Researchers with some 40 universities will be getting the latest version of the Red Hat Linux operating system courtesy of Hewlett-Packard and Linux software maker Red Hat.

The program is part of the $2.5 million Itanium-based Systems Grant program from Palo Alto, Calif.-based computer and printer maker Hewlett-Packard and Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip making giant Intel.

Palo Alto, Calif.-based HP and Research Triangle Park, N.C.-based Red Hat Tuesday announced the deal to supply the universities with the Red Hat Linux 7.1 OS and a one-year subscription to Red Hat Network, an open source information and software service.

"Open source software demonstrates another dimension of its flexibility when used in an educational environment," says Red Hat CTO Michael Tiemann. "Along with cost-of-ownership and IT security advantages for the universities, open source software provides a tremendous platform for academic research that can further advance the applications of Linux."

The idea is to put the most current technology in the hands of students to strengthen their research.

"Illinois is honored to have the opportunity to take part in the Itanium-based Systems Grants Program. HP, Intel and Red Hat are providing an ideal technological engine for our planned research," says Professor Wen-Mei Hwu of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. "This grant will enable us to accelerate our research in code optimizations and operating system performance and, in turn, make Itanium-based systems and Linux even more powerful solutions in the research community."