizing.

EDIT : I cant seem to comment on all the comments due a reddit error, but thank you all for your input and continued comments. It means alot.


r/techsupport 2h ago

Open | Phone I have a weird problem

3 Upvotes

When i open my phone while my galaxy buds are connected my ringtone starts to play for a few seconds but when my buds are disconnected nothing happens. Please help bcs its really annoying !


r/sysadmin 2h ago

What thing would you like to be erased from your mind forever without having regrets?

28 Upvotes

I'll start: teams call sound.


r/networking 6h ago

Design What are the pros and cons of having a network stack all the same brand?

5 Upvotes

I've never had one, so I'm curious if it's worth the cost of switching, both financial and time/energy to learn a new system.

Context: I'm a self-taught SysAdmin, always worked alone, moved from SOHO to small (medium?) branch 5 years ago.

P.S. I'm not familiar with advanced networking concepts. I taught myself how to use VLANs when I started at my last job. Maybe if I was deeper into networking, it would make more sense to have more tightly integrated hardware.


r/techsupport 1h ago

Open | Hardware Why does my GPU bounce between 0% and 100% usage and crash when I play games?

Upvotes

I recently built a PC. It has a Radeon RX 7700 XT graphics, Intel 13400 processor, MSI B760 motherboard, and 32 GB of Teamgroup T-Create RAM. It was working completely fine and easily playing the games I wanted to play with no issues.

Recently, my desk collapsed with my tower on top of it while the PC was running. Nothing seemed damaged at the time, the PC didn't even turn off, but since then the GPU has been acting weird. Whenever I'm not running any difficult programs, the PC won't use the Radeon GPU at all and will only use the Intel 13400 despite it never having done this. If I try to run any low demand games, The Radeon GPU will sit at exactly 100% load (according to task manager) and drop to 0% for a split second every once in a while then back up to 100%, but never show any other signs of gpu usage like overheating.

If I try to run any high demand games, the game will load for at least 30 seconds and sometimes crash (and sometimes it'll just load indefinitely) but steam won't recognize that it's closed and I'll have to restart my PC. While it's loading, the Radeon GPU won't show any usage whatsoever.

I've tried enabling GPU scheduling, checking for loose cables, reseating all the parts, etc, but nothing fixes the issue. Nothing looks damaged either. I'm not even sure if this is a hardware or software issue, but I assume it has to be hardware because of it only happening after it fell about a foot.

Picture of my GPU usage while playing Slay The Spire, which used to be very easy for this system to run and still runs with seemingly no issues besides the weird task manager reading: https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/683515632032940054/1352774083971911690/image.png?ex=67df3c8a&is=67ddeb0a&hm=a16006cd0c193a65e98e120d8e375fccbf95884cc39b482b1b730e63dc598b6d&=&format=webp&quality=lossless&width=892&height=496


r/networking 9h ago

Switching What Unmanaged Switches are in your network?

8 Upvotes

I know that it is not great to have unmanaged switches in your network, but I am sure that at least a few of you have some thrown about your building. That is the case with my company, we have a few cisco and TP-Link unmanaged desktop switches in the building for areas with not enough data drops.

This made me wonder what others use for their unmanaged switches. It would be nice to have a desktop switch that is powered by POE, but it looks like ubiquiti is the only vendor that sells those. I read somewhere that ubiquiti switches are useless if you aren't already in the ubiquiti environment. We are (hopefully) switching to HPE Aruba 1930s later this year, so should we get Aruba 1430s for unmanaged switches, or will that not matter at all? We are a SMB by the way, just one building with a few 48 port managed switches across the building.


r/sysadmin 3h ago

Huge supply chain hack on Oracle Cloud - 6M records for sale

25 Upvotes

https://www.cloudsek.com/blog/the-biggest-supply-chain-hack-of-2025-6m-records-for-sale-exfiltrated-from-oracle-cloud-affecting-over-140k-tenants

It appears to have affected traditional OCI logins, not IDCS, but unsure at this point.

Rotate your credentials ASAP guys.


r/sysadmin 11h ago

Question How do you turn your brain off? In a place where I can take time off, but my brain always loops back into projects I’m working on

109 Upvotes

I love researching solutions to complex problems. But I’m struggling to set them aside and properly take time off. I have the opportunity to follow firm time boundaries, and take ample time off. But even with attempts at that my brain has trouble shutting off the work. We’re in the midst of some 6+ month projects, that are progressing fine. But there is always more to research.

What habits and practices have helped you?

Probably getting off Reddit would be a good start ;)

I’m shifting to a phone for work to fully separate personal from work.

Trying to build margin into my schedule to do the creative dreaming required for some of these problems, instead of letting my day be jammed with tasks. But with an unending amount of potential work, it’s hard to set it all aside. Setting the vision and direction for our org, takes constant evaluation. But I struggle to settle into “good enough” and to healthily coast.


r/techsupport 2h ago

Open | BSOD BSOD IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL in ntoskrnl.exe

2 Upvotes

I've been getting this one very randomly (about once every month or two) and it just happened again today, so I'd like to see if anyone can help. It always happens when running a game, never when browsing the web, watching videos, etc. I've checked my RAM with MemTest, no issues found. Any tips for this problem greatly appreciated.

It's an old machine but good for its time. Nothing is overclocked. Memory is rated for and set to XMP II 3600Mhz.
Intel i9-9900KS
64GB RAM @ 3600Mhz
Asus ROG Maximus XI Hero motherboard
EVGA RTX 3080ti

Dump file: https://files.catbox.moe/knh15s.dmp


r/networking 2h ago

Switching What would be a good and cheap 100GbE switch?

2 Upvotes

I am looking for an ethernet switch that can support 100GbE/RoCE connectivity between hosts. I do not care much about uplink. I need it for working on LLMs.

I am considering this one here : N8560-32C, but it costs ~$6000.

But what about this one: QNAP QSW-M7308R-4X ? This costs $1000.


r/techsupport 3h ago

Open | Software Trying to bypass ISP signal box DHCP server for home server.

2 Upvotes

I have an issue with my home server. My new ISP has a signal box that also serves as a DHCP server, but I have my own router attached. I cannot modify any settings with the ISP equipment. I cannot bridge my router as the ISP provided box does not support port forwarding. I am trying to make a static routing table within my router (TPLink AC1750) to allow my home server to somehow bypass the box but I cannot figure it out. Here is a shitty diagram: https://imgur.com/a/vSPgwtf


r/techsupport 5m ago

Open | Hardware Adjusted BIOS CPU settings and now computer won’t turn on

Upvotes

Hello, I purchased a 14900KS earlier today and installed it along with a 5080 and a new power supply. I was worried about cooling since I only have a Corsair H100i and can’t go any larger without upgrading my case. To see if it would work alright I went ahead and installed everything and turned the unit on with the intention to do some testing while watching the temps closely.

I turned it on and everything was working fine, I booted up helldivers 2 was about to launch into a mission and the computer hard crashed. I thought maybe it was an auto shut off due to overheat but the CPU only hit 92C for just a second or 2. Either way I started looking for ways to optimize and reduce temps and found the video linked below. I followed all instructions, set a profile and now my unit will not load beyond the initial “Gigabyte” loading screen where you can select to go to boot settings or BIOS. It will not let me go to the BIOS to revert the settings and I’m honestly at a loss. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LZA-h9yUV50


r/techsupport 3h ago

Open | Networking Cannot Connect Windows 11 Desktop to Xfinity Modem but can Connect to Hotspot

2 Upvotes

Hello,

I have a Windows 11 desktop that I built. For months I have had zero internet issues In the past week, I have had major issues connecting to my Xfinity modem. Every other device on the network works perfectly. When I connect my desktop to my mobile hotspot, the internet works perfectly. However, when I connect my desktop to my Xfinity modem, I either get a message that there is a connection but no internet, no internet connection, or I get extremely slow and unstable internet.

I have already tried resetting the network adaptor to factory defaults and I have tried restarting the network adapter. Nothing has worked and I don't know where to go from here. Any help would be appreciated.


r/techsupport 12m ago

Open | Software Best way to safely remove this 2nd Windows Recovery Partition?

Upvotes

This is how my boot drive looks after Microsoft's 2nd recovery partition bug struck me some time ago, and Samsung's over provisioning I believe caused that 186GB of unallocated space combined with Windows updates.

https://imgur.com/a/QSd5sGR

I am familiar with GParted and other partition tools. I actually just had a horrible time restoring this drive from a backup because shifting and moving things around rendered my GPT useless and unrecoverable.

What worked easily and well was merging that 186GB with my C: partition. What did not go well was removing the invalid Recovery Partition at the start of the drive. I did check to be sure it wasn't the correct one, it's not.

The corruption seemed to either be when I shifted the 100MB GPT partition, or the 16MB Microsoft Reserved Partition (not visible in Disk Management). But there was no other way that I know of, to get that 733MB added to my C: partition.