Question

How does Linux run so well in both desktops and servers?

Answer 1

Yes. It's becoming the number 1 server OS, if it's not already.

Answer 2

i think it was number 1 long time ago, maybe always? :D

Answer 3

There are various reasons. One is that in a server environment, you need a highly reliable OS (because failures and downtime quickly translate into millions of dollars an hour), which translates well into a stable desktop system. Of course that comes with various pitfalls - for example hardware support that Linux has historically suffered in; this is no longer the case (in fact, I'd wager that the out-of-the-box hardware support of most Linux distros today is a cut above Windows'), but was a huge problem just a few years ago. For most server platforms, you've got a very narrow spectrum of hardware that needs to be supported - nobody is going to show up and plug a random digital camera from Best Buy into a 19" rack server and expect it to work. Luckily that problem is largely solved, and for today's distros most hardware will work without the hunting-the-interwebs-for-drivers or install-a-driver-from-a-disk-and-get-a-bunch-of-crapware-with-it we know so well from Windows.

More technically, I'd say that the Linux kernel has a better process scheduler (ever had a Windows box lock up and become nearly unusable because two or three applications are actually doing stuff at the same time?), better memory allocator, and less gaping security holes, that are found, revealed, and fixed more quickly than in proprietary OS code.
As an aside, for some reason it also seems that the programmers developing for the platform are more conscious of memory use - I've got a Linux machine with 8GB of RAM and have not once (literally, not a single time) touched swap space in many months of daily use, including heavy software development, editing audio, video, and doing some pretty sophisticated RAW processing on images from my DSLR. I couldn't tell you why that is the case though ;)

In the end, people use what works for them. For some that's Linux, others Windows and then others it's MacOS ;)

Answer 4

I think the basic mentality of open source vs. commercial software is different. I think, and have for years, that open source is usually written kind of like a sculpture working on a statue, where commercial software is corrupted byt the need to get it out the door and bill it.