Linux To Become Exclusive OS Of The International Space Station

Finally! This story has been submitted <i>so</i> many times over the past few weeks, it's nice to see it finally get some traction.<p>Other sources may have different levels of detail, or different takes on the story, so in case anyone is interested in reading the story from other sources, here are some of the other submissions:<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5668312" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5668312</a> (zd.net)<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5669927" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5669927</a> (zdnet.com)<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5677045" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5677045</a> (linuxfoundation.org)<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5680490" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5680490</a> (extremetech.com) (4 comments)<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5686586" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5686586</a> (gizmodo.com)<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5687720" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5687720</a> (readwrite.com)<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5689142" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5689142</a> (venturebeat.com)<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5695447" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5695447</a> (telegraph.co.uk)<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5711378" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5711378</a> (vice.com)<p>Interestingly, very few comments or upvotes on any of them.

<i>"Back in 2008, a Russian cosmonaut managed to take a laptop to the ISS that spread the W32.Gammima.AG worm to all the other laptops aboard the station."</i><p>Holy crap.

A good and suitable use of Linux based systems. They can now install custom installations with packages that are individually vetted. They also got source code, so there is no limit on how careful reviews and (continuously) testing that can be made. During crunch time, they can even crowdsource.<p>The malware threat will also be lower, mostly thanks to not installing every single default program and service that windows come pre-install. So long they are not completely lazy and just install a massive DVD sized distro like Ubuntu, the attack surface and number of packages needed to vet should be quite manageable.

<i>(slightly)</i> more detailed article: <a href="http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/155392-international-space-station-switches-from-windows-to-linux-for-improved-reliability" rel="nofollow">http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/155392-international-spac...</a><p>in related news, Debian 6 apparently ships with support for <i>the International Space Station</i>, but still can't manage to sleep/resume peacefully.

If they still favor ThinkPads on the ISS they can expect a pleasant Linux experience.

Is anyone else horrified that they were running Windows?

Which distro?

Finally it becomes the respect it deserves. I hope the project will receive more respect and openness by those damn hardware manufacturers.<p>Keeping hardware artificially closed, needs an end.

wow... So $150 billion ISS was using <i>Windows XP</i> until now?!!!

Great news.

How is it not already the exclusive OS?

Laptops? On laps? Weightlessly?