Professor Supinski
ENGL101C-13
15 November 2012
Why Linux is better than Windows Linux holds the highest, most used operating system when it comes to supercomputers. Although, Windows holds that title when it comes to the average desktop computer. “Now, not 20 years later, well over 90% of the world top 500 supercomputers are running Linux.” (Vaughan-Nichols) All operating systems from UNIX to Mac OSX have their pros and cons. Mac OSX is known more for making multi-media such as movies, music, and art. Whilst Windows is used in more of a professional environment, we never hear about Linux because it’s free. Most people will go to any local computer shop and buy a decent looking laptop with Windows pre-installed on it. Nobody goes home and thinks about different operating systems they could experiment with. Linux surpasses Windows in the computing industry because of its stability, secureness, and efficiency. On the 5th of October, 1991 Linus Torvalds took what he saw from UNIX and it turned it into a free open-source operating system. Originally, it was only intended for x86 architecture computers, which are known as 32-bit operating systems. Since then it has opened up to the x64 architecture, known as a 64-bit operating system while opening to some other processer lines. The idea of Linux was designed under the GNU project, which was a repository of free software’s that techs could use. It was sought out to be a project that people could add onto. Open-source is when an application, or operating system for this matter, will allow you to read, view, and modify the programming code. Although, this does make it easier to configure the wrong setting but the open range of possibilities make it worth it. Not to mention Linux is the most efficient operating system on the market today. Linux derived from the UNIX operating system which is used in environments such as AT&T and phone companies. Since these companies need supercomputers to