Linux Replaces Unix as the Operating System of Choice for Supercomputers

In the latest Global Top 500 Supercomputer ranking, Linux-based supercomputers occupy 476 slots, accounting for a staggering 95.2%. Today, Linux has established a dominant presence in the supercomputing field, but it wasn't always the reigning system since its inception.

The first-ever global Top 500 Supercomputer ranking was released in June 1993, around the same time that Linux was just beginning to gain traction. In fact, it wasn’t until 1993 that the first successful Linux distributions—Slackware Linux and Debian Linux—were introduced.

Subsequently, as a soon-to-be-released report from the Linux Foundation indicates, an analysis of data related to supercomputers and Linux over the past 20 years by the Top500 organization in the realm of computational performance shows that since Linux first appeared on the Top 500 supercomputer list in 1998, it has consistently ranked among the top ten operating systems for supercomputers over the past decade. Furthermore, starting in June 2010, the proportion of Linux-based supercomputers on the Top 500 list surpassed 90%.