As mentioned earlier, an excellent choice for a WAVE host is a PC running Linux. Linux is a (very) complete, and completely free, robust, modern reimplementation of the UNIX operating system, written by Linus Torvalds and a cast of thousands. It is available in source and ready-to-run form by anonymous FTP from many sources, including tsx-11.mit.edu, sunsite.unc.edu, and ftp.funet.fi. You can also obtain Linux on CD-ROMs from many commercial sources, generally at very low prices (typically US$10 to $40, depending mainly on the amount of printed documentation and technical support offered). Current Linux distributions include X11R6, XView 3.2, olwm and olvwm, TCP/IP networking including NFS support, the complete collection of GNU software including the GNU C/C++ compiler, Ghostscript, TeX, and much more. For further information, visit the home page of the Linux Documentation Project (http://sunsite.unc.edu/mdw/), or get the Linux INFO-SHEET by anonymous FTP from tsx-11.mit.edu (pub/linux/docs/INFO-SHEET) or from sunsite.unc.edu (pub/Linux/docs/INFO-SHEET). The other Linux HOWTO documents mentioned earlier can be obtained from these sources as well.
Since mid-1995, Linux has supported ELF binaries, and current versions of WAVE for Linux are made available in this format. Older versions of Linux used the a.out binary format. If you have been running one of these older versions of Linux, updating your system to one with ELF support is highly recommended. Until you do so, you can use the Linux a.out WAVE version 5.4 binary available from ecg.mit.edu .