This isn’t the standard “which is better, win or lin?” question asked for the millionth time. Rather, is Microsoft’s offering of a Ubuntu-based VM for machine learning indicative of any functional deficiency in the native Win64 platform? That is, can all of the libraries/apps on the Ubuntu-based ML VM be run on Win64 native if desired? This is purely a functional question, not considering cost or any OS-specific usage aesthetics or simplicity.

The reasoning for the question is to find out how easy it would be for a Win64-based researcher without an Azure subscription to collaborate with our staff who use Ubuntu on Azure. In theory, would they be able to run the same code, with nothing unavailable that is used on the Azure platform?