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Microsoft surprises with its first server Linux distribution: Azure Linux 4.0

zdnet.com

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Re: Microsoft surprises with its first server Linux distribution: Azure Linux 4.0

#21

Post by daft_pink »

dwroberts wrote: post #18
daft_pink wrote: post #14

I don’t really follow what they mean by no package manager. If you’re developing, won’t you need JavaScript or python or elixir or rust or go? This whole thing just run containers and your container still has to run some other distribution?

Flatcar (that it is based on) is designed to only run containers. So you don’t install any tools via a package manager, you would pull containers to do the work. You can do one-off configuration by writing scripts to run when the machine first boots, but after that the whole system is immutable except for whatever containers you’ve configured

Thanks. I misunderstood that they are talking about Azure container linux and not Azure Linux 4.0 which will use Fedora's package manager.

Re: Microsoft surprises with its first server Linux distribution: Azure Linux 4.0

#23

Post by technion »

Note that despite being named here as "Azure Linux" and being described as a "General purpose Linux OS for Azure", once you go to the product documentation it's referred to as "Microsoft Azure Linux Container Host for AKS", and the Quickstart guide is about how to deploy a Kubernetes cluster. It doesn't seem very capable of general use.

Re: Microsoft surprises with its first server Linux distribution: Azure Linux 4.0

#25

Post by somat »

theletterf wrote: post #15
sidewndr46 wrote: post #9

I have 5.25 diskettes of "Microsoft Linux" from the 1990s. I'm reasonably certain that was the first.

Microsoft published its own UNIX from 1980 to 1987: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix?wprov=sfla1

Xenix was Microsoft's first operating system, it predates DOS.

Admittedly, Microsoft did not actually write Xenix. They bought a System3 source license from AT&T and used that as a base, Their main service model was to port it to various systems.

Fun Fact: Xenix was the main reason a partition table was included when the PC first got hard disk support.

Re: Microsoft surprises with its first server Linux distribution: Azure Linux 4.0

#26

Post by futune »

vivzkestrel wrote: post #11

https://gamesbymason.com/blog/2026/microsoft/ Prediction: Microsoft Is Going To Do The Funniest Thing Imaginable this guy called it loooong back

I remember a reading a similar prediction from several years ago, too, with more or less the same reasons. If I'm able to dig it up, I'll post a link.

It does make complete sense, doesn't it?...

Re: Microsoft surprises with its first server Linux distribution: Azure Linux 4.0

#28

Post by azzentys »

mghackerlady wrote: post #7
giancarlostoro wrote: post #5

> Minneapolis - So, there I was at Open Source Summit North America, listening to Brendan Burns, co-founder of Kubernetes and today Microsoft's Corporate VP of Azure Cloud Native and Management Platform, and Open Source, talk about the evolution from open-source to agentic AI. Then, in the middle of his presentation, he said, "When I started in Azure 10 years ago, it was not the majority operating system running on t…

Shit, I would've gone if I knew it was in MN. Always some other time, I guess

MN is the reason I'm there. It's pretty fun.

Re: Microsoft surprises with its first server Linux distribution: Azure Linux 4.0

#29

Post by whobre »

somat wrote: post #25
theletterf wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft published its own UNIX from 1980 to 1987: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix?wprov=sfla1

Xenix was Microsoft's first operating system, it predates DOS. Admittedly, Microsoft did not actually write Xenix. They bought a System3 source license from AT&T and used that as a base, Their main service model was to port it to various systems. Fun Fact: Xenix was the main reason a partition table was included when the PC first got hard disk support.

They developed something called M-DOS or MIDAS in 1979, but by that time CP/M was already established, so they decided against releasing it.
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