Low-cost, high-reliability, and powerful set of features has made Linux the fastest growing OS in the server market. Increasingly, workstation users are seizing these same advantages and using Linux as an alternative to UNIX or Windows for technical computing applications.

Although still a minor player in the workstation market, a significant number of workstations sold today run Linux. HP and IBM both offer Linux workstations, as well as a host of smaller vendors, such as Penguin Computing, BOXX technologies, and Pogo Computing. More flexible than Windows and cheaper than Unix, Linux fits the low end of the workstation market well. According to most vendors, the only thing holding back Linux on the workstation market is a shortage of high-end software applications.

Linux has penetrated many of the technical computing segments, including GIS, CAD design and engineering. "Linux workstations are used by our customers for a wide variety of applications," according to James Carrington, director of product marketing at Penguin Computing, a workstation and server vendor. "Software development, design, and engineering applications are some of the leading segments, along with system administration and network management applications."

Penguin Computing's Niveus 400 workstation uses duel Intel Xeon processor running at 2.8 Ghz and is targeted towards high-end Linux workstation customers, such as those involved with digital content creation, CAD design, computational dynamics, and advanced raster image processing.

The Niveus 400 can also hold up to 4 GB of PC2100 DDR RAM, and can carry three SCSI drives internally or in a 3-drive hot-swap cage for RAID 5 redundancy. With five PCI slots for add-in devices, including one PCI-X slot operating at 64-bit/133MHz and two PCI-X slots operating at 64-bit/100MHz, the Niveus 400 is highly expandable. The Niveus 400 also comes with an integrated gigabit LAN port, an IEEE1394 (Firewire) port, six USB 2.0 ports, and an 8x/4x AGP Pro50 slot. "At this point Linux hardware support is very broad," says Carrington.

Linux has proven that its robustness and performance are superior to Windows, according to Carrington. Plus it cost less to buy and maintain than other UNIX platforms. The major weakness of Linux workstations used to be poor graphics driver support, but in the last year that has been remedied and is now comparable to other platforms. In fact, Linux is making inroads into the 3D modeling and animation industries.

The DreamWorks film Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas was created entirely on Linux systems from HP. More than 250 HP workstations running Red Hat Linux comprised the core of DreamWorks' graphics platform. DreamWorks also developed Digital Animation Review Tool, an uncompressed and full resolution color accurate playback solution for Linux workstations. This tool replaced an Irix-based solution that was cost-prohibitive and limited in functionality.

Similarly, BOXX technologies builds graphics workstations and non-linear editing systems specifically for the entertainment industry. "Our customers, who focus primarily on the entertainment and visual effects industries, are primarily using Linux to create in-house software applications to streamline workflow," according to Tim Lawrence, vice president of Technology at BOXX Technologies.

The base configuration for the 3DBOXXS5i includes dual Intel Xeon processors, as much as 12GB Dual Channel 266MHz DDR RAM, an 8X AGP Pro 50 Graphics Port and a Dual-Channel UltraDMA 100 IDE Controller. It also offers both Windows XP and the Red Hat 9 Personal Edition of Linux. The base system costs about $2,100, but if the customer skips Windows XP they can save $89.

Part of Linux's appeal is that it can run on a variety of hardware platforms; there are Linux distributions available for the IA32, IA64, and AMD64 architectures. BOXX technologies offers its 3dBOXX graphics workstation with dual Xeon, Opteron, or Pentium 4 processors.