this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2024
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Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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[–] olosta@lemmy.world 14 points 5 days ago (9 children)

No there was HPC sku of Windows 2003 and 2008 : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Server_2003#Windows_Compute_Cluster_Server

Microsoft earnestly tried to enter the space with a deployment system, a job scheduler and an MPI implementation. Licenses were quite cheap and they were pushing hard with free consulting and support, but it did not stick.

[–] MajorHavoc@programming.dev 8 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (8 children)

but it did not stick.

Yeah. It was bad. The job of a Supercomputer is to be really fast and really parallel. Windows for Supercomputing was... not.

I honestly thought it might make it, considering the engineering talent that Microsoft had.

But I think time proves that Unix and Linux just had an insurmountable head start. Windows, to the best of my knowledge, never came close to closing the gap.

[–] Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 6 points 5 days ago (4 children)

At this point I think it's most telling that even Azure runs on Linux. Microsoft's twin flagship products somehow still only work well when Linux does the heavy lifting and works as the glue between

[–] sep@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Where did you find that azure runs on linux? I have been qurious for a while, but google refuse to tell me anything but the old "a variant of hyper-v" or "linux is 60% of the azure worklad" (not what i asked about!)

[–] MajorHavoc@programming.dev 4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Where did you find that azure runs on linux?

I dont know of anywhere that Microsoft confirms, officially, that Azure, itself, is largely running on Linux. They share stats about what workloads others are running on it, but not, to my knowledge, about what it is composed of.

I suppose that would be an oversimplification, anyway.

But that Azure itself is running mostly on Linux is an open secret among folks who spend time chatting with engineers who have worked on the framework of the Azure cloud.

When I have chatted with them, Azure cloud engineers have displayed huge amouts of Linux experience while they sometimes needed to "phone a friend" to answer Windows server edition questions.

For a variety of reasons related to how much longer people have been scaling Linux clusters, than Windows servers, this isn't particularly shocking.

Edit: To confirm what others have mentioned, inferring from chatting with MS staff suggests, more specifically, that Azure, itself, is mostly Linux OS running on a Hyper-V virtualization later.

[–] sep@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

Thank you, i was hoping there was something official that i had missed.

[–] Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 3 points 5 days ago

Good question! I can't remember.

I think I read a Microsoft blog or something like a decade ago that said they shifted from a Hyper-V based solution to Linux to improve stability, but honestly it's been so long I wouldn't be shocked if I just saw it in a reddit comment on a related article that I didn't yet have the technical knowhow to fully comprehend and took it as gospel.

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