Why Choose Linux? It doesn’t exactly sound like the kind of system you use for your home accounts, does it? However, there is one very significant thing about the release of this software: it was released under the GNU General Public License, which allowed the source code to be distributed freely to anyone who wanted it, and also allowed these people to extend it at will. Very quickly, communities of interested programmers and testers took Linus’s original code, and extended it in all manner of ways. They expanded the range of hardware configurations on which Linux could run, they swelled the range of software written for Linux, and they improved the stability of the whole Linux system. This support and development has continued right up to the present day, spreading worldwide and encompassing whole communities of developers. Of course, this phenomenon, and its potential, has been noticed in the commercial sector, and now Linux has a healthy complement of commercial vendors achieving the seemingly impossible - doing business by selling a product that is essentially free! Of course, in order to do this, these organizations (which include SuSe, Debian, Mandrake, Red Hat, and so on) have been required to innovate and add value to the basic Linux package. The various distributions, packages, and add-ons created by these organizations have matured alongside the basic Linux operating system itself. The latest Red Hat Linux release - version 9 - is a perfect example of this innovation. While it’s available for free download, Red Hat also sells the package in a variety of forms. For home users there’s a boxed set of CDs containing the Linux operating system, a huge assortment of open source productivity software, Red Hat’s patented Bluecurve interface, and a Demo subscription to Red Hat Network - the vendor’s support, updating, and information network. For corporate users the deal is much the same, but with the emphasis placed more firmly upon support. Finally, through the combined efforts of both individual developer communities and distribution vendors, there are now Linux versions available that can compete on a level playing field with proprietary software such as Microsoft Windows. This means that Linux is a serious contender both on your home PC and in large-scale production situations. Why Choose Linux? Why might you choose Linux for your operating system, rather than one of its competitors? Here are a few points you might like to consider: Size and speed: A basic Linux installation can consume as little as 475MB of hard disk space and will run quite happily on as little as 6432MB of RAM. Compare this to Unix (which often requires more than 500MB) or Microsoft Windows 2000 (which recommends a minimum 2GB hard disk and 128MB RAM). The difference is due to the efficiency of the Linux operating system and (most of) the applications that run on it. Security: One significant reason for Linux’s excellent reputation as a secure environment is that its source code is completely accessible, and continues to be viewed by many pairs of eyes. Linux’s open source standpoint means that people other than the vendor can check for incomplete or tampered source code. The more people that study Linux’s source code, the more bugs (and security flaws) can be spotted. Of course, that’s only half the story - the other half is that the infrastructure is in place for easy bug-reporting, discussion, and bug-fixing. The result of all this is that more of the bugs get spotted more quickly, and they’re fixed faster. 6
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