The two main reasons for the creation of Realm Linux are alluded to above - economies of scale and exposure to the Open Source programming paradigm. These are long-term reasons, however, and don't really suffice to explain the relatively recent marked increase in support for Linux on NCSU's campus.

This recent increase in support for a Linux computing environment is due to a wide variety of factors, including student desire for an inexpensive alternative to Windows, faculty / staff desire for an inexpensive alternative to spending large amounts of budget dollars on upgrading existing Solaris machines, and the simple fact that a large portion of the local Red Hat development team has ties to NCSU through either having been a student here or knowing current students. Realm Linux has also been found to be very competitive against Windows and Solaris running as back end servers.