A brief history of Linux and the cosmos

One could name Solaris, HPUX, OSX and Windows as alternatives, but their user base is tiny compared to the Linux user community (in HPC-related environments) due to the proprietary nature of those operating systems. Some of them may be a better choice than Linux in very specific areas, but not for the COSMOS style of use, with its wide range of applications and research tasks... From the COSMOS support team point of view, there is no alternative to Linux as the OS of choice for HPC applications."