Linux is a technically sound and stable choice of operating system. The advantages of Linux include:

• The core operating system is solid.
• Innovations such as the ReiserFS file system address file input/output speed, which is Iguana's largest performance bottleneck.
• Many vendors provide Linux-compatible Intel software.
• Linux is less vulnerable to viruses than Windows-based operating systems are.

The disadvantages of Linux include:

• Your organization must contain people who have enough Linux expertise to maintain the system. Linux implementations can cause problems for people without extensive experience. In particular, it is easy to set up a Linux system in a non-standard way.
• Version control management is more difficult: many Linux vendors release many more versions than are released by closed-source alternatives such as Windows or Mac OS X.
• Hardware upgrades can be difficult, and often require an operating system upgrade.