You watch, Soon Microsoft will try to start Selling Linux

[office politics]

MS adding more linux machines to support their infrastructure

Skype replaces P2P supernodes with Linux boxes hosted by Microsoft (updated)

 

[MindoverMaster]

HAHAHAHA!!! Oh my! MS uses Linux? Bill and Linus must have sat down together at a coffee shop.

 

[Jayce]

I can't say I'm entirely surprised. Regardless of what your personal opinion may be, it's hard to deny that Linux is solid, especially with servers. I mean, do you really think Apple's infrastructure is done entirely on OSX systems? Get out...

 

[office politics]

i've never heard of apple server systems tho. This really begs the question of WHY would MS choose linux over their own server software. The article makes it sound like MS couldnt build a server to match the perf and sec of running it on linux. tsk tsk.

What's more, the boxes are running a version of Linux using grsecurity, a collection of patches and configurations designed to make servers more resistant to attacks.

...


"It's pretty good for security reasons because then you don't rely on random people running random stuff on their machine," Kortchinsky told Ars. "You just have something that's centralized and secure."

 

[patonb]

Could be that as this is Skype setup, not a MS setup, the proper systems are not avaliable yet.

Remember MS just bought Skype, and it'd probably be not economically feesible or avaliable yet, to switch to a MS product. MS isn't stupid, they make tones of cash from Skype, why would they risk losing it by using something new right now.

 

[KSoD]

Well I can say from personal experience using Server Based Microsoft OS's, that without a doubt Linux based servers have to be better. I mean just the downtime alone cause of forced restarts is enough to drive a company crazy. Microsoft Server OS's are just like desktop versions of Windows that require restarts after updates are installed. That is a issue for companies that cant afford downtime due to such things. So they dont install the updates, leaving the OS wide open for attach due to vulnerabilities and such. Which is what makes using Linux based servers much more effective for anyone. Just from the stand point that you dont get any downtime from restarts.

 

[office politics]

no restart for updates on linux? hmm, i guess i overlooked this.

however, maintenance windows are commonplace in corporate environments. downtime is usually 5-10 minutes, once a month. it's not that hard to squeak in.

I see a couple aspects limiting a more widespread adoption of linux among businesses. The first is support. Some developers do not write code to run on linux, some companies wont support their software on linux, and some techies have more knowledge of windows and are deathly afraid to learn it. The other is that I find linux to be lacking on the gui end. Webmin is great for performing admin tasks on a server. However, I think Windows is king of the GUI. Gimmie my Point n Click. It helps me do things quicker. The command line is still there for when I need to dig into the nitty gritty.

 

[KSoD]

Well the restarts within Linux are few and far between. I was running Ubuntu 11.10 and got the update notice for 12.04, at that time I had to restart. But the 100+ updates I have done since have not required a restart.

Yes maintenance is common and yes the downtime is minimal. But the fact is for smaller companies that cant afford to have any downtime cause they dont have multiple servers or backups of the web based content on other servers that can maintain the load while the main server is down is a problem.

As for the GUI, not quite. I switched from Windows to Ubuntu and I have had no trouble at all using point and click for just about everything. Yes there are times when I must use the Terminal to do something, but there are times within Windows when using the Power Shell or Command Prompt is faster than point and click as well. I mean if you really think about businesses and how they do things, making an image that they deploy to their terminals has to be done with WAIK. That is almost completely done with the command prompt and very little point and click. Creating the answer file so that they can automate the install process involves just as much work if not more than what it would take to operate a Linux box using terminal.

While there are some programs that will only run with Windows, there are just as many programs if not more made to do the same thing or more with Linux. When I made the switch I was looking for apps that could do the same thing as their Windows counterpart. What I found is that most programs made for Linux are more powerful and can accomplish more than the Windows counterpart with less apps needed.

So really if a company wanted to they could easily switch things to a Linux based environment and still keep productivity at the same level. The problem is that people are so used to using Windows not only at work but at home that they dont want to take the time or money to retrain everyone. It would cost them more to retrain their entire staff to be able to work within Linux than it would to continue to use Windows based products.

 

[theopfor]

Well the restarts within Linux are few and far between. I was running Ubuntu 11.10 and got the update notice for 12.04, at that time I had to restart. But the 100+ updates I have done since have not required a restart.

I think there was one or two updates for 11.10 that required a restart, but it wasn't forced or anything. I just let it restart when I shut it down and rebooted it the next day.

 

[Jayce]

however, maintenance windows are commonplace in corporate environments. downtime is usually 5-10 minutes, once a month. it's not that hard to squeak in.

Linux updates that require a restart are new kernels, which come once a month. Lots of people opt against rushing to get the latest kernel because typically kernel updates are coming with more hardware support. If your hardware already works, likelihood is you don't need to rush to get any other updates. Often times kernel updates come with patched security holes too, but (don't slap my hand) as long as there's no critical Linux bug that I heard about on a tech news site, I really don't rush to worry about.

I've dealt with rebooting Windows servers already and they wouldn't come up afterwards. Now that's a frustrating time. With what experience I have with Windows and Linux servers, I wouldn't even consider running a Windows server at home... but that's just me being me as well.

About the command line, once you really get into how things are done in the CLI, you'll never go back to the GUI in terms of speed... Between knowing the CLI commands and utilizing tab complete, I can blaze through things far quicker than I ever imagined. Don't get me wrong, GUIs rock, and I love having them most of the time, but if I'm in an "oh ****" position and I just need. to. get. the. thing. running, you can bet I'm in CLI mode... 0.02 though. Everybody's mileage can and will vary.