Just saying i doubt any one person can exhaust 64bit memory.. Although the comment about the cloud servers having 640Gigs of ram does say they are working towards getting some of them filled... (A drop in the bucket vs max memory capable)

Hmmm... Maybe when we have 100+ cores we'll have several terabytes of RAM to work with... Doubtful though... Although i remember when 2Gigs was this huge amount of memory we couldn't hope to have much less afford back in 1995! (And we had maybe 32Megs for a system).

I remember having 512 KB and dreaming of 640... :)

I remember my first computer/laptop had 4Megs of memory! 4 whole megs! I could barely run the Doom Demo!

It was also a Yamaha laptop... Course about that time price dropped from $50 a meg to $1 a meg...

I think the drive also had 300 megs on the hard drive... It had Windows 3.1 and MS-DOS 5.2 or something.

Of course programming in 16bit, I know I've made a COM file that used some 320k for a compiler. That was some interesting fun stuff to do... Wouldn't do it again honestly. Too confusing with the segments that are offset only by a multiplier of 16... Which is why you get the 1Meg limit.... (and 60k beyond into Hi-Memory...)

Considering any new features are probably nothing more than a driver addition/change, I don't really see why it would need a whole new version of windows to incorporate it... What does Windows 10 offer us that 7 doesn't already?

Oh yeah, USB 3.0 support.... Something we couldn't possibly do with just a minor driver update...

... Huh?

I don't know anything about Hypervisor. But you're saying they are using Linux in VM's using their own OS as a core? Or other other way around?? Now I'm confused...

FFS? Off hand you've lost me. But just because they have a few projects that might be open source doesn't change most of Microsoft's position and business model. More likely they are reluctantly accepting that some open source code is needed...

Open Source does not mean Free BTW, it's just that, Open Source. Depending on the license they are using will determine if it's open to the public, or if they are just after free help with improving their product, or having a few hundred thousand extra sets of eyes on it to spot inobvious bugs...

Yay! Microsoft is going the Beta testing route most software developers used long before then, offering the software free temporarily while they search for bugs because their own team is too small to find all the nuances (and probably too expensive too)...

They still are releasing nearly all their software in a Beta state and it requires a lot of patching before it's stable.

Sorry, not impressed...

Cloud Computing. The Kernel for the most part not only is heavily x86 optimized, so much it probably can't run on other architectures without heavy tweaking, but it has the GUI shoed in like a noose. A lot of servers don't require a GUI once the servers are up, yet windows has a HUGE amount of requirements to sustain it's GUI environment. Linux's requirements? 2 Megs... (That's for the kernel...) Widows? What is it now, 1-2 Gigs? Yeah...

It's also a known fact the Microsoft OS's are less stable than their Linux counterparts, while a Windows machine usually requires a reboot every couple months or so, a Linux OS has been known to go several months and longer without requiring a reboot.

Not related to Azure, but one of the reasons I really enjoy playing Dust: An Elysian Tail on Linux - aside from the fact that it's an awesome game, and nearly all my machines run Linux - is the Microsoft logo swirling in at the beginning. Yeah, I know it's there because Indie games on Xbox Live (where the game was first released) get Microsoft as publisher, but still, the Microsoft logo on a game running natively on a non-Microsoft platform is a fun thing.

A couple factual errors.

The Windows NT kernel was built to be portable, is currently running on x86_64 and ARM (Windows CE was killed together with Windows Phone 7.8, Windows Phone 8 is NT based), has run on DEC Alpha, MIPS, IBM PowerPC, and Intel Itanium, and was also ported to SUN SPARC and Intergraph Clipper (but the latter two ports were not sold in retail).

While Windows servers cannot strictly be installed completely without a GUI, the (recommended and default) "Server Core" option doesn't install the desktop or any graphical utilities, but simply launches cmd.exe or powershell when logged in rather than explorer.exe (it's still in a window, so graphical window management is obviously available).

EDIT: Oh, hey, vanolmenchr already gave the first of those points.

I thought Minix was written/owned by M$, however glancing at notes I'm guessing it was Xenix I was meaning to refer to, and was going off memory. I was certain Minix/Mimix, or some variant was M$'s system, but obviously they aren't really interested in non GUI systems.

Xenix was indeed a Microsoft product, also for years you could install the POSIX subsystem in Windows (nowadays it's deprecated).

As I see it, and this isn't meant to be insulting, you are a Linux fanboy. Nothing wrong with that, being vocal about the things you love (there is a nice dutch proverb that, roughly translated, goes: what the heart is full of, the mouth runs over with), so I get it.

But I do object to false information and the "M$" thing.

Yes, Microsoft is a business, so they're in the business of making money. If open source suits them for that, they will do that.

Yes, the whole patent licensing business is ethically wrong IMHO, but again: business. They need to satisfy the stockholders and they desperately want in on the mobile game (hence pushing the Modern Style interface in Windows 8, nice for touchscreens, but that's about it).

I've heard nice things about Windows Phone: works better in low(er) power devices than Android, ...

The focus of Windows was never on "runs on anything, including a toaster", that is more NetBSD's and to a lesser extent Linux's game.

Again, I understand that for a purist a GUI is unnecessary (I've used Lynx to browse the internet, and vim to edit files), you can even do that in the newer versions of Windows Server, as mentioned by Maighstir : install Server Core and use PowerShell (which I also really like). But for non-hardcore users, I also understand that a GUI is a nice tool to get the job done.

At the end of the day, that's what counts for me: tools to get the job done.

Your jibes about Windows versions: well, they're kernel updates. I suppose you have the same reaction whenever there's a new Linux kernel version? Or a new version of your favorite distribution?
OK, Windows updates aren't free, again: most people who devote a full-time job to making software will expect to be paid for that.

But seriously, I have had enough of this discussion, nobody will convince the other party, both will be right in some regard, and it's best if we just get along.

Although my intense dislike for Microsoft and my preference for Linux doesn't make me a fanboy... More like having a favorite toy when you were a kid and you never let those feelings go even as an adult... A fan maybe, but not a fanboy...


I don't try to give false information, and I'm probably seriously lagging behind on software development for a while now, kinda happens when you're released from a technical job you loved and you don't have anything of interest going on... And you're depressed most of the time... and bored... and it's hard to decide what game to keep you busy for now, that will keep your attention...

Not exactly... For the longest while I've had a very different impression when it came to Linux Distros. Unlike Microsoft which forces you to update by putting their version of software as unsupported, then they push newer versions making the old versions incompatible. I never once felt I HAD to upgrade my distro when I had it. When I did quite often I could update just utilities not touching the rest. And since I was always poor, downloading the most recent ISO (always free) usually gave me everything while only costing the time needed to download, be it at a public site like a library, or at home...


Maybe my own personal views are marring things... Personally I prefer something that gets the job done, doesn't need to be pretty, have a GUI or even a front/back end. It has to be functional and usable. I'll never be the person that gets things with lots of bells and whistles if I don't need them, actually finding things tend to be better when they are simpler.

But I'm not going to try and sway anyone on what system is better, it really depends on what they are doing, the money they are willing to spend, and other deciding factors.

The easiest and most visible thing to mention would be multiple virtual desktops support, which involved a pretty significant overhaul to the windowing engine overall, especially when trying to provide support for legacy ones as well (GDI, die in a fire!). That and lots of changes (both small and big) to the way universal apps work and the frameworks behind them. And no, unfortunately those types of changes can't be done with a simple "minor driver update". Azure is a Platform as a Service. This means that it provides devops the capability to quickly deploy, scale and manage a mix and match of either pre-configured servers+services, or create their own based on their needs. This means that they need to be able to host as much of the software out there as possible in order to increase their market share. This means that they need to support both Windows (for the .NET devs out there) as well as Linux for the rest of the stacks which run on it.

Microsoft just wants to make it easy for you have your AD in one place running on Windows, your code repos in another place running on Linux, your continuous integration software somewhere else, your DBs in yet another place and so on, and still allow you to scale and integrate them based on your needs.

But hey, you don't know what Azure does, and that's ok. The only problem is that you're contentious towards it without knowing how and what it does. Case in point. Basically all the VMs running on Azure are running on Microsoft's virtualization engine. The recent Bash and OpenSSL vulnerabilities shows that that is factually incorrect. Any proof for that? You seem to have the idea that just having the linux kernel is enough. (hint, it's not).

Windows Server 2012 system requirements: 1.4Ghz 64bit processor, 512 MB RAM, 32GB space.
RHEL 7: they don't mention minimum processor speed, for 64bit processor 1GB memory per logical CPU, 5GB space.

So overall the system requirements aren't that big if you want to have a fair comparison, and not just comparing the linux kernel (also, could you please provide the reference for that 2 megs info?) with the whole Windows stack.

Also, how do you measure how much the kernel uses? I mean, the Linux kernel has several processes and threads plus the additional modules, which is similar to how Windows handles it.

For example, right now on my Windows 7 64bit machine with 8GB of RAM, the kernel has a paged memory size of ~ 800MB (around 10% of available RAM, which is expected). The nonpaged memory is ~265MB

On a Ubuntu 13.10 64bit machine with 1GB of RAM the aproximate size is 118MB (around 10% of available RAM). Don't really know of a good way to check paged/non-paged malloc on linux though.

So overall the kernels have the same memory requirements. But yet again, that means absolutely nothing, as you can't do jack shit with a kernel by itself.

What I find even more amusing is that we're arguing system requirements for servers. I mean, right now my cluster has 128GB of RAM, and that's small by most instances out there. I don't really give a damn how much the OS takes as long as I get good I/O and reliability. Any factual proof for this as opposed to anecdotes? Because I have lots of those myself :)

Oh great, they finally caught up with xWindows... which has had multiple desktop and remote desktop control for a long long time...

I'm reminded of a joke, which was 'what if xxx company made toasters'. I'm sure we could find the joke easily enough, but part of the punchline as I recall was Microsoft's Toaster would do everything Apple's could, 5 years late...

Here it is, this was old back in 95 :P

You mean besides each time they come out with a new version of windows it's buggy as hell, insecure as hell, and quite often needs to be patched at least for half a year before it's worth even considering? Gee... how about some examples... Windows ME? Vista? Windows 8?

Need i say more?


Well my systems need regular reboots probably every 2 weeks or so, be they on idle most of that time or otherwise.

And of course there was that <span class="bold">NASA</span> article that said they were switching the space stations to Linux because it was more stable... Course that could just be someone's opinion...


Of course why it's stable or not isn't always obvious why. With GPF's and other bugs that appear on specific hardware or are otherwise unpredictable or related to Interrupts, it's just a lot harder to isolate the problem, problems that don't show up during stress testing. Course the Linux kernel being written in C (rather than C++) might have something to do with that, fewer overhead calls, faster more optimized code, and for the most part a lot easier to send in a bug report...

11:48:08 up 50 days, 2:12, 8 users, load average: 4,13, 4,08, 4,09
But next weekend I'll go in vacation so I'll stop it :D.

Well, ms did use linux for the servers behind their 'get the facts' anti-Linux campaign at some point. Same old story x)

Then you really should pick up Mark of The Ninja if you haven't already. Great game - Runs fine natively on Linux - and MS have been involved in that as well -spotted it in one of the games video clips afair.