“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.
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.
“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.
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.