Linux, also known as GNU/Linux, is a free, powerful, UNIX-like operating system, developed originally for home PCs, but which now runs on a variety of platforms including PowerPC, Macintosh, Amiga, Atari, DEC Alpha, Sun Sparc, ARM, and many others. With millions of users worldwide, Linux is probably the most popular UNIX-like operating system in the world.

Linux has long been praised for its stability--Linux boxes are known for running months or even years at a time without crashing, freezing, or having to be rebooted.

Linux machines are also known to be extremely fast, because the operating system is very efficient at managing resources such as memory, CPU power, and disk space. More of the Web than one might expect is actually powered by old 486 boxes running Linux and the Apache Web Server, while NASA, Sandia, Fermilabs and others have built very powerful yet inexpensive supercomputers by creating clusters of Linux boxes running in parallel.

Linux has been developed and refined by a worldwide community of programmers and other computer professionals connected by the Internet. The talent of this research and development community far exceeds the resources of any single commercial software company.