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Microsoft will release a custom Debian Linux

theregister.co.uk

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Re: Microsoft will release a custom Debian Linux

#71

Post by yusyusyus »

kijiki wrote: post #57
devicenull wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like the Cumulus Linux approach (they use some daemon called switchd iirc)

We (Cumulus) have been involved in switchdev since the beginning. Over the long term, it will replace switchd in our products, but that is at least a year out, maybe two. - nolan co-founder, CTO @Cumulus

Appreciate Cumulus' work in this area. As a network "engineer", the burden of administering switches is horrible. Downside is though, getting more switch SoCs talking to Linux makes me wish I wasn't automating configs right now.

Re: Microsoft will release a custom Debian Linux

#72

Post by nl »

cyphar wrote: post #29
Nux wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had mediocre network performance and increased load with freebsd on VMs (kvm), while at the same time a linux one would saturate a whole link.

Why are you trying to get network throughput on a VM? Of course it's going to be slow, but KVM probably has some passthrough optimisations for Linux guests.

Because that's what software defined networking is (mostly) about. In the majority of cases it's used as a way to setup a network plane for virtualized hosts.

Edit: See for example why VMWare bought Nicira: http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/23/vmware-buys-nicira-for-1-26...

Re: Microsoft will release a custom Debian Linux

#73

Post by mishac »

justin66 wrote: post #70
Sanddancer wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Xenix was a Unix. It started out as based on Unix V 7, then System III, then System V when MS finally sold it to SCO. MS tends to keep a lot of fingers in a lot of cakes, even in surprising areas. Given the number of kernels MS Research has released, it wouldn't be too terrible of a stretch to see MS release some sort of unix at some point.

Wow, thanks. It's been 24 or 25 years since I used Xenix (dammit) and the funny part is, when I googled a couple of Unix family trees just now, it didn't even appear on some of them. But you're obviously right. I think the big thing that would keep MSFT from rolling their own is fear of antitrust law, in the US and Europe. Less of a concern for them when it comes to Linux on phones or embedded, I believe.

it was actually the most widely used real Unix at one (very dark) point.

Re: Microsoft will release a custom Debian Linux

#74

Post by nl »

mankash666 wrote: post #6

Why Linux? The networking stack on BSD is superior, and the OS places no copyleft restrictions! I'm starting to believe that developers choose OS/Tools the are used to (Linux in this case) versus the one best suited for the job (BSD)

Because the hardware[1] mostly is only supported on Linux, or the Linux support is more mature.

Take the Cavium products: they shipped multiple distributions of Linux on the Arm64 products 2+ years ago, and FreeBSD around 18 months later.

The Juniper products only support Linux.

[1] http://www.opencompute.org/wiki/Networking/SpecsAndDesigns

Re: Microsoft will release a custom Debian Linux

#75

Post by hoodoof »

cbd1984 wrote: post #68
qwertyuiop924 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not iirc. But I wasn't around at the time, so nobody told me anything about what was wrong with the 286 in the first place.

What was wrong with the 80286 was that Intel expected it to be used like processors are used now: Flipped into protected mode once at boot-up and kept there the whole time application software is running.

Also it had a 24 bit address space when really the industry was ready for 32 bit and I have a vague recollection that there were other 32 bit CPUs available at that from other manufacturers (maybe Motorola?) but Intel was lagging.

The 24 bit address space meant that developers had to deal with some sort of funky segmented addressing scheme I believe that was also a pain on the 8086 and I think a nice flat 32 bit memory space would have been a whole lot better.

Bill Gates called the 80286 "brain dead".

I seem to recall it being effectively a faster 8086 but its extra capabilities were both underpowered and impractical to use.

Re: Microsoft will release a custom Debian Linux

#76

Post by justin66 »

mishac wrote: post #73
justin66 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, thanks. It's been 24 or 25 years since I used Xenix (dammit) and the funny part is, when I googled a couple of Unix family trees just now, it didn't even appear on some of them. But you're obviously right. I think the big thing that would keep MSFT from rolling their own is fear of antitrust law, in the US and Europe. Less of a concern for them when it comes to Linux on phones or embedded, I believe.

it was actually the most widely used real Unix at one (very dark) point.

Interesting thought. I have no problem believing it was running on the largest number of CPUs. I wonder if it had the largest number of users.

Re: Microsoft will release a custom Debian Linux

#77

Post by wmf »

MayMuncher wrote: post #67

Anybody have any links to switches/routes that support SAI? I couldn't find any

Mellanox: https://github.com/Mellanox/SAI-Implementation

It looks like Dell is working on it and there are rumors that Microsoft is encouraging Broadcom to release a SAI driver.

Re: Microsoft will release a custom Debian Linux

#78

Post by ghshephard »

click170 wrote: post #53
harry8 wrote: post #45

I imagine anything Microsoft releases that could possibly have gpl software, such as the linux kernel in it will have the most aggressive search for violation of any software ever. Memories are long and that distrust is not going away any time soon.

Frankly the knife cuts both ways. Microsoft has a long way to go before they get the benefit of the doubt from me due to their decades of Embracing Extending and Extinguishing.

Agreed - it's good to be cautious - but, Microsoft's approach toward E/E/E was rational (if slightly evil), when they were trying to control the platform.

But now, they are trying to control the service/data, in which case the cloud-API (theirs, preferably) is what they want everyone to buy into. In that model, they deploy completely proprietary service interfaces (similar to what Amazon does with AWS, stripe with their API, etc..) - but at the same time, they want to have 100% support of all platforms - particularly in the mobile world where they have round-off presence.

Net-Net, It's entirely rational for a profit-maximizing Microsoft (of 2016, at least) to play nice with all alternative client platforms. I believe Satya Nadella's Microsoft is going to be a very difference animal than the Balmer/Gates Microsoft.

I guess we'll see over the next 5 years, but it looks positive so far.

Re: Microsoft will release a custom Debian Linux

#79

Post by kristopolous »

click170 wrote: post #53
harry8 wrote: post #45

I imagine anything Microsoft releases that could possibly have gpl software, such as the linux kernel in it will have the most aggressive search for violation of any software ever. Memories are long and that distrust is not going away any time soon.

Frankly the knife cuts both ways. Microsoft has a long way to go before they get the benefit of the doubt from me due to their decades of Embracing Extending and Extinguishing.

it looks like they've firmly set their sails for a new course. We are totally in the age of a new microsoft.

see a few things like http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-open-sources-its-edge... or https://code.visualstudio.com/ or http://www.wired.com/2016/01/microsoft-tries-to-one-up-googl... or https://github.com/Microsoft/dotnet

Re: Microsoft will release a custom Debian Linux

#80

Post by chris_wot »

brudgers wrote: post #37
chris_wot wrote: post #31

Satya Nadella is a breath of fresh air. It's amazing the difference in management styles from the Balmer days. When Microsoft put Nadella in charge, they made a great decision. And I honestly don't say that very often about top level management.

To a first approximation all the engineers producing these products were already at Microsoft before Nadella became CEO. Microsoft's first open source project is more than ten years old. Scott Hanselman's Hansel Minutes podcast covers the period before and after his hiring and documents his experience of the long cultural shift, e.g. ASP.NET MVC, Microsoft's relationship with Mono and Moonlight, and a bunch of smalle…

I've never quite forgotten that Ballmer accused anyone involved in Open Source as Communinists. Not to mention he said that Linux was a "cancer".

Or to be precise, he said that:

"[W]e have a problem ... when the government funds open-source work. Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody. Open source is not available to commercial companies. The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source. If the government wants to put something in the public domain, it should. Linux is not in the public domain. Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches. That's the way that the license works."

and of Linux and Communism:

"There's no company called Linux, there's barely a Linux road map. Yet Linux sort of springs organically from the earth. And it had, you know, the characteristics of communism that people love so very, very much about it. That is, it's free."

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