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Windows as an OS is not as resilient as Linux when it comes to non-ideal operating conditions. Plus, Linux is way lighter when compared to Windows. I can easil

Windows as an OS is not as resilient as Linux when it comes to non-ideal operating conditions. Plus, Linux is way lighter when compared to Windows. I can easily fit a stable and reliable server inside 512MB of RAM with a couple of services on top of it. You can only dream this on Windows. CPU requirements has the same gap. Linux is way lighter. Lastly, Linux can be tweaked from terminal completely. You need to do complex tricks to do the same in Windows.

ajross 2y ago
> Plus, Linux is way lighter when compared to Windows. More specifically than just "lighter", the Linux distro metaphor and ecosystems have already adapted to decomposed use cases. You can run the same Debian or whatever image in a Docker container that you do on the bare server (or RPi/SBC) that you do in a Desktop VM or a Xen cloud host. Your ssh-based deployment and maintenance scripting works the same, etc... Windows gets sticky and weird the farther you get from a desktop deployment. It's a soup of special case tooling and "Here's How You Do This One Thing". So when those things change, Linux folks just tweak their install scripts a bit where Windows users need to wait for someone to Design a Product for the niche. This is what everyone was saying back at the dawn of cloud hosting, and it's exactly how it's played out. Windows can be made to work, but... why would you?
tonymet 2y ago
This is also a distribution problem. If there was a distro with NT kernel, SSH and core services it could run on the same hardware.
- bayindirh 2y ago
  Nope. NT is designed with “not POSIX, not UNIX” ethos, and this affects the interfaces in and around the OS profoundly. You won’t be able to configure and communicate with NT kernel the way you talk with *NIX system, i.e.: with files. You open a serial port the same way you open any file. Same call, single line. In Windows that was 30+ lines to begin with. NT is not bad, but it’s not UNIX, and designed to be complete opposite of it. No user land can change that. Even “subsystem” functionality can’t make it replace Linux as we see today.
- Osiris 2y ago
  One of their engineers demoed this years ago called MinWin.
- cheema33 2y ago
  > This is also a distribution problem... A lot of the software written for Windows assumes that there is a UI available. This makes it harder to automate things.
  - tonymet 2y ago
    that's a good point
  - gary_0 2y ago
    Not only does it assume a GUI for user input/output, on an API level there's the assumption of an HWND (window) and its message loop. Some Windows APIs aren't even available if you don't have that. Console-only applications are considered second-class citizens on Windows.
CharlieDigital 2y ago
> Windows as an OS is not as resilient as Linux when it comes to non-ideal operating conditions. I'd disagree with this statement on the grounds that Windows has to run across the most heterogenous set of hardware and configurations of any of the major OSes. That it doesn't fail more often is a testament to its resiliency. It supports the $200 junkbox your gran bought from Walmart to $20,000 enterprise racks and is expected to support all of those different workloads and insane variety of software that can be installed. In contrast, I'd make the case that the majority of Linux distros are running in large data centers like AWS, Azure, and GCP where there's a relatively high degree of homogeneity of the underlying hardware and the operating environment on top of that. macOS, for example, operates a comparatively limited set of hardware platforms.
- ffsm8 2y ago
  For the record, Linux generally supports way more hardware. Things that have been deprecated for windows XP still work fine today on modern Linux. And it runs on super underpowered boards too, on which windows doesn't even have any chance of booting
  - CharlieDigital 2y ago
    Does it though? For all of the use cases that a user might expect including device drivers like graphics cards, audio drivers, BT and wifi device drivers, print drivers, etc.? I'm sure a Linux distro could, but somewhere someone would have had to write a driver for it. The Windows ecosystem supports a ridiculous variety of hardware.
    - bayindirh 2y ago
      > Does it though? Yes it does. RedHat deprecates older drivers, but it's their problem. I connect too many stupid things to my Debian box, and they're enumerated and initialized instantly. These drivers get bug fixes too.
    - jenscow 2y ago
      The Windows ecosystem supports those devices (which are irrelevant to servers anyway). ie, it's the manufacturers that support Windows, rather than the OS supporting them.

ajross 2y ago

> Plus, Linux is way lighter when compared to Windows. More specifically than just "lighter", the Linux distro metaphor and ecosystems have already adapted to decomposed use cases. You can run the same Debian or whatever image in a Docker container that you do on the bare server (or RPi/SBC) that you do in a Desktop VM or a Xen cloud host. Your ssh-based deployment and maintenance scripting works the same, etc... Windows gets sticky and weird the farther you get from a desktop deployment. It's a soup of special case tooling and "Here's How You Do This One Thing". So when those things change, Linux folks just tweak their install scripts a bit where Windows users need to wait for someone to Design a Product for the niche. This is what everyone was saying back at the dawn of cloud hosting, and it's exactly how it's played out. Windows can be made to work, but... why would you?

tonymet 2y ago

This is also a distribution problem. If there was a distro with NT kernel, SSH and core services it could run on the same hardware.

bayindirh 2y ago
Nope. NT is designed with “not POSIX, not UNIX” ethos, and this affects the interfaces in and around the OS profoundly. You won’t be able to configure and communicate with NT kernel the way you talk with *NIX system, i.e.: with files. You open a serial port the same way you open any file. Same call, single line. In Windows that was 30+ lines to begin with. NT is not bad, but it’s not UNIX, and designed to be complete opposite of it. No user land can change that. Even “subsystem” functionality can’t make it replace Linux as we see today.
Osiris 2y ago
One of their engineers demoed this years ago called MinWin.
cheema33 2y ago
> This is also a distribution problem... A lot of the software written for Windows assumes that there is a UI available. This makes it harder to automate things.
- tonymet 2y ago
  that's a good point
- gary_0 2y ago
  Not only does it assume a GUI for user input/output, on an API level there's the assumption of an HWND (window) and its message loop. Some Windows APIs aren't even available if you don't have that. Console-only applications are considered second-class citizens on Windows.

CharlieDigital 2y ago

> Windows as an OS is not as resilient as Linux when it comes to non-ideal operating conditions. I'd disagree with this statement on the grounds that Windows has to run across the most heterogenous set of hardware and configurations of any of the major OSes. That it doesn't fail more often is a testament to its resiliency. It supports the $200 junkbox your gran bought from Walmart to $20,000 enterprise racks and is expected to support all of those different workloads and insane variety of software that can be installed. In contrast, I'd make the case that the majority of Linux distros are running in large data centers like AWS, Azure, and GCP where there's a relatively high degree of homogeneity of the underlying hardware and the operating environment on top of that. macOS, for example, operates a comparatively limited set of hardware platforms.

ffsm8 2y ago
For the record, Linux generally supports way more hardware. Things that have been deprecated for windows XP still work fine today on modern Linux. And it runs on super underpowered boards too, on which windows doesn't even have any chance of booting
- CharlieDigital 2y ago
  Does it though? For all of the use cases that a user might expect including device drivers like graphics cards, audio drivers, BT and wifi device drivers, print drivers, etc.? I'm sure a Linux distro could, but somewhere someone would have had to write a driver for it. The Windows ecosystem supports a ridiculous variety of hardware.
  - bayindirh 2y ago
    > Does it though? Yes it does. RedHat deprecates older drivers, but it's their problem. I connect too many stupid things to my Debian box, and they're enumerated and initialized instantly. These drivers get bug fixes too.
  - jenscow 2y ago
    The Windows ecosystem supports those devices (which are irrelevant to servers anyway). ie, it's the manufacturers that support Windows, rather than the OS supporting them.