Linux over the past couple of years has matured to the point where it has been accepted as a viable platform for server applications. This transformation is due to its stability and support provided by a few companies. Currently it is being used by Internet Service Providers. Linux will be accepted for more serious applications only if it can handle heavy loads. This thesis analyzes the performance of Linux in one such application, the FTP server. Several experiments were conducted to determine the performance under different conditions. Conclusions based on these experiments are drawn and given in this thesis. Experiments show that Linux performs quite well under heavy loads.