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[–] 2 points 11 months ago (1 child)

"Custom" and "Exotic" is a thing of the past. Been there, used that. It didn't have Linux, either.

Nowadays, it's more or less stock PCs (with high-end specs for CPU, RAM, GPU, etc), but nothing that would not run a common OS. They would probably even run Windows.

What it makes special is clustering.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago

    You are right, and yes, they could run Windows, but it'd be pretty silly.

    All the applications they run were written with a pure POSIX mindset, the jobs are run headless, and the legacy of much of the application code dates back to before even Windows NT was a thing.

    In the late 2000s, Microsoft actually made a concerted push to try to get into the market, and it was just a laughable failure (they brought nothing to the table, had reduced ecosystem compatibility, and tried to charge more all in the process.

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