Slashdot Mirror


Chrysler Adopts Linux For Vehicle Simulations

eMilkshake writes "According to this ComputerWorld article, Chrysler is adopting Linux for vehicle crash testing. According to the article, 'the new system is expected to improve simulation performance by 20%, while saving about 40% in costs....'" Insert knee-jerk reaction joke about computers and crashing here.

24 of 255 comments (clear)

  1. dummies by dirvish · · Score: 4, Funny

    What OS will the crash test dummies run?

  2. RTFA! by scrod98 · · Score: 5, Informative
    "The cluster is running modified LS-DYNA crash-testing software from Livermore Software Technology Group in Livermore, Calif."

    It's like, right at the beginning.

    --
    LETS DECOMPOSE & ENJOY ASSEMBLING
  3. Nice specs by Nintendork · · Score: 4, Funny

    Multiple Intel Xeons, a few terabytes of gigabit speed network storage. I wonder what FPS they get in Tux Racer. :)

  4. Other references by mmol_6453 · · Score: 5, Informative
    --
    What's this Submit thingy do?
  5. Good one... by andres32a · · Score: 5, Funny

    HelpLine: "General Motors HelpLine, how can I help you?"

    Customer: "I got in my car and closed the door and nothing happened!"

    HelpLine: "Did you put the key in the ignition slot and turn it?"

    Customer: "What's an ignition?"

    HelpLine: "It's a starter motor that draws current from your battery
    and turns over the engine."

    Customer: "Ignition?Motor?Battery?Engine?How come I have to
    know all these technical terms just to use my car?"

  6. Humus by EggplantMan · · Score: 5, Funny

    In the name of efficiency I've decided to combine all of these exceedingly clever jokes into one package!

    Cmdr_Taco: What happen?
    Mechanic: Somebody set us up the troll article.
    Operator: We get signal.
    Cmdr_Taco: What !
    Operator: Main screen turn on.
    Cmdr_Taco: It's you !!
    Katz: How are you gentlemen !!
    Katz: All your little boys are belong to us.
    Katz: You are on the way to your spelling sucks.
    Cmdr_Taco: What yuort say !!
    Katz: You have no chance to survive make your time.
    Katz: Ha Ha Ha Ha ... .
    Cmdr_Taco: 1. Take off every "sig."
    Cmdr_Taco: ...
    Cmdr_Taco: 3. Profit!

    --

    ?-|||-----x<*))))><
  7. Obligatory... by carlfish · · Score: 5, Funny

    Headline, six months from now:


    Chrysler abandons Linux crash-testing simulation. "We just couldn't get them to crash", says spokesman.
    --
    The more I learn about the Internet, the more amazed I am that it works at all.
  8. If Operating Systems Were Cars... by andres32a · · Score: 5, Funny

    MS-DOS: You get in the car and try to remember where you put the keys.

    WINDOWS: You get in the car and drive to the store very slowly, because attached to the back of the car is a freight train.

    MAC SYSTEM 8: You get in the car to go to the store and the car drives you to church.

    UNIX: You get in the car and type GREP STORE. After reaching 2000 mph en route, you arrive at the barber's shop.

    WINDOWS NT: You get in the car and write a letter that says 'go to the store'. Then you get out of the car and nail the letter to the dashboard.

    TALIGENT/PINK: You walk to the store with Ricardo Montalban who tells you how wonderful it will be when he can fly you to the store in his Learjet.

    OS/2: After fuelling up with 6000 gallons of gas you get in the car and drive to the store with a motorcycle escort and a marching band in procession. Halfway there, the car blows up, killing everyone in town.

    S/36 SSP: You get in the car and drive to the store. Halfway there you run out of gas. While walking the rest of the way you are run over by kids on mopeds.

    AS/400: An attendant kicks you into the car and then drives you to the store where you watch everyone else buy filets mignon.

    BeOSYour car goes faster, looks better, draws amazed stares everywhere you go, and has amazing preformance. Yet, when you try to fill it up, you find that it is incompatable with almost all know gas products.

  9. Crash Test Dummies? by cornjchob · · Score: 4, Funny

    Once
    There were these guys who
    Thought that using Linux would
    Improve their product's safety

    And when
    they fin'ly did it
    They found
    Gates had set fire to their work

    He said that it was because
    The Sherman act had smacked him
    sooooo hard

    mmmmm mmmm mmmm mmm
    mmmmm mmmm mmmm mmm

    Ah, the good ol' Crash Test Dummies...we hardly knew ye.

    --
    We now have confirmed reports from an informed Orange County minister that Ethel is still an active communist.
  10. I don't get it by vlad_petric · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The price tag for the deal isn't being released. Cost savings were a major motivator for the project, which was first considered about a year ago.

    And how precisely are they going to save money ? And save money relative to what ? The old system ? (I kind of doubt it) The same hardware system with a proprietay OS ? Maintenance costs ?

    This article has all the characteristics of a "negative" FUD.

    The Raven.

    --

    The Raven

    1. Re: I don't get it by Black+Parrot · · Score: 5, Insightful


      > And how precisely are they going to save money ? And save money relative to what ? The old system ? (I kind of doubt it) The same hardware system with a proprietay OS ? Maintenance costs ?

      See the links modded up to (5, informative) elsewhere. The general idea is that these days you buy a Linux CoW or Beowulf cluster instead of upgrading the ageing Cray. And for some reason it's still newsworthy, though people have been doing it for the better part of a decade now.

      Not that I mind the good PR for Linux, but it is a curious phenomenon that this kind of detail of a big corporation's IT affairs is considered newsworthy.

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
  11. they're replacing Unix by stevenj · · Score: 4, Insightful

    On the off chance that you actually read the article, you'll see that they're replacing Unix machines, not Windows, with Linux. This is a no-brainer, especially since their software is probably custom-developed and can easily be recompiled under GNU/Linux.

    --
    If a thing is not diminished by being shared, it is not rightly owned if it is only owned & not shared. S. Augustine
  12. If people bought cars like computers... by andres32a · · Score: 5, Funny

    HelpLine: "General Motors HelpLine, how can I help you?"

    Customer: "My car ran fine for a week and now it won't go anywhere!"

    HelpLine: "Is the gas tank empty?"

    Customer: "Huh?How do I know?"

    HelpLine: "There's a little gauge on the front panel with a needle
    and markings from 'E' to 'F'.Where is the needle
    pointing?"

    Customer: "It's pointing to 'E'.What does that mean?"

    HelpLine: "It means you have to visit a gasoline vendor and purchase
    some more gasoline.You can install it yourself or pay
    the vendor to install it for you."

    Customer: "What?I paid ,000 for this car!Now you tell me that
    I have to keep buying more components?I want a car that
    comes with everything built in!"

    HelpLine: "General Motors HelpLine, how can I help you?"

    Customer: "Your cars suck!"

    HelpLine: "What's wrong?"

    Customer: "It crashed, that's what wrong!"

    HelpLine: "What were you doing?"

    Customer: "I wanted to run faster, so I pushed the accelerator pedal
    all the way to the floor.It worked for a while and then
    it crashed and it won't start now!

    HelpLine: "It's your responsibility if you misuse the product.What
    do you expect us to do about it?"

    Customer: "I want you to send me one of the latest version that
    doesn't crash any more!"

    HelpLine: "General Motors HelpLine, how can I help you?"

    Customer: "Hi, I just bought my first car, and I chose your car
    because it has automatic transmission, cruise control,
    power steering, power brakes, and power door locks."

    HelpLine: "Thanks for buying our car.How can I help you?"

    Customer: "How do I work it?"

    HelpLine: "Do you know how to drive?"

    Customer: "Do I know how to what?"

    HelpLine: "Do you know how to drive?"

    Customer: "I'm not a technical person.I just want to go places
    in my car!"

  13. How much of that savings is about Linux? by jasonditz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It says the Linux solution saves 40% over the prior Unix solution, but it doesn't say what the prior solution is. Are the savings here really coming from using Linux, or just from using cheap commodity hardware clustered together?

  14. Interesting choice... by TWX_the_Linux_Zealot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...especially for a public announcement. I remember a while ago Microsoft was touting their big thing with how their clustering was going to out-do anything opensource with a few months, yet more and more large corporations, and not simply startups or new, tech-savvy ones, are adopting Linux or some other form of open source instead. I hope this demonstrates a continuing shift away from poorly written server code to something more viable and of better spec.

    --

    IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
    And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
  15. Car Trouble by andres32a · · Score: 5, Funny

    Four men rode in a car, a mechnical engineer, an electrical engineer, a chemical engineer, and a computer engineer. The car stalled out.

    The mechnical engineer said it must be the pistons, let's repair them and we'll be okay.

    The electrical engineer said it has to be the spark plugs, we'll replace them and be ready to roll.

    The chemical engineer said it's got to be bad gas, we'll flush the system and be on our way.

    They turned to the computer engineer. What do you think we should do?

    Let's get out of the car and get back in.

    1. Re:Car Trouble by GI+Jones · · Score: 5, Funny

      Actually, it goes:

      Four men rode in a car, a mechnical engineer, an electrical engineer, a chemical engineer, and a Microsoft(R) software engineer. The car stalled out.

      The mechnical engineer said it must be the pistons, let's repair them and we'll be okay.

      The electrical engineer said it has to be the spark plugs, we'll replace them and be ready to roll.

      The chemical engineer said it's got to be bad gas, we'll flush the system and be on our way.

      They turned to the computer engineer. What do you think we should do?

      First close all the open windows then restart.

      --
      "Perhaps most amazingly, votaries of 'diversity' insist on absolute conformity." -- Tony Snow
    2. Re:Car Trouble by flacco · · Score: 5, Funny
      Four men rode in a car, a mechnical engineer, an electrical engineer, a chemical engineer, and a computer engineer.

      And, definitely, none of them got laid that night.

      --
      pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
    3. Re:Car Trouble by dollargonzo · · Score: 5, Funny

      i heard it quite differently, mostly starting with the fact they were going down an icy hill and eventually stopped the car at the bottom.

      [middle is the same]

      software engineer:

      let's go down once more, and see if the problem happens gain!

      --
      BSD is for people who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.
  16. new car name required by erikdotla · · Score: 5, Funny

    Due to pressure from the FSF, since Linux was used as part of the car production process, GM will be forced to release the 2003 GNU/Taurus.

    --
    # Erik
  17. Re:Wait a minute by Osty · · Score: 4, Informative

    So wait a minute, you save money by using Linux? Are you telling me that the folks at MS are lying and that the TCO for Winodws isn't lower?

    Red herring. The article was about a migration to linux from a proprietary unix, not from Windows. Therefore, the only conclusion you can draw here is that linux saves you money over other unix operating systems. You can't make any conclusions about linux TCO vs. Windows TCO based on this article.


    Care to try again?

  18. Re:This is one application -- You don't understand by Proudrooster · · Score: 5, Informative

    The application itself if not going to run on the cluster. The cluster is simply going to be used as a "compute farm" for solving the datasets and models produced by the application.

    This is similar to what is happening in the animation industry. The LINUX boxes are simply going to "crunch" the numbers and feed the results back to an application running under Windows or high end UNIX workstations.

    For a cheap "compute farm" cluster, you can't beat Red Hat Advanced Server with Xenon's.

    We are planning to build a 16 node cluster next year for the same purpose as Chrysler. Again, the apps aren't running here, LS-Dyna, DynaForm, Hypermesh, FEMB etc ... will still all run on a UNIX/Windows workstation, but the solving will be done (very quickly) on a Red Hat cluster.

    It just rocks!

  19. Re:Software? by rat7307 · · Score: 5, Funny

    kRash, the kAr kRash kOmputer package for KDE....

    --
    Burma?
  20. Yet another SWITCH AD! by CSG_SurferDude · · Score: 5, Funny

    Or maybe we'll see a Apple Switch Ad that features Crash Tests...

    I was testing a car crash on the PC and it was like beeeeep beep beep beep beep beeeep! And then like half of my crash test was gone, and I was like unnnhhh...? It devoured my crash test.

    It was a really good test. And then I had to test it again and I had to do it fast so it wasn't as good.

    It's kind of...

    a bummer.

    Note to moderators: It's Funny, not off-topic.