Microsoft’s in-house Azure Linux operating system used within Azure and for WSL and other purposes is reportedly pursuing an overhaul where it would be derived from Fedora Linux.
Azure Linux — originally known as CBL-Mariner — is already an RPM-based Linux distribution that is catering to the various Linux needs at Microsoft. It’s scope and capabilities of Azure Linux have grown a lot the past few years and now it may evolve into being derived from Fedora.
With the recent proposal to build x86_64-v3 packages for Fedora 45, it turns out Microsoft is involved in backing this change proposal. Kyle Gospodnetich as one of the change proposal authors for x86_64-v3 packages with Fedora 45 happens to be a Microsoft Linux engineer.
The connection to Microsoft’s stake in x86_64-v3 and Azure Linux looking at Fedora as a base was spelled out clearly this week during Fedora’s Enterprise Linux Next (ELN) SIG meeting. It was noted that Microsoft as well as Fyra Labs are very interested in x86_64-v3 for Fedora.
In the meeting log it’s explicitly laid out:
“and since Microsoft is supporting that change, they probably would be able to donate compute resources”
“Azure wants to rebase Azure Linux more or less on Fedora and they need x86_64-v3 for performance”
“there was some nebulous plans of forking the whole distribution for this, they were guided in this direction…so I’d rather it not fail for that reason”
Very interesting and will be fascinating to see what other changes could happen with a Fedora-based Microsoft Azure Linux distribution. In any case, also great to see Microsoft pushing the x86_64-v3 micro-architecture feature level.