this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2024
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No. If everyone were on Linux and there was a breaking change introduced by a third-party there would be similar problems.
The problem is that critical infrastructure isn't treated like critical infrastructure. If something you rely on can go down due to a single point of failure, maybe don't fucking use it?! Have backups, have systems that can replace those systems, have contingency! Slapping Windows on to a small machine and running some shitty Chromium app to work as a cash register is a fucking stupid idea when you consider that it is responsible for your whole income.
The problem was never Windows. It was companies that were too cheap to have contingency, because an event like this was considered extraordinary and not worth investing in.
Nope, that's not how it works on Linux, even if someone introduced the most heinous breaking change people would just not update until things were fixed, in fact the update is unlikely to do that because things are tested before being pushed. If someone were using latest of everything by having something like a Gentoo system with everything building from git maybe that person would be affected and he would have to rollback to an earlier version and keep going for a total downtime of 1h tops, and that is if someone was using the most stupid way possible in production.
The main reason why this will NEVER happen to a server running Linux is that updates are not automatic, i.e. they get triggered manually, so if there's an issue upstream you don't update, and if you encounter you rollback. The issue is not that Windows had a broken update, that can happen and it's fine, the issue is when the OS forcefully installs that update and breaks your system without you doing anything.
And yeah, I know what I'm talking about, I worked as a software architect for a large website for a few years and now I work as a software engineer for the servers of one of the largest online games.
Edit: re-reading your post, I would like to ask you how would you build this critical infrastructure with Windows? Because independently of how you answer it you would have been affected by this.
The crowdstrike update was pushed out by their own software I thought, not the windows update system?
Plus crowdstrike has caused similar issues with Linux systems before, so the solution is to just not use crowdstrike and similar solutions on any OS.
I would have thought most businesses with windows would do staged rollouts.
Exactly, and since Windows is similar, therefore...
I'm not sure what you mean?