> It is a general purpose server and container distribution.

My god, it isn't, where are people getting that from? The previous submission (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48407499) from the very same author got it wrong both times?

Microsoft themselves call it "Purpose-Built for Azure", why cannot the other Microsoft/Windows salesmen also call it that instead of "general purpose server and container distribution"?

More on Azure Linux 4.0:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48407499 Azure Linux 4.0 is Microsoft's first general-purpose Linux (boxofcables.dev)

1 day ago | 143 comments

I am more excited about WinUI Reactor than anything else. the gap between Compose/React thinking and XAML thinking is enormous, and Reactor just bridges it. I am curious about interoperability - how would one include a Reactor-based component into existing WinUI 3 app? how would one include a XAML-based control from some other library into a (future) modern WinUI Reactor app?

Even within MS Azure Linux is at odds because it is not working in WSL out of the box. Folks had to port stuff to AZL away from ubuntu but without an easy path to use WSL to continue development. Sure you could adopt it but there is something fundamentally fragmented if such an adoption vector is missing in WSL. Now this… why do I need AZL desktop?

someone once said - windows will die or will be killed by Microsoft - when they start pushing a windows flavored linux distro.

with all the arm chips coming into consumer hardware - seems we are about to be there.

Great work! I really hope it can be designed to be agent-friendly. The current CodeX/Claude code sandbox functionality is very limited; it would be wonderful to use this as a sandbox.

The year of the Linux desktop.

Meanwhile I’m stuck on macOS for work. Oh the irony.

It isn't a problem as long one understands the difference between UNIX and GNU/Linux.

For me Linux had been mostly the UNIX that we have back at home, while most work was done in Solaris, HP-UX, Aix, DG/UX.

I am not attached to Linux specifically.

Microsoft Linux... what an abomination. But each generation has to learn the lessons of the previous one, again and again. Have fun with the lock-in and e.e.e. Microsoft-fans!

Devs already forgotten the IE lesson and have offered the Web on a plate to Google.

Fair point. We watched Chrome eat the web and just kept shipping to it anyway. Lock-in happens gradually, then you're just stuck maintaining one target.

The return of Xenix :)

Xenix comparison is interesting, but Xenix never had Azure AD auth baked in from day one. That changes the lock-in calculus pretty significantly, no?

Running WSLg for months now, the lock-in fear assumes alternatives are more open. GNOME under WSL2 actually performs better than I expected — GPU passthrough latency is real but manageable.

That’ll be deprecated in 6 months. Nope.

Six months is optimistic. I've seen Microsoft sunset things faster. The real question is what breaks silently versus loudly at 3am.

This is not official.

Azure Linux 4.0 is the next version of Azure Linux (duh), and WSL base distro.

AI slop

Bluecurve? Is this some type of delayed April Fools?

I was hoping someone would catch that.

We ran into the WSL/AZL mismatch too. Ended up using a dev container with AZL base image — worked well enough that nobody complained again.