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Microsoft Brings SQL Server To Linux (betanews.com)

Mark Wilson writes: The new Microsoft has place an increased importance on the cloud, and with other companies following suit, reliance on server solutions has increased. Today the company announces that it is bringing SQL Server to Linux. Both cloud and on-premises versions will be available, and the news has been welcomed by the likes of Red Hat and Canonical. Although the Linux port of SQL Server is not due to make an appearance until the middle of next year, a private preview version is being available to testers starting today. While the full launch of SQL Server for Linux is not due until the middle of 2017, SQL Server 2016 is expected to launch later this year.

188 of 314 comments (clear)

  1. Haha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    April 1st isn't for another month silly.

    1. Re:Haha by sexconker · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If the new Slashdot overlords are seeing this:

      Can we please get through April 1st (and the days around it) without any stupid fake / "joke" shit making it to the front page?

    2. Re:Haha by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 4, Funny

      It's a Slashdot tradition to have joke stories on April 1st. Think of it as payback for all the times you troll.

      --
      Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
    3. Re:Haha by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 5, Funny

      It's one thing to have a joke or two but it's another thing to replace all the real news, all day long, with lame fake stories that aren't funny at all.

      Believable ideas for April 1st jokes:
      - New Quad-Core Raspberry Pi! Oh crap, that's a real thing already.
      - Microsoft giving away free copies of Windows! Damnit...
      - Apple releasing a new Mac mini that's weaker than the previous models! Oh wait...

      I don't even know what's real anymore.

    4. Re:Haha by jimtheowl · · Score: 1

      What? Slashdot moving to FreeBSD is not real? http://news.slashdot.org/story...

    5. Re:Haha by ThePhish · · Score: 1

      OMG Ponies! was great, time for some new material, not this crud.

    6. Re:Haha by ArchieBunker · · Score: 1

      The word joke implies that humor is involved. I can assure you none of that happens on April 1st.

      --
      Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
    7. Re:Haha by fbobraga · · Score: 1

      - Microsoft giving away free copies of Windows! Damnit...

      It's called Programa de DoaÃão de Software (something like "Software Donations Campaign") here in Brazil: it's pretty common in universities here :/

    8. Re:Haha by fbobraga · · Score: 1

      OMG, where?!

    9. Re: Haha by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 1

      If you can't give a shit about that then you have never given thought to why 90+% of all softdrink vending machines sell only Coke and/or Pepsi products. That's okay though, that's why you're in IT eating cold pizza at your desk 330am in the morning.

      That's okay though, that's why you're in IT eating cold pizza and drinking Coke/Pepsi at your desk 3:30.

      FTFY

    10. Re: Haha by fbobraga · · Score: 1

      not a real info :P * Brazilian government is well known for use FOSS (here, some links for you: http://serpro.gov.br/ / http://ccsl.ime.usp.br/ / http://softwarelivre.org/ / http://www.ufrgs.br/soft-livre... [sorry: all in pt_BR...])

  2. Haha by nbritton · · Score: 3, Funny

    April 1st isn't for another month.

  3. I thought I heard something by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    That explosion and mushroom cloud was Steve Ballmer's head exploding.

    1. Re:I thought I heard something by Buchenskjoll · · Score: 3, Funny

      I think you mean imploded. Explode means stuff moving away very fast. That requires stuff.

      --
      -- Make America hate again!
  4. Oh Boy! A new MS Licensing Category by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Just what Linux needed!

  5. And in other news, Satan buys a down jacket... by Assmasher · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...as temperatures reportedly fall all over hell.

    --
    Loading...
    1. Re:And in other news, Satan buys a down jacket... by jd2112 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      They have been doping for quite a while.
      Linux is actually pretty important for Microsoft's Azure cloud platform.
      Did you know that Microsoft even has a Linux certification? They do

      --
      Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
    2. Re:And in other news, Satan buys a down jacket... by iTrawl · · Score: 1

      Hypothermia is becoming a real issue down there since Ballmer left.

      --
      "Everybody's naked underneath" -- The Doctor
    3. Re:And in other news, Satan buys a down jacket... by CanadianMacFan · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yes, they need something reliable to run their platform on. :)

    4. Re:And in other news, Satan buys a down jacket... by phishybongwaters · · Score: 1

      Didn't we already discuss the fact that they are using a customized linux based SOFTWARE DEFINED NETWORK. They aren't running azure on linux.

    5. Re:And in other news, Satan buys a down jacket... by RabidReindeer · · Score: 1

      It's the low-flying pigs, I'm worrying about!

    6. Re: And in other news, Satan buys a down jacket... by adolf · · Score: 1

      So is Linux a kernel, a userland, or both?

  6. Embrace, extend.... by MAXOMENOS · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It looks like Microsoft is well on their way towards embracing Linux. Of course, what worries me is what comes AFTER embracing and extending. You old-time Slashdotters know what I'm talking about, right?

    1. Re:Embrace, extend.... by SpankiMonki · · Score: 1

      Immobilizing and straddling?

    2. Re:Embrace, extend.... by MrDoh! · · Score: 2

      Cuddling and Fondling?

      --
      Waiting for an amusing sig.
    3. Re:Embrace, extend.... by Nutria · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not "embrace, extend, extinguish", but a classic bait ("SQL Server on Linux!!!) and switch ("but if you want all the features, buy Windows Server.")

      --
      "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    4. Re:Embrace, extend.... by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 1

      "The question is whether red hat, oracle, or microsoft will embrace or extend their own separate ways "

      There is no Red Hat SQL Server product from Red Hat. They use Mariadb or MySQL, depending upon the distribution version. So we can readily state emphatically, and with glee, that Red Hat will not embrace and extend their SQL offering ;-)

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
    5. Re: Embrace, extend.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If you're managing SQL Server via GUI, you're doing it wrong.

    6. Re:Embrace, extend.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If I want all the features I use PostgreSQL. I use SQL Server because I don't. And I REALLY LIKE to curse when I attempt to do my job.

    7. Re:Embrace, extend.... by cheesybagel · · Score: 1

      Stacker / Doublespace. QDOS / CP/M / DR-DOS. Mosaic / Netscape Navigator / Internet Explorer. etc

      You can't even GIVE your software away. Microsoft will try to squelch all dissension in the places were it matters like their government accounts regardless of what means are necessary. Munich shows this quite clearly.

    8. Re: Embrace, extend.... by Chas · · Score: 3, Informative

      Actually, having dealt with MSSQL for most of the last 20 years, I'll say this much.

      While MSSQL can be a tetching beast at times, the SSMS interface is surprisingly useful.

      If I need to, I can chuck command line all day.

      But if I don't need to, and I'm going to be spending a lot of time doing multiple tasks in a single SQL server instance, there are worse ways to do it than SSMS.

      --


      Chas - The one, the only.
      THANK GOD!!!
    9. Re: Embrace, extend.... by Nutria · · Score: 1

      Run the scripts from within SSMS query windows.

      --
      "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    10. Re: Embrace, extend.... by bazorg · · Score: 1

      We call it "freemium model". Try to keep up. Bonus: Here's a text editor for £0.99 if you want it without advertising banners :)

    11. Re:Embrace, extend.... by dave420 · · Score: 2

      That's not at all what a bait and switch is.

    12. Re:Embrace, extend.... by Malc · · Score: 1

      I don't the OP meant SQL language features. Like Excel on OS X still can't import XML data, what limitations will the Linux version of SQL Server have?

    13. Re: Embrace, extend.... by PixetaledPikachu · · Score: 1

      They embraced the web, and extend it with ActiveX. Then they extinguished Netscape, since it wasn't compatible with everything that uses ActiveX

    14. Re:Embrace, extend.... by nhat11 · · Score: 1

      Don't worry, there's still enough hate for MS here that it will never go away

    15. Re:Embrace, extend.... by fbobraga · · Score: 1

      They use Mariadb or MySQL, depending upon the distribution version.

      I don't understand why not Postgres... * a DBA here

    16. Re: Embrace, extend.... by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      How is there powershell support in recent builds? Can you automate it with that?

    17. Re:Embrace, extend.... by robmv · · Score: 1

      There was one many years ago. They probably realized that people just used the packaged PostgreSQL and there was no reason for a separate product

    18. Re:Embrace, extend.... by phishybongwaters · · Score: 1

      Because for the typical linux fanboy (read desktop user) microsoft is bad, any implementation or incarnation of a MS product is by definition pure evil. It doesn't matter that MSSQL is a fucking solid product, and it doesn't matter that bringing this to linux will inevitably add MORE linux servers into the world. MS= bad. This will only GROW linux installation numbers.

    19. Re: Embrace, extend.... by phishybongwaters · · Score: 1

      Pretty sure Mosiac could have adapted. They didn't. See, you act like MS showed up one day, murdered a bunch of Mosiac employees and then started rootkitting pcs to install their browser. Granted, there were some shady, but legal, business practices at work..... MS put out a product people adopted, their competitors failed to adapt. But hey, it's not all bad, mozilla was born from those ashes and up to a few years ago, provided one of the best alternatives to IE out there. So lets take a look at this situation. They will provide a linux version of MSSQL. What does this mean? How exactly does supporting that other OS extinguish said OS? It doesn't. It frees me up from having to have a windows box host my MSSQL, and instead, I can spin up a linux VM and host it there, saving myself a license and god knows what else. This is one of the best things MS can do to support Linux. If any of the other SQL implementations weren't half-assed shitfests, you'd have nothing to worry about. But that's the clincher, clearly you understand that most of the sql options for linux are crap and will take way more effort and care than MSSQL will. You should be looking at this as a win, you'll get more servers installed with linux, and the sql projects will have to step it up a notch. But that's not what this is about, this is about linux being "better" and microsoft being "crap" but now that we're on the verge of a fair comparison you cry foul.

    20. Re:Embrace, extend.... by Nutria · · Score: 2

      That's not at all what a bait and switch is.

      I dunno. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bait%20and%20switch a sales tactic in which a customer is attracted by the advertisement of a low-priced item but is then encouraged to buy a higher-priced one seems pretty much what I wrote, since the core-only Linux-version will be cheaper than the full-featured Windows version.

      --
      "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    21. Re: Embrace, extend.... by afidel · · Score: 1
      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
    22. Re: Embrace, extend.... by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Or like how the W10 version of Minesweeper offers a paid version without ads.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  7. Windows No Longer King at MS by bsharitt · · Score: 5, Interesting

    On mobile Microsoft has pretty much given up and support Android and iOS as well or better than Windows Mobile now now on the Server side we've already seen .Net moving fast to Linux and now the third biggest lock in application on Windows Server(AD and Exchange being bigger) is coming to Linux. With AD and Exchange being pushed more towards hosted services in the cloud, Windows' future doesn't look too bright there.

    1. Re:Windows No Longer King at MS by MonkeyBob · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Microsoft's acquisition of Xamarin is more about enhancing the market share of the toolsets than "giving up" on Windows.

      Compiling for Windows is ridiculously easy with Xamarin, and with the acquisition I can see them enhancing the toolset for Android and iOS to make this easier than it is now.

      I believe that this is more about making SQL Server skills (programming, not administration) more compatible across platforms, which enables people to learn one technology and move platforms easier.

      --
      // TODO: Add comments
    2. Re:Windows No Longer King at MS by KGIII · · Score: 1

      Wait, how do you have a starting score of -1?

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    3. Re:Windows No Longer King at MS by KGIII · · Score: 1

      I've given the math and process some logical thinking. That means it's likely wrong. Based on my observations (and guesses as to the mechanisms) you're kind of screwed until you get it back up there.

      However, your comment makes me curious... I thought the most one could accumulate would be a -1 total ranking. It should be (if my observations are correct - and it appears they might not be) that a single comment gets to go below a total of -1 and any votes beyond that don't actually help/hinder.

      Unfortunately, I have no way to test this reliably and karma is no longer displayed as a number. I'm sure the numbers are still retained.

      The reason you appear to be kind of screwed is that all comments (unless moderated down) influence your rating. That's not that clear.

      I post at 1 by default, as a logged in user. All posts add +1 to karma totals, just for posting it.
      I turned on my karma bonus to test something. I get +1 (base of 2) to posts. Unless moderated down, each post results in +2 to karma total database field.
      I my post is moderated 0, I do not lose any karma, I do not gain any.
      If my post is -1, I lose a point of karma. It first wipes the bonus point.
      Votes that bring me below -1 (total) or +5 (total) do not count - or so I was given to understand.

      I'm not sure how a single comment can do that? It seems odd, to say the least. It seems like a shitty way to start people off. If one post can do what happened to you, maybe there is some merit into changing the system - perhaps a little. If trolling posts were a pattern then I'd not sympathize. One way to resolve this might be to just explain how it works.

      So, if my karma got hit then I could just post at 1 (which reads as 2 to you) 50 times a day and gain 100 karma points (until moderated). That means anyone trying to moderate my posts down to a daily negative would need 100 mod points to do so - I'm a prolific.

      That said, I do wish they'd bring back numeric karma. I'd really enjoy it as I like to watch systems and see how they work. Alternatively, they could give a detailed explanation and save us some time.

      Oh, ha! You must be SEVERELY limited on the number of posts you can make. You can reply (if you want) via AC or email and save your post for something meaningful.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    4. Re:Windows No Longer King at MS by StormReaver · · Score: 1

      ...which enables people to learn one technology and move platforms easier.

      People would be better served by learning PostgreSQL. It's very liberating.

    5. Re:Windows No Longer King at MS by fbobraga · · Score: 1

      a single comment can do that? It seems odd, to say the least. It seems like a shitty way to start people off.

      I second this

    6. Re:Windows No Longer King at MS by fbobraga · · Score: 1

      Its one of the bad things of Slashdot's Meta-Moderation model (besides a large number of good ones) - I suggest you to create a new account :/

      * now I understand the many AC posts here!

    7. Re: Windows No Longer King at MS by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      Great so I can run my SQL Server based and .Net written Trackit software on Ubuntu with a postgesql just fine?

    8. Re:Windows No Longer King at MS by Carewolf · · Score: 1

      You post a controversial joke. Funny +1 gives no karma, but every -1 correction to it (Flamebait, Troll, Offtopic, Overrated) gives -1 karma. You can end up with a +5 rated comment and -100 points of karma.

  8. Re:crap by Guy+Harris · · Score: 1

    they are not bringing sql to linux

    No, they're bringing their SQL Server to Linux.

  9. An idea by amightywind · · Score: 5, Funny

    Perfect. Maybe systemd can use it for logging, like a modern operating system.

    --
    an ill wind that blows no good
    1. Re:An idea by fbobraga · · Score: 1

      M$ SQL Server log (at least 2k5, used here on my work) is a joke: it only saves, idiotically, first hundreds of chars from the output (debugging a failed execution of a long JOB is a PITA...) :/

    2. Re:An idea by operagost · · Score: 1

      FYI, SQL Server 2005 is EOL April 12th this year.

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
  10. How long.... by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 2

    How long before we see a version of "Microsoft Linux"?

    You laugh now, but I can see them glomming onto Linux, especially as more businesses and desktop move over to Linux.

    And yes, of course it will have subtle incompatibilities that grow more and more pronounced over time. That's what it's all about with Microsoft.

    "MS Linux- Because We Care" or maybe, MS Linux- The Most Stable OS We've Ever Produced!*

    -

    * and by "produced", we mean "stolen"

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    1. Re:How long.... by darkain · · Score: 5, Informative

      "How long before we see a version of "Microsoft Linux"?"

      About six months ago

      https://azure.microsoft.com/en...

    2. Re:How long.... by SpankiMonki · · Score: 1

      How long before we see a version of "Microsoft Linux"?

      I'd be way cool with that, as long as they get rid of the command line and include Cortana.

    3. Re:How long.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      How long before we see a version of "Microsoft Linux"?

      Old news.

    4. Re:How long.... by nine-times · · Score: 3

      To me, the real question is "How long until Microsoft open sources Windows?" I suspect that they're realizing that Windows can't be their cash cow, but maybe it can be leveraged to sell things like Office 365, Azure, etc.

    5. Re:How long.... by Alwin+Henseler · · Score: 1

      I suspect parent was thinking about a "Microsoft Linux" as a client OS. What regular folks run on their desktops & laptops.

      But come to think of it: would that be impossible? Might be that Windows' days as a 'MS tax' / cash cow are numbered, and MS is looking for other ways to monetize those Windows-using eyeballs. Wouldn't surprise me if all the telemetry^H^H^H / advertising crap seen lately with Win10, are just some experiments in that direction. Perhaps MS doesn't care that much whether users are running Windows or some-other-OS underneath, but more that it generates profit for MS - no matter how.

      Of course that's all just speculation on my part...

    6. Re:How long.... by Gavagai80 · · Score: 1

      If they were to open source Windows, Windows would no longer be their exclusive leverage to push their other products. It will therefore never happen, unless maybe Windows falls below 10% desktop/laptop market share. Windows Phone, maybe, but unlikely.

      --
      This space intentionally left blank
    7. Re:How long.... by Sperbels · · Score: 1

      How long before we see a version of "Microsoft Linux"?

      Don't you mean Windows Server 2018?

    8. Re:How long.... by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 2

      Because of licensing I can see them going with a *BSD first.

    9. Re:How long.... by The-Forge · · Score: 1

      It won't be Microsoft's first trip through Unix land if they do. Anyone remember Microsoft Xenix?

    10. Re:How long.... by Harlequin80 · · Score: 2

      There is a Microsoft product I would be willing to buy though.

      Imagine Microsoft releases the Windows Interface Layer. Allowing you to run all your windows applications on any platform.

    11. Re:How long.... by xtronics · · Score: 1

      Actually, it could be a very good business move - have a M$ desktop to compete with KDE, gnome etc..a M$ wine - Reduce the cost of supporting their cash cow - allow running native Linux programs.

      At some point they have to ask what their business model of the future is - what they have isn't going to last. M$ office is a money maker - many other ventures continue to simply bleed. Win10 is most making their customers distrustful. Without the sweetheart ( Cartel socialism) government deals they have, they would be starting to bleed.

    12. Re:How long.... by turbidostato · · Score: 1

      "At some point they have to ask what their business model of the future is"

      Renting and certifications, of course.

    13. Re:How long.... by fbobraga · · Score: 1

      It's only a naming issue :P

    14. Re:How long.... by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

      I suspect parent was thinking about a "Microsoft Linux" as a client OS. What regular folks run on their desktops & laptops.

      Exactly.

      I can see an MS-branded version of Linux. For MS it would just be another revenue stream. Microsoft lets everyone else (the open source community) do the heavy lifting of developing it for 20 years and then they swoop in, slap a Microsoft sticker on it and sell it to the masses.

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    15. Re:How long.... by iampiti · · Score: 1

      If they opensourced Windows people would be able to remove the Windows Store, the telemetry, the horrible flat touch-oriented UI and they sure as hell don't want that

    16. Re:How long.... by sr180 · · Score: 1

      Along with Internet Explorer for Unix.

      --
      In Soviet Russia the insensitive clod is YOU!
    17. Re:How long.... by nine-times · · Score: 1

      They could potentially do something more like what Apple has done and open source parts, while keeping other parts proprietary.

  11. Postgresql by tomhath · · Score: 1

    I don't see how SqlServer can compete against Postgresql. The only thing SqlServer had going for it was integration with .Net framework.

    1. Re:Postgresql by Faw · · Score: 4, Informative

      I don't see how SqlServer can compete against Postgresql. The only thing SqlServer had going for it was integration with .Net framework.

      .. and real stored procedures.

    2. Re:Postgresql by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I don't see how SqlServer can compete against Postgresql.

      Because Postgresql isn't even a functional option for any software compiled to use Sql Server.

      When a company buys a 4.5 million dollar ERP system that is compiled against the binary SQL Server client library, you pay the nothingness that is a SQL Server and Windows server license.

      You don't go out and install software like Postgresql that won't function in any way shape or form.

    3. Re:Postgresql by Skinkie · · Score: 1

      Most database products (even open source ones) compete very well against PostgreSQL because the support of parallel query execution has been supported for years. PostgreSQL has only recently added some features in the direction. And we are not talking about N clients to 1 server, but 1 server with 1 query where only 1 CPU is used in the PostgreSQL case, and others automatically spread the workload.

      Some other tricks from SQLserver are obviously the integration services (Extract-Transform-Load) and Analysis Services. Again you could use open source third party product such as Talend et al. Now I am aware these kind of smart clients should be seen as tooling on top of a database itself. But as long as those tools work very closely with one database... it basically prevents you from using anything else unless you want to integrate your own solution.

      PostgreSQL has such amount of features, that as data integration toolkit it is great. But for performance I would not use a vanilla instance... since even tuning and automatically indexing is not something that the database does for you. And BTW... for performance look in this list. http://www.tpc.org/tpch/result...

      --
      Support Eachother, Copy Dutch Property!
    4. Re:Postgresql by jedidiah · · Score: 1

      Well, the 4.5 ERP system is probably already native on Oracle and has run on Linux for years already.

      It's the "cheap crap" software vendors that are likely locking you into Microsoft. Even some of those pretend they can run on Oracle.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    5. Re:Postgresql by unimacs · · Score: 2

      I don't see how SqlServer can compete against Postgresql. The only thing SqlServer had going for it was integration with .Net framework.

      .. and real stored procedures.

      What features do stored procedures provide that can't be handled with postgresql functions?

      Outside of starting and ending transactions within the function I can't think of anything. Parameters can be input or output and you can modify tables. These are normally things that people with an SQL Server background believe can't be done within functions but in postgres they can.

      Postgres isn't a perfect database but it's extremely powerful with new features being added all the time. It has a lot to offer for free.

    6. Re:Postgresql by Kjella · · Score: 1

      I don't see how SqlServer can compete against Postgresql. The only thing SqlServer had going for it was integration with .Net framework.

      Focusing on the database server itself is like picking one part out of MS Office and thinking that's it. Integration services, reporting services and analysis services all work together to make SQL Server your one-stop shop for everything. If I was looking for just a database, none of the other bits I'd go with PostgreSQL. I see there's some other various tools but they seem a lot less mature than Microsoft's stuff, I guess it should be possible to use PostgreSQL as a backend via ODBC or OLE DB but it seems like asking for trouble.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    7. Re:Postgresql by Tablizer · · Score: 2

      DBA's gotta manage it, and many prefer using a GUI.

      Granted, it's often considered better to manage it via scripts (command line text) so that it can be re-created, but in practice, some want "quick and easy". This is MS shops we are talking about.

    8. Re:Postgresql by tnk1 · · Score: 1

      SQL Server fits in a very neat niche between your MySQLs and your Oracle type servers. It was once explained to me that while SQL Server can't do what Oracle does, it has features that allow it to hit the mid-range for enterprises very well, better than many of the favorite lower end DBs like MySQL, PostgresSQL and now MariaDB. And of course, its integration with Windows Server boxes didn't hurt with adoption either.

      And yes, I know that the PostgresDBs of the world can be quite powerful and do heavy lifting when they are set up correctly. I'm not a fan of SQL server by any stretch of the imagination, and I've only rarely found a reason why I'd want to use it, but mid to large sized businesses do seem to like it a lot.

      So, there will be a demand for SQL Server in the Cloud, and if Cloud services is really what MS is trying to move towards, it will pay for them to get it on Linux. If they do a good job with the port, they could still own that niche without having to deal with the problems you get with Windows in the Cloud.

    9. Re:Postgresql by sexconker · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And performance, and scalability, and encryption, and replication, and backup / restoration, and reporting / analysis, and tuning / optimization, and...

      MS wears some big ol' clown shoes (see my recent submission about the botched Win 10 update), but SQL Server, with all its various components, is an industry-leading product for good reason. The only other solution I've seen serious people use is Oracle, and they only admit to it sheepishly, like a shamed victim.

    10. Re:Postgresql by tnk1 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You're under the impression that businesses only care about a free pricetag.

      Businesses care about the lowest price that gets you the best support. I spent months trying to find a DBA who knew anything about Postgres, but if you have an opening for SQL server, you need a frontloader to get through the crowd of them.

      Yeah, few, if any of them are what you'd call geniuses, but I really only need one or two geniuses at a time to tell the data monkeys what to do. And if I have to pay genius rates for a data monkey, then perhaps I'm willing to pay for a database something that has higher adoption and high integration.

      SQL Server is no slouch for features and while it is not free, you have a better pool for support and integration.

      Note, aside from being unable to find a Postgres data monkey, that isn't my story. I don't use SQL Server, but I have the luxury of knowing how to operate a SQL database myself, so I just sucked it up. For businesses where that isn't really an option, I can see why they might want SQL Server. And indeed, many, many businesses do use it.

    11. Re:Postgresql by KGIII · · Score: 1

      I'll preface this by saying that I am not a DB guy. I hate the task and it was one of the first things I hired someone else to do. I don't know how DB admins do their work, I call them wizards.

      So, I know some wizards who are otherwise fairly die-hard Linux users (not so much zealots) and even a few wizards that are true OS X aficionados. Of this group, there is a subset that actually prefers Microsoft SQL Server. Me? I find Lotus Notes to be a pain in the ass, fragile, and difficult to configure. (That also tells you a bit about both my age and how long ago it was when I realized how much I hated DB work.) However, this subset of people can even explain why they prefer it.

      I believe their explanation goes into details with some features, some speed, scalability, and reliability. I lack the expertise of even care to opine. I'm merely pointing out that some people, for reasons they seem to understand, prefer it over the other choices. I will say that my experience with Oracle was the straw that broke the camel's proverbial back. I'm fine with comma separated values and flat text files, thanks. Anything more complicated than that and I'm gonna need an installer and a nice little GUI like phpMyAdmin. That still might not be enough but I'm smart enough to keep lots and lots of backups. I got the import and export functionality down, good thing.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    12. Re:Postgresql by tnk1 · · Score: 2

      Yes, to some degree, but usually your options are Oracle, or if you are slumming it, they'll let you run on SQL Server.

      Oracle is horrendously expensive, so SQL Server often wins because developers want a big name DB that they support in case the customer doesn't want to pay 2 million dollars for a rather small cluster of Oracle hosts, or the customer already has a big Windows Server presence for some reason.

      Usually your Postgres or MySQL is an option, but only under the Other SQL... category. They won't code their stuff to make use of the advantages of those platforms, so you're basically getting a free SQL engine that is completely un-optimized and barely supported.

    13. Re:Postgresql by Shompol · · Score: 1, Troll

      BS. Performance is shit. Also a permanent deadlock of everything, even seemingly unrelated stuff. Both cached and dynamic queries regularly going off the deep end. Despite MS going around and taking down bad reviews, what few online reviews survive attest that MSSQL is comlete and utter garbage. As someone who is forced to use it on a daily basis I can attest that they have a point.

    14. Re:Postgresql by unimacs · · Score: 2

      No, I'm not under than impression that businesses only care about a free price tag but not having deal with licensing issues is really, really nice. Besides few organizations really need a postgres DBA (or an SQL Server DBA).

      If you're concerned about installation and support, you can get it through Enterprise DB and other sources. The postgres community is also an excellent source of support. I've been using postgres for close to 15 years and I've never ran into a problem that made me wish I had some sort of phone support, but that's available for people that want it. There are also several cloud based postgres solutions where there is little to no configuration for you to worry about.

      Integration is another story. If you're already heavily invested in MS development tools, then yeah SQL server is an easy fit. If you're not, then it doesn't seem to offer much on its own to warrant going that route.

    15. Re:Postgresql by KGIII · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You know, there's a bit of history that I've never shared on Slashdot and it concerns Oracle. As tempting as it is to type that out, I'm really not in the mood for a novella this evening - and you probably aren't in the mood for one either.

      The short of it is that I had a salesman in, back in the late 1990s, who wanted to help my company out. By this time, I was already weary (and leery) of such but they had a good idea and a product name that I recognized as being industry-leading. (You can see where this is going, right?) I don't want to mention any names but there's One Raging Asshole Called Larry Ellison - and I guess he kind of owns the joint.

      Now, I don't know what kind of ship (see what I did there?) he runs over there but they have some smooth-talking guys who are actually very well researched. Or, at the time they did. Consider, at the time, this was cutting edge stuff that we were doing and not exactly popular. But these guys knew things about relational databases, joins, parts, searching, indexing, and all these things - and they were happy to give me an education so that I knew all about those things to. And I listened.

      It should be noted that I didn't just listen, I asked questions. I didn't just ask them questions - I asked my peers questions. I didn't just ask my peers questions, I asked the people who worked with me questions. I do that, I ask a lot of questions because, contrary to popular opinion, I do not know everything.

      So, the short story is that we invited them in. Now, I have shared that part of the story before. It took some time for our DB wizard to return to normal and get over his angry phase but the ship (see what I did there) was righted anew.

      Anyhow, they fought, fiddled, exported, and joined, and attached, and merged. They networked and peeked and poked. They were not working with live data, of course. They attempted to get it to communicate with the network and function and do database type things. They spent the better part of six months, as I recall, visiting and testing and poking. They brought in hardware, and boxes, and people. They stomped through and gave promises. Contracts were even signed. More on that in a moment.

      And it never worked. Ever. It never came close to working.

      Now I don't know if our Wizard sabotaged this. I kind of doubt he did. He wasn't that... Well, no... He was that kind of guy but I don't think he did. I'd have no way of knowing if he did but I suspect he'd have let it slip if he had. It might have been maniacal laughter when they left but that's not what he did. The important part of this is that it never, ever worked.

      So, we gave 'em the boot. We had important things to do and they were in the way and slowing us down. We're also working with data that doesn't really belong to us and having to vet an extra ten people stomping in and out of the server room is not acceptable. They leave...

      A little while later, in comes a lawsuit. They want an almost 7 figure some of money. Now, I don't know what they were expecting but - if you go back to the earlier part of this message, you'll notice that I ask a lot of questions. The contract that I'd signed, I'd signed it personally, was quite specific in that the job needed to be completed to my satisfaction and that the installation was at their cost. It would appear that they were billing someone (whom I do not know) thousands of dollars a day for that work.

      And someone, whom I still do not know, was buying hardware - all that hardware they'd brought in was someone else's expense. I do believe the contract stated we were to pay for hardware, by the way. We didn't keep any of that hardware, use any of that hardware, ask for any of that hardware, sign for any of that hardware, or even really have any room for it - this was pre-expansion.

      So, they wanted us to pay for people we did not hire, who did work we could not use. They wanted us to pay for software - and maintenance for some years, that was not installed. They wanted us to pay for hardware we did

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    16. Re:Postgresql by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      TL;DR: The "O" in Oracle represents your asshole. It's a reminder for their salesmen of what they're aiming for.

    17. Re:Postgresql by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      The only thing SqlServer had going for it was integration with .Net framework.

      That's how.
      (Note: other databases have integrations with .Net framework too, but performance might suffer).

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    18. Re:Postgresql by KGIII · · Score: 1

      Heh, yeah. I know that *now.* I did not know that *then.* I do wonder how much of it is cultural or outright practice.

      As for the TL;DR, there's no real shorter version that has any weight. That is the short version. :/

      I could have said, "Fuck you Oracle. Oracle sucks." That might not have the same value. It might... Hopefully, someone sees it and goes into their next vendor meeting armed with the brilliant idea of reading your contracts, asking questions, and not backing down to legal threats. I guess, I probably should have been more clear about the NDA. That was still in effect even though we'd terminated our relationship. I want to say that the NDA wasn't with Oracle themselves but by either a VAR or something similar. Damn, that was years ago.

      At any rate, they wanted to disallow us from disclosing that they'd sued us and we won. The judge tossed their request for a gag order or whatever its specific legal name is.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    19. Re:Postgresql by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If performance is shit and you're getting permanent deadlocks, you need to fire whoever is writing your SQL queries and indexes. Or hire a real DBA who knows basic tuning.

    20. Re:Postgresql by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      SQL Server has a vastly simpler SQL dialect than pretty much any DBMS other than MySQL, but without the compromises made in MySQL that strip it of its usefulness.

      Admittedly, the last time I used Postgres was around the 8.1 release, so it's been a few years. But the SQL dialect it uses is strictly ANSI, and it leaves a lot to be desired. Enforcing double-quoted identifiers just looks wrong and feels wrong. This sort of problem is compounded by the excessive exposure of the OODB underpinnings that Postgres users don't like to tout anymore. It makes the design and scripting have a "messy" feel. For example, I don't care what an OID is, and I really don't give two shits if the DBMS includes them. If it gets me some extra features, include them and don't bother me. If it costs more than a few bytes per row (e.g. it's a BLOB, not a defined data type), then don't include it and still don't bother me. If I want to change from the default on a case-by-case basis, give me a way to do that, but don't annoy me with clutter. SQL Server gets this right, and Postgres gets it wrong. Every. Single. Time.

      I've read plenty of comparisons between the two. And I like Postgres well enough to recommend it for clients that need a database for a Linux environment. But I run a developer edition of SQL Server for my home projects because it's just about eleventy hojillion times easier and faster to develop for.

      Incidentally, this exact same issue is why I use .Net over Java. Java is fiddly and hard to work with, and .Net is not.

      I don't get paid for ideology.

    21. Re:Postgresql by turbidostato · · Score: 1

      "I think you're better off avoiding stored procedures unless one can prove a significant performance benefit"

      Because? Data integrity belongs to the data manager.

      "I prefer all my code in ONE place"

      If you think "your" code should be the only one accessing *my* data, think it twice: it's not yours to lock it out. And once *my* data gets to be accessed from more than one place, I want data integrity/access rules to be centralized for them all where they belong: the data manager.

      I might be wrong, but you look like a programer -one suffering the man-with-a-hammer syndrome.

    22. Re:Postgresql by turbidostato · · Score: 1

      "I know some wizards who are otherwise fairly die-hard Linux users (not so much zealots) and even a few wizards that are true OS X aficionados. Of this group, there is a subset that actually prefers Microsoft SQL Server."

      For it to produce sensible value, you'd need to find someone that could truly say "I'm an expert Microsoft SQL Server DBA, as well as an expert PostgreSQL DBA and I prefer Microsoft to Postgres".

      I can say I didn't find such a beast yet.

    23. Re:Postgresql by lzcd · · Score: 1

      I suspect Postgresql really isn't Microsoft's main target at the moment.
      If I had to guess, I think Oracle's customer base might be of more interest.

    24. Re:Postgresql by Shompol · · Score: 2

      We have multiple servers with ~1-2 TB data each and more RAM/CPU/SSDs that I imagined possible. Unfortunately sometimes data is concentrated in too few tables and MSSQL has a tendency to lock up the entire table when it feels like you are on to something. I am forced to split all transactions in very many very little pieces and feel like an idiot for why doesn't the database handle the damn transactions for me, something it was supposedly designed to do. Our design/set-up may not be ideal, but few online reviews that I found show that this is known flaw of MSSQL, not just our setup that has issues with it.

    25. Re:Postgresql by unimacs · · Score: 1

      ...and existing code base. we have thousands of lines of T-SQL code. I have never heard of a business using PostgreSQL. Might be some but I don't know who they are and we deal with tons of customers and vendors with SQL Server and Oracle. Oracle shops use Linux so might be a way to eat into Oracle's market. Still trying to figure out why to put on Linux though. Works fine on Windows and OS license cost is not a big deal compared to SQL CALs.

      I just don't see a use case unless Microsoft wants to get out of the server business. Sounds crazy but they might be looking to migrate server and developer products away from windows. They made windows 2012 look like a consumer OS which was strange.

      Think about who your customers and vendors are and what percentage of all businesses that really amounts to. I'm guessing not all that much. You don't know of businesses that use postgres because you're working in a different world from where postgres thrives.

      Ever browse IMDB?
      Use Skype (prior to microsoft's takeover)?
      What about instagram?
      Used a Mac?

      Then you've used postgres.

      Skype was in fact a major contributor to postgres development. That's what's nice about an open source product. If you've got talented people working for you, you can decided what features are important and not rely on the vendor to provide them for you.

    26. Re:Postgresql by Shompol · · Score: 1

      20k transactions per second is impressive, but that gives me a clue that your db setup/need is pretty simplistic. The kind of transactions I deal with average a few minutes and take up 25% (a top-notch) CPU each. As you can see 20K/second is nowhere close to our usage patterns. Small transactions are never a problem in the first place. I admit that we have too much stuff going on at the same time, maybe some concurrent updates on terabyte tables, but reportedly other DB engines do not suffer from as much locking up as MSSQL does. I plan to do my own benchmarking someday, but as of now I rely on reports by people who did them. Also, deadlock is not as big of a problem as "slowdown of all queries to a complete stop without officially detecting a deadlock"

    27. Re:Postgresql by Bengie · · Score: 1

      Row based locking, very expensive, but fine for a few rows.
      Page based locking, best when used for contiguous pages for a small portion of the table
      Table lock, fastest lock, but Amdahl's law hates this for many write locks.

      Data structures are important for performance tuning and in SQL, relations and tables are the structures. You can't design databases with just set theory. You need to understand how the engines work if you want them to perform well. SQL server does a very good job with great performance while remaining ACID. Most databases that are "Faster" are because they gave up some portion of ACID. May as well just use a NO-SQL database. /exagerated

    28. Re:Postgresql by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      TL;DR version:

      Q: What does Stored Procedures provide that you don't get with PostgreSQL functions?
      A: A pricetag.

      I'm not really sure if you are arguing for or against MS SQL Server.

    29. Re:Postgresql by rl117 · · Score: 2

      It strikes me as unusual as well. Almost every developer I've met has used PostgreSQL or MySQL at some point, and many of them knew it well. SQL server, maybe the odd one or two who worked on MS stuff. May be biased by working mainly with open source developers of course, but my experience is that there are plenty of people with PostgreSQL expertise around.

    30. Re:Postgresql by Ash-Fox · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately, the lack of availability of SQL Server on Linux, is restricting our options when times come to pick the infrastructure.

      Honestly, your choice of 'expansive applications' is what's limiting your infrastructure practices typically.

      I am welcoming this initiative from MS that will enable us to move from some pieces of software on Linux rather than being stuck on Windows.

      It'll probably be a 2nd class citizen like the other products Microsoft offers on other platforms. Enough to get a foot in the door in Linux shops, create dependency, then suggest you migrate over to Windows to solve your problems. It's just a waste of time for existing Windows environments.

      --
      Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
    31. Re:Postgresql by Faw · · Score: 1

      What features do stored procedures provide that can't be handled with postgresql functions?

      For me database independence is important. Stored procedures let me do that. I can move from MS SQL to MYSQL or even something like HSQLDB if I wanted. All I need to do is write a procedure for said database and point my application to that database. No change in application code.

      Hardcoding the SQL in your application marries you to the database you choose. I see stored procedures as a prenup agreement for databases. We get married but if you become a pain in the ass I can easily move on without losing half my stuff.

    32. Re:Postgresql by sribe · · Score: 1

      .. and real stored procedures.

      Oh, bullshit. Plain & simple: bullshit.

    33. Re:Postgresql by sribe · · Score: 1

      And performance, and scalability, and encryption, and replication, and backup / restoration, and reporting / analysis, and tuning / optimization, and...

      If you want to compare it to MySQL, fine. If you're comparing it to PostgreSQL, then you're just babbling nonsense.

      ...is an industry-leading product for good reason.

      Only if the "industry" you're referring to is "DBMS that only runs on Windows" ;-)

    34. Re: Postgresql by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      Only argument for SQL Server and Oracle is crappy VB written client server apps and middle Ware being tied to it. Our trackit ticketing system at work only works with SQL Server as one example

    35. Re:Postgresql by unimacs · · Score: 1

      I'm not saying that stored procedures don't have value, The complaint was that postgres doesn't have "real" stored procedures and I was asking what it was you can do with an MS SQL stored procedure that you can't do with a postgresql function.

      I've worked with several types of relational databases including Oracle. I have not done a lot with SQL server but I've written plenty of stored procedures in other database servers. In postgres the same functionality is available through functions. In fact, most people in the postgres world refer to them as stored procedures even though they are actually functions (they optionally return a value) rather than procedures (which never return a value). SQL Server also has functions and I think that's where people get confused. In SQL Server, functions have limits placed on them (can't do inserts or updates for example) that postgres does not place on its functions.

      You can make the pedantic argument that functions shouldn't have side affects but it seams like a trivial reason to prefer one database server over another. In postgres you might write a pure function that runs some query, does a few calculations and returns a value. Or you might create a set of functions that handles all CRUD operations that for all intents and purposes are procedures.

    36. Re:Postgresql by Bengie · · Score: 1

      MS SQL is pretty much feature parity with Oracle, just with different names. The main difference is Oracle charges more so they must be better. MySQL is a pile of crap that horribly violates the principle of least astonishment when it comes to ACID, and when you want ACID, it's slow as fk. Postgresql supports the most micro-optimizations, is wonderfully awesome, but has virtually no mind-share making it hard to find admins.

    37. Re:Postgresql by unimacs · · Score: 1

      I'll put it in a different way. Postgres doesn't have stored procedures in the same way that the C language doesn't have procedures. However in both cases you can have functions that return "void" and use them in the same way that you would use a procedure in another language.

      There are a few features that are lacking in postgres functions that you can find in other database servers' procedures and functions. Likewise, there are features that you'll find in postgres functions that are missing from functions and procedures in other database servers.

    38. Re:Postgresql by Schnapple · · Score: 1

      I already know you are talking about Oracle, and I still can't see what you did there.

      My guess would be that he's referring to Larry Ellison's famous $200M yacht (which he no longer owns apparently)

    39. Re:Postgresql by luis_a_espinal · · Score: 1

      Sorry what? You couldn't find a DBA who knew anything about postgres? The 2nd most used relational database in the world?

      Did you try asking 'DBAs' who didn't have microsoft or oracle credentials?

      It is not as uncommon as you think. There are a lot of code monkeys who can program against Postgres or MySQL that can do a basic install. Good luck finding someone that can actually tune and maintain the thing. It is one of those paradoxes that curse the IT world.

    40. Re:Postgresql by luis_a_espinal · · Score: 1

      What features do stored procedures provide that can't be handled with postgresql functions?

      For me database independence is important. Stored procedures let me do that. I can move from MS SQL to MYSQL or even something like HSQLDB if I wanted. All I need to do is write a procedure for said database and point my application to that database. No change in application code.

      Hardcoding the SQL in your application marries you to the database you choose. I see stored procedures as a prenup agreement for databases. We get married but if you become a pain in the ass I can easily move on without losing half my stuff.

      You do not need store procedures to decouple SQL statements off your application source code.

    41. Re:Postgresql by afidel · · Score: 1

      Larry's pretty well known for having the largest yacht in the world at one time, and to a lesser extent for his sponsorship of a boat racing team.

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
    42. Re:Postgresql by Mysticalfruit · · Score: 1

      They're actually addressing a number of problems.

      1. Linux owns the cloud, period. Windows likely has more market share in the phone market then the cloud market.
      2. As companies deploy their own clouds using the commodity cloud stacks such as (OpenStack, etc) they've got to get in the game or they're going to get locked out of the market.
      3. Windows has a scaling problem and a filesystem problem. Nobody wants to contemplate a 100TB NTFS volume.

      --
      Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
    43. Re:Postgresql by Skinkie · · Score: 1

      So people like to put expensive DBs on expensive servers?

      Anyway, I have no idea what that web site is trying to say. I can't find a single mention of Postgres anywhere. It's all MSSQL, Sybase, Oracle, DB2, and some databases I've never heard of. Does the benchmarking software only run on those databases or something?

      Check out the why: https://wiki.postgresql.org/wi... The entire industry including some open source databases target this benchmark. Obviously you don't have to play ball, but others are doing.

      Splitting a query into parallel chunks only helps when your database server is idle, you know.

      Many applications do not have many clients at the same time, but require peak performance. An example is GIS applications, the more obvious is crunching data for visualisation.

      It sounds to me that your needs are different than what the rest of us expect from a database. Data warehousing perhaps?

      We are talking about software that can handle hundreds of gigabytes of data. But the parent suggest PostgreSQL as example for the diversity SQL Server has to offer. If some article on PostgreSQL is written and someone replies SQLite does all that... what will your reply be?

      --
      Support Eachother, Copy Dutch Property!
  12. Then the day came... by BreandánHeiliger · · Score: 1

    ...when hell thawed a little

  13. Why not? by fsagx · · Score: 1

    They are more than happy to let you spin up a linux instance on Azure. Having their stack work across them all seems like a reasonable thing to do.

    1. Re:Why not? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      For the price they charge for MS SQL and it's licensing structure, they would be stupid not do do this. They've been rather stupid in not doing this already. Linux is a huge untapped market for them and if they can get their databa$e server product extended into that, it's going to be huge money for MS.

  14. I, for one by tommeke100 · · Score: 1

    Imagine a beowulf cluster of these!

  15. Interesting by DaMattster · · Score: 1

    It will probably perform a helluva lot better on Linux. Even more interesting is Microsoft's shifting stance on open source.

  16. Re:FTFY by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    even though Linux doesn't need it and nobody asked for it

    One thing MS learned from Windows is that for customers, compatibility often matters more than quality. Customers end up getting themselves married to a tool stack.

  17. Re:crap by minijedimaster · · Score: 1

    they are not bringing sql to linux

    No, they're bringing their SQL Server to Linux.

    they are not bringing sql to linux

    No, they're bringing their SQL Server to Linux.

    Thanks capt obvious

  18. Re:crap by Ralph+Wiggam · · Score: 1

    "SQL Server" is a product name.

  19. Re: A son returns home by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 1

    The current SQL Server code-base contain little if any of the code from the first version.

    --
    If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
  20. Re:crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    When they're saying "Microsoft brings SQL Server to Linux" do they really have to write "Microsoft brings Microsoft SQL Server to Linux" just so people like you don't get completely confused by the statement?

  21. The Linux community is extinguishing Linux. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If Microsoft wanted to extinguish Linux, they wouldn't even have to do a damn thing these days.

    The Linux community is doing a superb job of extinguishing Linux all on its own.

    Regardless of what you think about it, systemd has caused massive disruption within the Linux ecosystem.

    The Debian project, which for a long time was the premiere Linux distribution, has been torn apart by its decision to use systemd.

    Lots of other Linux users have had systemd cause them serious problems, including computers that would no longer boot properly.

    Many of these Linux users have chosen to move to FreeBSD, OpenBSD, OS X, and even Windows in some cases.

    And that's all on top of the problems that GNOME 3, NetworkManager, and PulseAudio have caused.

    Then there's the failure of the Wayland project to create a modern replacement for X.

    Each one of these failures has hurt Linux's viability, and there's no end in sight!

    Existing users are being driven away, and there are no new users replacing them.

    1. Re:The Linux community is extinguishing Linux. by cheesybagel · · Score: 4, Insightful

      All examples of the second system effect. Bloated elephantine solutions to simple problems.

      PulseAudio is much worse than OSS. All we needed was mixing. Instead, because they hated the OSS dev, they wrote ALSA (which was a mess). At one point Linus was actively refusing to include ALSA in the kernel. He only accepted it after OSS had no developer. BSD continued using OSS, rewrote the code, added mixing and it works fine there. Because ALSA was a mess from the userspace all sorts of bloated userspace APIs grew on top of it including PulseAudio. That latency addicted sound system. I still remember when I thought OpenAL was going to be *the* user space API. It did everything one needed and it was open-sourced by creative. But for whatever godforsaken reason someone had to come up with PulseAudio and make that standard.

      People have been trying to replace X since it came out. The fact is X is perfectly fine as an architecture. Perhaps the higher-end elements of the API don't need to be there (e.g. Xt) but the alternatives to replace X11 proper have lasted less than X has.

      As for systemd... All I want to know is why I need to reboot my OS every time I do an Ubuntu update. It didn't use to be necessary. Linux has dynamic loadable module support, every app used to be able to be clearly shutdown and restarted. So why the going back to the Microsoftian past and away from UNIXian roots?

    2. Re:The Linux community is extinguishing Linux. by Shompol · · Score: 1

      All I want to know is why I need to reboot my OS every time I do an Ubuntu update. It didn't use to be necessary.

      Because Ksplice was acquired by Oracle: http://www.zdnet.com/article/o...
      https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Ksplic...

    3. Re:The Linux community is extinguishing Linux. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      What are you on about? Are you trolling from decade old "news"? xorg is the de-facto X11 replacement on all Linux distros.

      OSS was abandoned, it was shit and only existed so a commercial outfit could charge per driver per user. Linux users want free in both senses and wouldn't pay; so the dev said "fuck you, cheap-asses. We're done." Are you aware that almost all consumer AV devices are running Linux from $5 SoCs? None have trouble with audio beyond licencing issues (easily bypassed).

      systemd has been adopted by the vast majority of the kernel devs. I think they know a little more about it that you. If you don't like the modern design, pick an old style distro like slack. It's not hard, troll.

      Furthermore, you are spreading FUD, you do not need to reboot after an update. Use a better distro. You pretend to know what you are doing yet use a dumbed down toy like ubuntu? Perhaps nix is too hard for you. Try OSX or Win10, which will hold you lickle bwaby handipoos.

    4. Re:The Linux community is extinguishing Linux. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Systemd has nothing to do with the kernel. Seems the one spreading fud and trolling is you, not parent poster.

      OSS still works, ALSA just just fine and plays well together with, for example jack.

      Now along comes pulseaudio, like an elephant in a porcelain cabinet. It breaks everything that works. It has latency like hell. Depsite being userland and taking full control of all hardware, it still crashes like hell, needs restarts - admittingly later versions got a bit better as far stability goes but for some reasons distributions like to stick to old stuff.
      Pulseaudio is broken like hell. It doens't play nice with other software, causing more problems than it solves. It already has it's tentacles everywhere, be it bluetooth or desktop or other packages, that somehow need a pulse-related library even if it's not used. It's instable. It's gui is user-unfriendly, both noob and pro users, and it needs the console for better configuration, module loading and other stuff. You can (try to) disable it, or selected sound cards, while it's installed, but will still manage to bork your system. The only fix for pulseaudio is a apt-get autoremove pulseaudio.
      We have mixing. We have a fine volume control. The idea behind pulse-audio, userland volume control and patching, is nice, but worked out badly. I do not dislike pulseaudio per-se as it also has lots of uses. But it's far from finished and at least up to version 6 it's buggy as hell.

      Now, this same person that devved pulseaudio, would have had my respect if he stayed on the project and actually fixed all shit that is broken. Instead, he went to a new project which gives me the impression that instead only audio, my entire system is about to get borked.

      That is primary fear that people have and they are _right_. Not every situation requires fast boot times. On my desktop, i don't care at all as it's easy to just go for another distro or upgrade whenever i feel like. For the average server or serious workstation, there are entire other priorities than shaving off 5 second boottime, which is effectively all that systemd is good for.

      I'm not lover or hater. I love that people put work in possibly important projects. But i also do like that the basic components i actually need and use work as intended. That, is why it always should be an option. Pulse is fine - as option. Systemd is fine - as an option. Remove the optionality and people are getting rightfully upset. And both mentioned projects by same person seem to have same attitude regarding that - removing optionality and taking over - as an all or nothing deal. That's the real issue here.

    5. Re:The Linux community is extinguishing Linux. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Meh, pure FUD.

      Very very few people hate systemd (it's a very vocal minority, and they get all the press). Any sysadmin worth their pay has already learned the ins and outs of it, how to get plain-text logs, how to grep / search / fondle the system logs, how to launch services and tie things together without needing overly verbose init scripts.

      The same thing applies to Gnome3, which is different then traditional shells, but in a good way with some interesting tricks that aren't possible on more traditional shells. It's stable, doesn't crash, lets me task switch cleanly, and the window preview mode is very good at letting me not only switch between workspaces but also move applications between via drag-n-drop (even in the thumbnail view of the different desktops).

      As for the rest, you're welcome to vote with your feet and leave.

    6. Re:The Linux community is extinguishing Linux. by fbobraga · · Score: 1

      The Linux community is doing a superb job of extinguishing Linux all on its own.

      kudos to this!

      [...] problems that GNOME 3 [...]

      ... but I love gnome-shell (I think it's a step in the right direction)

    7. Re: The Linux community is extinguishing Linux. by fbobraga · · Score: 1

      systemd pushed me to buy mac.

      It's a desktop issue? Not a server one?

      * your post seems a pretty excuse to buy a Apple product, to me...

    8. Re:The Linux community is extinguishing Linux. by fbobraga · · Score: 1

      You pretend to know what you are doing yet use a dumbed down toy like ubuntu? Perhaps nix is too hard for you. Try OSX or Win10, which will hold you lickle bwaby handipoos.

      +1 informative (god, I miss my mod points!)

    9. Re:The Linux community is extinguishing Linux. by fbobraga · · Score: 1

      Pulse is fine - as option. Systemd is fine - as an option.

      +1 informative!

    10. Re: The Linux community is extinguishing Linux. by Billly+Gates · · Score: 2

      You do know Apple abandoned init a decade ago right with it's own event driven system? I don't see this a big deal on desktops

    11. Re:The Linux community is extinguishing Linux. by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

      I got to the bottom of that, and didn't even see one mention of Netcraft confirming anything. Disappointing.

      You do realize that there are shitloads of uses for Linux that don't have anything to do with X, PulseAudio, or Gnome, right? I manage over 100 cloud instances of Linux running on systemd, and not a single one has failed for anything related to systemd. And, by the way, we've built our systems so that any of them could fail and be terminated / spun back up in 20 - 30 minutes without losing anything, because automatic scaling and load balancing is a thing, and has been for quite some time. Oh no, the monitoring shows that this instance isn't responding anymore? Kill it and have a new one come up automatically, while the rest that are behind the load balancer take over.

      In no way is Linux being 'extinguished' where it matters - the data center. It's alive and thriving.

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
    12. Re: The Linux community is extinguishing Linux. by MachineShedFred · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'm still trying to figure out why the Linux community reinvented that wheel with systemd. Apple open-sourced their launchd over a decade ago when they replaced init. Now we have something that does the same job on Linux, but is far more complicated and far less documented.

      Good times.

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
    13. Re:The Linux community is extinguishing Linux. by tendrousbeastie · · Score: 1

      That isn't what mod points are for. How was the text you have quoted informative? All it did was express an opinion with which you agree.

    14. Re: The Linux community is extinguishing Linux. by fbobraga · · Score: 1

      On the desktop land, it's easily manageable: there is only one (or a few) user ^^

    15. Re: The Linux community is extinguishing Linux. by fbobraga · · Score: 1

      Going Apple "because of systemd" seems a very dumb decision to me :/

  22. Re:Not open by KGIII · · Score: 1

    Correct. I don't think anyone has made the claim that it is either of those two things. Thanks for stating the obvious, I guess.

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  23. Hey testers by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

    Make sure to give some feedback!

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  24. But what I want in Linux is MS Access by rduke15 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Sounds like a joke? No I'm serious.

    I don't need yet another database in Linux. PostgreSQL is fine, thank you. Even MySQL/MariaDB are OK.

    What I miss is a GUI interface to these databases, which would allow me to quickly build GUI applications for users. MS Access can show PostgreSQL data to users in quickly designed forms and reports. And these can have some (horrible) VBA code to make a few things faster and easier for the users. Without Access, I have to make HTML interfaces, which works fine for simple reports, but gets really clumsy and slow for complex interactive forms.

    (Yes, I know about PGadmin. It's great for me, and I use it regularly. But it's not for designing custom user interfaces to databases)

    1. Re:But what I want in Linux is MS Access by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      yes but not for the gui

      - for running adhoc queries against multiple databases (adhoc joins from local and different remote dbs)

      - manipulating, loading and extracting data

    2. Re:But what I want in Linux is MS Access by halivar · · Score: 1, Insightful

      If PostgreSQL is fine for you, you are not the target market for SQL Server, anyway. Before now, customers who needed *real* scalability had only one choice: Oracle.

    3. Re:But what I want in Linux is MS Access by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If you're making user interfaces, use literally any programming language that can connect to your database (this should be all of them) and write for a UI you can target from that language.

      If you're making reports, use a goddamned report builder. Like Crystal Reports. Or SSRS (SQL Server only, sorry Postgres guy). There are tons of these out there. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting one.

      TL;DR: You're probably doing it wrong, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

    4. Re:But what I want in Linux is MS Access by avandesande · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Oh god... please end it now. As someone that has had to deal with end user generated 'applications' spreading Access is both a crime against humanity and nature.

      --
      love is just extroverted narcissism
    5. Re:But what I want in Linux is MS Access by LWATCDR · · Score: 1

      What about Open Office Base and Libre Office Base?

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    6. Re:But what I want in Linux is MS Access by Peredur · · Score: 1

      There is RapidApp, http://www.rapidapp.info/ . It is perl based, but builds nice database frontends. Watch the vids, some pretty good examples there.

    7. Re:But what I want in Linux is MS Access by Voyager529 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Oh god... please end it now. As someone that has had to deal with end user generated 'applications' spreading Access is both a crime against humanity and nature.

      "Spreading Access"...yeah, you're right. However, you've missed the essence of what the GP was getting at. Access allows for information to be grouped and displayed easily, without having to write any code, and some minimal code will goes a long way to automation. "Yet Another Centralized Database That Requires An HTML/CSS/JS Frontend To Be Useful" isn't going to stand out nearly as well as something that does what Access does, better than how Access does it.

    8. Re:But what I want in Linux is MS Access by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Just because some people abuse a tool is not a reason to kill the existence of the tool.

      Plus, user-built software often helps test ideas that a formal analyst can later clean up. You learn domain-side issues by studying such.

    9. Re:But what I want in Linux is MS Access by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      It was highly convoluted to "script" last I checked. And the documentation was poor. (Perhaps they cleaned it up since I've tried, but I doubt they can clean that fast.)

  25. We'll show them! by PPH · · Score: 5, Funny

    We'll port systemd to Windows!

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
    1. Re:We'll show them! by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      We'll port systemd to Windows!

      Where do you think Linux distros got it?

    2. Re:We'll show them! by loonycyborg · · Score: 1

      Actually it comes from Mac, systemd is basically linux port of launchd.

  26. ported large cluster from SQL Server to Postgres.. by ron_ivi · · Score: 5, Interesting
    TL/DR: About a 5x-10x CPU and Disk I/O improvement migrating a pretty large project from [a major proprietary database mentioned in the article]* see edit below to Postgres. CPU and Disk I/O Graphs below.

    Here's one data point - based on from experience migrating a pretty big system from [a major proprietary database mentioned in the article] to Postgres, I think the two biggest advantages Postgres has are:

    GIST and GIN indexes (and soon BRIN indexes), and

    Writeable CTEs.

    We migrated a very busy, pretty large (24 CPU core, 256GB RAM, 20TB disk space) system from [a major proprietary database mentioned in the article] to Postgres about a year ago. These graphs measuring CPU and disk activity provide a nice visualization of the improvement:

    http://imgur.com/a/bp2ky

    Note that with [a major proprietary database mentioned in the article], all 24 CPU cores in the system were over 40% utilized (and growing) 24x7 most days a year. After a pretty naive port (November to May in the graph) the CPU load fell to an average of about 10%, and the disk array's queue length fell from painful to near zero. After adding some Postgres-specific code, we got it down to an average of near 5% (shown in the most recent month in the graph).

    CPU differences seem to have been mostly related to the availability of GIN indexes in Postgres, which can be much more efficient on certain types of data (like the OpenStreetMap road network).

    Disk I/O improvements seems to be mostly related to Postgres's far more compact storage of XML data. Seems SQL Server stores XML data using 2-bytes-per-character for the data itself; and on top of that adds extremely large indexes. In contrast, the "toast" feature in Postgres means the XML data takes an average of less than one byte per character for the data and its "functional index" feature allowed for far more compact indexes. One of our XML-heavy databases went from over 600GB in SQL Server down to 140GB in Postgres, with more efficient indexes.

    For a few months we tried to stay database-agnostic so it'd be easy to port back if we needed to -- but after a while we started adding Postgres specific changes. The benefits of those Postgres specific changes can be seen near the end of those graphs. An enormous improvement occurred when we changed the inserts and updates to use the Writable CTE features following recommendations someone outlined here

    .

    In the end, Postgres looks to me like it's saving us like 5X in hardware costs as we continue to grow.

    Edit: I'm told this proprietary database vendor dislikes users publishing benchmark results comparing their software to F/OSS databases. I'd argue that this is more of an anecdote than a benchmark; but just in case I edited the comment to remove the vendor and product name from the parts that talk about performance.

    Disclaimer: As mentioned in a comment below, we tried to tune each the systems to the best of our team's abilities, but aren't really experts in tuning either database system. No doubt each system's results could be improved by people who were deeply available with each databases internals (which I argue is much easier to find for Postgres, since its mailing lists have thousands of people familiar with the internal code).

  27. Thank you Azure by RCCrash · · Score: 2

    I think M$FT realized that they couldn't scale their cloud architecture on windows so they started porting Azure services to run on Linux. May as well release their linux versions..

  28. Re:A son returns home by KGIII · · Score: 2

    Your UID is a prime number.

    I know, I know... This is off-topic but, damn it, it's important to me!

    I even went and found you a link to show it:
    http://www.numberempire.com/pr...

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  29. And, it's already in systemd! by CaptainJeff · · Score: 1

    Not only is SQL Server coming to Linux, but it's already being integrated into systemd!

  30. Re: A son returns home by rholtzjr · · Score: 1
    Both still use the TDS (Tabular Data Stream) originally created by Sybase. I think there are still similarities between the two.

    Granted each went their own direction in enhancing the underlying server/client code (e.g. Sybase took forever to implement row level locking), but they are still very similar. Ex.) TDS (I would have provided a link to MSDN, but they were timing out at the time of writing this.)

  31. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 2

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  32. Re: crap by guruevi · · Score: 1

    MSSQL is a rebrand of Sybase.

    --
    Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
  33. Right after Apple Unix, based on BSD, running on by raymorris · · Score: 1

    Microsoft moving releasing a desktop *nix is about as likely as Apple doing so. And running it on Intel chips. ;) It could certainly happen.

    * Fyi for anyone who didn't happen to know, OS X is certified UNIX (tm).

  34. Re:don't hold your breath, something else going on by gweihir · · Score: 1

    There clearly is no new MS, just an old MS that is getting a bit desperate and finds what some of its customers want increasingly hard to ignore.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  35. Re:ported large cluster from SQL Server to Postgre by rbrander · · Score: 2

    Awesome story. I'd wondered about Postgres and heavy-duty jobs; turns out it's as impressive as touted.

    I worked 25 years in an Oracle shop, from Oracle 6.1 to Oracle 12c; assumed everything else, certainly FLOSS stuff, had to be toy products by comparison.

    Then I tried PostGIS because I was working with the new free GIS program, QGIS, and PostGIS isn't just a free RDBMS, it's a geodatabase. Soon, I found it was handling gigabytes of map data in an eyeblink - on a laptop. The more reading I did on it, the more of those "enterprise level" features for handling massive data sizes and user numbers I saw. I've wondered why I don't hear more about it.

    We had some interaction with EnterpriseDB, who not only sell service, but have their own add-on software that makes shifting to Postgres from Oracle pretty easy for most. I just don't see how we aren't going to hear about more conversions soon.

  36. Re: crap by Nkwe · · Score: 1

    MSSQL is a rebrand of Sybase.

    MSSQL was a rebrand of Sybase -- in the early 90s.

    Since then it has been completely rewritten. Here is a timeline. SQL Server is a seriously good product. Not just a seriously good product for Microsoft, but a seriously good product. It's SQL for when NOSQL is not enough.

  37. Right after... by fbobraga · · Score: 1

    disastrous Windows "Anal Plug" 10 release... It seems related to me

  38. Re:ported large cluster from SQL Server to Postgre by Cow+Jones · · Score: 1

    In case anyone's wondering how parent managed to "edit" his Slashdot post: this is a verbatim copy from a Reddit post.

    --

    Ah, arrogance and stupidity, all in the same package. How efficient of you. -- Londo Mollari
  39. Another shot in the foot by M$ by fbobraga · · Score: 1

    After they push users to Linux Desktops, now they want to facilitate users to migrate from SQL Server by porting it to linux (and making the Windows Server S.O. license not needed anymore :P)

  40. SQL Injection by Gumbercules!! · · Score: 3, Funny

    So it's an SQL Injection attack, on Linux?

  41. Re: crap by cayenne8 · · Score: 1

    Since then it has been completely rewritten. Here is a timeline [wikipedia.org]. SQL Server is a seriously good product. Not just a seriously good product for Microsoft, but a seriously good product. It's SQL for when NOSQL is not enough.

    I'd rather have Oracle or Postgresql......not Access on steroids.

    ;)

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  42. Re:ported large cluster from SQL Server to Postgre by ron_ivi · · Score: 1

    Yes - I should have mentioned that.

  43. Re:That still exists? Color me surprised ... by Voyager529 · · Score: 1

    SQL Server is still used a lot in line-of-business applications. They're not necessarily used for the 'regular' database stuff, but things like BackupExec and Veeam use SQL Server as their backend to manage things like volume sets and backup jobs and their success/fail status. A company I used to work for used a piece of software called eFreedom that prepared their annual financial statements. A company who's a client at my present company uses SQL server for the back end of their point of sale system. The CRM software Goldmine runs on SQL Server.

    There's lots of applications that use SQL Server for their backend data storage. Yes, it's frequently a part of a "bigger whole", and usually integrated into locally installed applications than stuff that runs through a web browser, but it has indeed carved out a bit of a niche for itself.

  44. Huh? Registered include IBM, Aix, Sun & Redhat by raymorris · · Score: 1

    > A strict UNIX certification would be worthless as only the FOSS variants would qualify and where is the money in that?

    The opposite is true. POSIX aka Single Unix is pretty strict, which is why most Linux distributions don't quite meet the criteria. Most of the systems which are registered as complying with the Single UNIX Specification (aka POSIX) are NOT FOSS.

    > And yet BSD isn't certified and neither are it's various children.

    False. Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard is mostly BSD, and registered. Sun/Oracle Solaris is another of BSD's "various children" which is registered.

    Did you intend to say that FOSS code is NOT certified?
    Inspur K-UX is a Red Hat based Linux distribution which is configured to be certified UNIX.
     

  45. Re: crap by geekopus · · Score: 1

    *sigh*

    And in 2016, STILL the juvenile potshots at Microsoft are being perpetuated. So, I'll take one of my own: I suppose you like Postgres (which is a great alternative) or Oracle (which sucks so hard you probably owe it money now) simply because they're more difficult to use, and therefore must be better somehow.

    I used to think that MS-SQL was a toy, but, now, in 2016, for probably 95% of all the database installations out there, assuming you have a choice, MS-SQL is a cheaper and easier to administer than either Postgres or Oracle. This is coming from a guy that has been doing this for 20 years, and have actually holds the title of DBA, administering Oracle, Postgres, MySQL and MS-SQL side by side.

    A license for MS-SQL is a whole lot cheaper than an Oracle or Postgres DBA, by the way.

  46. WHY!!? by Gallomimia · · Score: 1

    I don't get it. Why would they do that? It's self-foot-shooting in the short run, and desperation in the long run. Its my understanding that better alternatives exist, for free.

    --
    Sadly, a Libertarian cannot force his views on another, and freedom cannot spread as does the cancer known as religion.
  47. Re: crap by guruevi · · Score: 1

    So with MSSQL you don't need a DBA? Where the hell did you get that? SQL Server costs anywhere from $4-$15k/core. Any modern system will have ~8-16 cores, the Postgres DBA you hire must be pretty darn expensive to compete with that.

    --
    Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
  48. Re:don't hold your breath, something else going on by colinrichardday · · Score: 1

    So, don't hold your breath or think there is a new Microsoft. They are going to be clubbing someone real soon now.

    Would this be a bad time to release Baby Harp Seal Linux?

  49. Wo o H o oo? by ebvwfbw · · Score: 1

    That's a not so sure woo hoo. Why? Because it's a database for Linux that's not owned by Oracle.
    Maybe Microsoft is putting it out there for acquisition? Has to be another motive for it, right?

  50. We can only hope by MoarSauce123 · · Score: 1

    Maybe we can then get some performance out of this pig. MSSQL Server on on Windows Server is the biggest performance bottleneck in enterprise apps, plus MSSQL is ridiculously difficult to maintain.

  51. Re: crap by ciloman · · Score: 1

    Kind of like saying North, Central, and South Americans, instead of just Americans?

  52. Re: crap by Guy+Harris · · Score: 1

    MSSQL is a rebrand of Sybase.

    MSSQL was a rebrand of Sybase -- in the early 90s.

    Since then it has been completely rewritten. Here is a timeline

    And MSSQL and Sybase SQL split in 1993, at least according to the Wikipedia article on Sybase, so, unless there was a Sybase SQL for Linux 2 years or so after the first version of the Linux kernel was released, Linux didn't have Sybase SQL before "microidiot bought the thing".