I recently went through the Azure Fundamentals certification for work and one of the questions on the test (written/approved by Microsoft) even revolved around

I recently went through the Azure Fundamentals certification for work and one of the questions on the test (written/approved by Microsoft) even revolved around how to get a VM spun up as cheaply as possible, and the correct answer was "use Linux". The new Microsoft doesn't care if you use Windows or Linux in Azure as long as you're using it in Azure. Windows licensing is far less profitable than any of the SaaS or PaaS offerings they'd rather you use.