Was curious as to who the ship was named after:<p>"As the coffin passed each SEAL, they slapped down the gold Trident each had removed from his own uniform and deeply embedded it into the wooden coffin. For nearly 30 minutes the slaps were audible from across the cemetery as nearly every SEAL on the West Coast repeated the act.[8]"<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_A._Monsoor" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_A._Monsoor</a>
The Zumwalt is using Real-Time Java, using a JVM from IBM that has an incremental GC with real-time guarantees (unlike the real-time Java spec, which essentially works by disabling the GC for real-time threads, so their NonHeapRealTime threads were essentially an architected memory leak). IBM's Real-Time Java, with their real-time Metronome GC, is running on real-time Linux, for which I was the tech lead at the IBM Linux Technology Center.<p>It was a fun project; since we were able to use the real-time Linux code base which Ingo Molnar and Stephen Rostedt worked on upstream, we spent most of our time stablizing the patches, and fed quite a few patches back upstream to get it into a production-ready state. Anyway, we had 50 microsecond interrupt and scheduler latency using real-time Linux, which allowed millisecond level real-time guarantees using garbage collected java threads.
Anybody remember the USS Yorktown?
The one that ran Windows NT 4.0 and had the apocryphal story about blue-screening and having to be towed back to shore?<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Yorktown_%28CG-48%29#Smart_ship_testbed" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Yorktown_%28CG-48%29#Smart...</a>
<i>"Almost all of the ship's internal communications are based on Voice Over IP (with the exception of a few old-school, sound-powered phones for emergency use)."</i><p>Interesting, I'd never heard of sound-powered phones before:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound-powered_telephone" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound-powered_telephone</a>
I always find this phrase 'powered by...' a bit sad when used in relation to computer software. I'm pretty sure the ship is <i>powered</i> by a large diesel engine or a small nuclear reactor. It's <i>managed</i> or <i>controlled</i> by Linux...well, technically via Linux but that's beside the point. A trivial objection, but I don't care for my news reporting to read like a breathless press release complete with meaningless marketing-speak.
This will be interesting (it takes containerized data centers to an interesting place). Given that naval engagements seem to be either 'unsophisticated Somali pirate' level or 'super sonic ship-killer cruise missile' there isn't a whole lot of middle ground in terms of reaction space.<p>I can say this though, I'd love to see the insides of one of these ships.
Great -- now the fragment of code I wrote for the kernel make s me potentially party to killing.<p>The long-term ethics of producing open source are fascinating -- you know we're all pretty gross if the NRA is wrong, don't you? About X not killing people, people killing people. 'Cause we brought a whole lot of X, and gave it away, puffed with pride, to people who can name something a 'dreadnought' without it being weird.
We'll just have to cross our fingers that they don't run into any cylons...<p>More realistically, I wonder what the attack surface of a highly computerized, networked ship like this is? What kind of separation can you achieve between the layered networks - would there be systems that are essentially air gapped from one another?
> more than 235 equipment cabinets (racks) in total<p>I wonder what they're doing that needs that much processing power? Or is it that every part of every subsystem has a dedicated server assigned to it no matter how little power it needs, just to stop the <i>possibility</i> of interference?
A few software licenses restrict the use of software in use of nuclear weapons & other WMD. I'm sure this vessel is capable of launching nuclear weapons, but it makes me wonder if the government will honor those license agreements or even if they were apart of the consideration.
Wow, what a surprise!!! Incredibly surprising, but you know what, even most mobile phones and most servers in the world are powered by Linux too!!<p>Jokes apart, almost any organization or commercial project out there which requires a new OS to be built from scratch prefer to use the Linux kernel.
An improvement in OS choice over <a href="http://gcn.com/articles/1998/07/13/software-glitches-leave-navy-smart-ship-dead-in-the-water.aspx" rel="nofollow">http://gcn.com/articles/1998/07/13/software-glitches-leave-n...</a>
> The CDS workstation uses common USB interfaces for its peripheral devices (such as trackballs and specialized button panels)<p>This could open up some interesting potential vulnerabilities, but I'm assuming/hoping that they've thought of that.
Hopefully it will reduce the cost, albeit slightly.<p>Why exactly do we need so many warships and aircraft carriers?<p>I mean what exactly are we doing with thirteen aircraft carriers that cost a small fortune to run?
Guess it's not first time when Linux facilitates mass murder and misery, or of course, <i>ahem</i> national defense.<p>What a shame. GPL should have a clause "do no evil".
The Navy has actually <i>used</i> Linux within warships for awhile now (via its defense contractors). The boat I served on a few years ago used Linux for at least two different subsystems. And before Linux they've used UNIX so it's not as if the Navy is completely new to all this.
I once heard that the Navy has a electronics phobia and relies as much as possible on mechanical and physical human control because EMP (e.g. du atomic bombs) are such a big thread. Maybe this is untrue or only true for key vessels like air craft carries. Does anyone know?