[System] Will my employer detect that my machine runs Kubuntu?

[TristanNagan]

Hi everyone,

About a month ago i started working at a large company and they allow my team to run Ubuntu 18.04 on our work provided laptops. I personally preferred KDE over Gnome and asked my manager if I could install Kubuntu instead, he said that he wouldnt advise this as it may get my machine blacklisted on our company network. I instead installed Ubuntu 18.04 then installed the "kubuntu-desktop" package, hoping that this will allow my machine to appear on the network as an Ubuntu machine while running KDE as my desktop environment. I just wanted to know if its possible that my employer can detect this and still blacklist my machine? I have no idea what their process for detecting the OS of my machine, I just want to know if installing the Kubuntu desktop package makes my machine appear as a Kubuntu machine. I attempted to determine this by using "uname -a", "cat /etc/*-release" and "lsb_release -a", which all said I was running Ubuntu. However looking in the Info Center app it says that I am running Kubuntu and on boot I am presented with a kubuntu logo. Anyone know if that is a problem?

[oshunluvr]

I doubt anyone here could say 100% for sure that they're not going to find out, BUT as you note "lsb_release -a" reports Ubuntu. I doubt anyone will notice unless they look over your shoulder. I suppose if they have full file system access to your laptop and care enough to look they could find plasma files on your system.

Sounds to me more like your manager does know much about Linux or the *buntu ecosystem. Kubuntu IS Ubuntu, just with a different desktop environment.

If you have another computer you can access yours from via a network connection, try this: sudo nmap -O -sV (note that's a capital o not a zero) followed by the IP of the laptop. If there's anything to find out, that will probably show it.

[TristanNagan]

I doubt anyone here could say 100% for sure that they're not going to find out, BUT as you note "lsb_release -a" reports Ubuntu. I doubt anyone will notice unless they look over your shoulder. I suppose if they have full file system access to your laptop and care enough to look they could find plasma files on your system.

Sounds to me more like your manager does know much about Linux or the *buntu ecosystem. Kubuntu IS Ubuntu, just with a different desktop environment.

If you have another computer you can access yours from via a network connection, try this: sudo nmap -O -sV (note that's a capital o not a zero) followed by the IP of the laptop. If there's anything to find out, that will probably show it.

Yeah, my manager is not the most linux savvy person. He personally doesnt care what I use he just does not want me to have any problems with my machine getting blacklisted on the network. So even if they see me using Kubuntu it doesnt really matter so long as my network access is unaffected. They dont even have full file system access to my machine. I was given a windows machine and told to install ubuntu 18.04 so they couldnt find out that way. I guess as long as my machine presents itself as ubuntu on the network I will have no problems. I will definitely try nmap and see what it reports. Thank you for your help

[oshunluvr]

BTW, welcome to the forum. Lucky you to have an employer that will even let you use Linux. I work for a so-called tech company but have to have a windows computer <rolls eyes>. Most company decisions like that are related to the business people making the decisions instead of the smarter tech people.

[GreyGeek]

Your IT dept probably wants everyone to use Ubuntu so that when they do remote package upgrades, configuration changes or other kinds of roll outs the process won't get aborted because it runs into an incompatible desktop environment. Since KDE rides on top of a standard Ubuntu install their remote processes should run fine. However, if they have the Ubuntu workstations set so that they can log in remotely and observe or manually re-configure, etc., then seeing the Plasma desktop will surprise them but it won't confuse them. If they are true IT guys, and not just a bunch of poorly trained hacks, they'll know Ubuntu and more than likely be familiar with KDE & Plasma as well. That doesn't mean that they will give you a pass. I suggest that you go talk to the IT guys and explain that you are running KDE Plasma and ask if they know of any reasons why their remote maintenance processes won't be compatible with Plasma. That would be better than being blamed for a company wide roll-out, upgrade or maintenance failure.

My last client turned out to be my last employer. They had 495 workstations running Win95 & Win98. As a developer I took a decommissioned desktop and installed SuSE 6.4 on it so I could run PostgreSQL and test my Qt3&4 apps against it in development mode. When it came time to deploy I'd compile on my WinX box and let my compiler defines switch in the Oracle code in place of the PostgreSQL code. When the Kodak Unix box that stored thousands of jpg images of documents received by the state crashed and wouldn't boot, they brought that drive to me and asked if I could recover the jpg images and accompanying index. I used photorec on that drive and recovered all but 15 jpg images. After that Linux spread through the developers like a wildfire. The IT guys were sent to RedHat A+ training and I was assigned the task of installing the first paid & supported RH server. As the Novell servers died they were replaced with Linux servers. Then there was an election and a new Governor took office. His political appointee for Tax Commissioner didn't know anything about IT, computers or programming but he had a lawyer friend who considered herself an IT expert because she used an Excel spreadsheet. She mandated a Windows shop. Over $2 million in licenses for Lotus Notes & WP used by 10,000 of 13,000 state employees were thrown away. Over 200 databases in LN could not be exported to Share Point & Excel and were trashed, losing 10 of thousands of hours of productivity. Windows Active Directory was half as fast as Linux when it was working, but every time you clicked on a directory to see its contents the file list had to be rebuilt. I computed the total costs and, IIRC, the state lost around $10-15M in license fee usage and lost data and compatibility. The new licenses per chair for about a dozen Windows tools and apps cost about $1M each. All tolled, that "IT expert" cost the taxpayers about $30M and although I retired 13 years ago I hear from various sources that productivity has never matched levels previous to becoming a Windows shop.
When it came to replacing the db used by VFP, I recommended PostgreSQL because it was 95% Oracle compatible and was free. The Shirts&Ties said no because no "paid support" was offered. I countered that there are several Pgl support forums around the web and while most are free some charge for support. It hit deaf ears. The original Oracle license was for the whole shop. Later it was adjusted to a per/server license with a substantial increase in fees. Then, when multi-core CPUs arrived Oracle changed their license to per/core. Now, I understand, it is per/core per VM. The Oracle license costs went from less than $100K/yr to $2M/yr to now I don't know how high. I suspect that the costs are somewhere between $50 and $100M in total license fees since the first Oracle license. I retired just in time.