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Linux is Most Used OS in Microsoft Azure – over 50 percent of VM cores

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Re: Linux is Most Used OS in Microsoft Azure – over 50 percent of VM cores

#61
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just makes sense to run a server OS that works well and is full-featured when there is no GUI.

You know, I was thinking this, but honestly how much overhead is the Windows GUI when no one is logged into it? I know it's not nothing, but I suspect it's not that much, is it?

Windows Server is available in a "core" edition without a GUI.

Re: Linux is Most Used OS in Microsoft Azure – over 50 percent of VM cores

#62
post #57

I bought books such as Linux Programming Interface to learn linux so that I can apply for jobs. Later I discovered that when the companies say Linux, they don't mean writing native applications on Linux, but that they are actually talking about java applications on app servers such as JBoss. Does anyone write native applications like thick client native applications on Windows which is also rare these days.

I'm in a bit of an odd place here, but we develop C++ on Windows (both client and server software).

You'd think that C++ would be relatively portable (though not as portable as Java), but you'd be mistaken. So many things are not portable.

Re: Linux is Most Used OS in Microsoft Azure – over 50 percent of VM cores

#63
post #11

This is hardly surprising. Not to crap on MS, but I do think Linux has traditionally just been a better operating system for servers, probably due to the fact that that's where most of the funding for Linux ends up going, with the desktop versions of Linux being sort of secondary. It doesn't help that a lot of serverey software is kind of designed with POSIX-ey stuff in mind. Node.js took awhile to get Windows suppor…

Windows came from the single-user domain. Unix came from server space. It is literally two different evolutionary paths. From day-1, Unix was built for shared file systems, multi-user accounts, and distributed computing. Networking on Microsoft was an afterthought until the mid-90's. Sure there were token ring and banyan vines drivers in the late 80's early 90's, but that was to share a drive letter. The entire idea…

I agree that networking stuff feels pretty frustrating on Windows compared to POSIXey stuff; for the most part using a good networking library like (as mentioned above) ZeroMQ or even some of the built-in JVM socketing stuff will help abstract it, but Unix sockets are simply better out of the box.

Even a simpler example though; the fact that there wasn't really a built-in analog for the "pipe" until PowerShell sort of boggles the mind. Yes, I'm aware that Windows isn't command-line focused, but it baffles me that software engineers didn't really see a need in Windows to compose programs together. (Someone, please correct me if I'm wrong on this point, I haven't touched Windows in any serious capacity in almost a decade).

Re: Linux is Most Used OS in Microsoft Azure – over 50 percent of VM cores

#64
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other than bespoke enterprise apps, my guess would be the majority of the remaining Windows machines run SQL server.

Doesn't SQL server run under Wine or https://reactos.org/wiki/ReactOS ?

Microsoft supports SQL server on Linux. No need for Wine.

Re: Linux is Most Used OS in Microsoft Azure – over 50 percent of VM cores

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows came from the single-user domain. Unix came from server space. It is literally two different evolutionary paths. From day-1, Unix was built for shared file systems, multi-user accounts, and distributed computing. Networking on Microsoft was an afterthought until the mid-90's. Sure there were token ring and banyan vines drivers in the late 80's early 90's, but that was to share a drive letter. The entire idea…

I think both are a mess under the hood. I cannot make sense of where things will be configured in Linux. maybe /etc/, maybe somewhere else, with loads of setting file configurations. There's not a huge amount of consistency. What would be interesting is a complete re-imagining of a server OS. Consistent file locations for everything, which are automatically versioned a la git allowing you to roll back any specific ch…

I'd still take a heavily configurable and customizable "mess", as you put it, than the one that doesn't allow me to control how it works.

There's a good reason why Linux absolutely dominates the server space.

Re: Linux is Most Used OS in Microsoft Azure – over 50 percent of VM cores

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows came from the single-user domain. Unix came from server space. It is literally two different evolutionary paths. From day-1, Unix was built for shared file systems, multi-user accounts, and distributed computing. Networking on Microsoft was an afterthought until the mid-90's. Sure there were token ring and banyan vines drivers in the late 80's early 90's, but that was to share a drive letter. The entire idea…

I think both are a mess under the hood. I cannot make sense of where things will be configured in Linux. maybe /etc/, maybe somewhere else, with loads of setting file configurations. There's not a huge amount of consistency. What would be interesting is a complete re-imagining of a server OS. Consistent file locations for everything, which are automatically versioned a la git allowing you to roll back any specific ch…

Maybe you can check out openbsd.

It's as opinionated as you are.

(FWIW there has always been a level of consistency in Linux w.r.t. file paths, if you stick to your distribution maintainers packages)

Re: Linux is Most Used OS in Microsoft Azure – over 50 percent of VM cores

#67

I'm interested to know what the majority of the Windows machines are used for. I can't think it'd be anything other than 'big enterprise' applications, where there seems to be a lot of bespoke stuff built specifically for Windows Server (e.g. finance software, healthcare systems, marriage registration, taxi licensing, nursing home management, etc). Unfortunately this sort of stuff is fairly rare to be available in th…

I worked on a derivatives system for a bank where we had a few thousand servers globally running distributed calculations. We chose C# over Java as it was more powerful at the time. Windows server was rock solid throughout, it also had the benefit of being integrated with Windows security. Now Linux you can run dotnet applications OK we'd probably choose that because its cheaper not because its better. Most server applications you just need a bare OS and run a process, it doesn't need much.

Re: Linux is Most Used OS in Microsoft Azure – over 50 percent of VM cores

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows came from the single-user domain. Unix came from server space. It is literally two different evolutionary paths. From day-1, Unix was built for shared file systems, multi-user accounts, and distributed computing. Networking on Microsoft was an afterthought until the mid-90's. Sure there were token ring and banyan vines drivers in the late 80's early 90's, but that was to share a drive letter. The entire idea…

I think both are a mess under the hood. I cannot make sense of where things will be configured in Linux. maybe /etc/, maybe somewhere else, with loads of setting file configurations. There's not a huge amount of consistency. What would be interesting is a complete re-imagining of a server OS. Consistent file locations for everything, which are automatically versioned a la git allowing you to roll back any specific ch…

Nor is there any consistency with the windows registry. Except that, by being such a pain in the posterior, noone edits it manually anymore and all changes are done through GUI apps. Editing config files is easier and faster (not to mention, automatable), so people don't bother creating "control panels" on Linux for the most part.

> What would be interesting is a complete re-imagining of a server OS

Not sure how 'complete', but aren't you after something like NixOS?

Re: Linux is Most Used OS in Microsoft Azure – over 50 percent of VM cores

#69
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other than bespoke enterprise apps, my guess would be the majority of the remaining Windows machines run SQL server.

Doesn't SQL server run under Wine or https://reactos.org/wiki/ReactOS ?

Microsoft officially support SQL Server on Linux and Docker now:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server/sql-server-downlo...

No need for emulation.

Re: Linux is Most Used OS in Microsoft Azure – over 50 percent of VM cores

#70
post #62
post #57

I bought books such as Linux Programming Interface to learn linux so that I can apply for jobs. Later I discovered that when the companies say Linux, they don't mean writing native applications on Linux, but that they are actually talking about java applications on app servers such as JBoss. Does anyone write native applications like thick client native applications on Windows which is also rare these days.

I'm in a bit of an odd place here, but we develop C++ on Windows (both client and server software). You'd think that C++ would be relatively portable (though not as portable as Java), but you'd be mistaken. So many things are not portable.

I actually was writing C and lo and behold MSFT has a 16 byte char as their default. lol tchar
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