Realm Linux is a collection of tools and programs which the Campus Linux Services (CLS) staff have put together and added to a standard Red Hat Linux install in order to integrate more closely with campus computing services and increase security and usability of the base Linux OS within the NCSU environment.

Realm Linux serves two main purposes within the NCSU computing environment - lowering the price of performance, and exposing the University to an alternate computing paradigm, that of Open Source Software. Because Linux runs on commodity Intel-based hardware and has drivers available for the majority of PC-class peripheral devices, the cost of hardware is no more than the cost a desktop or home PC would be. This gives the University the benefit of Intel's economies of scale while not materially reducing the benefits or advantages to students, faculty or staff.

Realm Linux also introduces the University community to the Open Source model of computing, in which the source code to software is not licensed as it has been in the past but is instead distributed freely. The Open Source paradigm seeks to move away from product-based revenue to services-based revenue, and thus encourages efforts such as the Realm Linux development.