Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48187736
Azure Linux 4.0 is Microsoft's first general-purpose Linux
41–50 of 158 posts
Re: Azure Linux 4.0 is Microsoft's first general-purpose Linux
#42No it's not. It's for tuned for Azure. Nobody is running this outside of their compute environment.
I don’t know really. Amazon AL2023 can be used outside aws for example, and people might want the same distro on-prem as the cloud.
It’s not the average joe/jane though.
Re: Azure Linux 4.0 is Microsoft's first general-purpose Linux
#43What advantages does Azure Linux have compared to Ubuntu?
Re: Azure Linux 4.0 is Microsoft's first general-purpose Linux
#44call me old fashioned isn't a general purpose OS one that runs on any hardware and set up? and is certified with hardware vendors for full backing and support? all this says is: "MS now provides a unified Linux from WSL to the MS cloud. just like what you got w/ SUSE RH canonical up to now. but without any support outside the MS stack.", right? or am I missing something?
I fell like this could be a move to purposefully mislead and confuse "Normies" of what to expect from "general purpose Linux" means.
Re: Azure Linux 4.0 is Microsoft's first general-purpose Linux
#45Microsoft was a *nix supporter from the very beginning, with Microsoft Xenix.
Re: Azure Linux 4.0 is Microsoft's first general-purpose Linux
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s already no longer their golden goose. It’s about 6% of total revenue (see http://bullfincher.io/companies/microsoft-corporation/revenu... ). Microsoft could give Windows away for free and be fine. Of course it’s still a lot of money, so they’re not going to leave a multibillion dollar business on the table. But strategically, preserving its revenue is not their priority.
How many percent of their revenue funel are dependent directly or indirectly on windows beeing the peoples workstation funneling them towards their subpar products?
Probably some amount. I agree Windows is strategic, but do definitely could see them giving it away and/or fully open sourcing it.
Re: Azure Linux 4.0 is Microsoft's first general-purpose Linux
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
You say that, but Microsoft has contributed to Wine! Both in terms of code and help, on occasion. Microsoft gave Mono to Wine, and while Wine has a ban on accepting code from people who have seen the source of Microsoft Windows, they have , if I recall correctly, accepted documentation on Windows Internals from Microsoft themselves.
Which is rather kind. They could of also pulled an Oracle , claimed the APIs are copyrighted and sued. WINE, even if right couldn't afford to fight. I can even imagine official Linux support for the Surface tablets. Infact, Microsoft makes very little off its consumer OS. They could even give up the market entirely and bless a distro with solid WINE support for legacy applications.
> They could of also pulled an Oracle , claimed the APIs are copyrighted and sued.
They did, well - not the suing part, but everything else in your sentence; including helping Oracle "pull an Oracle". In 2013, Microsoft filed an Amicus brief in support of Oracle's[1] position, appealing against a judges ruling that APIs cannot be copyrighted. At the time, Microsoft were also trying to get an Android-compatible runtime on Windows off the ground, which was incredibly awkward. They came to their right mind by the time 2019 rolled by and the case had been appealed to the Supreme Court. At this occasion, Microsoft switched teams and filed an amicus in support of Google. I don't know if Microsoft's 2016 release of WSL had anything to do with it.
1. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/02/microsoft-forese...
Re: Azure Linux 4.0 is Microsoft's first general-purpose Linux
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sundar Pichai does not work in Microsoft, though. A bit weird to anchor the MS timeline on his position. When he became the CEO, actually? I don’t remember the year even approximately
Sorry it was a brain fart. I meant Satya Nadella.
Ah, okay, my bad. Got too focused on the name. Googled the dates, Satya became CEO in 2014 and Sundar became CEO in 2015, so it’s actually not that different, especially when we look at the events more than a decade later.
Re: Azure Linux 4.0 is Microsoft's first general-purpose Linux
#49What advantages does Azure Linux have compared to Ubuntu?
It's from Microsoft. Many companies love to be very tightly tied to Microsoft, for some reasons. I never really understood the actual underlying reasons. Perhaps Windows 95 was that good and it's brand loyalty since.
Re: Azure Linux 4.0 is Microsoft's first general-purpose Linux
#50Moving from tdnf to dnf5 is interesting.
Most internal platforms get more bespoke over time, not less.