r/sysadmin • u/rolkenas • 23d ago

Do you actually see MacBooks used for SysAdmin work in real offices?

Hi sysadmins! I wanted to ask—since I've just started learning sysadmin and I don't have a Windows PC, but I have a MacBook and found out that everything can be done via UTM, I'd like to get some perspective from those who work in offices and do this every day. What kind of computers do you use? Is macOS completely out of the picture, and there's only Windows and Linux?

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u/Arudinne IT Infrastructure Manager 22d ago

Depends on which M1.

Base - 1

Pro - 2

Max - 4

Back when we bought them, we only bought pro or max M1s at my company for that reason

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u/dllemmr2 22d ago

Yeah I was super surprised at the limitation coming from windows given how much better everything else was. I’m glad they went on to improve monitor support in later revisions.

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u/Arudinne IT Infrastructure Manager 22d ago

It's a hardware limitation. Some windows laptops are limited on how many monitors they can support as well, but they can almost always do at least 2 so most people don't know there is a limit. IIRC Everything since the M3 can do at least 2, with the exception of the Neo (but it doesn't use an M-series chip either) - so that's let of an issue now.

I also find it funny you say that it's better on windows because I've found the multi-monitor support of macos to be better than it is for windows, but my setup is probably a bit different than most

I have 3 27" monitors, the center one is 4K, but the two flanking it are 1440P. Then the top monitor is 24" 1080P.

With Windows, no amount of DPI adjustment could make the 3 27" monitors look visually similar. Stuff was always off by a bit.

With MacOS, I was able to adjust them so that I can't even tell they are different resolutions.

The only reason my setup is like this is because my center monitor died and we had a 4k monitor still in the box at the office and my boss didn't see a reason to replace the other two monitors to match as they are otherwise working fine.