back to article Google's cloud dumps custom Linux, switches to Debian

Google is moving the default software for its rentable cloud servers from a custom version of Linux to Debian. The decision to make Debian the default image type for Google Compute Engine was announced by the company on Thursday. As a consequence, Google's stripped down Linux OS GCEL (Google Compute Engine Linux) is being …

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  1. Mage Silver badge

    Debian Makes Sense.

    CentOs is essentially the Free Redhat so Ditto.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Windows, Windows,

    give us Windows, Google! With tiles, please!

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Windows, Windows,

      Sure - but everytime you spin up the instance you will have to run GenuineAdvantage and then phone India to get your licence re-authenticated

      1. Vince

        Re: Windows, Windows,

        Pretending you were seriously believing this for just a moment.

        It's all nonsense. You do not have to reactivate Windows in this type of environment, assuming you installed the right version to start with. Poor quality trolling.

        1. Rick Giles
          Linux

          Re: Windows, Windows,

          I really can't imagine why anyone would want Windows to start with. Let alone, attempt to install it 'correctly'.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Trollface

          Re: Windows, Windows,

          @Vince: Yes, but let me troll to point out you just trolled to troll another, and in the process, you put holes in your own boat.

          Vince: "It's all nonsense. You do not have to reactivate Windows in this type of environment, assuming you installed the right version to start with. Poor quality trolling."

          You just assumed yet another variable that is yet another reason why not to choose Windows, that is unless you believe having to reactivate a OS license is NEVER a possibility with Microsoft Windows. Of course, with Debian it isn't, which the original troll implied (With appropriate comedy I might add).

          P.S. Did I troll...YES! I'M GUILTY!

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Windows, Windows,

        At least he won't need to install 1,400 security patches:

        http://secunia.com/advisories/product/34258/

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @AC12:04GMT - Re: Windows, Windows,

          Thanks for entertaining us! Secunia is a Windows company and listing Debian as a vendor on the page you mention is indeed hilarious. Oh, and you know as much about Linux as Secunia does but you're still funny.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: @AC12:04GMT - Windows, Windows,

            Not sure what you mean by 'Secunia is a Windows company' but that's a fail regardless of if you were implying it was something to do with Microsoft, or if it only produces Windows products.

            Lots of large corporates - for instance many investment banks - use Secunia's research and vulnerability tools and alerts - which cover 40,000 OSs and applications - and are not Windows focused.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Windows, Windows,

      </trollface>

    3. M Gale

      Re: Windows, Windows,

      Depends if people are willing to pay the license fees and support work associated with keeping Windows VM instances up and running. A lot of hosting companies that provide Windows as an option already charge extra to cover this.

      So sure you can have Windows "in the cloud", and I presume if you really want to connect via RDP just to restart an http server, you can have it with tiles. Why though, when you can have an OS kernel based on 24 years of active development in Internet, HPC and and embedded environments, that's rock solid, and comes for free with a whole bundle of powerful userland tools already?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Windows, Windows,

        "Why though"

        Lower TCO, more functionality (more instance a non experimental NFS 4.1 Server!), more efficient on same hardware, more secure with a much lower vulnerability count, with issues fixed faster and fewer days at risk of zero days, etc, etc.

        nb - you wouldnt normally use RDP - Server 2012 is without a GUI by default - all the management tools are designed to be used remotely, and there is Powershell - which is more powerful than any default UNIX shell.

        1. M Gale

          Re: Windows, Windows,

          "Lower TCO"

          Who's measuring? Using how many discredited Microsoft-sponsored reports?

          " more efficient on same hardware"

          No. Just no. There's a reason the top 500 supers are almost all Toy Unix based - because it's not quite a toy any more. With my own personal experiences largely flying in the face of your assertion (and I'm sure, many others who have similar experiences), I have to wonder what you're on about?

          "and there is Powershell - which is more powerful than any default UNIX shell."

          Ah, a troll. Okay, you got me, I guess.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Windows, Windows,

      Well go and use Azure then and watch your uptime fall on it's ass.

      Now piss off and stop trolling.

  3. Big-nosed Pengie
    Headmaster

    Compute

    It's a verb.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Compute

      Arsehole is a noun.

  4. ez2x
    Thumb Up

    Three wins for Debian in a week

    0. Wheezy released

    1. International Space Station laptops

    2. Google cloud

    1. Captain Save-a-ho
      Coat

      Re: Three wins for Debian in a week

      Phase 3: Profit?

      1. Number6

        Re: Three wins for Debian in a week

        I thought the whole point of Debian (and Free Software in general) was people taking advantage of what's gone before, and paying for it by contributing code back for everyone else to continue the process. Debian profits by receiving code contributions that improve it so that even more people want to use it. As soon as there's a concept of charging (as opposed to accepting donations towards running costs) in order to make a monetary profit, the whole thing breaks.

        1. DanDanDan
          WTF?

          Re: Three wins for Debian in a week

          "As soon as there's a concept of charging... the whole thing breaks" - I would have thought the opposite. As soon as there's money to be made, innovation and breakthrough should be highly stimulated. It's precisely the reason that big businesses are such massive contributors to open source projects. The Linux kernel being a prime example. The GPL protects the code base and the money motivates the innovation - it's a win-win for all involved!

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Three wins for Debian in a week

            Not necessarily! A lot fundamental inventions, innovations and breakthroughs were made without sniffing for the money. Look at the beginnings of the rocket science for example.

            Besides that, the Linux kernel development was never motivated by money although it's true that some are profiting in a way or another. Do you really think those skilled developers would simply go home because there's no money to be made?

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Coat

              Re: Three wins for Debian in a week

              I run nothing but Debian, and I'm always reminded how poor I am every time I realize I can't donate money. Debian very much requires money or at least what money can buy, if you don't know this, then you haven't even once read the Debian homepage. Google can help, but let us hope Google doesn't lean on Debian too much for private gains.

              1. keithpeter Silver badge
                Windows

                Re: Three wins for Debian in a week

                "Debian very much requires money or at least what money can buy"

                http://www.spi-inc.org/donations/

                Is there a philosophic reason for not using PayPal? This page looks very 1997.

                The tramp: I don't spend money on shiny hardware but I can afford to donate the price of an OEM Windows 7 DVD.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @Captain Save-a-ho - Re: Three wins for Debian in a week

        Absolutely! We're all profiting from this, even you could profit too. I don't want to scare you but there is life after Windows.

      3. garbo
        Linux

        Re: Three wins for Debian in a week

        "Profit?"

        Have you forgot "satisfaction", "pride in work", or even "community benefit"?

        Or do your charge friends who come over for a cup of tea?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    greatness

    where are now all those people saying Google is great because they have the capacity to have a custom-better-faster-safer linux? one by one google is ditching all their great products, what's next after Reader and Linux? phpbb instead of g+ :D ?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      Re: greatness

      I typically don't reply to AC's, but being I run nothing but vanilla Debian and you somehow have 7 downvotes...I believe you are correct. If you read no farther than this paragraph, then I must ask now: Will this push Debian development, or push Google development in Debian? There is a difference.

      Google seemed to start with the intention of taking Linux to a new level, although no one knew or does know what that level is. Now, they are starting to understand that they can make even MORE money by cutting down on certain development, which requires a migration from fully custom to a tweaked standard. In time, expect this from anyone running anything Linux today. Give it 5 to 10 and all your mobiles will all be running Debian or a tweaked forked version of it (BTW, this might not be a good thing).

      Of course, there will still be Windows for the ones who just can't let go...

      1. GrumpyOldBloke

        Re: greatness

        @MyBackDoor: I am not sure that Google's behaviour in this scenario is necessarily motivated by avarice. The scenario you describe would be the typical approach of someone coming in from the outside; I have a dream but first X, Y and Z must happen. A few months down the track and the realisation hits that X and Y are already present and Z just needs a few changes. Hat's off to Google for backing up and working with the community on Z rather than going off and inventing the wheel as other large corporate patent trolling companies might.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Best in class?

    Depends which class. Price class? possibly; UNIX class? no; freedom to tinker, customise at kernel level? probably.

    But really, get out into the wider world where people spend money: you many be surprised.

    Actually, are you referring just to Linux (the operating system) or to GNU and other (for instance BSD) shells and utilities called from the shell? Just to betray one bete noir of mine: Bash is a very broken and incomplete rewrite of ksh/Posix Bourne and does not even do Posix mode properly; it almost makes me prefer tcsh or msh.

    1. Anonymous Coward 15
      Linux

      Re: Best in class?

      Then you're quite free to use tcsh or ksh instead. You'll find them packaged for just about any distro.

    2. JEDIDIAH
      Mushroom

      Re: Best in class?

      > But really, get out into the wider world where people spend money: you many be surprised.

      It really depends on your assumptions.

      It seems like YOU are the one likely to be surprised.

      Linux has been displacing commercial Unix going on DECADES now. This displacement even includes Fortune 100 companies which are your last bastions of overpriced commercial Unix.

      The truth is that EVERYONE is stingy. If you were up to your rhetoric then you would know that.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Best in class?

        "Linux has been displacing commercial Unix going on DECADES now."

        As has Windows Server....Particularly in recent years....

  7. PyLETS
    Linux

    Used Debian stable for 9 years

    And that's on a £15/month virtual machine. It's never crashed once, and always been updatable and upgradeable using apt-get between stable releases, and only needing lower level tools to resolve package management conflicts on very rare occasions. Over that period uptime has been better than 99.9% , largely thanks to the skills of the hosting company. The worst bug affecting it was a memory leak which affected a few months operations before an upgrade to the next stable release fixed it to the extent that while the bug was active it needed rebooting about every 3 weeks. It probably gets rebooted about 2-3 times a year on average. I've never successfully adopted the same approach for desktops - due to these being much more complex systems to maintain in comparison with stripped down servers not needing the overhead of a GUI. On a desktop a full reinstall every couple of years clears out much unwanted cruft and many anomalies. I'm intending to go to Wheezy this summer, at a time when I've got a couple of days to sort out any issues if any arise, but based on past experience there's a good chance there won't be any.

  8. majorursa
    Unhappy

    User E%$^&#nce?

    I'm a bit worried about the more frequent use of the term 'user experience' in Google's PR speak lately (as in the update in the OP). I associate that with unsavvy marketing management types, Microserfs mostly. I hope it's not a bad sign.

    1. Number6

      Re: User E%$^&#nce?

      User experience: i.e. it does what I want without any of the useless marketing crap added on. I always distinguish between websites for engineers and websites for marketing. The former tend to be a bit stripped down in appearance but are good at finding what you want quickly, the latter just look flashy and are often quite useless if you're looking for something specific.

      1. Magnus_Pym

        Re: User E%$^&#nce?

        "websites for marketing". I've lost patience with companies whose 'help' website answers any question about 'prodcut x' with 'Buy product x'. Crystal Reports anyone?

    2. RegW

      Re: User E%$^&#nce?

      Yes - it is a bad sign. The correct term is 'UX', which is more properly baffling.

  9. M. B.
    Thumb Up

    Debian is my choice too...

    Still haven't upgraded my home stuff yet but there's no rush, the old installs work fine as expected.

    I know of one company currently running Wheezy through it's QA processes with the intention to either migrate almost all of their internal systems to Debian or run them in the cloud. My counterpart in their organization said the endgame over the next two years is to whittle down to nothing more than a pair of Windows domain controllers and a small vSphere cluster running 50-some Debian-based virtual machines, with email/chat/collab pushed out to the cloud and compatible with whatever endpoint the users want to use.

    They expect to save two million plus dollars a year in Oracle and Microsoft licensing and due to better resource utilization and in-house development, they also expect their VMware licensing to drop as well. They spent a little more up front hiring a couple Linux admins and a half dozen devs to add to their talent pool, but the projected ROI is outstanding and they are on track as far as project management and testing goes. Best of luck to them.

    If there wasn't so little Linux knowledge here and such a resistance to moving services to the cloud, I'd be working on the same.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Debian is my choice too...

      Hah hah, classic! Hiring 8 expensive people to save 2 mill. That will work out well for them. That is the problem with freetards, they just want companies to stop spending money on software licensing and spend it on their salaries instead. Complex is good from a freetard perspective. But it is bad from a corporate perspective. Which is why windows is the sane choice for successful companies.

      1. M Gale

        Re: Debian is my choice too...

        So you hire 8 expensive people and a boatload of expensive Windows licensing, or just 8 expensive people?

  10. David Kelly 2

    Google Raspberry?

    Perhaps Google is planing on hosting their cloud on Raspberry Pi's? :-)

  11. Alan Denman

    The Beanz on HP

    Seems that study that already new what Microsoft wanted compared costs of going to XP and Office 2003.

    Anyone else see 7 or 8 or even 2013 flaws in that Windows data?

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  13. Alan Denman

    The 2014 nightmare wont bomb Munich.

    I do wonder, dId Microsoft accountants cost 2014 too?

    I'm sure they did, in billions of extra profit.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Switching from Linux to Windows 8...

    Now that'd be news.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Switching from Linux to Windows 8...

      Mostly because hardly anyone uses Linux on the desktop to migrate from it....

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