Working from home

So I have been working from home for about 16 weeks now, my last day actually in the office was Friday March 13, 2020.  In this time I have been adjusting and learning about my habits, preferences and the environment called "home".  I have to admit, though, I am one of the lucky ones.

First off, work is pretty well situated with allowing me to work from home.  In the office we were using thin clients and using VMWare Horizon Client I have access to my desktop the same as if I were sitting in the office.  Once I was able to, I picked up a 27" monitor a couple of weeks in and now I dread going back to my 19" squarish monitors sitting in the office.

Since I connect at home using whatever system I want and the client, it gives me great freedom in choosing whatever OS I want to use. I have it set up so my VDI (Virtual Desk Interface) is full-screened on the large monitor and my laptop screen just shows my local environment.  Best of both worlds.

The laptop I use I have 2 hard drives; one running Windows 10 and one running Pop! OS Linux and it is set up to easily swap between the two.  Unfortunately, each one has some limitation that makes it less than ideal.

Windows, for instance, will not be able to connect to the Internet when it wakes up from sleep.  It shows it is connected to the wireless router, but no Internet access.  The proverbial "the Lights are On but Nobody's home" syndrome and only rebooting will fix this.  Or a network cable.

Meanwhile there is one technology the company uses for video conferencing, GoToMeeting, that does not play well with my Linux system.  While I can see and hear everybody else in the video call, my mic drops and nobody can hear me.  This is a problem when I am meeting with my boss for a status update meeting, or our weekly standup meeting with the team.

We do have Microsoft Teams which works fine with Linux, except it is basically the web app wrapped to look like a native app.  Only loss I see here is the lack of screen sharing which is minor but a handy benefit when I am instructing or troubleshooting with co-workers.

I can run some of this on my VDI, but that really sucks down some resources and can potentially crash my session.  Best practice is running the communication programs on my local system.

So for now I am running Windows on my laptop, plugged into the network and tied to the desk.  Not ideal for a laptop and if the AC were to stop I can hear the laptop's fans working hard to keep up with the strain.

My goal, now, is to set up the desktop that is running Windows 10 with the large monitor and USB webcam, and use that for work.  Meanwhile take the laptop and switch it to Linux and use it.

It's just dealing with my daughter, who is using the desktop now for her Zoom ballet classes...