Linux is Most Used OS in Microsoft Azure – over 50 percent of VM cores • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by mixmastamyk » Tue, May 12, 2020, 8:18 PM UTC

freefriedrice wrote: post #28

tombert wrote: 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…

Yep, many years ago I casually stated here that Windows was clumsy on the network, and it really offended some guy. Limited drive letters and backslashes didn’t help, but the history you mentioned is the foundational problem. The misdesign around console/remote admin is another. For more background read the Art of Unix programming and the Windows Terminal blog about all the layers they had to work around to shoehorn it in.

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

#102

Post by kryogen1c » Tue, May 12, 2020, 8:19 PM UTC

jamieweb wrote: post #23

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'm interested to know what the majority of the Windows machines are used for.

I have IT experience in the "mom and pop" small-medium business world but am pretty Linux illiterate.

I can buy a copy of Windows Server 2019, install the ActiveDirectory role, create a domain, and domain-join every computer that business has, and start doing all kinds of simple-but-effective policies like folder redirection+shadow copies, define password policies, start checking various compliance boxes, formalize a file share permission structure, enable Bitlocker, etc etc etc. Also, apps for nearly any business exist on Windows.

Do Linux equivalents for any of this even exist? If they do, is there a large pool of competent admins you can hire for cheap in every non-megacity?

The shift currently is from physical servers being owned by SMB to _the same architecture_ in the cloud. As the cloud admin market saturates, you'll see the % of Linux machines in the cloud drop and drop as SMB migrates their familiar setup to the commoditized cloud market.

The bottom line is your average non-Silicon Valley user can't smoothly change between Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2013. If you think a switch to Linux is possible in any timeframe less than decades, you are out of touch with the common computer user and their business needs.

EDIT: i use SMB as an abbreviation for small-medium business https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_and_medium-sized_enterpr...

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

#103

Post by lucb1e » Tue, May 12, 2020, 8:22 PM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #6

50%?! That's surprisingly low.

By CPU cores.

I mean, Windows versus Linux server CPU requirements... I don't know if FAANG-like companies are together large enough to skew the median or if the median web server is a single core Nginx system or something in between, but Windows on a single CPU just sounds horrible.

It would be interesting to see the contrast when counting by base OS (so LXC etc. within a system doesn't count).

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

#104

Post by wwright » Tue, May 12, 2020, 8:23 PM UTC

freefriedrice wrote: post #24

whoisjuan wrote: post #17

I found it funny when in Azure you create a resource and you can pick between Windows and Linux for the host and Windows is the default option... like bro, I’m not gonna run my shit on Windows walled and heavily licensed garden. What if tomorrow I have to migrate my stuff somewhere else. Are you crazy? P.S: I know there are legitimate reasons for running something on Windows but for any generic project that shouldn’t…

I've been working with Linux and BSD for so long, I don't even know of any Microsoft-only cloud applications. I'm completely *nix bubbled. I cannot imagine cloud programming on windows, probably because I only write user-space native apps. Is there a Puppet or Ansible for windows? I'd be completely lost.

Yes, it’s called Ansible

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

#105

Post by mixmastamyk » Tue, May 12, 2020, 8:26 PM UTC

oneplane wrote: post #60

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> " Windows came from the single-user domain. Unix came from server space. " Windows 9x came from the single-user domain but is long dead except for compatibility stuff left over in modern Windows. Windows NT and its successors came from server space from its VMS lineage.

While that is true, the win32 API and other stuff that floats on top of NT for the GUI based stuff (which is most stuff) is still very much restricted by that legacy. NT was supposed to be very tunable and modular and have multiple personalities and abstractions but it turns out it mostly is just win32-on-NT and everything else ended up being on top of win32. It has gotten better, especially post-OneCore, but it stil…

Not expecting that to happen as MS is investing less in Windows.

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

#106

Post by skissane » Tue, May 12, 2020, 8:27 PM UTC

outworlder wrote: post #68

martinald wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 'com…

> Nor is there any consistency with the windows registry.

The Windows registry is a bad implementation of a good concept.

Imagine if the registry had a schema with embedded documentation, foreign key relationships, a packages database with each key owned by a package, etc...

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

#107

Post by aea12 » Tue, May 12, 2020, 8:28 PM UTC

Yeah, those plebeian tool swingers often woefully misinterpret the shrewd protocols of someone who non-ironically shares that “unfortunately another human had a personal conversation with me after I started a business conversation”. It’s a real problem. Sorry that happened to you. Better to avoid people entirely and stick to Excel, in my experience, but the good news is you got a completely appropriate and tasteful and in no way horrible story about another human’s final experiences out of it, so it worked out.

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

#108

Post by scarface74 » Tue, May 12, 2020, 8:28 PM UTC

z3t4 wrote: post #46

jamieweb wrote: post #23

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 was on the Windows platform for 15 years and moved over to Linux about 6 years ago. One thing I miss from Windows Server is that it was very stable, updates never broke anything. If you got any updates that is. I think most people use Windows server because they are locked into Microsoft technology. I switched to Linux, and most importantly open source technology - in order to get out of the Windows ecosystem. I sw…

I've been an exclusive Microsoft developer since 1996. I still develop on a Windows computer to this day, mostly Node, Python, and C# .Net Core. and had no problems deploying everything on Windows servers. Then I discovered the cloud and moved into positions where the cost of infrastructure could easily be assigned to my implementations and I had to answer for the cost.

Once you add Windows to any implementation a few things happen. You pay more for licensing, you pay a lot more for resources (you can do a lot with 128MB/0.25 vCPU VM with Linux), and it is a much slower for VMs to scale in and out for elastic workloads like bringing instances up and down based on queue length.

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

#109

Post by neogodless » Tue, May 12, 2020, 8:31 PM UTC

adwww wrote: post #85

z3t4 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was on the Windows platform for 15 years and moved over to Linux about 6 years ago. One thing I miss from Windows Server is that it was very stable, updates never broke anything. If you got any updates that is. I think most people use Windows server because they are locked into Microsoft technology. I switched to Linux, and most importantly open source technology - in order to get out of the Windows ecosystem. I sw…

I went for a while of bumping into lots of job opportuntities using the Microsoft stack, and thought perhaps it would be good for my career to learn a bit. But the barrier to entry seemed so high at the time - you needed MSDN subscriptions, paid IDEs, and paid servers. All out of my reach as a self taught junior developer. I don't know how or where everyone learnt it all, except as graduate developers at BigCorp?

I've never had to pay for my own MSDN, IDE or server while I was in the Microsoft development ecosystem. In many cases, my employer would pay for those things, and it was usually generously flexible - i.e. I could build Windows machines and install Office at home off those licenses. The Community edition of Visual Studio has been sufficient for quite some time, though I'm sure there are cases where it is not.

Anyone running a copy of Windows could run a free copy of SQL Server (Express) and SQL Server Studio, IIS Express and the .NET Framework using VS Community to build MVC apps. You would use the Web Platform Installer for just about any of those things.

Between https://dotnet.microsoft.com/apps/aspnet (previously https://asp.net) and https://www.microsoft.com/web/downloads/platform.aspx it's generally very easy to dip your feet in the waters.

(All that being said, I'm now in the NodeJS ecosystem. It's... interesting!)

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

#110

Post by freefriedrice » Tue, May 12, 2020, 8:31 PM UTC

martinald wrote: post #49

freefriedrice wrote: post #28

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…

Yeah, that's a good point.

There is a big difference between Linux and BSD here.

Linux has really exploded with configuration. Are we using 'ip' or 'ifconfig'? Are we using /etc/ or /etc/.d/? What about /lib/system? Do I restart that systemctrl or service?

BSD has kept it a little more "pure" in that it is more of a "only one way to do it" philosophy.