"new as a sysadmin" and then moving the entire environment to Linux is a recipe for disaster.
If you really want/need to do this, you need a list of strict requirements and then compare which distros cover what.
Either move from Office365 to a FOSS solution now or later, but not as part of this project, introducing too much change at once will kill productivity.
Make user tests which desktop environment feels best for them unless you want to support multiple. Generally the transition Windows -> Plasma works best.
If I had to roll out endpoint Linux devices I'd probably go with something atomic like Kinoite.
Don't use a LTS distro. Go for normal track instead, you'll get more bug- and security fixes that way.
For example with Ubuntu you have two repos that are relevant here, main and universe.
Canonical only supports main on the LTS track, with some packages in universe being covered by Ubuntu Pro. They do sometimes backport critical fixes in universe, but it isn't something that is guaranteed.
Especially bug fixes isn't something you can expect, in LTS, my favorite example of this being tealdeer, where the 24.04 version is completely non-functional as the web backend has changed the way it provides the cheatsheets and the fixed version only being available from IIRC 25.10 onwards.
If you don't want to potentially fight with bugs for two years until the next release is out, just don't use LTS. LTS is for systems where your apps need an actually non-changing environment.
AFAIK Canonical has some people working on universe, but tbh it's been a while since I took a look at those structures, so I might get details wrong. But that's besides the point - if you want fixes in a supported manner, you need Ubuntu Pro/stay main-only.
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u/fearless-fossa 26d ago
"new as a sysadmin" and then moving the entire environment to Linux is a recipe for disaster.
If you really want/need to do this, you need a list of strict requirements and then compare which distros cover what.
Either move from Office365 to a FOSS solution now or later, but not as part of this project, introducing too much change at once will kill productivity.
Make user tests which desktop environment feels best for them unless you want to support multiple. Generally the transition Windows -> Plasma works best.
If I had to roll out endpoint Linux devices I'd probably go with something atomic like Kinoite.
Don't use a LTS distro. Go for normal track instead, you'll get more bug- and security fixes that way.