Changes

Linux is also different to the closed source operating system vendors in that the software is distributed by many different companies. Major Linux distributions include [http://www.redhat.com/ Red Hat], [http://www.novell.com/linux/ SUSE], [http://www.debian.org/ Debian] and [http://www.ubuntu.com/ Ubuntu]. There are literally hundreds of Linux distributions as can be seen on [http://distrowatch.com DistroWatch.com].

Linux is also different to the closed source operating system vendors in that the software is distributed by many different companies. Major Linux distributions include [http://www.redhat.com/ Red Hat], [http://www.novell.com/linux/ SUSE], [http://www.debian.org/ Debian] and [http://www.ubuntu.com/ Ubuntu]. There are literally hundreds of Linux distributions as can be seen on [http://distrowatch.com DistroWatch.com].

In 2005 [http://www.forbes.com/ Forbes.com] posted [http://www.forbes.com/2005/03/15/cz_dl_0315linux_print.html an article] estimating Linux ran 60% of the world's top supercomputers at that time.  In 2003 the [[IBM]] Linux Technology Center [http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-rel/?ca=dgr-lnxw01LTP concluded] that Linux has enterprise class reliability.  Linux servers can run without reboot for years as can usually be seen at the [http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/today/top.avg.html Longest uptimes] URL on [http://www.netcraft.com/ Netcraft.com]. Another location to check on Linux uptime statistics is the [http://counter.li.org/reports/uptimestats.php Machine uptimes] page at [http://counter.li.org/ Linux Counter].  It is worth mentioning that there are other free operating systems not based on the Linux kernel that Linux borrows from and has been a source of inspiration to: namely [http://www.freebsd.org/ FreeBSD], [http://www.openbsd.org OpenBSD], [http://www.netbsd.org NetBSD], and dragonflyBSD, and the more recent Minix 3 and openSolaris.  Free operating systems allow a great deal of new ideas to be tried and collaboration made possible by the Internet makes teams easy to form. [http://www.netbsd.org NetBSD] claims to run on [http://www.netbsd.org/ports/ almost any hardware], [http://www.openbsd.org OpenBSD] has a goal to become the [http://www.openbsd.org/security.html most secure operating system] in the world, and [http://www.freebsd.org/ FreeBSD] has been powering computers for free since [http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/history.html before Linux became popular].  [http://www.opensolaris.org/ OpenSolaris] is a free version of [http://www.sun.com/ SUN Microsystems] proprietary Solaris OS.

In 2005 [http://www.forbes.com/ Forbes.com] posted [http://www.forbes.com/2005/03/15/cz_dl_0315linux_print.html an article] estimating Linux ran 60% of the world's top supercomputers at that time.  In 2003 the [[IBM]] Linux Technology Center [http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-rel/?ca=dgr-lnxw01LTP concluded] that Linux has enterprise class reliability.  Linux servers can run without reboot for years as can usually be seen at the [http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/today/top.avg.html Longest uptimes] URL on [http://www.netcraft.com/ Netcraft.com]. Another location to check on Linux uptime statistics is the [http://counter.li.org/reports/uptimestats.php Machine uptimes] page at [http://counter.li.org/ Linux Counter].

Owing to the nature of open source software, many variants of a Linux distribution may be created by using the original code and making changes to it to suit a particular need.  For example, there is also a [[Ubuntu]] [[Christian]] Edition.<ref>[http://www.whatwouldjesusdownload.com/christianubuntu/2006/07/about-ubuntu-christian-edition.html Ubuntu Christian Edition]</ref>

Owing to the nature of open source software, many variants of a Linux distribution may be created by using the original code and making changes to it to suit a particular need.  For example, there is also a [[Ubuntu]] [[Christian]] Edition.<ref>[http://www.whatwouldjesusdownload.com/christianubuntu/2006/07/about-ubuntu-christian-edition.html Ubuntu Christian Edition]</ref>