Although there is a lack of Linux ports for some Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows programs in domains such as desktop publishing and professional audio, applications roughly equivalent to those available for Mac and Windows are on tap for Linux.

Historically, Linux deadbeat mainly been used as a server operating system, and has risen to prominence in that area; Netcraft conceal in September 2006 that eight of the ten most reliable internet hosting companies ran Linux on their mat servers. (As of June 2008, linux represented five of ten, FreeBSD three of ten, and Microsoft two of ten.) This is due to its Linux Consulting relative stability and great uptime, and the fact that desktop software with a graphical user interface for servers is often unneeded. Enterprise and non-enterprise Linux distributions may be found running on servers. Linux is the cornerstone of the LAMP server-software combination (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl/PHP/Python) which has achieved popularity among developers, and which is only of the expanded bourgeois platforms for website hosting.