This blog is based on android, but Linux is the Kernel of Android!!

Thursday, November 24, 2011: Linux is getting more powerful with every passing day. According to the data given on Top500 Supercomputer Website, Linux OS is the highest scorer as far as the supercomputers are concerned, while the next OS, AIX, stands at a distant 5.6 percent as of November 2011. The website tracks the latest happenings in high-performance computing machines.

Linux is primarily chosen for supercomputers because the open source platform is perfectly customisable as well low cost, as compared to the proprietary platforms. Linux has come a long way from the time it overtook Hewlett-Packard's Unix system and became the leading platform in June 2003. At that time, Linux had 27.8 per cent of the market share, while Unix was a little low at 24.6 per cent.

According to a ZDNet report, Stephen Wong, deputy director of computing systems at Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star) Computational Resource Centre, said, “Linux's dominance in the supercomputer arena is no surprise. Since, it was first introduced in 1991, Linux software has quickly endeared itself to the open source community. Linux is now recognised as a force to be reckoned with.”

That's not all. With Linux being free, vendors are able to build a price-competitive machine faster as compared to when they use proprietary operating systems. Amanda McPherson, vice president of marketing and developer programs at The Linux Foundation, said in an e-mail to ZDNet, “Supercomputers are generally custom-designed and deeply tuned for the specific workload, very expensive, and have low sales volumes. This is why the open source operating system's low cost appeals to IT vendors. With Linux, anyone can see and optimise the source code, and work done by one company can be extremely beneficial for others. After all, about 90 per cent of the kernel is architecture-agnostic. When selling a supercomputer, the time to first boot is critically intertwined with profitability.”