We know 'Linux is a cancer' but could CentOS chaos spell opportunity for Microsoft?

Azure Linux is Microsoft's take on the open source operating system. It is primarily used for internal purposes, but could it become (yet another) distribution option?

Directions on Microsoft analyst Mary Jo Foley suggests the distribution, tuned to be lightweight and secure, has the potential to reach a wider audience.

Because, let's face it, if there's one thing the Linux world needs, it's another distribution for administrators to consider.

Azure Linux was known as CBL-Mariner before it was rebranded, and thank your lucky stars that happened in 2023. Lately, it would probably end up being called Copilot for Linux or something similar.

Downloadable from GitHub, Azure Linux can be found running as a container host operating system for the Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) and supports both x86 and Arm.

The latter point is significant. There is currently no publicly supported version of Windows Server that runs on Arm, despite Microsoft hyping Arm technology via its Copilot+ PCs and datacenter operators increasingly favoring the hardware's lower power-sipping tendencies. While porting and supporting all of Windows Server's functions to the Linux platform would be a stretch, there is the potential for Microsoft to compete in the Linux enterprise server space.

Foley noted that the world probably doesn't need another Linux distribution. However, the end of support for CentOS has opened up a window of opportunity - even for Microsoft.

"More customer compute in Azure is running Linux on Azure than Windows Server on Azure," according to Foley. Thus, it is hard to think that Microsoft would not like to be part of that besides hosting the workloads.

And then there is Amazon Linux 2, a Linux operating system from Microsoft's arch-cloud rival AWS, which is provided free of additional charge and described as a "security-focused, stable, and high-performance execution environment to develop and run cloud applications." AWS also provides ongoing security and maintenance updates.

If only Microsoft had something similar.

Microsoft's social-media-for-suits platform LinkedIn recently moved from CentOS to Azure Linux. The experience was doubtless a challenge, but, as we noted then: "This can only be good for Azure Linux, and indeed, for Azure in general."

Does the future of Azure Linux lie somewhere other than a relatively obscure way to host containers on AKS? Foley asked Microsoft and was told: "Azure Linux for VM or bare metal use is not available as a commercially supported offering today. Support is limited to AKS as the host OS."

Note the word "today" in that response.

Microsoft is unlikely to make much money directly from Azure Linux going wide. However, it would be a useful driver to the company's Azure cloud platform and soothe concerns over support and maintenance.

However, for many administrators, an attitude of "Anything but Microsoft" persists, certainly since Steve Ballmer's decades-old "Linux is a cancer" comment. Persuading these same admins that Microsoft can be a trustworthy Linux partner is a challenge that should not be underestimated. ®