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Microsoft developer reveals Linux is now more used on Azure than Windows Server

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Re: Microsoft developer reveals Linux is now more used on Azure than Windows Server

#91
post #56
post #20

I'm surprised it took this long. With Linux support for .NET and SQL Server, there is zero reason to host anything new on Windows now (of course legacy enterprise software is another story). I wouldn't be surprised if Windows Server is fully EOL'd in a few years.

I can understand that for many Mac OS users it's hard to understand Windows. When your OS vendor is requiring you to rewrite parts of your applications each year because of changing APIs it's impossible to imagine a world where applications from 1995 are still running on operating systems from 2019. Same.with security updates for only 3 years where Windows gives you over a decade time to upgrade. But when you are a m…

So, like OP said, legacy software that no one wants to maintain?

Re: Microsoft developer reveals Linux is now more used on Azure than Windows Server

#92
post #27
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but in the same way companies are still running XP. There is zero chance there will be new releases of Windows Server a decade from now. Microsoft itself is starting to host its services on Linux.

I don't see a Linux version of Exchange or Active Directory yet. For internal email, it's pretty much Exchange or GTFO.

OpenLDAP, Postfix/Dovecot?

Re: Microsoft developer reveals Linux is now more used on Azure than Windows Server

#93

I am on one hand glad that Linux is being adopted, but I am mostly sad. We only have two operating systems now Windows and Linux. (MacOS for the desktop as well). It becomes a mono culture, and it takes away healthy competition and innovation. I want many more operating systems, not fewer. I with MS would make it free to run Windows Server, (something they move towards with the CLI only version). In order to hopefull…

> We only have two operating systems now Windows and Linux.

That all depends on what platform(s) you're using. For example, IBM still gives you zOS, AIX, the System i OS, and so on. And there are other operating systems for other platforms.

The computing world doesn't begin and end with Wintel, you know; it may seem that way sometimes, though.

Re: Microsoft developer reveals Linux is now more used on Azure than Windows Server

#94
post #64

On Azure, a Windows VM instance tends to cost about 50% more than the equivalent instance running Linux,so it is a no brainer to use Linux if your application is operation system independent.

If I encounter an issue on Linux (that I can reproduce), I can investigate it to its root (sometimes in the kernel driver) and fix it (or find someone who has fixed it). On windows, I have only seen issues fixed either by reinstalling applications (mostly randomly) and praying or by using annoying work arounds. IMHO, the cost is higher in Windows.

This is to some extent only a consumer approach. There are tools allowing in depth debugging. Given a big enough budget you'll also get direct help from MS. This relies on very skilled staff though.

Sure, it's easier to debug kernel things on Linux. But you certainly can debug Windows as well.

Re: Microsoft developer reveals Linux is now more used on Azure than Windows Server

#95

I am on one hand glad that Linux is being adopted, but I am mostly sad. We only have two operating systems now Windows and Linux. (MacOS for the desktop as well). It becomes a mono culture, and it takes away healthy competition and innovation. I want many more operating systems, not fewer. I with MS would make it free to run Windows Server, (something they move towards with the CLI only version). In order to hopefull…

I want more "kinds" of operating systems. It is ripe time to look forward to building ones not based on Unix, files, forks and execs. I want to explore different ideas which were not tested because Unix model became popular.

There is a lot to explore on the side of Smalltalk machines, Oberon, Lisp Machines of old. As a developer, live programming language based environments is my kind of thing.

Re: Microsoft developer reveals Linux is now more used on Azure than Windows Server

#96
Every few months we get another post like this, with a slightly different measure. Yes, lots of Azure workloads run Linux, and Microsoft makes it a priority. It's not news anymore.

At the same time, Azure itself runs largely on Windows servers in Service Fabric (https://github.com/Microsoft/service-fabric), so it's hard to count. With nested hypervisors as the normal architecture nowadays, this whole tally is pretty suspect.

But we (the tech community) never seem to get bored with the "Microsoft is eating humble pie on OSS" story. Maybe that's exactly what Microsoft deserves after so many years of big-bad-wolf behavior. Unfortunately it makes their real engineering and OSS feats hard for us to see or acknowledge.

Like Service fabric. Did you know that Microsoft built and open sourced an orchestrator that can manage tens if millions of nodes with totally diverse workloads (containers, VMs, and bare metal), nested hypervisors, and even nested orchestrators in a secure multi tenant context? That beats the crap out of kubernetes on a capabilities front, but it's not an easy story to sell. Or that Windows Hyper-V has done thin-VM/M container isolation on par with kata and firecracker for years? Or that many (if not most) Azure services are open source? You can run the entire azure stack on your home server closet if you like, especially including their biggest growth areas of kubernetes and ML/cognitive services. If you want an open source alternative to AWS, azure can be a real option.

I enjoy the historical irony of this as much as the next guy, but we really have to stop letting it blind us to the awesome things MS is doing that don't fit that narrative. Microsoft is benefiting mightily by adopting open source culture, code, and practices as fast as it can. And if we can get our heads out of our own self-righteous asses enough to upvote the stories, we can profit from it too.

Re: Microsoft developer reveals Linux is now more used on Azure than Windows Server

#97

I am on one hand glad that Linux is being adopted, but I am mostly sad. We only have two operating systems now Windows and Linux. (MacOS for the desktop as well). It becomes a mono culture, and it takes away healthy competition and innovation. I want many more operating systems, not fewer. I with MS would make it free to run Windows Server, (something they move towards with the CLI only version). In order to hopefull…

> We only have two operating systems now Windows and Linux. That all depends on what platform(s) you're using. For example, IBM still gives you zOS, AIX, the System i OS, and so on. And there are other operating systems for other platforms. The computing world doesn't begin and end with Wintel, you know; it may seem that way sometimes, though.

AIX is very unixy, though zOS looks pretty alien from it's description. I would love to work on zOS, but there is very little window of opportunity for that.

I would love to see something like https://pharo.org/ booting directly. Its an OS for all intents and purposes (To my realization, languages like Smalltalk, Lisps, Forths ARE Operating Systems)

Re: Microsoft developer reveals Linux is now more used on Azure than Windows Server

#98
post #87

Microsoft should do an Apple and build the Windows 13 on GNU/Linux.

In my eyes that would be a demotion of technology. They should instead do a Xerox Parc and invent newer/different kinds of hardware operating environments (and try to ship them too).

Re: Microsoft developer reveals Linux is now more used on Azure than Windows Server

#99

Microsoftie here, a lot of Microsoft's own infrastructure is hosted on Windows Server instances. Won't comment further than that, So Windows for server scenarios is certainly not dead.

> a lot

I see what you did there ;)

Re: Microsoft developer reveals Linux is now more used on Azure than Windows Server

#100
post #72
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I encounter an issue on Linux (that I can reproduce), I can investigate it to its root (sometimes in the kernel driver) and fix it (or find someone who has fixed it). On windows, I have only seen issues fixed either by reinstalling applications (mostly randomly) and praying or by using annoying work arounds. IMHO, the cost is higher in Windows.

Stuff suddenly starting to work on reboot for Windows is getting old. I don't know what to use Windows servers for if it wasn't for a project that uses MetaTrader.

We have these old Windows admins now learning to work with Linux. What drives me insane is their habit of randomly rebooting machines if something isn't working right. There is a problem with a Linux box, they ask you to take a look at it, you SSH in, type "uptime"... bam, it's two and a half minutes. A lot of precious diagnostic information has been lost.
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