In fact, Layton's team ran some test calculations on two government supercomputers-the "Roadrunner" system at the University of New Mexico and an Alpha-based cluster at the University of Virginia-and compared the results with two available Linux clusters. The conclusion: The price-performance ratio for the Linux clusters was at least 40 times better than the conventional supercomputers. "In performance, the clusters were about four times better," he says. "The other factor of 10 comes from the lower cost."

The cluster that Layton and his team put together with support from Linux Networx Inc. consists of 64 nodes, each of which is a 550-MHz dual Pentium III machine with 768 Mbytes of RAM. The nodes are connected to each other over a standard fast Ethernet LAN.

The cost of the cluster, which is able to complete four modeling cases (tasks) per day, was about $250,000. That's a marked contrast to the $1-million-a-year-for-three-years lease cost of a supercomputing system that could only handle one case a day. "The big benefit is that instead of this project taking more than 18 months, we're going to be able to finish it in about five or six months," Layton says.

There's also less risk with a clustered setup. "If we're working on multiple cases and a single node crashes, we only lose one of the cases we're working on," Layton says. "If you have a crash on a conventional system, all your work stops." He also maintains that administration of a Linux cluster is much less burdensome. "With a supercomputer, we need to have two people working full-time just to run the system," he says. "With the cluster, we can have a few people doing it on a part-time basis."

Layton says Lockheed's positive experiences with a variety of Linux solutions has the company looking at the open- source operating system for an increasing range of business applications. "It's an extremely stable and secure operating system," he says. "Combine that with low cost, and it would be hard to come up with a reason not to go with it in a big way."

Low cost, high stability, and superior performance are also attracting customers to Linux in more conventional application markets. Craig Miller, head of technology at staffing services firm SRDI Inc. in Austin, Texas, is a typical example. After using Unix variant FreeBSD, Miller moved to Linux two years ago because of the growing availability of commercial software titles. Those titles included Journyx, a Web time-sheet tool, and PostgreSQL, an open-source object/relational database. "The amazing thing about Linux is that you can run applications like this on a Pentium Pro machine that cost you $800 two years ago," Miller says. "You'd need a much faster and more expensive machine to do anything similar under Windows NT."

With such a compelling price-performance ratio, why aren't more companies catching Linux fever? Miller speculates that a lot of it has to do with company culture. "Big companies that have a lot riding on their systems want to hold someone accountable when they have problems," he says. "That's something you can get from a Sun or a Microsoft."

And while Grede's Smrcina is getting plenty of power and reliability for his Linux applications, IBM is still ramping up, which means Smrcina has to live without the contract-support programs IBM traditionally offers its corporate customers. "At this point, we're relying strictly on public forums," Smrcina says, although he's hopeful that distributors SuSe and TurboLinux will soon offer contract-support services for mainframe Linux.

But Smrcina has been using public forums as supplements to his contract IBM support for many years, and says that such forums, for any given problem, can actually be faster than contract services. He also says the half-day or so that he personally spends during the week helping other members of the Linux community solve their problems is a worthwhile investment. "I'm being helped in return," he says. "So it makes sense for me to be active in these discussions." Lockheed's Layton is also comfortable with the community-based support paradigm, which for him includes participation in a local group called Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts. "If I have a question, I can get it answered in about 30 minutes," he says. "That's better than a lot of paid support services."

Aberdeen Group's Claybrook says contract-support options for Linux will continue to grow, despite the problems faced by companies such as LinuxCare (a failed initial public offering) and TurboLinux (huge layoffs). "Large vendors such as IBM and HP are going to deliver the same support for Linux as they do for other platforms," he says.

Claybrook also says Linux will become less of a market anomaly as more software vendors embrace the open-source model. "There's a growing realization that, to remain successful, developers are going to have to get more involved in open source," he says. "The open-source approach gives you a much closer affinity with your customers and lets you get the changes your customers need into your code quicker than traditional proprietary models do."

Claybrook says another sign of Linux's growing maturity is that the quasi-religious zealotry that characterized its early-adopter phase is now giving way to a more sober, value-based perspective. "Executives at Linux development firms aren't just fanatics who are out to smite Microsoft anymore," he says. "They're coming out of established companies like Oracle and are offering the market corporate-class performance and support."

Despite the backlash from Wall Street's recent hyper-inflated valuations, Linux clearly isn't just a passing fad. With IBM's endorsement and the backing of a growing number of solid developers, Linux is likely to maintain its appeal as a reliable, low-cost alternative to commercial operating systems.

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