Why is Linux so spectacularly successful?

There are likely lots of people who doubt the power and versatility of Linux. Maybe their friends all use Windows. Maybe Linux doesn’t play any obvious role in their lives, and they may not even realize what Linux is. So what’s so special about Linux? To borrow the old Star Trek quote, Linux has gone where no OS has ever gone before. This holds true for a number of factors, including: its open source nature; its tailorability, which has led to something like 600 actively maintained distributions with many dominant “families” of related distributions; the flexibility that has allowed it to run on the tiniest devices; how it runs on nearly every supercomputer; and its dominance of the web.

The beginning of Linux

It all started with Linux Torvalds, the Finnish-American engineer who was the principle force behind Linux’s development. He began to dabble in computer programming when he was only 10 years old using his grandfather’s Commodore VIC-20, an 8-bit home computer that was first announced in 1980. In 1991, while studying at the University of Helsinki, Torvalds didn’t like using MS-DOS on the school’s computers and decided to create his own PC-based version of UNIX. He soon made it available for others to download – along with source code – so that they could modify it to match their own needs and preferences. This was the beginning of a new movement: open source software.

This was only a couple of years after Tim Berners-Lee invented the first web server. His idea of creating a “universal linked information system” involved several concepts with a focus on the connections between all sorts of information. Berners-Lee developed the first web browser along with the language of the web –Hypertext Markup Language, or HTML – that is used to build web pages.

It’s no big surprise that Linux dominates the web. But that’s only a start. It’s also quickly made it to the top spot on mobile phones, media streamers and routers. Its range is amazing. It runs on the tiniest devices and nearly every supercomputer in the world. And, as was covered in a recent post on NetworkWorld, it’s now making manufacturing more reliable, flexible and efficient. (See: Linux is moving into efficient and flexible manufacturing)

Where is Linux going next?

Linux is making headway in its popularity with increasingly appealing desktops, by moving into open source AI, through more stable and immutable distributions, and by increasing the number and variety of games available (e.g., those powered by SteamOS). Even those who have remained unaware of how Linux has come to dominate so much of the computing world may soon become admirers and fans.