96. Everyone was sending the source codes over FTP and soon people were falling in love with Linux.
Running many programs from the GNU project, Linux was ready for the big market, so it became licensed under the GNU General Public License and people began gobbling it up like crazy. Many vendors jumped on the train and made Linux even better by bundling up various software of Linux to make it similar to the more common operating system packages that were in the market at the time. Red Hat, Caldra, and many others made Linux popular thanks mainly to the new graphical user interfaces they were using for the OS (X-Windows, KDE, GNOME). Soon Linux was being implemented on hundreds of thousands computer worldwide as well as 3coms Palm Pilot computer. In 1996, scientists used Linux to connect 68 computers to test atomic shock waves and this supercomputer only cost a fraction of normal supercomputers to make, as well as run. It reached 19 billion calculations per second speed, ranking it 315th among supercomputers and managed to run for more than three months without needing to be rebooted. Linux was showing is power as well as its value as freeware.
Linux, like all operating systems, has strengths and weaknesses to help determine if it is right for you. Let's venture into the strengths first. Outside the fact that Linux is virtually free, it allows do-it-yourself flexibility. This means that users can modify Linux software to suit their needs. Thanks to the fact that Linux allows an open source code and is licensed under GNU General Public License, this is what makes changing the software possible. This doesn't mean you have to change it, and you shouldn't change it unless you know what you are doing. The next big strength is stability. Known as the OS that "never crashes," many believe that Linux never crashes because it never does as much as other operating systems. Personal computers and Macs are known to be the only computers that run operating systems that crash.
