This seems to be the most recent Linux thread so I'll drop this in here:

Believe it or not, Microsoft just announced a Linux distribution service - here's why
Microsoft is open-sourcing its Linux Integration Services Automation image-testing service for everyone.

Would you believe Microsoft has announced a new Linux distribution service for its Azure cloud service? You should.

For many years, the most popular operating system on Azure has not been Windows Server, it's been Linux. Last time I checked, in 2024, Azure Linux Platforms Group Program Manager Jack Aboutboul told me that 60% of Azure Marketplace offerings and more than 60% of virtual machine cores use Linux. Those figures mean it's sensible for Microsoft to make it easier than ever for Linux distributors to release first-class Linux distros on Azure.

The tech giant is taking this step, said Andrew Randall, principal manager for the Azure Core Linux product management team, by making "Azure Image Testing for Linux (AITL) … available 'as a service' to distro publishers."

ATIL is built on Microsoft's Linux Integration Services Automation project (LISA). Microsoft's Linux Systems Group originally developed this initiative to validate Linux OS images. LISA is a Linux quality validation system with two parts: a test framework to drive test execution and a set of test suites to verify Linux distribution quality.

See the rest at the link.

ZDNet is a pretty good source of tech information, though I probably read only one out of every 10 emails they send.