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?
Microsoft tried to make Windows Server popular. Apple sold a server OS and even its own rack-mount servers for a while.
The people using servers, and often the people making the decisions about what to use have a high degree of technical knowledge and skill. The things that drive popularity in consumer operating systems such as being preloaded on devices and having a polished GUI don’t have as big an influence on experts.
Customizability, reliability, and performance do have a big influence on what experts choose, and Linux wins on those points. There’s also the history of proprietary Unix being big in the server/supercomputer market, and Linux is an obvious successor.
30 year IT Professional here…
^ That guy gets it
Ok. You seem to understand the basic concept I’ve been screaming for years. That is that not all users are the same.
I’ve been saying for a while that linux doesn’t face a usability issue. It faces an image issue.
I know a friend who will not even LOOK at Linux, because she asked me “how do I install software?”. I answered that there’s two ways. The first is going to a software manager, and using that to download the program. Just like googles app store on android. If it’s not there, you type sudo apt install (program).
The second I mentioned that second part, she said “Ohhhh no no no no no. I won’t remember all that…”
For her the software manager is going to be the absolute best way. HOWEVER, the image of linux is that it’s only for tech gurus who can navigate terminal.
So she has a point here. Yes, there are alternative ways to do things, but for people, it’s all about image. Just look at Coke ads. There’s nothing special about them. Red can, white classic logo, maybe a polar bear or santa during the holidays. But it works because of image.
So, my question is, why doesn’t linux collectively NOT DISABLE terminal, but instead de-escalate the prominance on which the platform is defined. Why not make it in image closer to what cmd prompts in windows are?
If you search “how to _____ in windows 10”, you’ll get a tutorial with photos, and step by step in how to solve your issue, using only the mouse. Almost 100% of the time.
But if you search “how to ____ in (distro of choice)” you’ll be given a tutorial almost 100% of the time in terminal commands.
If you “get” terminal, you’ll understand the errors. I’ve tried using terminal off and on for about 17 years now. I have a 0% succsess rate of it doing the thing it needs to do. I’m sure these errors are simple. If I knew what it was telling me, I’m sure theres probably an easy fix.
But a good example is, there was some program I wanted. Its not in my software center. In order to run it, I need something called “python3”. I attempt sudo apt install python3. I get a message saying python3 is already installed. I try to install the program. Program says prerequisit python3 needs to be installed. I sudo apt install python3. Python3 is already installed. Sudo apt update python3. Python3 is already latest version. Try to install the program. Still doesn’t think python3 is installed.
I don’t know how to fix that. I don’t even know what python3 is. That was 4 years ago. I don’t even remember what program I was trying to install. I just remember it was during the days I was recovering from cancer, so for 3 months, all day every day I tried to solve it.
I never solved it.
So, why can YOU easily see that normal every day users use these machines differently than experts, with different needs?
Just make the IMAGE of Linux easy enough for toddlers. 12 years ago my 2 year old niece was using an iPad. Even today her dad says she’d never understand Linux. She could…if she tried it. Because a lot of distros function user friendly. But it has that image problem. And until Linux becomes mainstream, the software will never be 1:1. It will be “gimp vs photoshop”. And as long as thats the case, usability isn’t 100% for normies. Theres still tons of rough edges. And those rough edges become easily solved through terminal. And now we’re back to the image problem.
Why don’t the distro makers get this?
The terminal is the common denominator between different desktop environments, and between distros for many things. It’s hard to get away from that.
You’d have to make one video for each DE and then update it every time the UI is updated.
You’re one of the people who would rather watch a 13 minute YouTube video than read a paragraph.
He says, as he replies to someone who just spent 30 minutes typing out a 14 paragraph message on a cellphone with no physical buttons.
To be a bit less flippant, the analogy isn’t far off.
Reading terminal instructions that you can easily copy/paste is a hell of a lot easier than watching a video and clicking around menus.
The issues that you’re having wouldn’t be any easier if they showed in a GUI. Yeah, things with GUI can be more polished, but that’s a result of the effort in that product, and not a result.of the GUI.
I sympathize with what I believe is your main point, that Linux people often are condescending and refuse to make things user friendly, whether that’s in a GUI or in the terminal. But the terminal itself shouldn’t be too daunting.
Ain’t nobody reading that novel past “sudo apt install”, least of all OPs girlfriend from Canada there.
It’s ok. Literacy isn’t for everyone.
I can relate to being intimidated by any instructions that mention the terminal. When I first started with Linux I would prefer doing stuff using a GUI over command line.
I started getting into hobbyist coding stuff, and fifteen years later I’m much more comfortable with the terminal.
Even so, I think trying to make Linux more palatable for the average person is going to be tough. It’s very difficult to make something that’s powerful and extensible while also being easy to use.
Linux offers near-endless customisation and Kernel is also open sourced for any kind of (performance) tweaks.
Moreover, Linux is, by design, better suited to be a server OS than desktop OS.
These are the same reasons why most of the web servers across world runs on Linux based distros.
I’m going to contest you on one point. Linux is well suited as a server OS for all kinds of reasons, true, but it is absolutely just as well suited as a desktop OS. Even for (maybe especially for?) the masses. I consider any thinking otherwise as dated at this point. Arguably only MacOS is slightly better and it’s essentially a 'nix derivative with it’s own quirks.
To which my first thought is: who cares, because almost no normies are buying desktop computers any more. I say that as a desktop OS user.
It’s not a popular observation around here but the facts are stubborn. I so wish we nerds would wake up, put our own personal experience aside, and concentrate our energies on how to bring FOSS to the mobile platform. Going forwards, it’s all that will count. It’s already all that counts.
Alright! I’m with you! Where do we start? I’m serious!
Mobile is not all that counts. I don’t know anyone without at least one laptop or desktop in the house (typically more) and gamers alone contribute more billions of $$ to entertainment than sports and movies combined. There’s hundreds of millions of normal people who are still using MicroSlop Windows which has turned into a surveilance nightmare almost as bad as mobile platforms simply because it’s the lowest effort/barrier to entry (pre-installed).
I absolutely want to concentrate energy on FOSS on mobile - with you there, but Steam Proton has made gaming so simple on Linux and the last 10 years of quality of life OS/Kernel improvements means FOSS can already compete on “desktop” and win. I"m saying don’t dismiss it because if you can prove to people they can have a bulletproof and seemless experience for FREE without having to pay subscriptions and get privacy in the deal, they are more apt to consider a Linux phone (assuming it works).
P.S. I should also mention that most everything we improve or build for desktop Linux can be used on mobile (within mobile plat limitations). Win hearts and minds where you can - Linux isn’t just for servers.
Mobile is not all that counts. I don’t know anyone without at least one laptop or desktop in the house (typically more)
This is, sadly, the response I was bracing for. You are in a bubble. The rest of the world, certainly outside the US middle class, looks absolutely nothing like your life. The numbers are clear. Outside of offices, computing now means Android and almost nothing else (yes that includes iOS).
I don’t understand the hostility, nor the downvotes to my original point. You’re going sideways a bit trying to deliver your message to a captive and mostly agreable audience where I was attempting to answer OP’s question asking for insider information about why all the servers and supercomputers run Linux and pivot into adoption and advocation for Linxu in general.
I agree that we need to embrace FOSS on mobile. I’d LOVE to have a viable Linux-distro phone that actuall works. I spend money and effort in this space, already. The vast majority of the world gets connecitivity via mobile devices. I know that and probably most in this community do too. My original point (heavily downvoted in a linux sub of all things) is that Linux IS READY and can WIN the desktop. That’s it… that’s all. Yet it seems you’ve taken umbrage that I didn’t agree with you 100%. In fact, we could really just consider linux on mobile as a smaller desktop with more input constraints and a smaller screen + need to utilize mobile radios properly (this is typically the hard part to open source). And I agreed with most of your statement, correcting on one point that implied Linux was only suitable for Servers. Which is a bit ironic because to win mobile it HAS to win on the desktop. Steam and stable / high UX distros have made this actually viable in the last 2-3 years where Windows users can migrate with the lightest of disruption and capability yet get all the resiliency, security and privacy.
You’re not winning anyone over with the attitude. I don’t get the edgelord response like I personally affronted you for having a nuanced interpretation. Geninuinely asking - what makes you think attacking me with your italicized ad hominim is working, especially when it’s the hottest of takes? Are you getting out your anger on someone? Makes you feel like you’re “winning” a comment thread on a tiny internet forum? Who hurt you, man! :-) In all seriousness, in the real world, we’d likely be chattering on about this over a beer, so I truly don’t get it.
Happy to continue the conversation, in the hope we can find common ground. Not everyone’s an idiot because they don’t agree with you 100% or see things from another angle. In fact, I’d like to discuss this:
Outside of offices, computing now means Android and almost nothing else If you’re going strictly by number of mobile devices I buy it. If you’re going by actual dollars spent, arguably the most important metric for investors, I’m going to say the disparity is narrowed by gamers alone, even if mobile wins by sheer volume x cheap devices. Mobile currently drives investment by selling personal data and microtransaction games mostly, so there’s anti-incentive to even ALLOW linux-based mobile devices on networks outside of Wi-Fi. So I see mobile as a near term hope and goal and desktop / gaming as an already winning, which just needs people to spread the good word. Plus people who run Linux on their laptops are much much more likely to consider it on their phone if it “just works” and covers 95% of their use cases and comes bundled with not selling or leaking their personal data for the same price.
Firstly, chill, it wasn’t meant to be personal, sorry if the tone was hostile.
I was addressing you as an avatar of something I see a lot here (perhaps to be expected) and that frustrates me: a well-intentioned, probably very intelligent geek who talks earnestly about something (desktop computing) that I believe is now all but irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. It frustrates me because the irrelevance seems obvious to me - from the stats, from looking around me in everyday life. And because every day we waste talking about desktop OS is a day lost in the already losing battle to save free computing.
PS: I didn’t downvote you. I don’t downvote, as a matter of principle.
OK and no worries - try not to let your frustration turn into hostility with likely allies and potential converts. BTW, I realize that I do the same when I’m ultra passionate about something and think I’m 100% right so I am aware and struggle at times to retain positivity. It’s like a full time job! LOL
I still disagree about the relevancy as clearly outlined in our chat, but I absolutely recognize your perspective (you’re largely correct) and the need to push into mobile being paramount. I hope my points about leveraging desktop, gaming, and QoL improvement wins we already have are able to temper your frustration by influencing from another view. I think we largely want the same things here - I guess I’m just cautioning that we should use every lever we have to build FOSS’s future even if the “now” is already mobile. Certainly when someone reaches out to this fine community asking a “why” question, giving us all an opportunity to be welcoming and educating. All the best, lemmy friend.
Having a PC is also very mainstream in the EU. What you’re describing aligns with my understanding of how things are in the global south.
With respect, I think this view is really quite out of touch.
About the Global South, we agree. Most people there have never seen a PC and never will. Already, the Global South is most of the world. The combined population of Europe and North America, i.e. the whole West, is now less than 10% of the world population.
But beyond that, who are these “mainstream” people you see buying PCs for personal use in the West, today, beyond students (PS: and gamers)? What are they buying them for when you now do literally anything on a mobile OS with more convenience (and indeed the mobile OS is increasingly a requirement)? Do you really think that in, say, 5 years, the obvious trend will have spontaneously gone into reverse?
I don’t want any of this to be true either, but true it patently is.
According to Eurostat, a majority of people in most EU countries used a laptop or desktop computer to access the internet in 2025.
you now do literally anything on a mobile OS with more convenience
I disagree with this claim. Some things are more convenient on mobile operating systems than desktop operating systems, but small screens and the lack of physical keyboards are significant limitations.
Microsoft comes out with Windows Supercomputer Pro.
They sell 6 copies.
When you’re running exotic hardware, everything is custom. Linux is the most easily customizable.
Because they have to work
Most servers do not need a fancy user interface. They don’t have monitors attached to them. Most of the other OSes you listed come bundled with a ton of user experience software along with the expectation a human will directly interact with them.
Servers are typically deployed and managed with automation, by the thousands. Lean. Simple. Secure. Tuned for their specific purpose. This is a lot easier to do with Linux than an all purpose general use personal computing platform.
Hey now, I set all my servers admin passwords to my external IP address. Lean, simple… uh easy to find
Most servers around the world run Linux.
True.
Why can’t these big tech companies manage to sell their own software to server operators
Lots of companies large and small are running commercial distributions of Linux including with paid licensing for products Like RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) or SUSE. Millions of other servers are on co-branded versions of Linux that are provided for free to the customer as long as the customer continues to use the company’s service. Examples here are Amazon Linux or Oracle Linux (both of which you’re only allowed to run if they’re operating on Amazon or Oracle Cloud servers. Now, these same companies likely also use unlicensed free Linux in places, either disposable clusters or labs, but if an application has commercial uptime requirements (meaning downtime costs money), few companies run free Linux in those specific applications.
or supercomputers?
This is a frighteningly small install base to try to sell a commercial operating system on. How many supercomputers are there in the world? Perhaps 1000? Moreover, these are such specialized set ups that trying to make a one-size-fits-all OS is likely impossible.
Why is an open, free project that is free for users so superior here?
Just because there is free Linux does not mean that all Linux servers in the world are free.
I’m pretty sure you can run Oracle Linux on bare metal? But it only makes sense if you plan to run Oracle software on it (they only support enterprise distros like Oracle Linux, RHEL, or SLES) or want to use Ksplice to patch the kernel without rebooting.
I’m pretty sure you can run Oracle Linux on bare metal?
Yep, you’re exactly right. I was incorrect on that. I’d never looked at trying to license it on bare metal (or for use in another Cloud provider), but I looked it up and found you’re correct! I had assumed it was following the same licensing model as AWS does with Amazon Linux.
Nobody runs AWS in their data center, but lots of people have a humongous and ancient oracle database or two running. Oracle Linux was forked from RHEL in the mid 2000s for this use-case.
I never had any interest in it because it didn’t make sense to run Oracle Linux for the DB and some other distro on everything else, so we went with a more mainstream enterprise distro we could use for everything.
After they acquired Ksplice and ruined it for everyone else they have a better value proposition for it, since now they’re the only ones who can patch kernel vulnerabilities without rebooting.
Nobody runs AWS in their data center,
Well, that’s exactly what the AWS Outpost product does. Oracle has the same type of product for OCI called Cloud@Customer. This is on-prem equipment that runs the cloud vendor’s hypervisor along with integration into CSP.
Oracle Linux was forked from RHEL in the mid 2000s for this use-case.
While you’re right about its origins, and options for bare metal use, in addition to that Oracle has evolved it to be their “free but supported” enterprise grade Linux for VMs running in OCI, just as AWS does with Amazon Linux.
I never had any interest in it because it didn’t make sense to run Oracle Linux for the DB and some other distro on everything else, so we went with a more mainstream enterprise distro we could use for everything.
I completely agree with your approach for on-prem deployments. However, for OCI VMs its a compelling case to use Oracle Linux when there’s no licensing costs compared to RHEL or SLES while still being an Enterprise supported OS.
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.
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.
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.
Amazon’s and Google’s OSes already are Linux variants. The thing that makes Android is the GUI userland, not the underlying system which is just Linux with a libc implementation not by GNU.
And MacOS is a BSD variant, so also Unix-like under the hood. So Microsoft is the only real black sheep in that ecosystem.
Apple stopped using macOS for apple.com a long time ago. They switched to Linux. If Apple don’t use their own OS in a server environment, why would full blown supercomputers?
TIL
Amazon Linux is based on Red Hat… i.e. Linux…
It was mentioned in the threads, but I don’t think it got enough attention. Mostly it comes down to money. Yes, customization, efficiency, etc of Linux, but also because every $ not spent on licensing is a $ you can spend.on making the data center better. So maybe it’s buying.more hardware, or having more money for infrastructure like electricity , cooling, and bandwidth. Or just plain profit. Licensing is a nightmare with microsoft. Rather save the money and time and.make a better data center.
Because those engineers were free to create the value that they needed and only the value that they needed. Windows Server and OSX Server were/are not unfettered. They, therefore could not offer a better value.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV0a-b_VhBg
Google and Amazon are competing with their own Linux OSes. Even IBM bought 30% of RedHat almost 30 years ago. Windows is developing their own Linux OS now too, Azure Linux. Windows Server is down to 40% in their cloud Azure environment. I’m just guessing that’s because many long term contracts are ending and the companies associated have been migrating away from Windows Server. Hence the need for Azure Linux. OSX server flopped big time twenty years ago. Apple had to shutdown their entire XServe division. You don’t always have to sell the software or OS to make money off of it. Especially when there is heavy competition. It’s like restaurants in the US giving away free tap water when you sit down to eat. There are a lot of ways to compete for dollars in a capitalist world.
/u/Zak did a pretty good job summing it up.
These servers are hosting custom software. The devs can develop for any hardware and OS combination. So the choice is largely performance, features, and price. Free is the best price in a capitalist world. Free isn’t the only price though, companies are just fine spending money if they are getting a better value. They just aren’t with Windows Server and didn’t with OSX server, they don’t offer a better value. They aren’t more performant and they don’t offer any features that make it worth the money or risking vendor lock-in. With Linux, if the value you need isn’t there, anyone is free to create the value that is needed, with zero limitations. And they only need create the value they need.
It’s like restaurants in the US giving away free tap water when you sit down to eat.
This is a bad example because in many states they’re required to offer free tap water by law.
Really? Which states? Pretty sure there are no state or federal laws. County maybe? I do know in California, it’s a state law that restaurant customers must first request the water, before they can be provide the free tap water. I think it’s just a misnomer that some states require free tap water for customers.
I’m in the northeast and most (if not all? I don’t feel like checking every single state along the northeast coast) of them have laws saying that tap water must be free if it’s offered. The only gotcha there is that restaurants don’t technically have to offer tap water, but that exclusion is probably only there because of water contamination issues. That being said, I’ve also never seen a restaurant not offer tap water even in places where I definitely wouldn’t want to drink it. It’s like this in all of the tristate area. The bigger cities like NYC additionally usually have stricter laws closer to what California has.
I was just trying to be gracious. You are citing a misnomer. The water is free because of competition, not because of any law that forces the restaurant owners to give the tap water away for free.
Because being beholden to a single mega corp is a massive business risk. If MS decides to yank support or they go under then you suddenly need to migrate to a new OS for your entire server farm with all the problems that come with it, like having to port all your custom software to the new OS. Also if the US decides to sanction the country your business resides in than you are also fucked if you run your entire IT infrastructure on Windows. Linux being opensource mitigates all those problems. Like if for some reason you can’t use the distro you use you can always migrate to a fork.
It works well, has little to no vendor lock in, and has reasonable or no licensing costs.
Also drivers can be developed without needing anyones permission or validation like with Windows drivers.
Us oldsters remember the UNIX wars. There were a number of different flavours of UNIX fighting for commercial domination. In the end they all failed because of fragmentation. This is why Linux won.
I don’t think 10 lifetimes is enough for me to learn about all the software that people out there run on Linux servers. Then I die my last lifetime and people come up with new software. Myself as an individual could see all that and say that software like that should be available on a server OS especially to compete with Linux. A huge company with over a hundred thousand employees. They can probably crowdsource through their employees a way longer list than me but will leadership read the list? Will they greenlight funding development for all that software? Will they match up to as good and ideally better to be worth paying for than the free and open source stuff on Linux? Will they keep up development on all that software or fall behind the open source stuff?
If they can’t do that, there’s no reason for any company to smartly spend money on a proprietary server OS license for what would be immediately a worse product or a product that is at best just as good or a product that would inevitably end up being worse than the Linux ecosystem. I consider it an impossibility for a new proprietary OS to cover the whole breadth of server software out there and even the whole breadth of server hardware support. I’m not sure what the status is of Windows Server ARM and Windows Server RISC-V. Don’t know how popular POWER is on server or if SPARC is still kicking. That’s top 5 largest company in the world Microsoft that’s been doing operating systems for like 40 years.
Doing a Linux spin makes the most sense.
Plus Linux development is supported by a huge amount of large companies. It’s not rag tag open source freelancers vs mega-corporation. It would be a collection of mega-corporations to small corporations plus independent individuals vs a mega-corporation
Microsoft agrees. Azure Linux is getting more and more beefed up all the time. Soon it will be a full fledged consumer OS and not just for Azure containers.
