Linux in a Nutshell, Fifth Edition

Distribution and Support | 3

Introduction

This is the Title of the Book, eMatter Edition

Copyright © 2006 O’Reilly & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

The economic power behind Linux’s popularity is its support for an enormous

range of hardware. People who are accustomed to MS-DOS and Microsoft

Windows are often amazed at how much faster their hardware appears to work

with Linux—it makes efficient use of its resources.

For the first several years after its appearance, users were attracted to Linux for a

variety of financial and political reasons, but soon they discovered an unexpected

benefit: Linux works better than many commercial systems. With the Samba file

and print server, for instance, Linux provides stable Windows-based networking

to a large number of end-user PCs. With the Apache web server, it provides more

of the useful features web administrators want than competing products do.

Embedded versions of the Linux kernel are growing in use because, although they

are larger than the most stripped-down operating systems, they deliver a range of

powerful features within a remarkably small footprint.

Opinions still differ on how suitable Linux is as a general-purpose desktop

system. But the tremendous advances in usability and stability of the desktop soft-

ware and its applications are undisputed. Soon (if not today), one will find Linux

in many offices and other end-user environments.