"General-purpose computing systems (in other words: personal
computers and workstations) could be useful within a variety of
control systems as human machine interface (HMI) platforms, network
interface systems and even host computers, but many engineers
hesitate to incorporate them because of the many stability and
security issues surrounding the dominant PC operating system,
Microsoft Windows XP. Linux provides an open-source alternative
that avoids these Microsoft-related issues. As more engineers
become acquainted with Linux, and Linux vendors make their
implementations easier to use, PCs running Linux OS have begun to
appear in many mission-critical applications..."
