Microsoft Surprises With Its First Server Linux Distribution: Azure Linux 4.0 (zdnet.com) 120
Microsoft is turning Azure Linux into a general-purpose, Fedora-based cloud distribution available to all Azure customers, while also productizing Flatcar as Azure Container Linux for immutable container hosts. "When Microsoft joined the Linux Foundation, there was this big conspiracy theory that somehow the Linux Foundation was undermining open source in partnership with Microsoft, and now you announce that you're shipping a Linux distribution," Jim Zemlin, the Linux Foundation's CEO, said in response to Microsoft's surprise announcement. "That's amazing." ZDNet reports: Until now, [Lachlan Everson, Microsoft's Principal Program Manager on Azure's open-source team] noted, "we had Azure Linux only available to third-party customers through AKS specifically, and that was Azure Linux 3.0." Going forward, this will be ACL. Everson emphasized that Azure Linux 4.0 is the culmination of years of internal usage and the evolution of the earlier Mariner distribution. "So we've been running Azure Linux for many years internally, and we got through to 3.0, and we only allowed it on as a container host on AKS. What we've done is make it a general-purpose, so this is all the learnings that we've had in the heritage of Mariner."
Under the hood, Azure Linux 4.0 is based on Fedora Linux and is delivered as an open distribution on GitHub. This code is available now. Yes, Red Hat knows that Microsoft has done this. Everson continued, "So, we made a decision to use Fedora as an upstream, so it's using RPMs in the Fedora ecosystem. Microsoft curates the packages and the supply chain to fit Azure's cloud platform." Microsoft also created "it to be purpose-built for Azure, which integrates vertically into all of our infrastructure to give you the best Azure Linux experience on Azure." While Azure Linux will ship as a VM image, Microsoft is already preparing a developer-friendly path onto Windows desktops: "And as of today, we have it as a VM image for your VM host on Azure. We're going to announce WSL images as well."
While developers will be able to run Azure Linux locally through WSL, Microsoft is not positioning it as a traditional desktop Linux. Asked whether he could run it on his laptop, Everson said: "I will be able to run it on my laptop, or what have you. Yes, on Windows 11." However, when pressed about a desktop experience, Everson was clear that there are "no plans" for a graphical environment. "It's optimized for server-side in the cloud," he said, adding that even on a developer machine, users should expect a lean environment. "Minimal packages, yeah. The idea is that we offer you a consistent experience to do your development on your machine, and that you can take your workloads as you develop them on your machine and run them with VS Code. You can run your applications on that, and know that the platform is the same that you're running on the cloud, so that you have that kind of consistency between environments."
Flatcar itself remains the upstream project, but Microsoft is packaging it for Azure customers. Everson described Flatcar as "purpose-built, immutable, secure by default, production-ready operating system, and Azure Container Linux is the productization of that, but we're still investing in the upstream Flatcar ecosystem and pulling that downstream into a productized exterior experience just for container workloads, so it's a container hosting in AKS." To underscore the immutable model, he added that "Everything's baked in, so there is no package manager. We bake the bits into the immutable, and they're in the immutable version. So Azure Container Linux is the immutable version. So you shouldn't be changing any system packages or any application packages. Anything that you need to change is customer workloads run in containers."
Under the hood, Azure Linux 4.0 is based on Fedora Linux and is delivered as an open distribution on GitHub. This code is available now. Yes, Red Hat knows that Microsoft has done this. Everson continued, "So, we made a decision to use Fedora as an upstream, so it's using RPMs in the Fedora ecosystem. Microsoft curates the packages and the supply chain to fit Azure's cloud platform." Microsoft also created "it to be purpose-built for Azure, which integrates vertically into all of our infrastructure to give you the best Azure Linux experience on Azure." While Azure Linux will ship as a VM image, Microsoft is already preparing a developer-friendly path onto Windows desktops: "And as of today, we have it as a VM image for your VM host on Azure. We're going to announce WSL images as well."
While developers will be able to run Azure Linux locally through WSL, Microsoft is not positioning it as a traditional desktop Linux. Asked whether he could run it on his laptop, Everson said: "I will be able to run it on my laptop, or what have you. Yes, on Windows 11." However, when pressed about a desktop experience, Everson was clear that there are "no plans" for a graphical environment. "It's optimized for server-side in the cloud," he said, adding that even on a developer machine, users should expect a lean environment. "Minimal packages, yeah. The idea is that we offer you a consistent experience to do your development on your machine, and that you can take your workloads as you develop them on your machine and run them with VS Code. You can run your applications on that, and know that the platform is the same that you're running on the cloud, so that you have that kind of consistency between environments."
Flatcar itself remains the upstream project, but Microsoft is packaging it for Azure customers. Everson described Flatcar as "purpose-built, immutable, secure by default, production-ready operating system, and Azure Container Linux is the productization of that, but we're still investing in the upstream Flatcar ecosystem and pulling that downstream into a productized exterior experience just for container workloads, so it's a container hosting in AKS." To underscore the immutable model, he added that "Everything's baked in, so there is no package manager. We bake the bits into the immutable, and they're in the immutable version. So Azure Container Linux is the immutable version. So you shouldn't be changing any system packages or any application packages. Anything that you need to change is customer workloads run in containers."
Wrong name. (Score:4, Insightful)
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In other news (Score:5, Funny)
In other late breaking news, wolves in some western states have been accused of purchasing sheep's clothing. When asked for comment one wolf barked, "we are purchasing 'cheap' clothing, nothing to see here."
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Further down on that page, I saw a link to an article entitled "Hell Freezes Over."
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This is definatley Larson comic material.
https://chatgpt.com/s/m_6a0cc8... [chatgpt.com]
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The Far Side always cracked me up, LOL. My mother sent me "Wiener Dog Art" when I was sitting in the desert during Operation Desert Shield. That book got passed around the entire tent city.
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VMA 533 and later VMA 224 (both ComNav) during Desert Shield/Storm at Shaikh Isa Air Base in Bahrain.
Surprise? Everybody's been saying it. (Score:3, Insightful)
We've all expected Microsoft Linux at some point. Azure is probably a good proving ground for them. And now that they've flat-out denied that there will ever be a Microsoft Desktop Linux, we can start the countdown until the release of that. My guess is it'll be the Explorer shell running on top of a Linux Kernel, because they won't give up that terrible UI they've invested so much in and the familiarity will be far more important to the corporate users than the kernel running under it.
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We would all would welcome any Microsoft Desktop Linux. Microsoft Windows is the only non-POSIX OS. With it's C:\, backslashes, dos-prompts,\r\n, and OS/2-NT based kernel, it is out of place. The modern world runs on POSIX, which is why WSL is required to use AI meaningfully. Microsoft should just replace the kernel with a modern one. Apple did it long ago.
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Azure Linux also comes with a command-line helper - ClippyAI! Leveraging the power of CoPilot, ClippyAI will help streamline your daily tasks... such as recognizing when you are writing a letter.
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(In Gilbert Gottfried's voice:) "It looks like you're building a container!"
Re:Surprise? Everybody's been saying it. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not so sure about the UI. The history of Microsoft and UI for the past 40 years is that they're happy to abandon their incumbent UI for different. We saw that with Windows 3.x to '95 and NT4, with Windows 98 and the integration of Spyglass Mosaic Internet Explorer, with the transition from Windows ME and Windows 2000 to Windows XP, the subsequent further transition from XP to Windows 7, and the rework from Windows 8.x to Windows 10. We even saw it with Windows 10 to Windows 11.
They change their UI because their customers don't see the OS being new/different unless they change their UI. If the UI looks the same then the average untrained end user doesn't know the difference and doesn't see a value in spending the money to upgrade.
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In other words, they've made largely superficial changes (except 9x -> NT) quite consistently which haven't added much in terms of value.
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In other words, they've made largely superficial changes (except 9x -> NT) quite consistently which haven't added much in terms of value.
Don't be too harsh. I was just reading that the start bar can now be moved to the left or right! Not only that, but you can RESIZE it!?!?! Mind blowing stuff.
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So, basically what you could do in W95.
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Windows 8 was the single biggest change in all of Microsoft UI history, and even then they didn't actually change any of the most important parts. All windowing operations are still based on IBM CUA and... work like dogshit.
Every single Windows version has the same problem, some things just won't multitask. If you try to drag an Edge window while the browser is opening a tab, you can't. That's because the application is responsible for that. On Unix systems this isn't a thing because the Window Manager is r
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I'm slightly more willing to give a pass to Xorg applications because it's not a monolithic environment supposedly under the control of a corporate entity that should be able to enforce its own standards.
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because they won't give up that terrible UI they've invested so much in
Most of the basic behavior of the UI used in Windows was inherited from IBM CUA, and is also shared by all of the commonest DEs for Linux. They also all have an analogue of the start menu. It's unclear what you're talking about here.
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because they won't give up that terrible UI they've invested so much in
Most of the basic behavior of the UI used in Windows was inherited from IBM CUA, and is also shared by all of the commonest DEs for Linux. They also all have an analogue of the start menu. It's unclear what you're talking about here.
Mostly all the bullshit bolt-ons they've been shoveling the last five years or so. Copilot, AI everything, advertising in the bar, forced news pop-up if you accidentally let the mouse contact the wrong part of the bar that refuses to go away no matter where you click, and all the annoyances of MS exclusive UI "improvements" over the usual shared UI elements.
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you know you can turn all that off, right? i have no ads, no copilot, no ai, no forced pop ups, nothing you mentioned.
You can turn most of it off, but apply a security update and it all mysteriously comes back on. I have a script I run after every update to turn everything back off, but it's a choice Microsoft has made, and they keep making it. The vast majority aren't going to dig into the guts of the system to turn all that shit off, and the corporate machine wants all that garbage in the user's face.
2002 Business Case for Microsoft:Green envy & (Score:5, Funny)
Why is this surprising?? (Score:4, Insightful)
The Linux community still responds to Microsoft as it was 30 years ago.
Today, MS don't make the money on Windows, they make it on MS 365 and Azure. Which means they don't care if you use Windows or Linux, as long as you use their online service.
You need to stop the Embrace-Extend, Borg Linux etc comments. It just shows ignorance. Although I did find Borg Linux funny :)
But seriously, there is no conspiracy here. Sure, MS would prefer you use Windows. But it's such a small part of the amount of money their users pay them, that it's not a big deal.
Look at their actual track record. They have done real contribution to Linux over the last 10 years or so. A lot more than most other companies you think are cool. But you still somehow perceive them as coming with an agenda that just doesn't exist.
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Except it absolutely is Embrace-Extend...
It is embrace Linux, just so long as your are running it on their compute...It is extend Linux,they have already used their influence to stuff all manor of rather cloud-specific tooling into systemd, and successfully crammed that stack down on the broader community.
Finally it is extinguish in the software freedom sense the GNU side of GNU/Linux always cared about. Unless your are like beyond careful about every component you use, every bit of tooling you chose, and
Re:Why is this surprising?? (Score:5, Informative)
Blaming Microsoft for systemd is Grade A crackpottery. Their Linux contributions have been GPL and of course are going to be related to the stuff they care about, but haven't pushed any parallel standards that would fracture the community. Not sure what you are getting about with the GNU comments, they didn't even pick a non-GNU coreutils/glibc distro like Ubuntu with the rust coreutils swap or even go with something busybox or alpine/musl based. (Not that those other FOSS projects would be bad choices.)
As far as not being able to shift to any other cloud, this Linux distro is literally for their standards-based Kubernetes offering to make people be able run any Linux containerized workload run just like it would anywhere else. Just in an immutable environment where don't have to worry as much about the security of the underlying host. While also contributing to the Linux Foundation and the CNCF for their work released in a vendor-agostic manner.
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You say that, but then ignore the funding source and board of directors for the orgs that Lennart worked for... sure. Totally just a coincidence.
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Blaming Microsoft for systemd is Grade A crackpottery.
Agreed, however, its megalithic and heavily interdependent design is consistent with how Microsoft architects software which is why they hired Lenny.
What is "a compute" --? (Score:2)
What exactly is "a compute" --? Do you mean, on their computers? On their computing platform?
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That's the one part of their rant that makes sense. Microsoft isn't doing this out of the goodness of their heart, but it trying to get businesses to pay for running Containers and VMs on Azure by having a decent Linux Distro under the hood.
So "compute" in this context is paying for managed services such as Azure Kubernetes Service, Azure Container Apps, or Azure Virtual Machines which are priced by the computing power (number of vCPUs and memory).
It's the same Microsoft hearts Linux because it makes them m [computerworld.com]
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They've extended precisely nothing. In fact their Azure offerings continue to run stock standard releases of Ubuntu, RHEL, SUSE, and others. The only thing they've done is embrace and sell.
And even if they did extend, to what end? The problem with the original Netware fight was the "extinguish" portion. But Microsoft not only gain zero benefit from extinguishing Linux, the world would completely ignore their attempts to do so and an effort to not allow standard Linux distributions to run on their cloud plat
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They've extended precisely nothing. In fact their Azure offerings continue to run stock standard releases of Ubuntu, RHEL, SUSE, and others. The only thing they've done is embrace and sell.
...
EEE makes no sense in this context. We already have 410 species of parrot on this planet, we don't need you to sit there squawking something you learned in the 90s.
Embrace: Fedora [CHECK]
Extend: Adding MS/Azure specific stuff to a VM image with no installer option (and no source?), so you must include it if you use Azure Linux 4.0.
Extinguish: Can you run your Kubernetes nodes in Azure on anything other than Azure Linux? Today, you can run other stock releases as VM's; Will you be able to in the future? How long until some of their changes are upstreamed? OK, so you commit to Azure Linux for dev and deployment, then get a new Apple laptop - why can't you run the Azure
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There's no extend here. the Azure specific stuff is available to all distros. You're making up a fantasy to suit your irrational hatred.
Also there's no extinguish option. Literally none. There's nothing Microsoft can kill. Oh noes Kubernetes node is locked down in Azure, what are you gonna do? Spin up a VM on AWS, and leave Microsoft behind.
I feel like you don't actually understand what the EEE process was, how it worked, or the market conditions required for it to achieve. It's literally not possible to do
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There's no extend here. the Azure specific stuff is available to all distros. You're making up a fantasy to suit your irrational hatred.
Are you claiming that Azure Linux 4.0 is simply Fedora with some additional RPM's that are available to all other distros? I'm pretty sure TFA itself contradicts that. If that were the case, they would simply have an add-on repository. Instead, it's only available as a pre-built VM image with their stuff baked in. How is that not "Extend"?
There's nothing Microsoft can kill. Oh noes Kubernetes node is locked down in Azure, what are you gonna do? Spin up a VM on AWS, and leave Microsoft behind. ...
It's literally not possible to do EEE to Linux cloud. It just isn't. Microsoft won't corner the entire market with Azure Linux, They won't be able to introduce incompatibilities that make it non-portable, they won't be able to kill the alternate cloud market.
Past EEE didn't corner entire markets either. Alternatives could still exist, but they made working with them untenable. They ARE doing this within Azure, and you don't se
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Microsoft still makes money on Windows. This isn't Microsoft Linux Home, it's a server version of Fedora with some Microsoft stuff intended to be run on Azure.
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Microsoft makes way more on Azure stuff. Which is why they did some things like shift PowerShell into their Azure segment and have stopped investing in things like local AD improvements for Entra ID and the like. Same goes with local Office, with them coming close to axing the perpetual licensed.
So yeah Windows Server/Desktop/Office aren't free or anything. But Microsoft's not hiding that Azure/M365 offerings are the real things paying the bills.
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Azure is just not all that great. AWS, GCP, even Oracle and several other options have a lot of advantages, the main selling point of azure is being tied to windows and other legacy systems.
If you have a clean slate you're much better off going with AWS or GCP.
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Re: Why is this surprising?? (Score:1)
Over 60% of VMs on Azure run a version of Linux, not Windows - but you knew that, right?
https://commandlinux.com/stati... [commandlinux.com]
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... the main selling point of azure is being tied to windows and other legacy systems.
Over 60% of VMs on Azure run a version of Linux, not Windows - but you knew that, right?
https://commandlinux.com/stati... [commandlinux.com]
And you knew that "other legacy systems" also exist, right? Those systems making use of MS SQL Server, or Microsoft Entra ID (IE: Active Directory), or hybrid networks using that other 40% of VM's that are running Windows, etc..
Asked another way, what subset of that 60% of VMs on Azure running Linux are deployed from a company that isn't touching Windows or other legacy systems?
The Linux support is so they don't lose that segment.
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This is nonsense. There is nothing in Azure that requires you to run any of that in (or alongside) your Linux VMs/containers.
Read the thread above.
Bert64 said, in part, "... the main selling point of azure is being tied to windows and other legacy systems."
kenh replied, "Over 60% of VMs on Azure run a version of Linux, not Windows - but you knew that, right?"
I noted that those "other legacy systems" also tie in many of those that are deploying Linux VMs.
I'm not claiming you are required to use Microsoft Entra ID; I'm claiming the choice to use Azure over other cloud providers is often for such tie ins, even when one is deploying
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Today, MS don't make the money on Windows, they make it on MS 365 and Azure. Which means they don't care if you use Windows or Linux, as long as you use their online service.
And if establishing their own Linux distro enables them to integrate Copilot into the distro, so they can hook more people into paying for their service, that's just (to them) good business.
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They absolutely care if you use Windows. Not because you're going into CompUSA and buying a boxed copy, but because of its function as a data funnel. I'm not sure if AI is their main moneymaker today, but it's certainly their main hope.
Office 365 gets them some of your data, but not as much as having root access to your OS. O365 isn't even something every PC will run - grandma might not need a spreadsheet, or maybe she has Gmail and got roped into Google Docs already. Generally speaking, every PC will run W
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The Linux community still responds to Microsoft as it was 30 years ago.
Oh, I'm sorry, did Microsoft stop being a publicly traded corporate hellbent on profiting regardless of the cost it has to other people? I just want to be sure because you seem to be making that case.
Today, MS don't make the money on Windows, they make it on MS 365 and Azure. Which means they don't care if you use Windows or Linux, as long as you use their online service.
So you're telling me that aren't using underhanded and deceptive tactics to push their own agenda? I could have sworn they were pushing the Edge browser really hard and integrating copilot into everything but, I guess if you say none of that matter, then it's all OK.
You need to stop the Embrace-Extend, Borg Linux etc comments. It just shows ignorance.
Let's be real, you're here waving a banner of
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But you still somehow perceive them as coming with an agenda that just doesn't exist.
Their agenda is to get you to buy Microsoft. If their Linux contributions didn't lead to that, they wouldn't be doing it. They may not be the Borg, but they're not saints either.
They have done real contribution to Linux over the last 10 years or so.
Well, they did port some of their software to run on Linux. That shows a change of strategy - they're willing to sell you software without trying to strong-arm you into
Re: Why is this surprising?? (Score:2)
They're still getting it wrong and talking about integration instead of interoperability.
Every time I use their products it's a horrible experience. Think Teams, OneDrive. What I hear about recent Windows versions isn't great either. My understanding is that few people use Microsoft products because they want to, it usually is because they have to. "Provide inferior products but make sure people still have to use them" is great logic for a drug lord, but most people here don't appreciate it, or the impact i
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The Linux community still responds to Microsoft as it was 30 years ago.
As well they should. A parasite is still a parasite, regardless of its other behaviors.
Today, MS don't make the money on Windows, they make it on MS 365 and Azure. Which means they don't care if you use Windows or Linux, as long as you use their online service.
If you think it is about money rather than control, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell to you.
But seriously, there is no conspiracy here.
That is a possibility; however, they have proven over and over again that they do not care what the customer wants and only seek to enrich themselves and maintain the maximum amount of control, so it doesn't matter that there is no conspiracy here. Any gains they see absolutely will be used against the customer.
Look at their actual track record.
Indeed. They remo
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But you still somehow perceive them as coming with an agenda that just doesn't exist.
No doubt Microsoft's agenda today is different from what it was 30 years ago, but it's still Microsoft's agenda. Microsoft can be relied upon to do what is good for Microsoft, and any dependency you form on their products can and will be used as leverage to extract money from you.
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That's because Microsoft behaves as it was 30 years ago.
Since developers use Linux, and prefered OSX or Linux machines, they put Linux in Windows. Then they tried to extend it, by adding PowerShell, certain that it would be a soon indispensable tool so everyone working on Linux would want it. They're pushing hard for making the layer above the kernel their specific kind of generic yet locked in, so it will be possible to encapsulate it and monetize it further down the line.
They're still doing the Embrace-Ex
Wait a second, Fedora based? (Score:5, Interesting)
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IBM is and has always been a services/consultant business, even when they made products.
Strange crossovers (Score:4, Interesting)
Windows NT for MIPS and Alpha processors
AIX for Apple hardware https://everymac.com/systems/a... [everymac.com]
Solaris for IBM Z mainframes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
And of course the operating system that will outlive us all, OpenVMS for amd64 https://vmssoftware.com/about/... [vmssoftware.com]
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AIX has always run on Power/PPC, running it on an Apple branded PPC machine is not strange at all. Legacy macOS 10 was never meant as a server OS so it made sense to use something that was.
IBM Z has run Linux for a long time, it's not surprising that people would port other open source systems to it like opensolaris, there's probably BSD ports too.
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Legacy macOS 10 was never meant as a server OS
Back when the OS MacOS is now based on was created, there was no distinction between workstation and server OSes. Therefore MacOS X not being intended as a server OS is a downgrade from the prior product... like many of the changes Apple made, especially the UI ones.
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Removing server features from workstations was a step ahead of the pack. It's an upgrade, and a really important one. It meant they could streamline the OS for the intended task instead of trying to maintain a messy system which was supposed to be able to do several tasks, requiring more and more maintenance to do any of them well.
I won't argue against many of Apple's UI decisions being downgrades, but overall, the increased focus of their devices and OS has been a massive upgrade. Their willingness to dump
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Removing server features from workstations was a step ahead of the pack.
Into a hole.
It's an upgrade
It isn't.
Apple has all the money, they can afford to do both things and it's weird they haven't. Having a meaningful management system is a huge part of selling computers, to corporate and educational users. Back before all computers were on an IP network, when they didn't have security beyond antivirus, you could get away with not offering management.
Those who have demands closer to the old day workstation solutions are better served by other OS'es, but we're a blip on the consumer axis, not a norm.
Apple has a solid alternative to Windows for business use, if only they offered a full suite. They could be digging into that market. That's what
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It's only "into a hole" from the perspective of a narrow use case. The world of computers is vastly larger and more diverse than it was when workstations first appeared, and Apple made the conscious decision to step away from desktops with server functionality for a reason, and that reason is a good reason. It doesn't align with what you want, or with what you see as most important, but you don't get to set anyone's priorities but your own.
Apple has all the money, and they got them from having a strong focu
Logo (Score:2)
I'll bet it's logo will be a flying pig.
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They've been flying for a while. [slashdot.org]
But it's not a really big surprise that Microsoft gets paid when people running their workloads in their cloud and companies want to run Linux VMs and Containers. Just like Microsoft being a big contributor to Linux [slashdot.org] but for the things that they care about and make money on (like making Linux work on Hyper-V or getting MSSQL run well on Linux).
ObNitpick: Lachie's last name... (Score:2)
As for why... (Score:2)
...it makes sense to have a headless server operating system when you're mostly running commodity spin-up/spin-down headless servers. Microsoft's server operating system was still largely based on the idea of running on a baremetal self-contained box, even though Microsoft servers had long, long since been used in the virtual machine space. If anything they're quite far behind the curve on this.
The Novell Netware model adapted to the VM era is what makes sense, where the tools don't require logging in to
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Amazon Linux 2 goes end-of-life on June 30.
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There is no upgrade path from AL2 to AL23.
You have to completely rehost your system if you want to continue using Amazon Linux. That's my point and it still stands.
You're on your own. There is no upgrade path.
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The Novell Netware model adapted to the VM era is what makes sense, where the tools don't require logging in to the server at all in order to administer the environment.
What? You absolutely had to authenticate to administer a Netware server, unless you did it from the console in the early days. That is logging in. If you don't think so, then neither is passwordless rsh, or ssh with a key and no password.
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of course you have to authenticate, but you run all of the software to administer it on a client, not sitting at the console. The console had only the most barebones capability, usually user management. The tools to administer ran on the client.
Nice try MS (Score:3)
but I cannot trust you further than I can spit a two-headed rat.
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Well, if not a two-headed rat, how about a three-eyed fish? D'oh!
NT 3.5.1 (Score:4, Informative)
Remember when they ported VAX/VMS to PC architecture and put a Windows 3 GUI on top?
That evolved.
"Watch this space."
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That was the last great windows, for windows values of great. I refuse to go find out, but I bet someone has even figured out how to get it past the 2GB limit and implement USB.
ORLY? (Score:1)
Where's the surprise? (Score:4, Insightful)
They chose the under-tested alpha version of an OS from a vendor who is running an attack on the GPL. What could possibly be less surprising than that? You need to recalibrate your surprise-o-meter.
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To be fair, they chose the yum/dnf route about 6 years ago with 1.0/CBL-Mariner before any of that saga and the previous version have been running in Azure solidly for those years. Moving to being a downstream of Fedora with one of two distros, providing back to a community rather than staying their own distro or not releasing a runnable distro isn't a great place to criticize them.
Also the other distro they released is a downstream of a CNCF/Linux Foundation project [www.cncf.io] which is pretty immune to that criticism
Is it Open Source ? (Score:2)
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No Thanks (Score:2)
Next: Linux Office (Score:2)
That would be the real nuke
And I bet (Score:1)
Oh brother⦠(Score:1)
As long as the guys writing Windows Updates donâ(TM)t join the team, the distro may be stable enough for production use. Last thing we need is a headless server deciding it suddenly wants human interaction before itâ(TM)ll boot.
This reminds me of something I wrote 22 years ago (Score:2)
Which unfortunately I can no longer find.
If anyone can find the URL in the archive or a clone I'd love to re-read it.
Here's what Gemini says about it when I queried "In the early 2000s, slashdot user kiore wrote a satirical comment about the prospect of a microsoft linux. Do you know about this comment?
Yes, absolutely! The user kiore is a well-known, long-time Slashdotter (a senior software developer based in New Zealand) whose satirical take on "MS Linux" became a legendary piece of lore within the communi
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lol, shashdotters are an adorable lot, forever living in the past
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Re: Beware! It is Microsoft! (Score:2)
I think you're referring to "attention span"
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Not relevant to the cultural, moral, and technological failings they carry on with straight through the years.
This company, I've heard they have several employees. They can have one contributing to Linux, and still pursue another goal or two.
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Whenever I read something this insane, I wonder whether the person posting it is a paid asshole or a useful idiot.
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If this is that old strategy they are going about it pretty wrong, because it's pretty hard to maliciously extend standards as a downstream of a major distro...
But it can also be pretty well explained by their financial interests of having things work well in their cloud so that they can get paid. Microsoft doesn't heart Linux for public good, but to get paid. And if the community gets some contributions along the way, that's not necessarily a bad thing.
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If this is that old strategy they are going about it pretty wrong, because it's pretty hard to maliciously extend standards as a downstream of a major distro...
Hard disagree. They're in a perfect position to embrace, extend, extinguish. What would lead you to believe otherwise?
This Azure Linux 4.0 is only being distributed as an Azure VM image, and a plan to do a WSL VM image. You can't go install it where you see fit. They already did some extinguishing right there (It's a Fedora downstream, but can't be installed on bare metal nor on a Linux based hypervisor nor on a Mac nor via other VM software on Windows). And what else have they jacked into that distro or cu
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Because Lennart Poettering is basically the Linus Torvalds of fucking up Linux for Microsoft: systemd, avahi, pulseaudio, and associated shitware bloat which have made linux less stable, less secure, and increasingly difficult to diagnose or integrate.
He's always been a proponent of doing things on Linux the Microsoft way, seemingly as an agent of chaos.
Re: Poettering (Score:2)
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I just want a way to write a scheduled task with one line instead of an entire config file.
cron daemons still exist. Some of them are fairly fancy. I am running the default one for debian (as in, I installed "cron") and even that conveniently creates cron.{daily,hourly,monthly,weekly,yearly} where I can just dump scripts instead of editing crontab, if one will suit anyway. And then there's also at.
Another thing I would like is to be able to just put startup scripts in one directory and have them run instead of doing all kinds of configuration
That's /etc/boot.d
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What you describe is basically cron + freebsd rc or classic linux init.d
Systemd over engineered everything to better support corner cases, which ultimately doesn't work as well at the core functionality and causes systemic stability and security problems.
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Re: With SCO gone (Score:3)