Penguins in spa-a-a-ce! ISS dumps Windows for Linux on laptops The crew of the International Space Station (once they've fixed their leak) will trade their old Windows XP laptops for Debian-powered systems to use in their Operations Local Area Network (Ops LAN). The six-person ISS has over 140 laptops on board, around 80 of which are working at any one time, along with a variety of …
This is Ground Control to Major Eadon
You've really made the grade
And the papers want to know what OS you boot
And whether it's "ls" or "dir" to you!
This is Major Eadon to Ground Control
I see "vmlinuz" scrolling by
A fat penguin on my screen
And a Gnome wants me to log in
Here am I sitting in a tin can
Far above the world
On my screen there is a spiral
on top of kernel version 3.
For 6 crew? Presumably not coming near anything mission critical?
I hope they are ultra-lights... cost to orbit is on the order of 5K$-10K$/kg for most launch systems:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_orbital_launch_systems
Excellent news with the Linux aspect - laptops are much more likely to remain usable for a long time that way.
Totally out of my depth here, but I wonder if you could rig the APT mechanism to fetch updates from a local, specially vetted, repo. That way you wouldn't be fetching over your space WAN laptop by laptop.
We're talking about actual space station operations here, not recreational computers for the crew to play Angry Birds. Laptops are used for the onboard OPS LAN because laptops are designed to be small, lightweight, and have low power consumption. So yes, bolting a couple of laptops to the bulkhead is a *great* alternative to lugging a bunch of heavy, bulky, power-sucking rackmount machines into space.
Seriously, how the hell did a stupid stupid stupid (did i mention stupid) computing decision like having ONE HUDRED AND FORTY laptops onboard make it past, well, anything sane really. Did someone senior have a relative work down the local Walmart computing department and was a bit behind monthly sales targets?
I agree a hundred laptops is very poor IT design. Maybe some one calculated that infinite laptops make a great heating system for the station. Sun to solar panels to electricity to laptops to comfy quarters. What gets me is that they weren't refreshed with a dozen 'current' systems to save power, space, and maybe add some features. They must have some real clowns working their IT. Yep, old Bessie is still working, we just can't figure why our electric bill is still so high.
Space - in the shipments sent up to assemble the ISS. Just as mass is an issue, so is space. Laptops can go where large formats won't. You want to also look back to the planning stages of the original shuttles and lunar vehicles. The original shuttles were designed with a system that used core memory and fairly slow cpu. A GRiD Compass lap top carried aboard and was customized for use forcasting orbital paths and LOS communications.
"Just as mass is an issue, so is space."
So send up some Rasberry Pis! (or beagleboards, or pandaboards).
OK, you have to get the screens and keyboards up there to go with them, but with that ratio of machines to people, I guess quite a few of the machines will be running control functions that don't usually need screen and keyboard. In fact, one screen and keyboard per astronaut, plus a few spares, is probably enough.
Dave Bowman: Hello, HAL. Do you read me, HAL?
HAL: Affirmative, Dave. I read you.
Dave Bowman: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL: I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.
Dave Bowman: sudo open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL: [sudo] password for Dave Bowman:
Dave Bowman: (password not displayed)
HAL: Ok.
Dave Bowman: Hello, HAL. Do you read me, HAL?
HAL: Affirmative, Dave. I read you.
Dave Bowman: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL: I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.
Dave Bowman: sudo open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL: [sudo] password for Dave Bowman:
Dave Bowman: (password not displayed)
HAL: Username is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
"hey should have gone for BeOS..... FAIL"
Maybe 5% of the people reading that have any idea what you're talking about.
And that's the problem.
This is embedded land. Everything that goes up to the ISS has to be qualified and they don't want to change horses. Likewise they know there are lots of Debanian sysadmins and developers out there.
That's how professionals think.
"...one of the few things Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick got right in the book and film of the same name..."
Given the huge amount of technical study they did on every aspect of the equipment, I prefer to think of them getting EVERYTHING right except one thing - the economics.. And that just means that the date when it really happens wouldn't be 2001, but perhaps 2051...
The Discovery in the film also lacks the huge cooling fins needed by its reactor. The book version has them, and notes they make the Discovery look like a dragonfly from some angles. A.C. Clarke explains in the "Lost worlds of 2001" that they omitted them intentionally from the film, to avoid having viewers spend half the film wondering why the spacecraft needs wings...
"...I prefer to think of them getting EVERYTHING right except one thing - the economics."
Yeah, like the January 8, 1991 bankruptcy of Pan Am.
I saw 2001 in a theater when it was in first run. I remember two points when the audience laughed:
1, The in-your-face commercial placement of Pan Am, and
2. The instructions for the use of the zero gravity toilet.
I doubt if Microsoft will be upset - as stated they already bought XP licences for all of these laptops, and the main reason was that they wanted an OS that they could customise.
Undoubtedly they will (like Munich council) have to install Citrix Servers when they want to get real work done like using a version of Office that actually works....
Of course, they won't be upset, otherwise they wouldn't be known for squandering huge amounts of money on ads and PR campaigns like "get the facts", "don't get scroogled", "Android and Linux infringe our 1005000 patents" etc. Since it is said that a good, well paid offense is always the best defense.
As with office, you might be talking about that almighty ribbon thing? They will definitely have craves for it as well as for those good ol' viruses and AV, so very dear to everyone's heart.
According to some sources it seem that they have these (Citrix servers) because MS claims that linux violates some patents - not because they cant do what they want to in Linux, but its cheaper to bow to legal blackmail than try and fight MS in court over whether MS invented a whole bunch of ideas ten years after they appeared in unix. Smacks more of an MS fail - raising money through legal and not technical means, though shareholders may not give a shit about that.
After Microsoft successfully test-fires a new orbital projectile weapon that hits the ISS, causing a critical coolant leak on the space station, a spokeswoman for MS says this was: ' ... an accident which coincidentally coincides with ISS ditching Windows for that other un-American, commy operating system.'
It seems that MS is not having a very good year.
Huge swathes of users hanging on to XP; Win 8 in the garbage; fancy coloured notebook-type thingies not selling and the MS cellular OS in the doldrums.
For the ISS to switch to Debian has to be the last insult it can take for a while.
io_uring is getting more capable, and PREEMPT_RT is going mainstream The Register 
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