Most servers around the world run Linux. The same goes for almost all supercomputers. That’s astonishing in a capitalist world where absolutely everything is commodified. Why can’t these big tech companies manage to sell their own software to server operators or supercomputers? Why is an open, free project that is free for users so superior here?
One thing I’m not seeing mentioned is Windows forces restarts and updates, which admins really don’t want to have servers interrupted by, at intervals of Microsoft’s choosing. With Linux you choose 100% of the restart and update times.
This is an old take. Modern Linux management includes plenty of restarts and updates. Sometimes just as many as windows, especially with modern enterprises plugging heavy kennel-space agents into their Linux images.
Both ecosystems have adapted to the routine reboot annoyances, so it’s no longer a real differentiator.
Maybe if you run a dogwater distro. Try Debian
Not everyone can just rUn DeBiAn on networks they don’t own, and there’s reasons to run the less free distributions.
If you’re not rebooting, even Debian, for kernel, libc, and other low level security vulnerabilities, you’re running a dogwater enterprise.
If you can’t manage vendor recommended reboots and package update cycles on any distribution without causing an outage, you’re a dogwater sysadmin.
No one gives a shit about uptime anymore.
can’t even make distro tribalism jokes anymore
That’s not really how Windows servers work. Most large enterprises are likely going to be using WSUS or other patch management for updates where you can choose exactly which patches you want and when to do them. Those updates do almost always require reboots, but again you can schedule those reboots at a time of your choosing.
Even without WSUS, you can disable automatic updates and reboots. Plenty of Windows servers sitting there unpatched with uptime in years.
For sure, I honestly just added that bit so it would sound like i knew what i was talking about at least a little bit.
Also the idea of a windows server having an uptime in years gives me chills in a bad way.
They hopefully mostly sit inside an unexposed subnet and aren’t reachable from the internet, but I’ve seen several companies running their public facing production applications on an unpatched EOLed Windows that hasn’t been rebooted in years because the person who set it up no longer works there and they’re afraid to find out what one time scripts he ran to get the system running without setting up any persistence.