The faster a computer goes, the more likely is to have Linux at
its heart. The most recent Top500 list of supercomputers shows
that, if anything, Linux is becoming even more popular at
computing's high end. In the latest Top500 Supercomputer list,
you'll find when you dig into the supercomputer statistics that
Linux runs 457 of the world's fastest computers. That's 91.4%.
Linux is followed by Unix, with 30 or 6%; mixed operating
systems with 11 supercomputers, 2.2%. In the back of the line,
you'll find OpenSolaris and BSD with 1 computer and--oh me, oh
my--Windows also with just 1 supercomputer to its credit. That's
a drop from 4 in the last supercomputer round up in June.
Digging deeper, we find that various customized Linux
distributions account for 414 of the supercomputers. AIX, IBM's
house brand of Unix, takes a distant second place in individual
operating system distributions. It's followed by various
versions of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) and a variety of
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) varian