Linux Now Dominates Azure (zdnet.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Three years ago, Mark Russinovich, CTO of Azure, Microsoft's cloud program, said, "One in four [Azure] instances are Linux." Then, in 2017, it was 40 percent Azure virtual machines (VM) were Linux. Today, Scott Guthrie, Microsoft's executive vice president of the cloud and enterprise group, said in an interview, "Slightly over half of Azure VMs are Linux. That's right. Microsoft's prize cloud, Linux, not Windows Server, is now the most popular operating system. Windows Server isn't going to be making a come back. Every month, Linux goes up," Guthrie said. And it's not just Azure users who are turning to Linux.

"Native Azure services are often running on Linux," Guthrie added. "Microsoft is building more of these services. For example, Azure's Software Defined Network (SDN) is based on Linux." It's not just on Azure that Microsoft is embracing Linux. "Look at our simultaneous release of SQL Server on Linux. All of our projects now run on Linux," Guthrie said.

Comments

If only

[Anonymous Coward]

If only Windows Server OS was free as in beer. Its cost is a barrier to entry for those wanting to learn it, and develop on it.

Re:If only

[Anonymous Coward]

The reality is that even internal to MS, Windows Server was always thought of as a glorified file server, not an application server. Applications were supposed to run on the main desktop OS and link back to either files or a database, but true multi-user networked applications were anathema to Windows desktop sales and the whole .Net runtime idea. The heavy lifting was local, and the network resources were light. Now, what choice to you have with Azure? You can't run applications locally, so that "advantage" goes out the window--so to speak.

Re:If only

[thegreatbob]

Primarily regarding learning, obtaining a 180 day evaluation copy is trivial:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-u...

Maybe not so if you're allergic to filling out forms, but it seems not to care very much about the information provided. It has long been possible to do this, even without MSDN or Technet. Sometimes the evaluation disks are distributed with learning material, also.

Regarding development, Windows Professional versions typically meet all of the requirements, unless you're trying to interact with stuff that simply does not exist in consumer Windows versions.

Re:If only

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is desktop performance important for servers in the cloud?

Re:If only

[Anonymous Coward]

If only Windows Server OS was free as in beer.

If only Linux on the desktop wasn't a pile of unusable shit that makes Windows 10 look good.

Says the WIndows fanboy who never learned to use Linux or is afraid to try.
(Now, tell me you tried it 20 years ago and it didn't work)

Re:If only

[Tough Love]

If only Windows Server OS was free as in beer.

I still wouldn't trust it.

Re:If only

[Anonymous Coward]

Trolls be trollin.

Re:If only

[Anonymous Coward]

Bitch, you cunts still haven't solved DLL hell.

Re:If only

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks solved to me. You don't like dynamic linking, use Windows, and enjoy your 50 GB WoW64 directory.

Re: If only

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a lot less trivial than downloading a Centos .iso, and as you mentioned it's only good for a few months.

Re:If only

[Anonymous Coward]

The only OS Microsoft cares about is the one that makes them the most money. Money. That's M-O-N-E-Y. They'd throw Windows under the bus if it stopped performing to the cash flow they calculated. Clippy would designate a replacement, something BSD-ish so they wouldn't have to share. Then write a skin over it so the nerds can still find their ribbons and autoexec.bat.

Re:If only

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I can just pirate the shit too. Misses the point. It takes years of (self) study to become a professional in IT, a process punctuated with false starts on many products... and things like OS, IDE and RDBMS are four dational. Or maybe you manage to sell your fledgling capabilities... Think your first client will be willing to take your advice on purchasing thousands of Euro of software licences to run that web app?

With Linux, the complete, professional version of the software you need is available with a simple apt-get. MS will not match this.

Re:If only

[eneville]

MS will not match this.

No, they wont and can't. What they're trying to do is pollute the apt-get sources with sqlserver/powershell.

It's not catching on. They're pivoting on python, I've noticed a great deal of their new software is not written in powershell. Poweshell is worse for windows than php was for linux.

Re:If only

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually he has a point, linux desktop is a configuration nightmare.

At no point should any average end-user ever have to open a terminal and type in magic words to get their graphics card to work. I want to like Linux, but I can't because every time I use it I'm always going, "wow this simply just worked on Windows".

I would put up with it if Linux could run games. I've yet to be able to get League of Legends to work on it without running across numerous WINE errors, even using wrapper programs like Play On Linux. And only a fraction of my Steam library works on it. Even if I got it to work I'd still be suffering from a decrease in performance and reliability.

It's the rampant elitism that linux is /better/ that keeps it bad. Just face it, the OS lacks a lot of what makes a good UX good. Even Windows with its inconsistent styling and messy settings implementation is infinitely better than having to edit a config file buried somewhere in your os files with nano.

Re:If only

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet half the stuff I ask about configuring Windows the result is "oh it's easy, just edit these registry entries or run these PowerShell commends" which is no different.

Familiarity is often mistakenly conflated with intuitiveness.

Re: If only

[Anonymous Coward]

And you can rearm that 180 day trial another three times.

Re:If only

[Anonymous Coward]

Powershell is bash equivalent.

The problem with bash is that you can only pipe strings, which works great under Linux, but sucks for Windows as internally in Windows it's all objects. In Powershell everything you're working on is objects, that object could be a string, an int or a hash. It has inbuilt XML / CSV parsers, and can pull in data from SQL server, Exchange, Azure Blobs and all sorts of other places with modules.

In regards to a console scripting language, it's a lot faster for me to write something in Powershell than bash, and I end up writing a lot smaller scripts because I can use a lot of internal functions than having to write that code myself.

PHP was for websites and generating HTML code, it was never intended as a replacement for bash as far as I was aware. I think if PHP was anything, it was an open source replacement for ColdFusion.

Re:If only

[bernywork]

The other comment is mine, (I was wondering why it wanted a captcha) I was going to add that while you can import .Net system calls into Powershell, it's a scripting language, it's not language to be compiled, either with a CLR or into binaries.

Re:If only

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem I see is windows requires too many abstractions, it changes crucial little bits in every release and requires too much hardware power, just a simple web server requires way more than a standard Linux OS, even the Windows embedded requires more than a standard Linux (Without those dreaded "desktops") OS.

Re:If only

[Sperbels]

It's the rampant elitism that linux is /better/ that keeps it bad.

Um, no it's not. The problems you describe are issues with constantly changing hardware. Windows supports more hardware because hardware manufacturers and Microsoft have small armies of programmers to make sure the consumer doesn't have to think about anything...including the spyware they installed.

Re:If only

[Ol Olsoc]

If only Windows Server OS was free as in beer.

If only Linux on the desktop wasn't a pile of unusable shit that makes Windows 10 look good.

Says the WIndows fanboy who never learned to use Linux or is afraid to try. (Now, tell me you tried it 20 years ago and it didn't work)

Windows now has the worst driver support bar none.

I received a nice new W10 Laptop. I did some work on it and wanted to print off the resullts. Shouldn't be an issue.

No driver for either of my printers - no driver available. I guess Microsoft decided that perfectly good printers needed to be chucked.

My Mac's latest MacOS has drivers. Every Linux install has pain free drivers for them. I could still by inkjet and laser carts, so I just incorrectly assumed they would work on the Windows 10 machine. Wrong.

So I printed to pdf, thumb-drived the pdf to my Mac, and printed it because the latest and greatest W10 install is not capable.

So that Windows fanboi is bitching about the wrong computer.

Re:If only

[Anonymous Coward]

My Mac's latest MacOS has drivers.

Just because it has the printer drivers doesn't mean they work. OTOH, both my Win10 system and my OpenSUSE system print just fine.

Re:If only

[luis_a_espinal]

If only Windows Server OS was free as in beer.

I still wouldn't trust it.

I'm gonna lose the rep I give in this thread by posting here, but fuck it.

I would. I work (and have worked) on both Linux (RH, Ubunto, CentOS), and Windows 2012/2016 (as well as a variety of other operating systems, including real-time OSs as well as old stuff from long ago - DOS, VAX, PICK).

I would not ever start a bizness or a system with the backend running on Windows simply because of the price.

But Windows has come a long way on the server side. I could run a good shop on Windows alone with SQL Server and C# (or even VB, VB isn't bad unless you suck at development.) And it does pay to develop some types of apps for Windows customers.

Again, my preference is on Linux, but it's because of the cost, not quality. The argument against Windows quality was valid 10, 15 years ago. Now? Not really.

Re:If only

[Ol Olsoc]

My Mac's latest MacOS has drivers.

Just because it has the printer drivers doesn't mean they work.

Now there is a strange statement. I've used the two printers for years, they print perfectly. Meanwhile, My Win10 Laptop hasno driver - period.

Same thing happened with USB to serial converters. I was setting up some dual boot laptops that used the converter . I set up the Linux side first. Worked great. You have to add yourself to dialout to use them because Linux considers Serial port a security risk. But hardly an effort at all.

But trying to set up the converter on the Windows side failed. Some detective work followed, and yup, No Windows driver, and none would be issued. Yet putting the converter through it's paces showed it to function exactly the same as the new converter that Windows accepted.

Piss-poor driver support for no reason at all.

Re:If only

[eneville]

Powershell is bash equivalent.

That's subjective. I've spent a lot of time with powershell, more than I want, it does not come close to bash, it is a weak slow and inconsistent language.

The problem with bash is that you can only pipe strings, which works great under Linux, but sucks for Windows as internally in Windows it's all objects. In Powershell everything you're working on is objects, that object could be a string, an int or a hash. It has inbuilt XML / CSV parsers, and can pull in data from SQL server, Exchange, Azure Blobs and all sorts of other places with modules.

$ dd if=/dev/urandom bs=4096 | gzip -9 >/dev/null

Doesn't look like there's any trouble using these fds without strings.

In regards to a console scripting language, it's a lot faster for me to write something in Powershell than bash, and I end up writing a lot smaller scripts because I can use a lot of internal functions than having to write that code myself.

PHP was for websites and generating HTML code, it was never intended as a replacement for bash as far as I was aware. I think if PHP was anything, it was an open source replacement for ColdFusion.

I don't know why you find powershell faster to use, maybe you're doing very windows related things which don't yet have CLI tools.

Yes, there is a powershell parser for CSV, a bit like Text::CSV in perl, but requires about 10 times the RAM, and is much slower. If your business is selling compute in Azure now, I guess you have less incentive to make efficient code.

Sigh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Guess it's time to move to FreeBSD.

I'm surprised they're using outside product

[commodore64_love]

I always read that Microsoft had a policy of using its Own software, so the staff could easily identify bugs & bad user interfaces (and improve them). Maybe they've abandoned that philosophy.

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[Anonymous Coward]

They realized there was no advantage to identifying bugs & bad user interfaces. They weren't going to be fixed anyway.

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and it's a bit sad in a way. The world coalescing around one operating system is a bit depressing, no matter what that operating system is.

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[realmolo]

It's more that if you are doing complicated, unique, serious stuff at a HUGE scale, Unix/Linux is just better. It's built for that kind of thing. The networking and storage functionality/flexibility alone is enough to make Linux the obvious choice for stuff like Azure services. And, of course, you can script literally anything in Linux. You can't in Windows.

Yeah, Microsoft *could* add all that stuff into Windows, but why? Who would use it besides them? And it would cost them a ton of money to develop. Linux is free.

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[Zontar The Mindless]

They'd already seen their fair share of this.

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[toadlife]

And, of course, you can script literally anything in Linux. You can't in Windows.

Absolute nonsense.

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[lgw]

Native Azure services are often running on Linux

I always read that Microsoft had a policy of using its Own software

Fun fact: Azure storage runs on Midori, or at least did a couple years ago (I believe there's a new project now). Midori is the MS OS written in "Native C#". It had no threads, and no memory protection, and was rumored to be very fast as a result (though few have the skill to code for that kind of environment safely these days).

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[Anonymous Coward]

Powershell works apparently already on Linux, so the interfaces are still being tested like before.

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[goose-incarnated]

Yeah. To expand on that:-

For little itty-bitty microprocessors, Linux is better than anything Microsoft has.

For appliance type devices (Home automation, etc), Linux is better than anything Microsoft has.

For embedded uses (cars, machinery, etc), Linux is better than anything Microsoft has.

For powerful hand-held computing devices, Linux is better than anything Microsoft has.

For services, Linux is better than anything Microsoft has.

For large horizontally-scaled services, Linux is better than anything Microsoft has.

For scientific computing, Linux is better than anything Microsoft has.

For supercomputing, Linux is better than anything Microsoft has.

The only holdout of Windows is the desktop and gaming market, and god help them if they ever manage to kill off Windows as a viable gaming choice in the hope that it would boost their XBox division: consoles spend much less time dominating in each generation.

Even if they manage to make XBox the number one console in a single generation they are never going to hold on to that crown in succeeding generations.

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[Anonymous Coward]

I always read that Microsoft had a policy of using its Own software, so the staff could easily identify bugs & bad user interfaces (and improve them). Maybe they've abandoned that philosophy.

Pretty sure that would be a losing game.

If Microsoft improved the suck in-house before we saw it, they'd never ship. Which is why they've gone to Windows 10, where every user is a beta tester .. that way they don't have to bother not sucking before release.

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed.

Has there been any product released by Microsoft in the last, say, 5 years, that doesn't have a scriptable PowerShell interface?

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[fbobraga]

Absolute nonsense.

today...

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[StormReaver]

Maybe they've abandoned that philosophy.

Can you blame them? It's never worked.

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[Penguinisto]

...until you invoke sc.exe in a non-interactive manner (unless things have changed recently).
Then it promptly goes to shit.

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[drinkypoo]

I always read that Microsoft had a policy of using its Own software, so the staff could easily identify bugs & bad user interfaces (and improve them). Maybe they've abandoned that philosophy.

The problem is that Windows' networking is poop. Linux, on the other hand, has AFAICT the fastest and most capable networking stack of any full-fledged OS on the planet outside of FreeBSD... and have you ever dealt with BSD users? I'd rather take a performance hit.

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[toadlife]

You would use powershell in lieu of the old sc utility...

Set-Service
Get-Service
New-Service
Restart-Service
Resume-Service
Start-Service
Stop-Service
Suspend-Service

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally I prefer Linux on the desktop.
Why would I give a FAAAAAARK what anyone else thinks?
I actually pray all the plebs stick with Windows. Let them stick with their spyware infested shtanky OS. It gives malware writers a sweet sweet target which keeps them away from me.
BTW SteamPlay for running winblows games on Linux is awesome. Give it a try.

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[Anonymous Coward]

And with the shoehorning of phone-home apps and pervasive invasion of privacy (hello cortana), they've got folks like myself turning to fucking os x.. I'd rather run a hackintosh than a windows machine these days. (video & audio producer.. linux really sucks balls for this).

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[Anonymous Coward]

If Windows 10 is anything to go by they've been studying bad UI design and making it their core competency.

Worst OS interface ever !

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[scottragen]

You've forgotten about business critical applications. Granted more and more are going cloud, so then a switch to Linux is possible, but there is still a plethora of Windows only options (even many cloud ones are just remoteapp/citrix xenapp). Microsoft Office is also a compelling reason for those already ingrained in their ecosystem.

Re: I'm surprised they're using outside product

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post might actually have some meaning if you gave some reasons.

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[toadlife]

and have you ever dealt with BSD users? I'd rather take a performance hit.

*sadface*

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[drinkypoo]

and have you ever dealt with BSD users? I'd rather take a performance hit.

*sadface*

I literally got into Linux because the FreeBSD users I knew were ever so much more RTFMish than the Linux users. At the time, just getting BSD installed was a PITA, and mind you, I was a SunOS4 sysadmin and SunOS4 was BSD based. Sun's documentation was worlds ahead of that of FreeBSD, whereas with Linux I didn't even need documentation.

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[Bert64]

No reason they couldn't improve linux...

Many "bugs" in commercial software are actually just features which serve the purposes of the vendor and are contrary to the needs of the user.

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[Bert64]

And, of course, you can script literally anything in Linux. You can't in Windows.

After years of advocating against the CLI, and having products squarely aimed at gui use (even the name windows implies a gui), they are now focusing on powershell - a cli - for their server offerings

Re: I'm surprised they're using outside product

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux is a kernel, there are many OS's built around it.

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't figured out how to make it full screen and default to the desktop have you?

Dumbass

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[drinkypoo]

Add to that statement that Linux is also better for gaming on a technical level, just not a support level. Unless you are trying to use SLI (and why would you?*) there is no technical advantage to Windows.

* My PC is SLI right now, but never again, and I will probably take the second card out soon anyway just for power consumption reasons. I got one GTX 950 AMP! as a warranty replacement for a 750 Ti from Zotac and I bought another one, but it's been a PITA and if I went back in time and had it to do again I'd just sell the 950 and buy a 970.

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[james_gnz]

AFAIK Midori was largely written in a language that was based on C#, but had memory management similar to Rust (I think). I don't think it was ever used in production, though.

Re: I'm surprised they're using outside product

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, honestly, I'm not sure I agree they're really different OSs, and certainly, most of them aren't interesting or that different from any other. A lot of structure of an OS comes from the nature of kernel - so any environment built around a unix style Kernel will act pretty much the same.

Unless, of course, someone writes basically most of an operating system environment that runs on top of that (KDE, MacOS and similar.) It's a huge effort, and there aren't many such things.

The problem is different kernels and OS's mean different ideas. Without this competition, things will stagnate; and the linux world is full of that already (from this new CoC -- and of course, the most recent real attempt at shaking up the linux world, systemmd, wasn't exactly be accepted by the community. )

So... even if you are right, I find the idea of only one kernel also depressing. After all, TempleOS is interesting in a way that no Linux system would be.

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[lgw]

It definitely ran Azure storage servers circa 2013 - MS Research was proud of that. Maybe it still does, though Wikipedia says it was retired in 2015.

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[dwywit]

Not always:
https://scs.senecac.on.ca/~ibc...

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[bn-7bc]

I might be an idiot, but the only way I found to wxrsnd a trunk ro a machine running Windows 10pro was to install the whole hyper v component, plese tell me I,m doing it wrong, thish shuld realy not be needed, or is this a case of ms deciding that vlan trunking is not needed unless you virtualize?

Re: I'm surprised they're using outside product

[Sique]

As an OS guy, I would say: The operating system is the kernel. Everything else is shell and applications. When I took the CS courses on operating systems, the definition was: The OS is the program that manages the resources of a computer (memory, storage, processor, I/O etc.) and assigns them to or withdraws them from the applications. (And thus MS-DOS was no operating system, as it only managed the permanent storage resources, but not the processor and the I/O).

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[sad_]

MS contributed a lot of code to the linux kernel, so yeah, it's still their own software, kind'a.

Re: I'm surprised they're using outside product

[joao.cordeiro]

I don't think windows existence and usage is great for Linux to stay on the right track.
But I would definitely would like to see a open source alternative to Linux having a good share of market.
Linus runs Linux development with a iron fist. And because Linus has a good moral understanding about how Linux should proceed it stays on the track of being a good open source kernel.
But Linus won't live forever. One day his "dictatorship" will end.
Who will replace him? Who will say "No" when huge corporations try to commit crap into the mainstream?
If you are thinking about "democracy" and every contributer having a "vote" system, then all a "evil" corporation needs to do is place a huge number of contributers on the system. Where. They reach 51% they "own" the kernel.
"Yea, but we can fork it, being open source" -- Linux power future has little to do with the code and allot to do with controlling the standard. Companies like Intel or AMD or Realtek Will gladly follow a MS taken over kernel instead of changing to a forked release.

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[Whatanut]

If I'm reading your question correctly, you're doing it wrong.

I've found most nics under windows refuse to accept vlan tagging without virtualizing them in some way. But that doesn't require installing any of the hyper-v components. You can do it with standard teaming. And this can be done with a single nic.

new-netlbfoteam -name whatever -teammembers ethernetalias -whateverotheroptions
set-netlbfoteamnic -name whatever -vlanid 123

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[thegarbz]

The only holdout of Windows is the desktop and gaming market

Don't be silly. You're ignoring the single largest Windows user base: Corporate desktop / workstations.

For centrally managed and highly vertically integrated user services Windows is better than anything Linux has.

Re: I'm surprised they're using outside product

[Joey Vegetables]

The *BSDs, at least those that are still actively maintained, are probably the closest thing right now. But Linux will survive even after Mr. Torvalds. It probably will not evolve in exactly the same fashion, but it will survive.

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[Dunkirk]

Better for whom? Engineers? Scientists? Developers? No, no, and no. It's good for the *company*, and only then for managers and secretaries who do nothing more than email, presentations, and spreadsheets. For everyone else, the restrictions a large corporation puts on the standard disk image are counter-productive. In my company, we all just shake our heads and waste time with it, knowing there's nothing to be done about it.

I'd argue that the only thing that's REALLY holding back a corporate move to Linux is PowerPoint and Excel, specifically. And THAT'S why Microsoft won't make them for Linux, no matter how much they say they "love" it.

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[Ol Olsoc]

You've forgotten about business critical applications. Granted more and more are going cloud, so then a switch to Linux is possible, but there is still a plethora of Windows only options (even many cloud ones are just remoteapp/citrix xenapp). Microsoft Office is also a compelling reason for those already ingrained in their ecosystem.

It's a stupid company that ties it's very core to an Operating system. But hey - we saw the Internet Exploder 6 web app phenomenon too.

Meanwhile I've been setting up Apache Office pr places, and I've used it pretty exclusively for years, since it is compatible on Linux MacOS and Windows. Microsoft Office isn't even compatible with itself.

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[toadlife]

Interesting perspective on the documentation. I first delved into the world on *nix after using only DOS and Windows throughout my childhood in the 80s and 90s and I found the FreeBSD documentation superior for someone like me who came in with very little prerequisite knowledge.

I also appreciated the FreeBSD community's higher signal to noise ratio, e.g., there were a lot fewer people trying to replace Windows clogging up discussions.

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[thegarbz]

Better for whom? Engineers? Scientists? Developers? No, no, and no. It's good for the *company*

Read what I wrote: Centrally Managed, Highly vertically Integrated. I never said anything about end users.

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[samdu]

Were that the case, there wouldn't be so many persistent UI issues in Windows going all the way back to at least Windows 95. Why do windows still open with 50% of their contents not visible? Why are nodal dialogue boxes still so prevalent? Why are there still windows that can be resized, but the contents don't expand to fit the new size? And before anyone asks, it's not only third party applications that exhibit these issues. It's MS's own software, too. Even at the OS level. It's dumb.

Re: I'm surprised they're using outside product

[samdu]

So, you're saying that DOS was a Disk Operating System... Interesting... ;)

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[Anonymous Coward]

I always read that Microsoft had a policy of using its Own software, so the staff could easily identify bugs & bad user interfaces (and improve them). Maybe they've abandoned that philosophy.

As bad the Windows UI is, Mac manages to be worse.

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux can be easily centrally manged. You won't get vertical integration, but that's a false economy anyway as it typically results in the same vendor being used to solve every conceivable problem, even when they don't have the best solution.

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[luis_a_espinal]

I always read that Microsoft had a policy of using its Own software, so the staff could easily identify bugs & bad user interfaces (and improve them). Maybe they've abandoned that philosophy.

Windows, the OS itself, that was developed and built on AIX or DEC Alpha, I don't remember which.

They surely use their own software, but they need to cater to where customers are going, so...

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[luis_a_espinal]

Agreed.

Has there been any product released by Microsoft in the last, say, 5 years, that doesn't have a scriptable PowerShell interface?

Have you actually tried to use PowerShell on a regular basis? I have. Just because it exists, it doesn't mean it's easy, or even possible to install the powershell version you want without a) upgrading the OS or b) breaking something.

I've worked and maintain large multi-platform COTS that run on Linux and Windows which require some type of scriptable configuration. Every single time, the Windows/PowerShell part was an effing nightmare compared to doing its Linux counterpart.

Honestly I don't mind the weirdness of PowerShell. It's the discrepancies from one version of PowerShell to the next. And there are somethings that you just say fuck it, don't use Powershell API, but use it to call REG to manipulate the registry or something like that.

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[Anonymous Coward]

And, of course, you can script literally anything in Linux. You can't in Windows.

Absolute nonsense.

Did Microsoft come out with a grep equivalent?

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[toadlife]

I've run into the version issues you talk of.

I had to install the updated version of Windows Management Framework on a bunch of remote Windows 7 machines in order for the script I wrote to be able to work on both Windows 7 and Windows 10. I couldn't just write the script for the earlier version of powershell because one of the commandlets had a new feature that I needed.

On another occasion, I was deploying bitlocker to a mixture of Windows 7 and Windows 10 machines, I had to mix powershell cmdlets with the oldschool commands because the bitlocker cmdlets only worked on Windows 10.

Version hassles aside, I appreciate powershell over the old vbscript/batch days.

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[toadlife]

Did Microsoft come out with a grep equivalent?

Yes.

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[sonamchauhan]

> spyware infested shtanky OS

First they came for the spyware infested shtanky OS users, and I did speak out -
Because I was not a spyware infested shtanky OS user. ...
Then they came for the SteamPlay users

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[Anonymous Coward]

people complained about novell using Windows Servers to serve up novell.com rather than only novell servers. They had the best comeback: we test our software on a wide variety of systems and environments.

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called findstr, and it sucks

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[toadlife]

It's called findstr, and it sucks

findstr is outdated. Get with the times.

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called String-FindTheStringYouWereLookingFor.
You use it in this way, a very simple and powerful shell pipeline : Get-PowershellObjectStream | Object-ObjectToTextStreamTranslation | String-FindTheStringYouWereLookingFor

Re:I'm surprised they're using outside product

[Anonymous Coward]

They developed a whole new GUI toolkit : UWP, which isn't even a big priority for them to use since they cancelled Windows 10 Mobile.
See, it's still years before they and the world can break Windows 7 and 8's forward compatibility. That's frigging year 2023 for EOL of Windows 8 and people will likely use Windows 7 unpatched or cheating to get the super-extended-life patches.
Only then people will maybe do UWP apps, but it's unclear to me if these need to be Microsoft Store apps.. If they are probably people will still use and make Win32 apps with at worst Windows 95/NT4 technology underneath.

Note to self!

[foxalopex]

Note to Self, use products that actually work the way they're suppose to win. Force yourself to take the corporate cool-aid, lose....

Just get over it, MS

[Alwin Henseler]

It's not just on Azure that Microsoft is embracing Linux.

Just make your next desktop OS (Windows XI ?) be a Linux based, MS ripped-from-somewhere GUI, and you're all set. No reason you couldn't include the usual spyware in such a system. Linux zealots would work hard to make such a desktop perform excellent across the widest choice of hardware options out there.

After that's said 'n done, Linux on Azure is just another day in the office.

Re:Just get over it, MS

[lgw]

Who knows, maybe that's where they're going with Xamarin and official support of C# on Linux. Most MS-written stuff is C# these days. Who can they buy to get DirectX working well on Linux? That would get all the games too.

Re:Just get over it, MS

[Anonymous Coward]

Not happening.

On Azure, specially their infrastructure, nobody pays for Windows, so Linux it is. On the desktop, the hardware sellers pay for Windows, no need for Linux there.

Re:Just get over it, MS

[drinkypoo]

Just make your next desktop OS (Windows XI ?) be a Linux based, MS ripped-from-somewhere GUI, and you're all set.

That won't work. Their spyware depends on being in the OS, not just in the GUI. Let's say they made a non-GPL GUI that was bundled with the GPL OS. They'd still have to publish the OS sources, and then people would just take the spyware out (and put in features designed to block any spyware embedded in the GUI.) It's not just that they "wouldn't" do that, they can't.

Re:Just get over it, MS

[Anonymous Coward]

Who can they buy to get DirectX working well on Linux?

Steam. SteamPlay for Linux already works like a champ. Give it a try.

Re:Just get over it, MS

[jezwel]

Not happening.

On Azure, specially their infrastructure, nobody pays for Windows, so Linux it is. On the desktop, the hardware sellers pay for Windows, no need for Linux there.

Microsoft will soon provide virtual managed desktops running on Azure. Perfect where you already are paying for a Windows Enterprise desktop OS + Office subscription per user - just add your Azure usage charges and you can use whatever old POS (or mobile device with external screen) still runs and connects to the network, and get your inhouse Win10 image delivered anywhere. https://www.microsoft.com/en-u...

Re:Just get over it, MS

[Anonymous Coward]

If they really want to they could go BSD like macOS did.

Re:Just get over it, MS

[sad_]

it wouldn't be a bad move, and they could also invest/contribute to wine for backwards compatibility.

Re:Just get over it, MS

[lgw]

SteamPlay for Linux already works like a champ.

Does it work for any games at all that have non-Steam DRM (i.e., most non-indy games)?

Re: Just get over it, MS

[Anonymous Coward]

They could make the registry equivalent plus GUI layer on top of Linux, keep that closed and the basic platform for windows apps on MS-Linux.

So you could run windows programs on wine, but when that fails, you can run them on this MS-Linux where they will run fine.
Of course, it would require a MS license. And it would be the standard.

What's after "Embrace, extend"?

[davidwr]

Remind me again, I forgot.

Re:What's after "Embrace, extend"?

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Embrace
2. Extend
3. ???
4. Profit!

Re:What's after "Embrace, extend"?

[novakyu]

Why, "Contribute back to the community," of course!

Re:What's after "Embrace, extend"?

[bazorg]

Bill monthly :)

Re:What's after "Embrace, extend"?

[thegarbz]

Quotation.

After embracing something typical users who don't understand how EEE works will just jump straight to quoting the line without realizing why it's not at all relevant.

Where is the justice?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish there was a way to prevent MS from using Linux after all the effort they put into thwarting it. (FUD, SCO lawsuit, etc.) They fact that they are making money from it now, does not seem right. Maybe now that they are adopting it (only because their customers demanded it), means this is the beginning of the end for Windows.

Re:Where is the justice?

[w1zz4]

Why, isn't it rubbing the truth in their faces?

Re:Where is the justice?

[Anonymous Coward]

How petty of you.

Luckily the people who matter don't think like you do.

Re:Where is the justice?

[bazorg]

this is the beginning of the end for Windows.

Here are two different perspectives on that:
1) The end of Windows started a long time ago when Android became a real competitor, free of charge and with excellent hardware compatibility out of the box.

2) The end of Windows will not really happen. It just becomes an OS commanding a smaller share of overall number of OS buyers than back in the day. How this corresponds to real market share (in money) and to real revenue, I don't know.

Re:Where is the justice?

[JustNiz]

So here's what I think is actually going on:
Microsoft have finally understood that they are incapable of making a good operating system. They also see they are making far more money off of Linux than Windows 10 so have every intention to pivot ti Linux as their main server OS, then Desktop later.
Its obvious whats coming next, straight out of their play book: Embrace-extend-extinguish.
I'm actually convinced they are behind this CoC nonsense as a a strategy to fragment Linux at its core (via many secretly paid SJW shills for Microsoft such as Sage Sharp). Now Linus has stepped down even temporarily, things will degrade quickly, so Kernel branches will inevitably appear. Microsoft are aiming at being the new owners of the most popular Linux kernel branch, which will predate on the rest, then Microsoft completely control Linux.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

If Bill Gates were dead...

[Nutria]

he'd be rolling over in his grave.

This is great news, but dominate is a strong word

[Somervillain]

I hate to be a stickler for words, but "Slightly over half of Azure VMs are Linux" is not the traditional definition of dominate.

To be clear, I am a Linux user/lover - desktop and server. I'm happy Microsoft is making good money supporting Linux. It's just a slight majority is not what I would normally call domination.

Re:Where is the money?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu isn't the innovator it once was. Better hardware support and fewer performance issues can be found in a number of other distributions. If Ubuntu sold out, everyone would just jump ship to something else. Who cares if Windows has it's own distribution. Nobody. That's who.

Not surprised at all

[Somervillain]

From what I can tell, under the new leadership, Microsoft likes making money more than forcing Windows and Office on users. If they can make money selling Linux services for less effort, why not do so?

I think this is a great development and I respect where Satya Nadella is taking the company. I like the prospect of Microsoft being a powerful, profitable software company that plays well with others. I get the impression Nadella does as well.

Nelson: Ha-Ha!

[UnknownSoldier]

If Windows Server was THAT much better then Linux according to all the FUD, er "research", MS paid off from the Gartner Group, etc, W.R.T. ROI, etc., then why is there such a HUGE upswing in Linux?

What are the areas tha MS is _publicly_ admitting where Linux does a better job then Windows?

"Outside product" can be fuzzy

[MAXOMENOS]

Lest we forget: Microsoft contributes a lot of code to the kernel, mostly to make their products run better. So in a broad sense, Linux is part of Microsoft's own dog food.

This might seem incongruous -- it sure does to me! -- but I am reminded of something Vernard Martin said about Linux: its role isn't to beat Microsoft, but to keep Microsoft honest.

Happy April Fools!

[Anonymous Coward]

If this was a decade ago, I would have been double checking the calendar!

Azure is backwards

[Jerry]

Running a Linux VM on windows makes it dependent on Win10's vulnerabilities, security holes, etc...

Better would be to run Win10 as a VM on Linux.

Better yet, don't use Win10 at all. Save yourself hundreds of bucks and forget Win10's problems. Isn't being on Microsoft's cash treadmill for 20 years enough punishment?

Re:Azure is backwards

[Anonymous Coward]

That’s not how HyperV works or NT. It’s more isolated than a VM on Linux.

Re:Azure is backwards

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think Azure is running on Win10, I've got a special offer on a bridge, just for you.

Re:Azure is backwards

[thegarbz]

Running a Linux VM on windows

Shows that you don't know how Azure works.

makes it dependent on Win10's vulnerabilities

Shows you don't know how Hyper-V works.

Better would be to run Win10 as a VM on Linux.

Shows you don't realise that Linux is far better optimised and performs far better in a Hyper-V / vSphere host, than Windows does on a Xen / KVM host.

Better yet, don't use Win10 at all.

Ding ding ding. We have a winner. Incidentally that's exactly how Azure works when you run Linux.

Re:Where is the money?

[MAXOMENOS]

So, if MS is ready to do this to Ubuntu - why haven't they done this with Red Hat?

and KEEP THEM, is what it came to in practice.

[Anonymous Coward]

They never get rid of poor user interfaces. They just put something worse in front with an "advanced" button to go back to the old one. Which also has an "advanced" button, etc. Point in case: Configuring an IP address is the exact same thing as it was in windows 95. Well, up until 7 it was, dunno what they did afterward. But 95 to 7, every release stacked something new on the pile, with another "advanced" button leading to what came before.

The code we've seen leaked from them wasn't all that great *cough* either. redmond just has a terminal case of NIH, is all.

Re:and KEEP THEM, is what it came to in practice.

[LinuxIsGarbage]

Point in case: Configuring an IP address is the exact same thing as it was in windows 95. Well, up until 7 it was, dunno what they did afterward.

At least with NT/2000/XP/7, etc you could change the IP without having to reboot the computer for it to take effect. I remember with my laptop I could cheat by changing the IP, then removing and reinserting the PCMCIA card.

Re:and KEEP THEM, is what it came to in practice.

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus Christ, you haven't had to reboot a Windows box to change the IP address in years and if you did you're an idiot.
Here is the "way to do it" (From memory)
pop open the network/ip configuration GUI. Go out to the devices selector. Disable the NIC. Reenable the NIC.
Kluge yes but it worked - no reboot needed.

Gawd you Linux people are really stupid some days.

Now, you just change the damn address - powershell, netsh or the click and change box ( Network and Internet Settings).

Ya know, it's not 1999 anymore.

Re:and KEEP THEM, is what it came to in practice.

[LinuxIsGarbage]

I was implying win 9x you had to change reboot the computer, but not with NT(or NT based such a XP, 7 etc).

Re:and KEEP THEM, is what it came to in practice.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes with 98SE I had to reboot all the time. I also had it completely break down when trying three network cards (one for the modem, one for PCs downstairs and one for another PC upstairs) and had to reinstall the entire OS, but two network cards was perfectly fine.
I had discovered that by holding shift you can reboot only Windows, sparing you the seconds spent staring at the VGA BIOS and BIOS screens.

pop open the network/ip configuration GUI. Go out to the devices selector. Disable the NIC. Reenable the NIC.

As noted it's hidden behind "Advanced..." buttons or wizards, so to do that you need win+r and do "control ncpa.cpl" (you can also do start control ncpa.cpl from a command prompt). You can put a shortcut to this on the desktop, this helps non technical users who need to switch network interfaces.

Do doubt about it

[Anonymous Coward]

BSD really is dead.

Poorly Made Argument

[Anonymous Coward]

You've really crapped the bed here.

1). "...at a HUGE scale, Unix/Linux is just better. It's built for that kind of thing..."
Yes. And so is Windows.

2). "...you can script literally anything in Linux. You can't in Windows..."
Wow. Your ignorance is showing! I'll not trouble you with the details, since I doubt you will care, or act on the new information.

3). "...it would cost them a ton of money to develop..."
It has been developed.

4). "Linux is free."
Sure! Linux is free if your time is free. Or did you mean Free As In Beer? Perhaps you meant Free As In Freedom? Well now we've opened the can of worms for sure, haven't we?

There is an argument to be made here but you certainly haven't made it.

Re:Poorly Made Argument

[Bert64]

Sure! Linux is free if your time is free. Or did you mean Free As In Beer? Perhaps you meant Free As In Freedom? Well now we've opened the can of worms for sure, haven't we?

The exact same can be said of windows...
If you don't have the skills or the time to invest, then the end result will be unstable and massively insecure. Getting a windows environment running decently and keeping it that way requires a significant investment.

Linux isn't any different, but unlike windows it doesn't pretend to be.

The idea that "linux is free" applies mostly to very large tech companies like amazon and google, they do have the skills to implement linux or windows, yet they choose linux because it scales better both technically and financially.

Re:Poorly Made Argument

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure! Linux is free if your time is free. Or did you mean Free As In Beer? Perhaps you meant Free As In Freedom? Well now we've opened the can of worms for sure, haven't we?

There is an argument to be made here but you certainly haven't made it.

Is that you Stallman?
1. Nobody cares about 'free as in beer'. If they don't like the price they'll just steal it. Ask Bill Gates about this.
2. Linux is not free. It's open. I don't care about the bad analogies.
3. BSD is free. It can be open but doesn't have to be, because it's free.
Free means also being able to tell people to sod off when they ask for your code changes. Open doesn't. Clear? This is middle school English we're talking about here. Or did you skip class? Where'd you go? Certainly not to the barber. Get a haircut. And have your minions stop misrepresenting the license.
And if it's you Torvalds, chill out. You're embarrassing your work.

Re:Poorly Made Argument

[coofercat]

Actually, you'll have more free time with Linux (at least, according to my small sample size of a few of us in the office).

Trying to (say) run an application on Linux is pretty easy: Terraform a VM, use userdata to install and run the app, optionally use a CM tool to keep the system looking good after the fact.

Windows: Pay the additional for a VM, have to scale up the VM by a notch or two because Windows is so slow. Try to use user data to install and run the app, decide it's better done in a powershell script which you'll put in a git repo and install later. Then use user data to install a git client and clone your real script to the box. Then run the real script and see it work. Then try to figure out how you're going to keep windows patched in such a way that it won't need a reboot while in service. Consider using your CM to keep things up to date later, and decide Group Policy is a better option, then go an invest in some sort of domain controller solution that allows some GPO features and then go back to your VM's userdata to make it join the domain on creation.

Re:Poorly Made Argument

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. I work in a team of around 15 sysadmins, combined managing approx 2000 Windows and Linux nodes (similar portion of each). There's five of us on the Linux team versus ten on the Windows team, and us 'nix folks often lend a hand to the Windows team to help them out too as our kit takes so much less overall effort to deploy and manage (though some initial setup tasks are a bit more complex).

FreeBSD on Azure (Re:Sigh.)

[mi]

Guess it's time to move to FreeBSD.

Mark Twain would certainly agree, yes.

But I remember seeing virtualization-related commit-messages in FreeBSD, that indicated being sponsored by Microsoft. There are even official FreeBSD images for the cloud.

I think, the company would like to have alternatives to Linux work well on Azure. If only to keep Linux from becoming a monopoly — a monopoly, Microsoft will be unable to control...

Thanks to Microsoft, Linux wins??

[Anonymous Coward]

Sort of funny Microsoft makes money selling Azure and over half run Linux on it. Who's benefiting from this arrangement??

Waiting for..

[AnthonywC]

When Microsoft start selling Linux-only computer in their windows store. Only then I will consider Microsoft to be 100% committed to Linux. Although I have to admit, MS is already doing a lot of goods.

Re:This is great news, but dominate is a strong wo

[dark.nebulae]

Oh, I see, you're not from the corporate world.

Translating his corporate spin into English is pretty easy; subtract the downplay of bad news he was trying to deliver and you basically have this translation:

Yes, Linux is kicking our ass in Azure and we're looking at 75-90% of Linux servers vs Windows servers.

And we now have a CoC in Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

So only unimpeachable corporate entities can contribute.

Everyone else must open their personal lives to nosy weirdos on the internet.

Bitch, you cunts still...

[Anonymous Coward]

...haven't solved apps running on all distributions.

Re:Bitch, you cunts still...

[Anonymous Coward]

Docker.

Next, windows' window manager

[denisbergeron]

And everything from Microsoft will be Linux based.

Re: Where is the money?

[Anonymous Coward]

Canonical may be irrelevant. But Red Hat is certainly capable of controling and strong-arming "solutions" onto the whole ecosystem. They do have full control over systemd, pulseaudio, GNOME, etc.

Re:It's not outside product anymore.

[eneville]

The "extend" bit is not going to plan. I thought when I heard powershell for linux or sqlserver for linux that MS would do more to promote that use, but I doubt anyone is going to adopt either of those. It looks more to me that MS are adopting open source than proprietary taking hold on linux.

"If you are running Windows on Servers..."

[KC0A]

"...you need to explain what you know about running servers that Google, Amazon, and Facebook do not know"

I'm paraphrasing someone but couldn't find the original. Maybe Paul Graham?

It's mainly the price

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry to disappoint you, folks, but the main reason Linux is so dominant on the server and embedded market is simply because it practically comes free. if MS starts giving away servers, IDEs and integration technology, which I believe will happen at some point, Linux will dwindle no matter if Windows is open source or not.

PS: Currently I earn my money on Linux :)

Re:It's mainly the price

[Anonymous Coward]

No it is not. It helps, but the very main reason is that, say, Google (Faceboook, Amazon or any research institution) can grab an operative system and modify it to suit its internal needs without much hassle. And because it supports so much more hardware than Hurd (for example). You cannot do that with Windows.

By giving it away (back), you could tell that Facebook is working for Google (or vice versa), etc. Just think of something like TensorFlow to understand why Linux is so popular.

Re:This is great news, but dominate is a strong wo

[serviscope_minor]

I hate to be a stickler for words, but "Slightly over half of Azure VMs are Linux" is not the traditional definition of dominate.

It is after what microsoft said about Linux and how much effort they put into killing it.

OMG though this thread is rocking it old school. Let's party like it's 1999. I should have spelled it Micro$oft. OK my parties may have sucked a bit back then.

Re:It's not outside product anymore.

[Anonymous Coward]

That rationale cannot be applied to Linux because it can't be bought, like, say, you buy Nokia and extinguish it. It's a piece of software with a license to be copied/modified/distributed. Microsoft could fork its own Linux and sell it as... whatever, AzureX (?), but cannot use the triple E paradigm.

But Linux is dead?

[skovnymfe]

Didn't I just read that Linux is dead and everyone is going to pull their code contributions from the kernel, essentially setting back development by years if not decades? Something about hypersensitive trans people fucking everything up? Where does that leave Microsoft?

Re:But Linux is dead?

[Joey Vegetables]

As I read things, it is a possibility, but a small one.

The much more likely, and therefore concerning possibility, is that people who can be publicly identified as not leaning heavily Marxist will be discouraged from making future improvements to the kernel. Since Marxists are either ignorant or psychopathic, or both, almost by definition, this means the quality of the kernel codebase, as well as the kernel community, will decline over time, until saner and better people decide to fork it.

Not posting as AC because I don't object to being modded down for speaking truth as best I understand it.

Re:But Linux is dead?

[JustNiz]

You really didn;t already know that Microsoft are always multiple years behind the curve?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Port Hotmail back to Linux??!

[Anonymous Coward]

Time to port Hotmail back to Linux!

You are right about 2 and 3...but..

[gosand]

Here's a simple question for you...if Windows is better or even as good as Linux as a server, then why are now half of the VMs in Azure Linux, and every month it goes up? This is according to Microsoft's VP of the Cloud and Enterprise group.

Not surprising...they use Git and not TFS

[gosand]

But... I guess they bought github, so that's sort of a roundabout way to safe face.

Ol Olsoc projecting his problems? Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

See my subject & letting you f yourself dumbass https://it.slashdot.org/commen... you inferior moron.

* Don't try "patronize" me BOY when I can show you are less than ZERO fucker... easily.

APK

P.S.=> Your DIM brains are blatantly inferior evidenced by your FAKE NAMES online for FAKE lives of being "ne'er-do-well" scum having the AUDACITY to even TRY "F" w/ me & ones like you you INFERIOR swine as I cast PEARLS before SWINE like you... apk

Re:Ol Olsoc projecting his problems? Yes

[Ol Olsoc]

Hi there Sparky! Where ya been?

Just in time...

[KlomDark]

Just as the CoC weirdos have chased Linus out of Linux, dooming it to be a pile of shit in the next few years. It was a good run, but Linux quality is going to go down starting now.

Re:This is great news, but dominate is a strong wo

[sonamchauhan]

It doesn't matter which 'free' OS (free for Microsoft) tops the Azure lists. Whether it's Windows or Linux, MS doesn't pay a dime in licenses as people rent more instances.

MS would be similarly happy if, say, WFWG 3.11 VDIs came to be a sleeper hit with developing world users (super fast, cents per user/year, no license impact, no cannibalisation).

But if OSX, Irix or VMS instances began to gain on Azure, MS would worry about revenue sharing with OS copyright holders.