A lot of
the advantages of Linux are a consequence of Linux' origins, deeply rooted in
UNIX, except for the first advantage, of course:
Linux is free
As in free beer, they say. If you want to spend absolutely
nothing, you don't even have to pay the price of a CD. Linux can be downloaded
in its entirety from the Internet completely for free. No registration fees, no
costs per user, free updates, and freely available source code in case you want
to change the behavior of your system.
Most of all, Linux is free as in free speech
The license commonly used is the GNU Public License (GPL). The
license says that anybody who may want to do so, has the right to change Linux
and eventually to redistribute a changed version, on the one condition that the
code is still available after redistribution. In practice, you are free to grab
a kernel image, for instance to add support for tele transportation machines or
time travel and sell your new code, as long as your customers can still have a
copy of that code.
Linux is portable to any hardware platform
A vendor who wants to sell a new type of computer and who doesn't
know what kind of OS his new machine will run (say the CPU in your car or
washing machine), can take a Linux kernel and make it work on his hardware,
because documentation related to this activity is freely available.
Linux was made to keep on running
As with UNIX, a Linux system expects to run without rebooting all
the time. That is why a lot of tasks are
being executed at night or scheduled automatically for other calm moments,
resulting in higher availability during busier periods and a more balanced use
of the hardware. This property allows for Linux to be applicable also in
environments where people don't have the time or the possibility to control
their systems night and day.
Linux is secure and versatile
The security model used in Linux is based on the UNIX idea of
security, which is known to be robust and of proven quality. But Linux is not
only fit for use as a fort against enemy attacks from the Internet: it will
adapt equally to other situations, utilizing the same high standards for
security. Your development machine or control station will be as secure as your
firewall.
Linux is scalable
From a Palmtop with 2 MB of memory to a petabyte storage cluster
with hundreds of nodes: add or remove the appropriate packages and Linux fits
all. You don't need a supercomputer anymore, because you can use Linux to do
big things using the building blocks provided with the system. If you want to
do little things, such as making an operating system for an embedded processor
or just recycling your old 486, Linux will do that as well.
The Linux OS and most Linux applications have
very short debug-times
Because Linux has been developed and tested by thousands of
people, both errors and people to fix them are usually found rather quickly. It
sometimes happens that there are only a couple of hours between discovery and
fixing of a bug.
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