Azure Linux 4.0 is Microsoft's first general-purpose Linux

Microsoft released Azure Linux 4.0 into public preview, marking its transition from a specialized infrastructure operating system to a general-purpose Linux distribution available for any Azure virtual machine. The new version is based on Fedora rather than built from scratch, uses the standard dnf5 package manager instead of Microsoft's custom tool, and includes an updated kernel, glibc, systemd, and other modernized components with built-in security features like SELinux support and FIPS 140-3 certification in progress. Azure Linux 4.0 is now deployable across multiple Azure compute platforms including VMs, containers, and Kubernetes services without additional licensing costs.