It has been a long time coming, but the next version of the Linux operating system is now ready. The final release was delivered last thursday by Linus Torvald and his team of programmers and the code is now available for download.

This version is about a year behind schedule, as Torvalds did state that it would have been ready in June 1999, then at LinuxWorld in Frankfurt, Germany on October 6, he stated that it was unlikely to be launched until December at the earliest.

Version 2.4 is stated to contain several improvements, firstly in desktop usage, there is better support for printers, digital cameras, scanners, keyboards, mice, network cards, modems, zip drives and all other devices that plug into the universal serial bus port.

For servers, Linux will make better use of multiple processors. Linux is a clone of the Unix operation system and competes with systems such as Sun Microsystems Solaris and Microsoft Windows operating system. The difference being that you can obtain Linux for free. Linux first appeared on the computing scene in 1999.