Linux Desktops Send NASA Rovers to Mars

joestar writes "It's not a secret that Linux has been used at NASA for a long time, and it appears that they have been using it quite extensively on the desktop. From the article: 'At the JPL, it is common to see Red Hat Inc., SuSE or Mandriva Linux running on users' desktops alongside Windows. [...] that's still a lot of Linux on the desktop.' More surprisingly, they seem to be reluctant to use Linux on servers: 'Our personal view is that Linux, period, is only for the desktop. We don't run our main servers on Linux, because there are too many flaws in main Linux kernel.'"

Comments

What we do not know

[SirCyn]

Our greatest strength is to know our flaws. I think any OSS appplies here.

Re:What we do not know

[SatanicPuppy]

I think the biggest issue anyone could have with Linux is that it comes with too much stuff by default.

For a mission critical app with a zillion dollars worth of hardware riding on it, I might be more comfortable putting my faith in a much tighter, more easy to audit OS. Not that there aren't Linuxes like that, but they're usually not supported by the big Linux support companies, and that is the second reason why I might go with IBM or SUN, for example.

Re:What we do not know

[tomhudson]

We don't run our main servers on Linux,

... you'd think they could find someone to run linux on their servers ... its not like it takes a rocket scientist

oh, right, thie is JPL ... :-)

Re:What we do not know

[fifedrum]

you are correct, knowing your flaws is a great strength for a software community to have. We're more responsive to problems, and often quicker with fixes, no?

I know it's circumstancial and anecdotal, but in my experience, the largest problem with mission critical machines is hardware, not software.

Re:What we do not know

[Cyclops]

IBM or SUN is A LOT HARDER to setup in an extreme minimum install than a GNU/Linux or *BSD machine.

Any saying otherwise completely disregard both facts and how easy/hard it can in be done on such and such system.

Re:What we do not know

[VernonNemitz]

knowing your flaws is a great strength for a software community to have

Well, I see them SAYING that there are too many flaws in the kernel.
Would it be too difficult for them to provide an actual list, so they can be fixed?

Re:What we do not know

[panthro]

In my experience, it's a heck of a lot easier to get a minimal Gentoo Linux or FreeBSD server running than a minimal Solaris server. I'm not denying that Solaris kicks butt on Sun hardware, but it's a stretch to call a Solaris system minimal even if you install only the core packages that it (according to the installer) won't run without.

Re:What we do not know

[Guppy06]

The quote from the blurb:

"because there are too many flaws in main Linux kernel"

Whether or not there is "fluff" seems to be moot.

Re:What we do not know

[Malor]

The biggest issue anyone could have with Linux is that it fucking breaks.

NASA has this dead on. When you're dealing with failures that can cost millions, the 2.6 kernel is simply not reliable enough. Hell, if you're dealing with failures that cost thousands, it's not reliable enough... and most server failures cost at least that much for midsize and larger companies. Downtime is really expensive. And you're entirely likely to have it with 2.6.

We in the open source community have this collective groupthink that Linux is extremely stable. It ISN'T, not anymore. 2.2 was incredibly robust... in my opinion, one of the best pieces of software ever written. 2.4 was problematic but eventually mostly stabilized... it still has occasional issues with unusual hardware combinations, but by and large it's pretty solid. 2.6, on the other hand, has been a complete nightmare from the point of view of pretty much any professional sysadmin. Constant regressions, constant bugfixes, and they won't fucking leave it alone and let it stabilize.

It takes YEARS to shake the bugs out of a piece of software, but they refuse to commit to backporting bugfixes to anything older than a couple of months. They just wave their hands in the air and expect 'the distros' to fix their coding errors, instead of doing it right in the first place. So everyone else has to scramble around and backport bugfixes, or else adopt a pile of new features every couple of months. Then we get the bugfixes for the new code, along with MORE new code, with yet MORE bugs. Rik van Riel has stated, I kid you not, that's he's perfectly okay with only one in three 'stable' kernels actually being, you know, stable.

So of COURSE NASA doesn't use it on servers. Linux is not being written for reliability. It never was, it just happened by accident. It was ALWAYS intended as a desktop Unix, but it was so amazingly robust in its early, simple incarnations, that it was pressed into wide server duty. And instead of realizing why Linux became so popular, the devs seem to have stayed with their desktop orientation... and in fact have changed the development process so it's more fun for them. It's a nightmare for everyone ELSE, but now they don't have to deal with the boring, nasty grunt work of making sure the code actually works in every single case.

I can't find the quote now, but at one time, Linus said something along the lines of "Hardware is inherently stable; there's no reason why software can't be written to the same standard." But he seems to have forgotten that completely. Linux has turned into the Windows of Unix.... lots and lots of features, not so hot on reliability. You KNOW it's a problem when Ars Technica, one of the most competent geek websites anywhere, switched back to Windows for _stability_. The Linux dev team should be completely ashamed of themselves for that one.

I've been using Linux since late 93 or early 94. I put it into real production service in business in '98 or so, and relied on it for years. All we had back then was ext2, which lost data if the box crashed... but it didn't matter much because it never crashed.

That is SO not true anymore.

Re:What we do not know

[Photon Ghoul]

Or a patch?

Re:What we do not know

[TWX]

"... you'd think they could find someone to run linux on their servers ... its not like it takes a rocket scientist..."

My girlfriend (who, coincidentally is a rocket scientist) unfortunately runs Windows too. At least she stuck to Windows 2000. She apparently tried to run MIT's variant of Linux when she was a student, but I guess that she found it not to her taste *sigh*

Re:What we do not know

[Anonymous Coward]

He said "main servers" not all server. Linux is flawed because it is a young OS. When you have something that you run for two decades, you don't want to switch it just for the sake of the switch. That is dangerous.

Anyway, the 10240 processor system running Linux is then not a "main server" according to that person,

http://www.sgi.com/company_info/newsroom/press_rel eases/2004/october/worlds_fastest.html

Re:What we do not know

[ivanmarsh]

I think the biggest issue anyone could have with Linux is that it comes with too much stuff by default.

Linux doesn't come with anything by default. Don't confuse your distribution with the OS.

Re:What we do not know

[Neil Watson]

I agree that 2.2 was super stable and that 2.4 was less so. However, I've found that 2.6 is very stable. Certainly more that 2.4. A lot of stability issues come down to how you build your kernel. Build only what you need. Don't use things marked experimental. Research your kernel/hardware combination before hand.

Re:What we do not know

[Anonymous Coward]

The biggest issue anyone could have with Linux is that it fucking breaks.

REally? then why do SO MANY people and businesses rely on it for Long term mission critical stuff?

I am thinking you are making a huge mistake and calling a distro you used or have used linux. This is not the case.

Linux is on most of the weather monitoring stations in the antartic, you know that place that is really FUCKING cold and hard to get to. One of those stations has been running linux cince 1997 with no upgrades, no downtime and in one of the harshest environments on this planet.

Linux in it's self is pretty damned rock solid. and in most uses it is compiled with what it needs to work great right out of the box. No fool on this planet would install Fedora4 for a research project on a system that can not be reached easily but they certianly will roll their own embedded or lite distro with a custom compiled kernel to make the most stable thing you have ever seen.

Linux when used correctly does not fucking break. I have never had linux break. I have had apps break, distros fail and hardware go to pot but outside of running unstable bleeding edge I have never EVER had linux break. I can not say the same for another famous embedded OS or Solaris or everyones favorite unstable baby... windows(nt,xp,ce,whatever)

So please either clairify or correct yourself. Linux 2.4, 2.2 and even the 2.0 series is insanely stable and extremely useable and is relied on by many for mission critical the project will die if this fails kind of situations. Personally I have a linux 1.X series kernel based on slackware that has not been rebooted and has ran fine on top of a 200 foot tower for nearly 7 years now... and it does not fucking break.

Fools use the latest for important situations. Wise men use stable and known good for the critical stuff.

I suggest you take a note from debian stable and take your critical stuff off of Fedora core 5pre-Alpha1 and switch to debian stable or even something that is worthy of the data needs.

Nasa certianly does not run Solaris 10, or any other recent OS on their servers (no kids they are not stupid enough to run windows) why do you think they do that?

Linux does not FUCKING break. fools that use unstable versions (Yes 2.6 is unstable) is what causes things to break.

Re:What we do not know

[Anonymous Coward]

Lighten up Francis.

Re:What we do not know

[erlenic]

If you have NASA's budget, you can pay IBM or Sun to do it for you. Give me several million dollars and I'll do it.

It may not be the best way, but it's certainly possible.

Re:What we do not know

[molarmass192]

I've found 2.6.11 to be very stable for server purposes. I have 2 high load prod boxes going strong for about 6 months now without a hiccup. Yeah, 2.6 had a bit of a rough start, but all the surprises seem to be out of it now. Anybody who jumps on a new major version of ANYTHING for production purposes without giving it a chance to mature runs a solid risk of getting burned.

Re:What we do not know

[Gilmoure]

I was part of a team that transsisioned Fla Honeywell engineers from Mac Desktops to Windows, back in 95-96. Talk about a bunch of complainers. "I can't find my printer", "Outlook sucks", "My Mac was cute!", etc. Only fun bit was watching the support metrics climb as more windows machines went online.

Re:What we do not know

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullocks. You can't opt out of massive low level SCSI rewrites. You can't opt out most of the stuff they're doing. The linux kernel dev team is going bonkers with changes, and seems to have completely lost touch with their most avid users: the early adopters who saw fit to install linux in skunkworks fashion to handle all manner of backend utility functions, despite the fact that it lacked many of the features belonging to it's proprietary brethren. Linux served them well because it was predictably stable, and easy to manage. Those people are now getting screwed. The kernel used to evolve more or less asymptotically to a pretty stable state. No longer. The 2.6 kernel is a reputation breaker. For the dev team and for the poor sysadmins who were trusting enough to advocate in favor of deploying it in their businesses. Linus' reputation as the uber software manager par excellance has taken a serious hit.

This is what Linus needs to do. Fire people. Clean house. Slackers who can't be bothered to clean up their messes because they're always too busy writing shiny new sloppy code should have their submission privileges revoked. Maybe even call 2.6 complete. Done. Finito. Then say that the only people who can submit to the next kernel revision are those who demonstrate a serious commitment to cleaning up 2.6. Let that process play out for six months or so, and then start 2.7. Go back to previous kernel numbering too.

Alan Cox, where art thou?!

Re:What we do not know

[obizgnodnahs]

from Ars Technica:

Q. Why did you change over from Linux? A. This is a loaded question, so we'll be brief. Ars started out on Windows NT back in 1998, but shortly after that we moved to FreeBSD, and then later, Linux. We ran Linux until March of 2004, when we made the move to Windows Servers. Linux and Apache had served us quite well, but when we turned to look at building our new CMS, .NET was simply so attractive for our needs that we felt it warranted the switch. If there are enough requests, we may do an article later documenting our thought process, but for now I'll say that the decision was largely a programming one, with the added benefit of the fact that more of us support Windows in our real lives than Linux.

Re:What we do not know

[Malor]

Yes, but they also said that they got much, much better stability to boot. Keep reading... they've written a couple of articles about it.

Re:What we do not know

[Anonymous Coward]

Would it be too difficult for them to provide an actual list, so they can be fixed?

Yes it would be too difficult. See, most people dont' want an OS Kit they want an OS.

And the vast majority of linux cheerleaders aren't out there saying "hey come join our software lovefest" they are saying "Hey, use linux it's a replacement for Solaris/Windows/AIX/HPUX/etc." Which means you have to play ball according to their rules.

The vast majority of people who run unix servers don't want to hack on the OS. They want to do whatever their line of business is and the unix server is just there to support that.

If you want to compete you have to compete on the same field serving the same basic needs.

Re:What we do not know

[Anonymous Coward]

".NET was simply so attractive..." Lock him in somwhere, he is mad. Girls are attractive, not development platforms.

Re:What we do not know

[brunson]

I'm certified in AIX and Solaris system administration and I've been running linux on the desktop and servers since 1994 and I can assure you that is a ridiculous statement.

Re:What we do not know

[ae]

I don't want to confirm your claim that 2.6 is unstable, because for me it hasn't been. But either way, different people have different needs. While I'm using Linux on servers (and I'm happy with its stability), I also want to have support for all the hardware in my laptop when it comes out, not two years later, when I'm ready to sell it and upgrade to a new one (with yet more unsupported hardware).

With the new 2.6 development model, I mostly have this kind of support. In 2.4, I didn't.

Re:What we do not know

[jonadab]

> When you're dealing with failures that can cost millions, the 2.6 kernel
> is simply not reliable enough.

2.6? 2.6 was only just released in the last year or so, of *course* it's not ready for million-dollar systems. The latest stable is only 2.6.15, for crying out loud; you can't expect anything that releases as often as Linux to be ready for million-dollar systems in only fifteen releases.

Whether 2.4 is stable enough for that is a more interesting question. (No, I know it wasn't when it was first released. Obviously. I mean now.)

> It takes YEARS to shake the bugs out of a piece of software

Yes, exactly.

> but they refuse to commit to backporting bugfixes to anything older than
> a couple of months.

On the contrary, 2.2, to say nothing of 2.4, is still maintained in terms of serious bugs like crashing or security issues. It's not receiving new feature work, nor "destabilizing" bug-fixes (the sort of non-critical thing that's more likely to break workarounds than it is to stabilize anything), but you wouldn't *want* it to be.

> Linux is not being written for reliability. It never was, it just happened
> by accident. It was ALWAYS intended as a desktop Unix

It was intended as a desktop system, yes, although nonetheless a certain amount of reliability was deliberate. I know some people are happy with a desktop that crashes regularly, but other people find that annoying.

Re:What we do not know

[peterfa]

That's what you learn as a n00b. I'm starting elevate to the higher levels of n00b, and graduate into 'user' myself.

Re:What we do not know

[toadlife]

"Yes, but they also said that they got much, much better stability to boot."

Wihtout visiting Netcraft, I'll take a guess and say they must have gone with IIS6. IIS6 is nice.

Re:What we do not know

[Lord Kestrel]

Try Gentoo. You get what you choose, not what someone else chooses for you. Take a little longer to get setup, but for a server its great.

Of course, it fails in the paid-support category, but for just a few servers, it's easy enough to support.

Re:What we do not know

[Anonymous Coward]

>This is what Linus needs to do. Fire people.
>Then say that the only people who can submit to the next kernel revision are those who >demonstrate a serious commitment to cleaning up 2.6

Typical propiretary software mentality! There are several kernel developers (most of the students who are contributing) who do it for fun and to put it on the resume. There is no fun doing janitorial work or worth putting it on the resume. If you take away the benifits, why would people do boring grunt work ? Its not like, Linus is paying them or redhat going to pay them for that. As such with the insane two week window, its much difficult to get patches into the kernel and lot of people I know would rather post the patch on sf and post to the relavant mailing lists.

OpenBSD is more like what you mentioned and that is why they have trouble getting features done. Yeah, its stable and each line is reviewed by the core team. But also they dont get much input apart from the core team now.

Who are these developers who work all day, doing grunt work because they want to please the admins who use linux? hmmm ...I guess more admins, than any linux devs post on Slashdot.

If you dont like something, you take up the job. Here maintain an -AnonomousCoward release and apply only the most stable of patches. DO the Janitoral work. Revive the kernel Janitors project. This is what readhat and other distors do for their server platform.

- A disgruntled grad student and an Anonymous Coward

Re:What we do not know

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, I pretty much agree with you. This is a volunteer army, and I don't presume to tell people what to do (my hyperbolic /. rhetoric notwithstanding). Problem is, there really are problems, and I remember when there weren't so many. I liked the old days better. I don't think that just because someone thinks it would be cool if their resume said they contributed some linux kernel code that they should be allowed to contribute kernel code though.

And I don't think people who don't like doing what you call "janitorial work" should be allowed anywhere near it either. Believe it or not, there are in fact people who actually get off on producing really clean quality code; meaning they are disciplined and thorough, and not afraid to get their hands dirty if they have to. And they can be proud of the results. To them, it's not scutwork, it's just the way it works.

Say a kernel vulnerability is found. What to do? Wait several months while the distro cowboys figure out how to wrangle code that is several generations ahead of theirs back into their so-called "stable" kernel? Install the very latest vanilla kernel, with umpteen jillion new features and patches with no track record whatsoever? That used to actually be a pretty safe thing to do, because the stable kernel series was, well, stable.

Linus has every right to take stability away. He has every right to do whatever cool fun stuff he pleases. And I'm glad for him, and I hope he's having a great time. It's just that I also have a right to bitch and moan a bit after I've built a fairly substantial infrastructure on linux; and now have to figure out if I can count on it remaining a viable platform for mission-critical infrastructure applications. I've dabbled with the BSD's, but lately I'm thinking I really need to invest some more time with them, so I can at least have a backup plan. Because when your email server crashes, even if infrequently, people get pissed. And they want answers. Not fun.

Hey, I'm really excited about having a uber cool linux desktop, with lots of really nice features! Who knows, maybe all this bitching about servers is really for naught, because in the long run, the whole server farm concept is dead. We'll all be replicating our data in some kind of p2p network grid. I dunno. Meanwhile, however, I need to keep my mail server, my web server, my dns server, my database server, ad nauseum up and running reliably, or my ass is on the line.

Re:What we do not know

[mrhartwig]

IBM or SUN is A LOT HARDER to setup in an extreme minimum install than a GNU/Linux or *BSD machine.

I have to disagree. I'm an AIX & Linux system administrator in a large, anal-retentive US corporation, who's been responsible for building and automating standard installation configurations for both AIX and Red Hat Enterprise operating systems.

Our goal was to provide a standard set of installation packages such that A) we took care of the majority of systems, while B) not installing so much that we needlessly complicated patching, administration, & security. Is this an "extreme minimum install"? Probably not to the OP, but then that definition would vary depending on the circumstances, wouldn't it?

Both OS's have easy and hard parts (go figure!), but in general I'd say it was about a wash between the two. I'm sure someone will go on about how [insert your random, favorite, Linux distribution here] is sooooo much easier than RHEL. I don't care. I still think it's about a wash; I have also dealt with a number of other Linux distros, and I think they all have easy & hard parts, too.

While I've not done the same work myself with Solaris or HP-UX, we do have other folks that I work directly with that do the same thing. There are differences in specifics there, too. But overall, not appreciably different in overall magnitude, imho.

Re:What we do not know

[Malor]

Um, need I remind you that they broke traceroute in 2.6.14? I'd call that a surprise.

Re:What we do not know

[tinkertim]

That is when you should, in fact consider Linux over everything else.

I would pit a stripped down to bear essentials monolithic 2.6 kernel against pretty much anything else. Ask anyone else who runs wide high abuse networks mostly open to the public residing on class C ip addresses anyone with a PayPal account can have access to, instantly.

I would think what NASA meant to say was :

"We just don't feel like messing with Linux enough to get it to meet our stringent security needs so we paid someone needless tax dollars to do it for us but I think they named it [cough (censored) cough]."

Your primary concern on any network is what is on the desktops that have priviliges ON that network and also have outside internet connections.

So read it again, very very carefully ........

Re:What we do not know

[NutscrapeSucks]

This is what Linus needs to do. Fire people. Clean house.

You know, Linus is perfectly happy with the situation. He understands that most kernel developers are working for the distributions, and the big value add that distros provide is stability.

The new development model is designed so that Linus n Pals can focus on the fun architectual stuff while letting the salary grunts fix all the bugs for the paying customers.

The old 2.4 series was a bit of a joke when you compared to what RedHat/SuSE was calling "2.4" anyway.

Re:What we do not know

[Cyclops]

IBM or SUN is A LOT HARDER to setup in an extreme minimum install than a GNU/Linux or *BSD machine.

I have to disagree. I'm an AIX & Linux system administrator in a large, anal-retentive US corporation, who's been responsible for building and automating standard installation configurations for both AIX and Red Hat Enterprise operating systems.

And here you repeat their exact same mistake (I hope it's not intentional) of thinking that GNU/Linux is only RHEL or SuSE Enterprise, or whatever big and popular distribution you can find.
Where's Do Your Own zOS? Where's AIX on a floppy? Where's AIX in a a WiFi Router?
Your claims are laughable, you're just another victim of corporation standardizing. You DON'T HAVE TO USE RHEL unless you want to play the blame game or have your hand hold like a blabbering fool.

Re:What we do not know

[mrhartwig]

Any saying otherwise completely disregard both facts and how easy/hard it can in be done on such and such system.

Hmmm....let's see. What part of:

• Is this an "extreme minimum install"? Probably not to the OP, but then that definition would vary depending on the circumstances, wouldn't it?
• I have also dealt with a number of other Linux distros, and I think they all have easy & hard parts, too.

didn't you read? I never said, nor do I think, that RHEL is the only Linux distro out there. I also noted that our definitions were probably different. I guess that part was right, huh? :-)

The GP post of mine (the one to which you were originally replying) was talking about the corporate environment. I think it's safe to say that the majority of Linux distros, and certainly the majority of those that would typically be used for corporate workstations or servers, come with lots and lots of peripheral software. That needs to be not installed in my case.

You seem to be more concerned with "router-on-a-floppy" or "boot-from-my-USB-key" distros. Great, and no problem. There's no way I'd argue that it's easy to put AIX or Solaris in such a situation. But that's not what I was talking about, and I said so.

You DON'T HAVE TO USE RHEL unless you want to play the blame game or have your hand hold like a blabbering fool.

You're right, and I don't need my hand held, thanks. Even when I'm using RHEL, or when I blabber. However, the part of my corporate environment that I support requires formal vendor support for everything, even when it doesn't make sense to us techies -- and it often doesn't. However, they continue to pay me to do this, and it's not bad work. Since Oracle and it's ilk don't seem to care about Damn Small Linux, our choices of a Linux distro, for our environment, are limited. Fortunately, ours is not the only environment.

Re:What we do not know

[fbjon]

That's nothing. Ping is broken in my WinXP install.

Re:What we do not know

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I agree with you. We do need a stable version or there wont be much computers running the OS. I guess the community does owe it to the users as many linux devs earn their livelehood building linux.

If you are the same guy as the gp, thanks for the insightful reply. This does not happen often on slashdot. I just expected name calling and flamewar when I posted the reply.

Re:What we do not know

[Anonymous Coward]

"There is no fun doing janitorial work"

No, there isn't you're right.

But there is *proud*.

I am only ashamed that the grandfather is so much right.

What's more: I'm even scared about it's meaning. I really think that Linus Torvalds do know what's doing: he is just breaking ties to the "lone-star" geeks (how is it expected for new Linux-based projects to rise on such an unstable platform?); Linux is becoming now the corporations' new gold hen and it's a must to stand for corporations and avoid new foreigners coming for the cake.

In other words: Linus' current policy means Red Hat, IBM and HP can take advantage from Linux (they have the man-power and the money), but people like Patrick Volkerding (no to talk about any newcomers) won't; and I'm afraid said policy is as it is *because* of this.

Re:What we do not know

[Anonymous Coward]

"You know, Linus is perfectly happy with the situation. He understands that most kernel developers are working for the distributions, and the big value add that distros provide is stability."

Yes. Maybe he "understands" it just a bit too much.

They (the big corps backing up -an making good money, from Linux) are the ones that are paying his salary now, and I don't think it is per chance his current policy is the one that best protects their interests.

Re:What we do not know

[Anonymous Coward]

"REally? then why do SO MANY people and businesses rely on it for Long term mission critical stuff?"

The same reason there are so SO REALLY MANY people and bussiness that "rely on Windows for Long term mission critical stuff"? Money and marketing?

"One of those stations has been running linux cince 1997 with no upgrades"

Yeah, and your brain completly froze due to such low temperatures. What the fucking are you saying? Are you really trying to make an argument against somebody that tells you that eigth year old Linux was rock solid by telling him that linux from 1997 was indeed rock solid?

"Linux in it's self is pretty damned rock solid."

Shhhhure. And it is because some mogicall properties of its name. Good luck Mr Torvalds was so clever when he chose it!

Using your same logics I'd tell no cars can't go faster than 30MPH... Well, Ford T didn't made it, so it must be an absolute truth!

Re:What we do not know

[NutscrapeSucks]

Exactly, and he's been quite explicit about it, calling the distros the "customers" and so on. If you want a free OS that focuses on centralized release stability, maybe try Solaris.

Linux

[taskforce]

Linux's kernel may be flawed, but the GUI is perfect, right?

Re:Linux

[kfg]

Linux's kernel may be flawed, but the GUI is perfect, right?

Goddam straight it is!

http://www.nongnu.org/ratpoison/

KFG

Re:Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Feh. Far too bloated in my opinion.

Re:Linux

[aurb]

So then Windows kernel + KDE/GNOME/... = the best OS ever made?

Re:Linux

[Arandir]

No, it just means that servers are more critical than clients. You can get away with a GUI that crashes now an again (people have lived with Windows for over a decade), but they expect the server to be rock solid.

Pot calling the kettle black?

[Anonymous Coward]

Any organization that manages to screw up metric and imperial on a several billion dollar project has no right to comment on "flaws in the kernel".

Re:Pot calling the kettle black?

[ACME Septic]

Sure they do. Haven't you ever heard the phrase, "It takes one to know one!"

Re:Pot calling the kettle black?

[NormalVisual]

Nor should an AC that claims a $125 million mission is a "several billion dollar project". I daresay that the folks that worked on the Mars Climate Observer mission (as well as NASA's other projects) have a lot more on the ball than Linus & crew does.

Re:Pot calling the kettle black?

[swanchr]

I also believe it was Lockheed Martin who provided the imperial units.

Re:Pot calling the kettle black?

[ilikejam]

They were imperial dollars.

Re:Pot calling the kettle black?

[Limecron]

Lockheed, not NASA, provided the Imperial units causing the loss of the $125 million Mars Orbiter project.

http://edition.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.met ric.02/

Re:Pot calling the kettle black?

[Anonymous Coward]

They were imperial credits.

Re:Pot calling the kettle black?

[oztiks]

Mars Climate Observer mission (as well as NASA's other projects) have a lot more on the ball than Linus & crew does.

I've met a few astrophysists in my time, and one thing is certain. They know shit about linux, even ones who know how to program know shit about linux.

But because they've gone an dedicated their lives to an academic presuit and then taken up a profession in that presuit they are now experts on every form of science and technology? yes?

Unless the particular experts field is in software development and design for space travel and i'd say only a few astrophysists would be, even the ones dedicated to programming the spaceships computers or whatever i doubt would be sitting there all day going through kernel code to match its affectiveness against other os's?

The argument isnt weather linux is "good" or "bad" the argument is that linux is a portable os which a huge driver base that is supposed to work on any platform, whereas these NASA folk require very specific needs and can rely on top dallor technology to see them through. Linux which is breaking new grounds each and everyday should be commended for fact NASA has even stoped to even consider its viability. Heck, given a few more years where will this all end up?

Re:Pot calling the kettle black?

[Gilmoure]

With a grammar checker?

Re:Pot calling the kettle black?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about... go fuck yourself...

Check that grammar asshole!

Re:Pot calling the kettle black?

[spiritraveller]

from the article:

No one is pointing fingers at Lockheed Martin, said Tom Gavin, the JPL administrator to whom all project managers report.

"This is an end-to-end process problem," he said. "A single error like this should not have caused the loss of Climate Orbiter. Something went wrong in our system processes in checks and balances that we have that should have caught this and fixed it."

So Lockheed used Imperial units... that wouldn't have been a problem if NASA had also used Imperial units.

What is this metric system you speak of?

Re:Pot calling the kettle black?

[jonathansizz]

Lockheed - weren't they also the ones who put a switch in upside down that caused the Genesis solar wind capsule to fail to deploy it's parachute properly? Keep doing business with those guys, NASA - it makes YOU look good..

Re:Pot calling the kettle black?

[NormalVisual]

Astrophysicists don't do software for space missions, software engineers do. My point was that the caliber of the engineering work done for these missions is far and beyond what you'll see pretty much anywhere in Linux.

And actually, the argument isn't at all about Linux per se, it's about an AC that thought he/she would be clever about taking a pot shot at the competence of those working for/with NASA by making a childish snipe about the infamous metric/English trajectory calculation error but obviously didn't know shit about the mission to begin with.

Re:Pot calling the kettle black?

[oztiks]

Yeah, granted i can understand your point though about the ft/meters issue, its a bit old and dry now but I dare say most of it is humor invoked rather then critical judgment.

Flaming Linus Tovalds and his crew at their caliber isn't fair (i believe) because if you really have a look at how much work and for how long they've been working on Linux you'd understand the dedication of time/effort/skill that has been applied to it's development.

As for comparing it too whats out there as other kernels, Linux has a focus and vision as its unique because _NO OTHER_ os does quite as much as Linux in the respects of portability and compatibility.

Of course this leads to some of its downfalls and weaknesses but not even mighty Microsoft can compete with its broad nature of compatibility (granted its difficult to achieve in a fair few situations) but the fuckin thing has nearly 30 megs of source, which enables it to work with just about any piece of hardware on the market on pretty much any cpu you can possibly want, including your freaking game console, mobile phone, or ipod.

Just because someone is from "NASA" doesn't mean they are they are "better" and because someone (a few people) at "NASA" has an opinion means that it has a huge impact on the issue.

At the end of the day money walks and bullshit talks; govt or private sectors it doesn't really matter. This single principal keeps the planet spinning and thats the real physics behind most of these sorts of issues.

Re:Pot calling the kettle black?

[NormalVisual]

I wasn't flaming Linus or trying to put him down in any way - I merely was saying that what the engineers at NASA do and what Linus & company does are not comparable. The same is true of the entire Windows development team and just about everyone else that does PC software, myself included.

The remainder of the Linux fanboy rant wasn't really necessary - I've worked with Linux long enough to know what it's good at, what it isn't, how much work has gone into it, and the total crap that often has gone into it as well as the occasional brilliance.

Linux desktops?

[tehshen]

I thought they used space shuttles to send things to other planets. Oh, the things you learn...

Re:Linux desktops?

[Dunbal]

I thought they used space shuttles to send things to other planets.

      Naw, the shuttle is just to put things into low earth orbit. To get to the planets you need the desktops...

Re:Linux desktops?

[H0p313ss]

I thought they used space shuttles to send things to other planets. Oh, the things you learn...

I hope you were aiming for Funny...

They have never been used for anything interplanetary and never will be!

The Shuttles were good for launching SOME satellites (it was scaled to be big enough to lift 1970's spy satellites to get military buy-in) into SOME orbits, making it the MOST expensive way to launch satellites.

Re:Linux desktops?

[ClickOnThis]

The Shuttles were good for launching SOME satellites (it was scaled to be big enough to lift 1970's spy satellites to get military buy-in) into SOME orbits, making it the MOST expensive way to launch satellites.

Yep. Aside from the expense of operating the vehicle itself, one of the things that makes launching something via shuttle so expensive is all the extra qualifications that go with riding alongside humans.

I think that the shuttle's real strength was not so much its ability to launch satellites as its ability to service them. A strength that sadly now is being questioned for safety reasons (*cough* Hubble *cough*).

Re:Linux desktops?

[AKAImBatman]

I think that the shuttle's real strength was not so much its ability to launch satellites as its ability to service them. A strength that sadly now is being questioned for safety reasons (*cough* Hubble *cough*).

That's a strength that's rarely (if ever) used. The Space Shuttle can't reach a high enough orbit to service anything useful, so the Hubble was designed to be serviced by the Space Shuttle. Gave the Shuttle a use and all that.

NASA's original intent was to build an orbital tug that could move satellites into an orbit the Shuttle could reach. This would have allowed the Shuttle to act as a portable service station. Unfortunately, NASA learned the hard way that no one wants their old sats back. By the time a sat needs to be serviced it's usually due to be replaced with more modern technology anyway. Thus it's cheaper and easier to take the planned obsolescence instead of piddling around with the Space Shuttle.

Re:Linux desktops?

[SirBruce]

Actually, this is not true. The Shuttle has indeed been used to launch some interplanetary missions; Magellan and Galileo spring to mind. Now, these payloads also had additional stages to get them there, but as the old saying goes, Earth orbit is halfway to anywhere in the universe. The Shuttle certainly helped get them that far.

Bruce

Re:Linux desktops?

[H0p313ss]

The Shuttle has indeed been used to launch some interplanetary missions; Magellan and Galileo spring to mind.

You are correct Sir Bruce... but that was 16 years ago. Can anyone come up with a recent example?

Re:Linux desktops?

[SirBruce]

Actually, I should add Ulysses also to that list.

However, you're correct that it hasn't been done since 1989-1990, and it's unlikely to happen again, since all future STS flights (save perhaps one for HST) are tasked with ISS construction and support.

Bruce

Ironic, isn't it?

[grasshoppa]

It's ironic, isn't it, that most companies and corporations find the exact opposite to be true.

Says something about Nasa, don't it?

Re:Ironic, isn't it?

[rellix]

The fact that our leader is intent on "exploring" the moon says something too..

Re:Ironic, isn't it?

[MightyMartian]

Yes, that they've been using Unix and variants for decades, and while they may not feel confident of Linux on servers, they work in an environment where *nix is extremely common place, and very likely desirable as compared to alien operating systems like Windows.

Re:Ironic, isn't it?

[Tx]

Don't know why this is modded troll. It may not be hugely insightful, but it's a prefectly reasonable thing to point out. I was thinking the same thing.

Re:Ironic, isn't it?

[CoderBob]

Considering TFA says they're running Solaris, I'm not quite seeing anything here other than a blatent zealot's assumption that if it's not Linux, it must be Windows, and Evil.

Re:Ironic, isn't it?

[grasshoppa]

Yes, that they've been using Unix and variants for decades, and while they may not feel confident of Linux on servers, they work in an environment where *nix is extremely common place, and very likely desirable as compared to alien operating systems like Windows.

Their choice of course, their money..oh wait, it's *my* money ( tax dollars ).

This kind of blanket policy is scary. Servers die, services need to go somewhere. Instead of wasting a couple grand per box on the OS alone, they should be investigating what's causing the issues they don't like and fixing them.

Now, I hear you saying, that's not their job. They just want something that works. So do I. So does everybody. It's likely more cost effective to pay a bounty to a programmer to fix these errors instead of paying for more licenses.

At the end of the day, the mighty buck rules. I'm just concerned they are not spending it as efficiently as they could due to lack of knowledge.

Re:Ironic, isn't it?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it says less about NASA being tied to Unix than it does about NASA wanting a slower upgrade cycle. Say you launch a probe that will have a 300 day transit to target. You debugged all the communications stuff using say Solaris 8. Is it worth taking chances just to upgrade that machine to Solaris 10 if you don't absolutely have to. There are times when stability means much more than bug fixes.

Re:Ironic, isn't it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it says whereas most companies and corporations have tens of minutes of downtime to lose from a server crashing, NASA has a several hundred million dollar spaceship and the latest photographs from the Hubble Space Telescope to lose.

Good grief, the word I have to fill in below is "orgasm"

Re:Ironic, isn't it?

[MightyMartian]

I'll wager that the vast amount of NASA's management and engineering software is written in C and for *nix platforms. Now, if you're responsible for deciding what operating systems to put on workstations, and the choice is between an operating system that is in many respects foreign in architecture and development tools, and an operating system which is very similar to what's running on your servers and offers identical or nearly-identical tools, which one will you pick?

This is what Microsoft has never really understood, and because it's never put that much effort into getting *nix software to easily port over (they did have good intentions with NT 3.5), there are a huge range of applications, particularly at the high end, which will likely never be found on a Windows machine.

Re:Ironic, isn't it?

[AsnFkr]

Yes, that they've been using Unix and variants for decades, and while they may not feel confident of Linux on servers, they work in an environment where *nix is extremely common place, and very likely desirable as compared to alien operating systems like Windows.

Aliens? Windows? NASA? What are proposing?

Re:Ironic, isn't it?

[AeroIllini]

This is what Microsoft has never really understood, and because it's never put that much effort into getting *nix software to easily port over (they did have good intentions with NT 3.5), there are a huge range of applications, particularly at the high end, which will likely never be found on a Windows machine.

Yes, let's all cry for poor, struggling Microsoft, who are trying desperately to build a marketshare large enough to be noticed by the bigger players...

Re:Ironic, isn't it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it says whereas most companies and corporations have tens of minutes of downtime to lose from a server crashing

Huh? For some companies this may mean millions in losses if not more depending on how critical the server is. Of course, those companies also have methods in place to make sure a single dead server doesn't cause any problems.

Re:Ironic, isn't it?

[HardCase]

Dunno...at my company, most workstations run either Linux or Windows (depends on the software requirements). The main servers are all Sun. There are "server" farms that run on Linux, but they are for processing data (running electrical simulations, etc), not really acting as servers, per se. The heart of the company's research and development network is all Sun. Anything that is mission critical runs on those servers. And the UNIX admins cite the same reason as the article did for using Solaris 8 on the servers - the workstations are all running RHEL.

-h-

Re:Ironic, isn't it?

[operagost]

Funny that he never said we were going to explore the moon, because we've already done that. Instead, we are using it as a staging point to explore other places.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/01/20 040114-3.html

Re:Ironic, isn't it?

[Lumpy]

how about the simple fact that its vastly easier to write an app for a unix type platform than the abortion that is windows?

when everything is a file you get done fast. when you have to fight the obfuscated nightmares that are the Windows API you go bald.

Whomever wrote the windows API must have been a deranged crack head.

Re:Ironic, isn't it?

[qmVSE*w!7e,QF(,]

the vast amount of NASA's management and engineering software is written in C

Most of Windows is also written in C.

At any rate, one of the few things that Windows has going for it is the vast amount of apps that are readily available for it. If there's a *nix app that can securely rip data from audio CD's (like Exact Audio Copy does on Windows), please let me know about it so I can rid myself forever of Windows (at least at home). (Save your breath, Wine doesn't count.)

Yes, Windows sucks, but let's give credit where credit is due.

Re:Ironic, isn't it?

[wiredlogic]

A lot of commercial engineering software (which NASA uses extensively) is still not available for Linux or is available with some limitations. A safe strategy is to use Sun hardware as application servers and display any GUI on a Linux X server.

Re:Ironic, isn't it?

[guile*fr]

CD Paranoia ? what do you mean by securely?

Re:Ironic, isn't it?

[m50d]

cdparanoia, which forms the backend for pretty much every linux ripper. I've never met a CD I couldn't just drag-and-drop in KDE, and I've thrown a fair few modern "protected" disks at it.

Re:Ironic, isn't it?

[qmVSE*w!7e,QF(,]

My first troll mod... sweet.

Securely: Every sector read is doublechecked. It re-reads up to 80 times and corrects mistakes if necessary.

The end result is no unexpected popping, hissing, whistling, etc.

http://exactaudiocopy.de/

Interesting article

[coastin]

I have also seen Linux being used extensively by NOAA in the last few years for weather data tracking and forecasting. I run a combination of Linux, Mac and one XP PC in my lab at Texas A&M Agriculture Program where we run a network of crop-weather (Crop Weather Program for South Texas) stations and an extensive on-line decision support system for cotton growers along the Texas coastal plains. The servers are Linux along with my desktop and notebook, there are four Macs counting one notebook and one MS XP machine to run a Campbell Scientific application that communicates with the weather stations. If Campbell Scientific were to offer a Linux build of LoggerNet I would not need the XP box at all.

Re:Interesting article

[cerberusss]

one MS XP machine to run a Campbell Scientific application

I don't know whether you've thought of it, but you could try Wine or (more stable IMHO) the commercial version CrossOver Office.

But I'll grant you it's probably less trouble to run it like you currently do.

Re:Interesting article

[slashname3]

Why not write a replacement program for the LoggerNet program? I have looked at the various weather station equipment out there for a few years. The one thing that kept me from buying any has been almost a total lack of support for using that equipment with linux. One of these days when my project pile has dropped enough I plan on getting a set of weather monitoring equipment and write the software under linux to collect and display the data. It does not look to be that difficult, just read the data from the serial port. After that it is a matter of storing and displaying the data.

Just need more time....

Re:Interesting article

[Analog Squirrel]

LoggerNet is actually a fairly useful package of many different applications for use with the Campbell sensor equipment. It's big enough that simply writing your own for linux isn't a particularly practical idea. The OP's comment about using WINE is an intriguing one that, if I were still using Campbell sensors, I might look into. The other limiting factor is the fact that a fair amount of the Campbell internals are proprietary. I can't imagine it would be that difficult to reverse-engineer, but that effort is beyond what most atmospheric scientist have the time/ability to handle. The fact is, LoggerNet works and works pretty well, and it's more cost effective to simply pay Campbell for it and slap it on a windows box(last time I used LoggerNet, a laptop running on a pentium - that's first generation pentium - and windows 95 was enough to handle most of it) that to roll your own.

Re:Interesting article

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're curious about accessing CSI data loggers from linux, one of the people I work with has written some perl modules that I think may be some flavor of gpl. It's pretty stable, been in use since 2000 or 2001. It doesn't work with pakbus and table data but if you use the older array based OSes it works fine.
Here's our website:
UAF - WERC
Look for Ken.

RTFA?

[tgrimley]

Brack's team instead runs Sun Solaris 8 for its main servers. He cited the OS's more stable, reliable, and longer lifecycle as one of the key reasons for this deployment.

That's the sentence after the one you are talking about.

Re:RTFA?

[SatanicPuppy]

Mmmm, Solaris 8, my bread and butter.

There is a lot to be said for slow and steady, though I like the layout of Linux better.

Just Ask Yourself

[ackthpt]

Which would you prefer to be used for mission critical applications, where failure can cost hundreds of millions of dollars in time and material, not to mention lost opportunity.

if bill gates' wife was admitted to the hospital and put on life support managed by one particular OS, which OS do you think he'd actually trust?

Re:Just Ask Yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

Bill Gates has a wife? Maybe I won't be a virgin for the rest of my life!

Re:Just Ask Yourself

[engagebot]

Well I work in IT at a hospital, and sorry, but if your life depends on an OS, that OS will be Windows.

But then again its not up to me. and look how great it worked out with the whole katrina thing.

Re:Just Ask Yourself

[ackthpt]

Bill Gates has a wife? Maybe I won't be a virgin for the rest of my life!

Are you a billionaire, too?

Re:Just Ask Yourself

[Shadow Wrought]

if bill gates' wife was admitted to the hospital and put on life support managed by one particular OS, which OS do you think he'd actually trust?

That would depend on the prenup and life insurance policies;-)

Re:Just Ask Yourself

[smbarbour]

I had a mod point left that I would have used here, but I couldn't decide between Insightful and Funny. I guess I'll just post and ensure that point doesn't go to any other comment for this story.

Re:Just Ask Yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

That would depend on the prenup and life insurance policies;-)

Prenups wouldn't apply here, as it does not include death as part of the separation. Besides, it isn't her that's bringing in the money.

Re:Just Ask Yourself

[RobinH]

I believe you're talking about the front office systems. I'm sure they're all Windows based, and that's not exactly a life or death system (depends how you view life or death, I guess). However, in the embedded systems that run things like MRI machines, ventilators, radiation therapy machines, etc., the OS is usually a hard real-time system like QNX. At least I would hope so.

Re:Just Ask Yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

In the other hand, if Bill were in the hospital, I think his wife would request the life support system to be running Windows ME....

Re:Just Ask Yourself

[Chirs]

Probably it would be one of the tiny realtime OS's that nobody but embedded people care about.

I do kernel development for a living--I'd feel more comfortable with something a bit smaller and more easily understood running my life support.

Re:Just Ask Yourself

[engagebot]

Like I said in another post, the mission critical stuff in the Siemens and GE gear is unix. But all that radiology gear and whatnot sends their images to a PACS server where everything is archived (windows based). Granted, the Siemens machines can print straight to the film printers, but past that, it goes through the PACS system.

The real comment was along the lines of 'if your life at a hospital depended on a either windows or linux, which would you choose'. I'm just saying that like most others, our hospital is 100%-full-fledged-active-directory-wielding-window s-based.

Re:Just Ask Yourself

[Sporkinum]

We have been doing PACS for 10 years now. Was solaris based then, and the workstations still are. All the back end database stuff is now running on linux boxes. Our old Toshiba 16 slice CT is Irix based, but the new Toshiba 64 is XP. The Nuc cameras are AIX, Fluoro is NT4, General Xray DR was NT4 but just changed to XP, and General Xray CR is WIN2K. I don't know what MR's system is, but it's some sort of 'nix. Oh, and the ultrasound machines are WIN2K.

Re:Just Ask Yourself

[Arandir]

if bill gates' wife was admitted to the hospital and put on life support managed by one particular OS, which OS do you think he'd actually trust?

The answer had better be "Windows", because that's what he is going to get. I work for one of big three medical technology corporations, and EVERYTHING is migrating to Windows. Even your lowly EKG. It's gotten to the point that many realtime requirements are being abandoned because Windows won't support it.

Small medical technology companies still use embedded and realtime operating systems, but the large ones are moving away from them as fast as possible.

The reason for this is the same as other companies: when the CEO uses Windows on the desktop, he sees no reason why the employees and customers can't use it either. Embedded developers are costly, Windows developers (particularly those who claim 10+ years of .NET experience) are a dime a dozen. You can outsource Windows development but it's a lot harder outsourcing RTOS development.

Re:Just Ask Yourself

[Cus]

I think I'd prefer to be a virgin than marry the woman who was the project manager of Microsoft Bob.

Re:Just Ask Yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

Know I know why the death count in the hospitals are increasing... don't they read the EULA ??
They may not use Windows for anything like that...
If you don't belive me read the EULA for your Windows 2000.

Re:Just Ask Yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

It really depends on how much he loves her...

Re:Just Ask Yourself

[eericson]

Yeah, I do PACS at a SF hospital. Our GE MR and CTs are running Irix, the Angio Lab is Solaris 7. Our Digital Mammo stuff is Solaris 8, and the bulk of our PACS stuff is Solaris 9.

The thing you (well, not Sporkinum specifically, just in general) need to keep in mind is that most reliability or stability issues with Medical Imaging gear is due to flaws in the application itself, not the OS.

Re:Just Ask Yourself

[JPyun]

I work at a Radiology Center and I can confirm this. As near as I can tell, the CT and MRI machines run some Unix variant, but the front office, Radiologist, etc. all use XP. There are terrible, terrible intercommunication problems between the branches. If you're getting an MRI of your brain to test for a tumor, you better wish the front desk good luck with getting it to the Neuroradiologist to be read. Even scarier is that every patient's personal information including address and SSN are stored locally on machines with fucking spyware all over the place.

Erhm..

[MaXiMiUS]

because there are too many flaws in main Linux kernel

Uhhm, compared to... what? Windows?

Re:Erhm..

[randomErr]

Compared to SCO UNIX.

Re:Erhm..

[Anonymous Coward]

"Compared to SCO UNIX."

You, damn layer!!!

Don't you know Lunix is nothing but SCO UNIX in disguise???

The name of the game is Linux

[digitaldc]

In Brack's group however, the name of the game is exclusively Mandriva Linux. In fact, it should be noted that this Mandriva deployment is the largest in the world.
"In terms of [Linux] distros for the overall lab though, we actually run more Red Hat Linux," Brack said. But, regardless, that's still a lot of Linux on the desktop.

So let me get this straight, the name of the game is exclusively Mandriva Linux, but they actually run more Red Hat Linux?
Is Mandriva really exclusive to the game? or is that actually Red Hat? I'm so confused.

Re:The name of the game is Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

There is an aspect about IT at JPL that does not come across in the article. There are something like 5500 employees at JPL and there are roughly 3-4 computers for every employee. Now if you consider that most employees only have one computer, it is more like 6 computers for every scientist or engineer.

This means that we have a diverse and decentralized IT make up. Certain core services are within a particular group. But every engineering group is left to themselves regarding how to apply computer resources to projects. So the group that Brack provides administration for (roughly 200 users I think) exclusively uses Mandriva Linux (and only on workstations). While JPL as a whole uses Red Hat for most installs and JPL as a whole does not have a problem with using Linux for servers. In fact you will find almost every type of server OS represented (yes, even the *BSDs).

Having said that, our relationship with Sun is largely historic. Since JPL is run by CalTech we have always gotten that incredible education pricing on Sun hardware and since it ran so well too it was used A LOT in every sector of IT at JPL. Sun has lost some ground to Wintel, Lintel and Mac OS over the years. But it is still highly respected at JPL and heavily used.

Re:The name of the game is Linux

[adrianmonk]

In Brack's group however, the name of the game is exclusively Mandriva Linux. In fact, it should be noted that this Mandriva deployment is the largest in the world. "In terms of [Linux] distros for the overall lab though, we actually run more Red Hat Linux," Brack said.

So let me get this straight, the name of the game is exclusively Mandriva Linux, but they actually run more Red Hat Linux?

There are two different groups here: there is Brack's group, and there is "the overall lab". Brack's group is presumably part of the lab, but based on these statements, must make up less than 50% of it. Think of a pizza with canadian bacon on one half and double pepperoni on the other. You can say "my half is exclusively canadian bacon" and you can also say "there is more pepperoni than canadian bacon on the pizza overall", and these two statements are perfectly consistent.

Re:The name of the game is Linux

[adrianmonk]

Oh yes, I forgot to mention: we are talking about NASA JPL here. So, it's important to consider what "the lab" means in context of that. And remember that "JPL" stands for "Jet Propulsion Laboratory". So, "the lab" probably refers to all of JPL. And that's a lot of people. I don't know exactly how many, but it is a few thousand if I recall correctly.

The point being, Brack could have said, "At NASA JPL, the most common Linux distro is RedHat, but in my own group at JPL, we use pretty much exclusively Mandriva".

Re:The name of the game is Linux

[kestasjk]

Sun has lost some ground to Wintel, Lintel and Mac OS over the years.
Get with the program; Mac OS should now be 'Mintel'.

Which is funny

[pathological liar]

... because they have such an *excellent* security track record with Solaris.

Well, okay, some of those are NT.

Re:Which is funny

[Synic]

maybe he was referring more to computational accuracy and ability to properly and stably handle enterprise level hardware configurations?

Re:Hmmm.

[kwench]

The article states that they are running Solaris 8, upgrading to Solaris 10 now.

Well... they are running rockets and stuff, I'm only running my desktop with a Linux kernel, and it goes down sometimes... but the typical aircraft goes down more often.

Solaris 8

[everphilski]

FTA: Brack's team instead runs Sun Solaris 8 for its main servers. He cited the OS's more stable, reliable, and longer lifecycle as one of the key reasons for this deployment.

Rumor Control

[flood6]

More surprisingly, they seem to be reluctant to use Linux on servers: 'Our personal view is that Linux, period, is only for the desktop. We don't run our main servers on Linux, because there are too many flaws in main Linux kernel.

They mentioned Windows in the summary, so to head off the "so they use Windows servers over Linux???" comments, TFA said they run Solaris on the servers because they have found it to be more stable, reliable, and have a longer lifecycle. I'm not saying I agree, just clarifying a summary I can see leading to pointless comments.

Re:Rumor Control

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll say I agree. This is simply a fact, if you're willing to spend the money and want ultimate stability, Solaris is still a better choice than Linux.

Re:Rumor Control

[poopie]

they run Solaris on the servers because they have found it to be more stable, reliable, and have a longer lifecycle.

Sorry to the Linux fanboys, but... true, true, and true.

Solaris 2.5.1 was stable, reliable and we're still using it.

Perhaps RHEL4 is *now* at that level that Solaris has been at for a decade.

Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

'Our personal view is that Linux, period, is only for the desktop. We don't run our main servers on Linux, because there are too many flaws in main Linux kernel.'

It's like - NASA is bizarro world, or something!

Not that they don't trust Linux

[everphilski]

... its just that they prefer Solaris for at least one reason stated. Obviously they have a thing for Linux, because they are deploying it massively on the desktop, where most businesses would just slap a copy of Windows...

Linux at Nasa

[Shaggy101]

I am currently an Intern at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. All I can say and from personal frustration, hate, and headaches, GSFC likes Sco. Need we say more about their Linux choices.

If you read the article...

[Anonymous Coward]

The preference Bracke states for Solaris-only on servers smacks of being a 'go with the status quo IT decison' with just a hint of 'OS religion' thrown in. It really doesn't sound like a decision made by a careful considerable of the facts (and certainly not a cost analysis). I suspect the boys at NASA are too busy smashing things into Mars to worry too much about changing operating systems.

Re:If you read the article...

[Anonymous Coward]

Brack's decision to use Solaris for the server systems is largely historic. At the time that Linux was first being evaluated by Brack's group as a potential OS for both workstation and servers it failed miserably at providing NFS service. Did fine as a client, sucked rox as a server. Secondly, it had no NIS+ support which was in heavy use as the naming platform (don't ask why - also historical - in hindsight they eventually switched back to YP/NIS and are now considering LDAP). So Linux at its marvelous price/performance ratio compared to a Sun workstation began deployment as a workstation only. That stance has not changed largely because Solaris keeps chugging along as a decent OS and Sun hardware is unexcelled in many categories that matter compared to cheap Lintel hardware in the server room.

Re:If you read the article...

[Guppy06]

"The preference Bracke states for Solaris-only on servers smacks of being a 'go with the status quo IT decison' with just a hint of 'OS religion' thrown in."

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. They're using Solaris because they've always used Solaris and they have yet to see a compelling reason to switch to anything else. Even if Linux did everything that Solaris did in exactly the same way (which it doesn't), there would be no compelling reason to switch.

Would you rather an operation as large as JPL's jump ship every time there's a new OS Flavor of the Month? Are you one of those people who don't understand why real Windows admins don't like applying patches as soon as they're released? I'm sure even upgrading to a new version of Solaris is a major headache over there.

"I suspect the boys at NASA are too busy smashing things into Mars to worry too much about changing operating systems."

NASA ordered the probe from the manufacturer with metric specifications, it was Lock-Mart that screwed up the units. If there is any blame for NASA in that fiasco, it is in their insistance on meters when the rest of the aerospace industry around the world measures altitude in feet.

Re:If you read the article...

[Anonymous Coward]

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. They're using Solaris ... (snip) ... there would be no compelling reason to switch.

I believe I implied that ... albeit in a humorous way.

understand why real Windows admins don't like applying patches as soon as they're released? I'm

Actually I don't really understand why anyone wants to have MSWindows-based servers at all... =)-

NASA ordered the probe from the manufacture ...

It really doesn't matter if it is not technically your fault. Smash a probe worth many millions of dollars into a planet (or fluff the mirror on expensive telescope), and can at least expect a few good natured pokes!

Unless it's SGI

[SuperQ]

Of course, NASA has a huge SGI Altix cluster, which runs linux.

http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/28/ 1427228

No need to ask.

[ScentCone]

if bill gates' wife was admitted to the hospital and put on life support managed by one particular OS, which OS do you think he'd actually trust?

No doubt you're implying that he'd opt for one of the heavily scrutinized Linux distros with native support for emergency room cardio equipment? What, Red Hat hasn't done that yet? No widespread testing yet for Hoary Hedgehog, EKG Edition?

If I were Bill, I'd probably choose Win2K... but that's not really the issue. It's the application, the drivers, and the comm interfaces letting the machine talk to the life support stuff. I'd want to be hooked up to whichever of those has seen the most hours of use in the most places under the most circumsntances. And if the O/S that happens to have been the platform on which all of that use-time was racked up happens to be Bill's, then so be it. Win2K is very, very stable - especially when you're not surfing to Russian pr0n sites, installing free casino software, or trying to overclock under a beta video driver for maximum frag resolution.

Re:No need to ask.

[engagebot]

Actually, most of the equipment you're talking about (EKG, CT scan, etc) is stand-alone stuff from Siemens or GE that runs Unix. It doesn't have anything to do with PCs. Nurses and whatnot use windows machines to pull up patient info and stuff, but even then, that system is just a terminal server connection to a unix system in philadelphia or something.

Re:No need to ask.

[ScentCone]

Actually, most of the equipment you're talking about (EKG, CT scan, etc) is stand-alone stuff from Siemens or GE that runs Unix.

Yup... also true of all sorts of manufacturing gear, etc. My point (a reply to a somewhat troll-ish comment that was trying to prop up a false dichotomy between Windows and Linux in a hospital setting) was that (in the context of this larger Linux-not-ready-for-servers-at-NASA thread) Linux is not reflexively always a better choice than Windows in real life, even for geeks. And sometimes neither is appropriate (a la your examples).

Re:No need to ask.

[panthro]

Most of that "life support stuff" has been running on low-level embedded control systems and, in more complicated cases, proprietary UNIX variants, since before either Win2K or his wife were a twinkle in Bill Gates' eye.

Systems like that, used in medical, industrial and military applications, make Win2K look as stable as an overweight donkey on ice skates. Windows, like most general-purpose things, is a clumsy, plodding hack that does a mediocre-at-best job of a variety of things instead of a really good job at one. Linux, as the term is used most of the time, falls under the same category, albeit perhaps somewhat less clumsy and plodding. I wouldn't trust a desktop PC to run my toaster.

Generally, control devices used in critical applications like life support machines are rock solid. There are some PLCs at the plant I work in that have been running continuously for years in a harsh environment (aluminum foundry) without incident.

Re:No need to ask.

[freeweed]

before either Win2K or his wife were a twinkle in Bill Gates' eye.

Considering how the phrase "twinkle in your eye" is usually used, talking about his wife in this fashion is kinda creepy :)

Re:No need to ask.

[WinterSolstice]

Agilent, formerly the *real* H-P makes the most reliable medical equipment I have ever seen. Yes, units come and go, but you'd be hard pressed to walk into an ICU and not find several screens perched on top of Agilent/HP devices. They practically own the market.

When my kid had cancer, I actually gave him some distraction by looking at all the machines he was hooked up to. I'd talk to him about them, and help him feel more confident about what he was going through.

I never saw a single machine that had MS Windows, though there were 2 OS/2 Warp 4 machines used in the radiology group.

-WS

Re:No need to ask.

[Anonymous Coward]

" I wouldn't trust a desktop PC to run my toaster. "

I believe the NetBSD guys do, actually.
http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/05/08/11/175 4253.shtml?tid=222&tid=133&tid=7

Re:No need to ask.

[Anonymous Coward]

> Win2K is very, very stable

I'm not sure where this worshipping of Win2k comes from. From my experience, WinXP is more stable. WinXP x64 and Win2k3 are even more stable. Before you start mumbling that XP is an eye candy, stop. They're primarily all based on newer and better kernels.

Re:No need to ask.

[ScentCone]

I'm not sure where this worshipping of Win2k comes from. From my experience, WinXP is more stable. WinXP x64 and Win2k3 are even more stable. Before you start mumbling that XP is an eye candy, stop. They're primarily all based on newer and better kernels.

I agree. But in practice, where PCs are used to control non-traditional equipment (like, say, test equipment, manufacturing widgets, etc), things often don't move along so quickly. Stability (in implementation and support) is at least as important as those extra couple of kernal niceties, as long as things are working predictably.

I work on XP, and admin many a server doing various things under both Win2K and 2003. 2K has been very good to me, but I'm not a "worshipper" in the sense you probably think.

Re:No need to ask.

[m50d]

Win2K is very, very stable - especially when you're not surfing to Russian pr0n sites, installing free casino software, or trying to overclock under a beta video driver for maximum frag resolution.

That's entirely untrue. I do none of that, and I use linux at least three times as much as win2k. I see more crashes from win2k.

Re:No need to ask.

[ScentCone]

That's entirely untrue. I do none of that, and I use linux at least three times as much as win2k. I see more crashes from win2k.

Can't imagine what apps you're using, or what sort of hardware/driver combo you've got rigged up that's causing you trouble... but I've still got something like 30 Win2K servers humming along, and they're very, very solid. Only things like bad RAM or failed drive get in the way. Yes, I have to reboot on critical patches.

On the other hand, I've had plenty of lumps and bumps with various Linux distros, even when they're just sitting there being samba servers. But rather than compare your specific experiences with mine, just keep an ear open for the larger body of people who have the same experience I do (with the O/S, used on a good hardware recipe).

Re:No need to ask.

[wilec]

I work as a controls systems technician in a hospital engineering/ops dept, we have a pneumatic transport system delivering meds, med records, etc that runs under OS/2 Warp3, well actually the equipments DOS app runs under OS/2. The physicians voice dictation system, some financial services servers, like you said some radiological hardware, and emergency nurse call systems all have ran OS/2 at one time, I don't know what the current status is on these other systems, but the pneumatic tube system plugs along 365/24 solid as a rock, and reboots are very, very rare.

Several pieces our Picker MRI/CT/PET equipment boots with Linux Redhat credits on at least a couple boxes, though these systems have several related cpu boxes each so there may be some other OS there as well. I have also seen Solaris logo's on some imaging and cancer treatment equipment screens. Medical life support level systems are usually ran on PLC's with custom built low level embedded firmware/software though I have seen references on some mid sized equipment to QNX and to HPUnix, AIX or VMS on some more complex equipment.

Of course Windows is everywhere on the office PC's and our Trane and Johnson Controls plant operations equipment. BTW Win2000 has issues with some of these plant operations type systems (Chillers, HVAC/R, etc). Our Trane WIN2000 system is much less stable on a 2ghz PC than WIN98 is on the 350mhz Johnson Controls Metasys PC. Several manufacturers will not fully support WIN2000 and some have not adopted XP. There is still a lot of NT4 and 98 out there running this type of equipment.

Matthew

Re:No need to ask.

[m50d]

It's the same machine, and I have less drivers in win2k (got things like e.g. the second nic disabled, I don't do any routing in windows). It's my experience that NT series windows is pretty stable, certainly nothing like 98, but not as stable as linux.

Flaws at linux?

[bubulubugoth]

No doubt, but... where, and which are?

There is a lot of NASA contrib at networking, drivers, etc, but the kernel flawed, that is interesting.

TFA also says that the NASA is a SUN shop, and they are still using Solaris 8, and they have no doubt to switch to Solaris 10. So this means that they have 6 years old hardware? Becose, I dont think that new SUNs hardware is supported by Solaris 8...

I wonder, do they buy comodity hardware? Becose, if you are planning to roll a massive linux installation, the first thing you do, is check for hardware compatibility...

The article, actually isnt very useful, to help for or detract the linux usage at servers or desktop. It would be nice, that this kind of public funded enterprises, to had their methodology at public access, so we can learn more about that kind of stuff...

Re:Flaws at linux?

[burns210]

Part of why they are a Sun shop is that Sun systems (in their experience) have longer lifecycles, thus 6 years of use.

Servers cost money, and getting more bange for your buck is a *good* thing.

Re:Flaws at linux?

[sjaskow]

> TFA also says that the NASA is a SUN shop, and they are still using Solaris
> 8, and they have no doubt to switch to Solaris 10. So this means that they
> have 6 years old hardware? Becose, I dont think that new SUNs hardware is
> supported by Solaris 8...

Actually, that's wrong, the newest Sun hardware is supported by Solaris 8. For example, this:

$ uname -a
SunOS xxxxxx 5.8 Generic_117350-18 sun4u sparc SUNW,Sun-Fire-V890

is one of the US-IV's with CMT.

I had to remove the real name since the company I work for objects to that kind of stuff in the wild. :(

Re:Flaws at linux?

[Arandir]

Precisely. Some of the newer workstations are starting to get shoddy PC-like workmanship, but the older hardware was very solid. My company still has some Sparc V "pizza boxes" in active duty, some of which haven't been rebooted since the last power outage over two years ago. Compare the construction to that of a Dell, and it's apples and oranges.

Re:Flaws at linux?

[m50d]

I've been trying to use 2.6 for features, and have found all of two versions which don't crash hourly. And it's different issues, before anyone suggests I bugreport (I have. More than once) and get my problem fixed. They just need to make the stable branch actually stable - stop adding the features and make some bugsquashing releases.

This is so confusing...

[Spy der Mann]

Linux dominates the server market, and the NASA says it sucks. But they use Linux for desktops, where the market is dominated by Windows - which sucks.

Now I'm confused! :-S

Re:This is so confusing...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not just the fact that they are running with Solaris boxes, it's also the hardware. IMHO Sun hardware is far more robust and fault tolerant than the majority of pc hardware on the market (I'm referring to their enterprise line). It's also the fact that their kernel and drivers only need to support a limited range of their own hardware for which they can reasonably manage bugfix/driver issues. Individual cpu clock speeds and price don't matter as much as much as tried and true stability and robustness when millions of dollars and the dignity of the US space program are on the line. All a desktop has to do is run an X server with a few client apps. They can be rebooted a bazillion times and no one cares...

Re:This is so confusing...

[Anonymous Coward]

"NASA: If it sucks like a vacuum, we'll go there!"

Re:This is so confusing...

[javaxman]

Linux dominates the server market, and the NASA says it sucks.

That wasn't a "Linux sucks" for servers, so much as it was "we have more experience with and trust in the stability of Solaris" for servers.

But they use Linux for desktops, where the market is dominated by Windows - which sucks.

This looks like ( mostly ) a personal preference of the engineers- but they get these x86 laptops ( or desktops ) and need to communicate with Solaris servers, so what would you run? Like them, I'd run some sort of Linux... more for the apps than the OS, which some folks might perhaps find ironic or something.

Re:This is so confusing...

[HuguesT]

This is really simple.

If you know your way around /bin/sh, and have for decades, then clearly Linux is a good choice for the desktop because it's way nicer than any of the proprietary Unices for that. On HPUX, Irix and whatnot you get X and mwm, that's it. On Solaris you might get a bit of Gnome if you are lucky. The exception is OS/X, of course, but that won't run on cheap hardware they have lying around everywhere. Notice that in this case Windows is a very very poor choice.

On the other hand if you have experience with the sheer unshakable predictability, usefullness and stability of Solaris in the server room, then compared to that good ole Linux is a bit of a toy to be honest (although slowly improving).

So JPL is in the situation where they like Linux on the desktop but not in the server room, and it makes perfect sense.

Scientists and Linux go way back

[i_should_be_working]

In physics and math departments at universities and national laboratories around the world it's not a strange thing to see people using Linux.

Re:Scientists and Linux go way back

[PeterBrett]

The Cambridge University Engineering department does all computing and CAD tuition on Linux boxes (running a custom-rolled Knoppix, I think).

Re:Scientists and Linux go way back

[nsanders]

I work for one of the highest funded Math research departments at a big state campus and we are running 98% Linux on our 20 servers and 100 workstations. We have 2 SGI Irix systems that will be replaced by a Linux NAS shortly. I cannot imagine what problem NASA has with the Linux kernel that couldn't be solved by their own developers.

Ready for desktop since...

[just_another_sean]

1993 according to this.

I quote:
During 1992 and 1993, the Linux kernel gathered all the necessary features it required to work as a replacement for Unix workstations, including TCP/IP networking and a graphical windowing system (the X Window System). Linux also received plenty of industry attention, and several small companies were started to develop and distribute Linux. Dozens of user groups were founded, and the Linux Journal magazine started to appear in early 1994.

Just one of several examples of doing a google search on Linux History. I personally have bene using Linux on my desktop and servers since I discovered Slackwarein 1996. (Thanks Patrick! :-)

Re:Ready for desktop since...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Ready for the desktop" doesn't just mean being able to display a GUI. It means multimedia support (sound, CD playing and nowadays MP3s, video files, and DVDs), available software, internet, hardware support and a level of user-friendliness and ease of setup. Linux still doesn't really have the all of that down right, but it's nearly there. Mac OS arguably isn't there either, based on software/hardware availability.
It's been a fine workstation (i.e. serious desktop computer for work) for a long time, yep.

Re:Ready for desktop since...

[just_another_sean]

Arguably Windows is not ready for the Desktop either. It's a matter of perspective and your point is completely valid. But my point *is* that I *have* been using Linux on my *Desktop* for years.

To paraphrase Clinton, it all depnds on what your definition of "desktop" is.

Re:money

[Anonymous Coward]

"You can get a good deal these days with Windows servers..."

Maybe, but their EULA totally sucks and running a server that's designed to lock you in and others out and run their "extended" protocols rubs me the wrong way.

Re:money

[Anonymous Coward]

I call cluelessness on your part. They aren't running Windows servers. They're running Solaris 8. If money is the question, I don't think Sun is the answer.

Rocket Scientists, Period.

[podperson]

An error made by a human using software is no less an error than an error made by a computer using software.

Assessing an operating system purely on its "technical merits" and ignoring usability is faulty reasoning. Software runs on both its user and the computer -- a bad UI will causes errors every bit as damaging as bad kernel code.

Please enter parachute deployment altitude IN KILOMETERS.

Re:Rocket Scientists, Period.

[robertjw]

a bad UI will causes errors every bit as damaging as bad kernel code.

Yeah, but they probably can't get everyone to stop using Windows.

Feelings

[Piroca]

We don't run our main servers on Linux, because there are too many flaws in main Linux kernel.

Man, that may hurt Linus' ego...

Re:Feelings

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything I've read indicates that Linus DOESN'T have an ego... which many attribute to why Linux developed as fast as it did, and lots of other projects deteriorated into internal bickering.

ESC

[drewzhrodague]

I keep pressing the escape button, but I can't seem to get off this crazy planet. What am I doing wrong?

Re:ESC

[uradu]

It's SHIFT-HOME, silly. Sheesh!

Re:ESC

[H0p313ss]

CTRL-HOME... only SHIFT-HOME when you want to take it with you... (And CTRL-SHIFT-HOME if you want to take it ALL with you...)

*sigh* All that wonderful knowledge and I'm still stuck on this backwater of a planet full of ape descendants who think that digital watches are pretty nifty...

Re:ESC

[Guysmiley777]

You need to keep hitting it faster and faster until you finally reach escape velocity.

Re:ESC

[Dunbal]

CTRL-HOME...

      Ahh that would explain why that place in Houston is called Mission-CTRL...uhh... :)

Re:ESC

[sl3xd]

I keep pressing the escape button, but I can't seem to get off this crazy planet. What am I doing wrong?

After hitting the escape key, you then have to type ':qa!'

Re:ESC

[gmby]

You need to press the velocity key too.

In NASA...

[menkhaura]

In NASA Linux is only for desktops!

Re:In NASA...

[c0rN_g0aT]

At NASA only old Koerans use Linux on Servers!

Linux is going to be everywhere in the future

[ravee]

Why stop at just space exploration ? I think linux has already made a mark in being used in embedded devices.

The beauty of linux is its price as well as its secure architecture.

Linux has become so popular that even multi-national corporations have begun to sit up and take notice. I think Sun was forced to release Solaris OS with an open licence because of fear of Linux.

In the near future, linux is going to be used in everything that ever needs a chip - be it a washing machine or a wrist watch.

Re:Linux is going to be everywhere in the future

[NuclearDog]

Except for the fact that they wont use Linux.

First off, how many manufacturers are going to pick an OS which they have to distribute the source for? This requires a lot of extra administrative overhead and just generally more work where-as they could buy one of the pre-existing embedded operating systems (Wind River systems sells a few...) and probably end up _saving_ money simply because they don't have to worry about the whole source code distribution issue.

Hell, even if they do decide they'd rather use a F/OSS OS rather than pay for an embedded operating system, why would they choose Linux? They can choose BSD, which, ignoring the technical advantages, makes no requirements except a simple copyright notice in accompanying documentation.

ND

internet servers

[waif69]

Aren't there a lot more servers on the internet serving various services, such as www, ftp, mail, dns than windows machines? I am little confused on NASA's arguments.

Re:internet servers

[ehvoy]

We don't run our main servers on Linux, because there are too many flaws in main Linux kernel.

I was wondering about this statement too. To me, flaws in the main linux kernel mean you would be less likely to use it as a desktop/end-user system than a server system--too many known ways for local users to become root. Plus kernel upgrades can be quite painful as they require reboots.

Whereas, as a server system, presumably only trusted admins will have local access and the rootage must start with a vulnerability in a service listening on something other than 127.0.0.1.

My thinking anyway when choosing where to deploy linux.

Re:internet servers

[robertjw]

I think they article is comparing Linux with Solaris, AIX, HPUX, VMS or whatever other commercial UNIX they use. I can't imagine they think the Windows kernel is more stable than the Linux kernel.

Like interviewing a janitor at JPL

[Archimboldo]

I wouldn't jump to conclusions just based on this web page.

This guy works for one section at JPL, which has no centralized desktop management. JPL is just a part of NASA. Now some guy at a web site interviews one guy in one part of NASA and waves his arms to make it look like "NASA prefers Mandriva".

That's like the National Enquirer interviewing a janitor somwhere in NASA and concluding that there are 3 eyed aliens among us.

I worked at JPL for 10 years and cringed every time I saw some mom-and-pop newsrag interview some low-level grunt who everyone thought "spoke for NASA".

Not saying TFA might not turn out to be correct, just pointing out the need to take it cum grano salis.

Re:Like interviewing a janitor at JPL

[snarlydwarf]

Especially when it's trivial to determine that www.jpl.nasa.gov runs Linux.

But I guess web servers aren't servers....

And most people have a hundred and sixty 250G IDE drives on their desktop machines
http://pat.jpl.nasa.gov/public/lucian/RASCHAL.html

(Hint: note the date on the bottom of that URL... I guess that system was retired in the last week, since according to the cited article, it doesn't exist.)

Re:Hmmm.

[SchrodingersRoot]

I know that [the Large Multinational Company I work for] uses AIX to the exclusion of Linux with the official justification of (I don't know about the accuracy):

• Support
• Reliability
• Accountability
• Ostensibly, actually, the SCO lawsuit. They don't want to mess with anything that might even possibly get futzed with.

my spaceships

[slashk]

awe, common - i run my satellites on windows 2003 sp1 with no problem at all.
and this is all conveniently plugged into 'my satellites' accessible from the start menu.
it all works just fine, as long as i don't play any high end video during my sat uploads
although, that spyware really messed up my telemetry, but microsoft anti-spyware got it off!
i only have to reboot the satellites once per month now!

Solaris, Tru64, Win2k3 Server...

[Anonymous Coward]

I work as a sysadmin in Houston for the aerospace company that operates as NASA's prime contractor for ISS. We work very closely with the tech people over at the Johnson Space Center on the Station and Shuttle contracts and perform tasks for them that include large-scale analysis and number crunching (we recently handled the foam debris analysis for STS-114). We use a mix of systems on the back-end, but the breakdown generally is Windows 2000 AS & 2003 Enterprise Server for misc. (non mission-critical) application hosting and e-mail and printers and general office automation stuff, and Solaris or Tru64 or VMS(!) for anything flight- or vehicle-related, and dedicated mainframes for large (or legacy) tasks.

They don't run their servers on Linux, eh?

[pscottdv]

We don't run our main servers on Linux

Oh, really?

So explain this guy (www.top500.org).

Re:They don't run their servers on Linux, eh?

[pscottdv]

Or this one.

Re:They don't run their servers on Linux, eh?

[snarlydwarf]

That's a desktop machine, of course.

For someone with a Very Big Desk.

Re:They don't run their servers on Linux, eh?

[corrosive_nf]

You could RTFA or any of the comments to know that the article is talking about JPL which is just one of dozens of sites used by nasa, the two you listed are in completly different states than JPL.

Re:They don't run their servers on Linux, eh?

[Mr. Hankey]

Columbia is at Ames/NAS, not JPL, but of course it definitely runs Linux. Whether it's a server depends on your perspective, and the author of the article was talking about his small space in JPL. HQ definitely uses Linux servers though, which is probably a more useful metric as to what the decision makers think of it.

Re:They don't run their servers on Linux, eh?

[DA-MAN]

http://www.top500.org/site/297

As a sysadmin for JPL I ran a few major Linux clusters and standalone Linux servers. JPL is very segmented, there are divisions, and within divisons there are projects.

Many of the projects run their own infrastructure. Some on Linux, some on HPUX, some on Windows, and so on. Perhaps in the MER project they didn't do too much with Linux on the server, but that doesn't mean that JPL likes or dislikes Linux for servers. It's more representative of the admins in control of MER more than anything.

In otherwords this interview is not representative of JPL. Just like everything i say isn't representative of JPL as a whole. It's just our individual projects.

Re:They don't run their servers on Linux, eh?

[DA-MAN]

Hate responding to myself, but I wanted to point to the fact that JPL's main server runs Linux:

http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=www.jpl. nasa.gov

Linux Apache/1.3.29 (Unix) PHP/4.3.4 28-Sep-2005 137.78.99.23 National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Re:Hmmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

The typical aircraft, if it goes down, goes down once.

Drivers?

[dhasenan]

The article cited drivers as their main complaint, but also claim that they fix these errors. I hope that they send the relevant patches or snippets to the maintainers, and at least bug reports about everything else.

I work in Mission Control and...

[EccentricAnomaly]

this article is BS.

I've worked in mission control at JPL for several years and I've never seen Linux used as a Desktop OS by more people than I can count on one hand. In fact JPL has a contract with Lockheed Martin to supply Desktop computers that makes it very hard to run anything other than Windows or MacOS.

But, I have seen many workstations running Linux, and many servers running Linux. In fact, I think virtually all navigation is now done from Linux servers. And when workstations and Servers don't run Linux they run Solaris. There used to be some HPUX machines around, but you don't see many of them anymore after the crap HP put people through with HPUX-11 (what the hell was HP thinking by dropping fortran-77??)

Anyway this article is complete BS. Much like one MacWorld ran a while ago claiming JPL used Macs for everything.

Re:I work in Mission Control and...

[mdman]

But I read it on Slashdot! you mean its not true! Oh the shame! ;)

Re:I work in Mission Control and...

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact JPL has a contract with Lockheed Martin to supply Desktop computers that makes it very hard to run anything other than Windows or MacOS.

The contracted Lockheed Martin contract with JPL allows and provides Linux desktops running their own version of Red Hat. I know of at least a few people who use it. Since most Linux wonks already know how to administer their own machines, most of them do not use this service. And since a whole other set started using Sun workstations back when Linux took 10 floppies to install on 486s, they have their own System Administrators to administer their Linux workstations now. That is how Gary Brack got into the Linux workstation administration.

Re:I work in Mission Control and...

[EccentricAnomaly]

But the contract forbids users from running Linux machines as Desktop machines not administered by LMIT. The LMIT administration is not convenient to work with, and this is a major discouragement against using Linux.

There are people using Linux an the Desktop at JPL, but they are few and far between. Most people use Linux as a workstation OS and also have a Mac or a Windows machine to use as a Desktop machine (i.e. for Office and email and such).

And there are many flight projects using Linux servers. Suns are used mostly for web servers or when someone refuses to port software to Linux because they either don't want to spend money on programmers, or the programmers refuse to learn a different platform.

Re:I work in Mission Control and...

[Arandir]

But, I have seen many workstations running Linux...

To most people, a workstation is a desktop. "Desktop" itself is a very nebulous term, originally meaning a computer small enough to put on your desktop, but now meaning any client system you directly interact with. You also have the problem of many people using "desktop" to refer to a GUI operating environment. A "workstation" however, comfortably fits into all of the above. Workstations are desktops.

Re:I work in Mission Control and...

[EccentricAnomaly]

anyone who works at JPL understands the distinction between a Desktop and a workstation, and whoever wrote this article should as well

Re:I work in Mission Control and...

[Anonymous Coward]

I work at NASA and administer several workstations that run linux, as well as a 400 node linux cluster. Lots of SGI workstations too, as well as Macs. There are a few die hard Microsoft evangelists, pushing (LOL) apache on windows when apache is required. Sometime I wonder if they are on the take or have a vested interest in seeing microsoft sell licenses.

Re:I work in Mission Control and...

[Professor_UNIX]

But the contract forbids users from running Linux machines as Desktop machines not administered by LMIT.

Smells like ODIN.

Re:I work in Mission Control and...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometime I wonder if they are on the take or have a vested interest in seeing microsoft sell licenses.

I've wondered that too. Of course I doubt that's true, but it is amazing how devoted Microsoft fanboys are to throwing money at the problem. You'd think in the government, of all places, there would be a move away from using monopoly developed software.

Re:I work in Mission Control and...

[Perl-Pusher]

Well I work at NASA Langley and have worked at Goddard. In peoples cubicles you will find mostly RedHat Linux or a few have SGI & Sun workstations. We have two Clusters running RedHat. We have about 25 Origin servers (about 300k each), 20 or so Sun & SGI workstations and a very large AMASS tape storage system (5 silos).

Most cubicles have a windows machines in addition to the others, that windows machine is the only thing supported by the CONITS contract. JPL mission control is not indicative of all of NASA.

Most developers I work with have Linux desktops and or laptops, some dual boot with windows. System admins around here seem to prefer SGI's, they scarf up many of the used SGI workstations as they get upgraded or bid on pallets of discarded ones. Some have Linux Boxes, and a group of them are using FreeBSD! I had a compact Alpha running Redhat until about 6 Months ago. Now I'm using FC4 on a AMD64 system, and I have a company bought powerbook.

Among the scientists it's about 65% Windows with Linux making up almost all of the rest. Windows Laptops were running almost 100%. But every meeting I see an new Powerbook on the desks. Last Science team meeting I attended had about 5 powerbooks and the same number of windows laptops. I remember 3 years ago I had the only powerbook in the room. Mine is still the only one that dual boots Yellow Dog. It's my uber geek badge ;)

Re:I work in Mission Control and...

[EccentricAnomaly]

So you agree that the article is BS, right? There are very few Linux boxes used on the Desktop (i.e. used in exclusion to a Mac or Windows box and their desktop apps) but many used as workstations (i.e. used basically for in-house code that does various computations) and many Linux boxen are used as servers.

Re:I work in Mission Control and...

[Keebler71]

Great nick... just what I'd expect from someone working there... I did my graduate research at JPL... in which division do you work?

Re:I work in Mission Control and...

[poolmeister]

Interesting...

Makes it all the more frustrating that NASA Worldwind was only developed for Windows/DirectX...

Why oh why!

Re:I work in Mission Control and...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I work on Moonbase Alpha, and my workstation runs Longhorn.

Re:I work in Mission Control and...

[students]

Is fortran 77 useful? Or does NASA just have old fortran 77 code lying around? I'm asking because I'm considering a summer job where I'd learn fortran 77, and I want to know if I'd ever use it again. It seems like a more recent fortran would be better.

Re:I work in Mission Control and...

[_Sprocket_]

I've worked in mission control at JPL for several years and I've never seen Linux used as a Desktop OS by more people than I can count on one hand. In fact JPL has a contract with Lockheed Martin to supply Desktop computers that makes it very hard to run anything other than Windows or MacOS.

It might be worth pointing out here that NASA as an agency is extreemly schizophrenic. Finding one group within NASA that follows any particular operating procedure or policy does not mean that all groups and organizations within the entire Agency also does the same. In fact, it is not uncommon to find different groups with conflicting policies. Granted - there ARE Agency policies that are (more or less) followed everywhere. But those are much fewer and farther between than outsiders might think.

Incidently, it's hard to have a non-Windows "desktop" within many NASA environments. Business automation infrastructure is very rarely built with anything but Windows in mind. Although I can think of a couple recent projects where MacOS and Linux were mentioned as a consideration, if not exactly a concern. So things may be changing.

Re:I work in Mission Control and...

[Mr. Hankey]

If by desktop you're talking what O*I* hands you, sure, you're not going to be able to get anything other than what they offer. (Well, you can have anything you want as long as it's one of their limited selection of pre-configured systems.) Many people use their workstation as their desktop though. To say that no servers are running Linux at JPL is also false, although this may be the case in real time systems. If you send something expensive up in space at this point, it's probably running VxWorks. I know of at least one service (Earth-based of course) that is migrating to Linux as we speak though.

Re:I work in Mission Control and...

[Anonymous Coward]

anyone who works at JPL understands the distinction between a Desktop and a workstation, and whoever wrote this article should as well

Of course, their editor may not.

Re:I work in Mission Control and...

[XchristX]

Well can we distinguish a workstation from a "desktop" by the CPU architecture (Intel/AMD/ppc for desktops, sparc/IBM etc for workstations)? This wouldn't be canon, of course. As far as performance is concerned, the distinction seems blurred nowadays:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workstation

Paragraph 2 below:
http://www.quepublishing.com/articles/article.asp? p=366538&rl=1



This one's a bit shady, but I'll put it in anyways:
http://www1.ap.dell.com/content/topics/topic.aspx/ ap/topics/popup/en/ws_vs_dimen?~lt=popup

Re:I work in Mission Control and...

[EccentricAnomaly]

NASA has a lot of fortran 77 code that it uses every day. Fortran 90,95, etc stuff too. There have been efforts to migrate to C++, python, and other things... but none have, of yet, been successful.

Re:I work in Mission Control and...

[shaitand]

So your saying linux is used by everyone but the secretary? The difference between a workstation and desktop is the price tag.

Re:I work in Mission Control and...

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's be very clear. JPL Mission control has nothing to do with Manned Space Flight, which is what most of the world things of as "Mission Control." I worked at JSC on the New Mission Control Center project (Loral/Rockwell/Lockheed). At the time, DEC-Alphas were the fastest processors available so that was selected and deployed. No Windows was allowed on that network, a few HPs, some SunOS (as NFS servers) and I think 1 AIX box was there.

We had Linux and Solaris in the Software Technology Lab of ISD, but neither were ready for production use at the time. Every Mission Control connected back into JSC MCC also ran OSF/1 on Alpha. That includes, Goddard, Huntsville, Toronto, Korolev, and KSC. JPL might have had a connection, but I didn't install any real-time MCC software at JPL as part of the installations in the mid 90s.

Ok, Jon (Maddog) Hall did come to JSC and a few of us met with him about this new OS in 1994ish. He was working for DEC/Compaq at the time. Basically he told us to stop writing code for any UNIX except Linux and that DEC had sent Linus an Alpha to port Linux with. I still have the "Born to do Linux - Red Hat & Alpha" tatoo.

His talk was enough for me to convert from OS/2 to Linux at home.

Re:I work in Mission Control and...

[Hosiah]

It's my uber geek badge ;)

To the rest of us, your working at NASA is your uber-geek badge! Even to those of us who dual-boot everything...

Re:I work in Mission Control and...

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree - you can't make any blanket statements about what JPL does because JPL does anything and everything!

I've worked at JPL for several years, and the freedom to do as you please is one of the main reasons I continue to work here. Programmers may use Linux workstations, mission operations may use Sun hardware, engineers carry Mac Powerbooks, business types have PCs, etc. In fact, I'd venture to guess that JPL has a more heterogeneous computing environment than 99% of industry outside of academia. Makes sense when you have a multitude of concurrent tasks and projects, each with its own specific requirements that require a specific solution.

Therefore, any statement that 'JPL does this' or 'JPL does that' is pure garbage.

Re:I work in Mission Control and...

[51mon]

Never seen Fortran since I stopped being a government scientist.

Nothing wrong with the later Fortrans, but Fortran 77 is at best the 5th best language for any application (behind Fortran 90, Fortran 95, C (which is always second best allegedly), and whatever language would be the right one to write that application in.

NASA like most big government science bodies probably just has shed loads of ancient code in Fortran. When I was a govenment scientist a lot of the code said "Fortran 77" on the box, but when you peered in there was often the distinctive odour of Fortran 66, and in some cases Fortran H/G/4. You could tell by how few modern constructs the code used.

Oh and yes I got stung by some of the HP fun mentioned earlier when they messed with their fortran compiler. 'Blank common' might be the worst sort of sin in computing, but when you have many tens of thousands of lines of code using it, and other such features, it is handy if the compiler retains some backward compatibility.

So take a job where you'll learn Fortran 77 only if you favour being some backwater government scientist that maintains long dead numerical models. Refuse the job, eat bread, drink water, learn Haskell, it'll be better for your soul.

Re:I work in Mission Control and...

[Arandir]

No, the problem is that there is no longer a distinction between desktops and workstations. CPUs are faster and cheaper now, and workstation strength is now standard for consumer PCs. Why is my 400Mhz UltraSparc a "workstation", but my 3GHz Pentium a "desktop"? Both have equivalent form factors, both have large monitors, both are running roughly equivalent operating systems (FreeBSD vs Solaris), both have clicky icons on the gooey. So what's the difference? Other than price?

Re:I work in Mission Control and...

[EccentricAnomaly]

Let's be very clear. JPL Mission control has nothing to do with Manned Space Flight, which is what most of the world things of as "Mission Control."

But JSC Mission Control has nothing to do with space flight (at least not space flight beyond the Earth's atmosphere).

And TFA is about JPL flight projects... hence the relevance of JPL mission control as opposed to JSC or GSFC mission control.

Re:I work in Mission Control and...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're out of date. JPL is very unhappy with LMT (Lockheed Martin) supplying their computers. They get over charged and everyone on lab knows it. HP has been an alternative for the past 4 years. They're moving towards Dell now. It's just as easy to order a dual boot Linux/Windows machine now at JPL.

AIX, SCO, lawsuit???

[Nick Driver]

I know that [the Large Multinational Company I work for] uses AIX to the exclusion of Linux with the official justification of

* Ostensibly, actually, the SCO lawsuit. They don't want to mess with anything that might even possibly get futzed with.

You don't know just how hillarious that statement is.
In case you've been asleep... SCO thinks they've revoked IBM's right to sell AIX.

Re:AIX, SCO, lawsuit???

[SchrodingersRoot]

See my disclaimers.
I didn't say I thought it was logical.
It's just the rationale (foolishnesse?) that my company apparently uses.

I help manage ITSecurity NASA LaRC

[sandypants]

And our site uses a broad spectrum of distros, however, the only Linux 'approved' for your 'primary desktop' in the interoperability standards (STD-2804i) is RedHat-EL. Convering many of our hosts from Fedora/RH 7-9 has been relatively straight forward.. but the lack of direct support for hardware has been a challenge. Outside of your 'primary desktop' you can run anything that can be patched and kept up to date with in reason. That means no NT, 98, ME, etc.

I know of major clusters running Fedora Core, Solaris, Irix, etc.. but most desktops are either Windows 2k or XP, or linux in some format. NASA HQ still hasn't really made any distinct "thou shalt" decisions about OS, but OpenSource is a primary component of NASA and will continue to be.

  Some times the 'rules' are skirted for practicality. For example, since OpenSSL is still not approved, that means SSH isn't approved either. But there isn't a snowballs chance in hell they'll get everyone to stop using that. ;-)

Re:I help manage ITSecurity NASA LaRC

[5cary]

So, when Linux is used on your "primary Desktop", how do you handle PKI?

Re:I help manage ITSecurity NASA LaRC

[sandypants]

There is a trial program to use PKI certs with thunderbird .. and it works .. however, there's no key lookup for addresses .. which makes it somewhat of a pita.

VAX, Sun, SGI

[amightywind]

I worked in the planetary program in the late-1980's and 1990's when VAX and Sun OS were all you'd see. You used to see a lot of XV! I would have been surprised if Windows had any significant presence. I know scientific computing is a small market, but Sun, DEC, and SGI really gave it away. Scientists loved them.

Not only that.

[AltGrendel]

Linux is open source! If they know that the errors/flaws are there, they could patch it.

Couldn't they?

linux popular with geeks.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've worked at GSFC and a number of other heavily scientific work places. All of these places have a significant number of people using linux. This is not news. Anywhere there are engineers and physicists, there is linux (...and also macOS)...

    I don't understand the assertion there are flaws in the linux kernel and this is why they don't use them as servers - my experience though is that this is likely a "policy" decision and that once you get a bunch of sys. admins used to Solaris (once also known as "Slowlaris") or other operating system, they don't want to change.

Re:linux popular with geeks.

[PeterBrett]

At the electronics R&D lab I was working at last year, they had a bunch of Solaris blade servers for hosting Cadence microprocessor design and simulation tools (engineers accessed them over VNC).

Anyway, by the time I left they'd nearly done converting them all over to Linux, for two reasons: speed and stability.

Re:money

[TopherC]

I can relate to this. At my lab many people (myself included) run Linux on the desktop, and either Linux or Solaris on the servers. Our servers are not as mission-critical, since most crashes and such can be recovered from.

I simply find Linux on the desktop to be a more civilized environment for doing software development in a scientific environment. The advantages are too many to enumerate, but I'll list a few that come to mind. The window managers are more productive, it's a similar environment to the servers, connectivity software like ssh and X11 are better integrated (though Cygwin helps Windows a lot), analysis tools run better on Linux, more scripting languages with better OS interfaces, Windows roaming profiles are a blight on humanity, etc.

As for Solaris being more stable -- that's not inconsistent with my experience either. the various basic C/C++ libraries seem to have fewer quirks, for one. And we've been having strange network-wide NFS slowdowns caused by the Linux machines for the past couple years. I don't know all the details, but Linux is certainly no panacea.

I believe that some of the quirkiness is due to the x86 platforms being more prone to failure. Obviously that's an overgeneralized statement but it seems that even the server-grade PC components have generally been a source of frustration more so than the Sun systems. Bad networking cards, motherboards that can't take the heat when under load 24/7, etc. (I think HP has supplied most of our systems FYI.) However Linux on PC's is *much* more cost-effective! So Solaris is fading out here. Sadly, Digital bit the dust a while back.

Re:Right :)

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA! They use Mac mini with raided USB drives. OS X has no flaws at all.

there are too many flaws..as opposed to WHAT ?

[MajorDick]

Its a VERY subjective comment.
If you tell me in COMPARISON to VMS, or OS2, or Solaris, I would agree with that.

If you said that in comparison to windows, I would say just because you cant see it dosent mean its not there (although admittedley NASA has access to the windows code. I would say in comparison to several full enterprise implmentations that statement is correct, but agains windows ? come on...

Re:there are too many flaws..as opposed to WHAT ?

[TheOrquithVagrant]

As an old OS/2 user and consultant with a customer that still runs it, and who I got called in to solve a problem for as late as 2004, I'll take Linux over OS/2 for reliability any day. OS/2 was/is generally a fine OS, but I've seen more flaws and strange hangs and crashes with it than I ever have with Linus. Moreover, several of the OS/2 flaws I've seen turned out to remain unfixable no matter how high up into IBM support they were kicked. I contrast, I've never personally encountered a Linux problem that couldn't get fixed, and fixed quickly. No Linux server I've set up for this particular customer has ever had unplanned downtime.
No argument when it comes to VMS, though - they run that too, on their REALLY mission critical back end servers. I don't have a lot of familiarity with VMS myself, but everything I hear about it points to it being an absolutely _astoundingly_ roboust and reliable OS.
Somewhat likewise with Solaris. I've never been overly impressed with Solaris, but lack of reliability certainly isn't one of its flaws.

Doesn't NASA have an SGI ALTIX supercomputer?

[Thaidog]

That's Linux on the server... in this case a supercomputer. While I'll agree that Linux is not completely nailed down as much as say IRIX, AIX or Solaris, it would be silly to say that Linux could not fill in the server cracks in between. Workstations go w/o saying.

Re:Doesn't NASA have an SGI ALTIX supercomputer?

[Anonymous Coward]

That isn't a supercomputer..

it's my desktop machine..

you haven't seen tux racer until you've played it on this!

Re:Doesn't NASA have an SGI ALTIX supercomputer?

[Thaidog]

lol. You must be a serious Tux racer player!

Yes, replacing Unix workstations

[Latent Heat]

For people raised on the Unix culture, Linux on PC's is a natural progression from workstations and before that, VAXen.

Linux (OK, OK, GNU/Linux) was meant as a Unix clone, and it is only natural that Linux has displaced Solaris, whatever Silicon Graphics was doing, and so on.

For people raised on the DOS/Windows culture, it is not as natural a progression. A lot of us (those doing lab computers for data collection, using computers for scientific computation, other academic pursuits) came to DOS and later Windows because . . . computers for this sort of thing (largely VAXes and later workstations) all ran Unix, and you had to have a big enough grant to afford not only the hardware but the Bearded Guru (TM) to keep such a system running. DOS and later Windows was in part a go-it-alone and do-it-yourself movement so the scientific luser community would have some financial and technical independence. While DOS/Windows came to require a guru culture of its own, a lot of us renegades acquired that expertise while we didn't know much Unix beyond ls, cat, hidden config files started with a dot, and VI has two modes: insert mode and beep mode.

The academic luser community could have adopted Linux as a go-it-alone replacement for big iron Unix, but for a variety of historical, cultural, and technical reasons, we went with DOS and Windows.

For the longest time, Microsoft was the "good guy upstarts" compared with the commercial Unix's. Microsoft acted tough with vendors and software developers crossing a certain threshold from the beginning, and the acting tough with users (product activation) is much more recent. But the academic luser community is stuck in the Windows world and is making toe-dipping attempt to try Linux out to break free, and it has been tough going.

But those NASA/JPL dudes running Linux come from people migrated from workstations I bet -- I would like to see an example of a luser community making a major effort to get going on Linux.

Never mind NASA

[dammy]

Never mind NASA, I'm more interested in what Burt uses.

Dammy

Re:money

[VagaStorm]

"Maybe, but their EULA totally sucks and running a server that's designed to lock you in and others out and run their "extended" protocols rubs me the wrong way."

I thought the problem with windows was it's not good enough at lockin others out :p

I worked at NASA once

[rkanodia]

A few years ago, I had an internship at the Air Traffic Control lab at Ames Research Center in Mountain View (technically Moffet Field is its own city, but whatever), California. The people were nice and pretty good at what they did, and the desktops were mostly Red Hat, but the IT system there was pretty weird. I sat in a cubicle next to a one filled with unused desktop machines and monitors. Pentium 2/3, G3/G4 Macs, 17" CRTs, all kinda of stuff that was just 1.5-3 years old. Even so, people who were coming in would get new computers. Why? Because you can't just take one of the computers from the storage cubicle; you have to fill out forms and it needs to go through a bunch of processes to make sure that it works, that the hard drive is wiped, and a clean install of the OS is performed.

Obviously, the IT department would rather just open up a new machine than spend a bunch of effort refurbishing an old one, so they made the paperwork to have an old machine put back into service much more complicated than the paperwork to order a new machine. Furthermore, there was a tactical element involved: I ended up with a brand new, top of the line machine because my boss wanted one, but wasn't due for a new computer for a couple of years. If I remember correctly, because I was an intern, he was able to justify the purchase for 'a new employee' on the accounting side, while keeping the ownership rights from IT's perspective - so when I went back to school, he took the machine I'd been using and - you guessed it - dumped his old one in The Cubicle.

Re:money

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, I stand corrected.

what are they running that exposes kernel flaws?

[Uzik2]

admittedly I don't anything odd with my linux boxen, but
I've never seen a kernel problem. They're much more stable
than any windows machine I've ever run. I do just the reverse,
linux servers only.

Re:Right :)

[tsume]

:D
+1 Humor

I wish OS X had no flaws. Any hardcore Mac'er will complain about some :( MacOSX is really good. The only real problem I know with MacOSX which bother me is the latest version as of late 2005 has a few bugs. Ruby was cross compiled, so the little endian and big endian are wrong. I hear complaints about the MacOSX linker all the time, and even though there is fink and darwinports.. people still complain about packaging.


Can't wait to get a powerbook when it has a 'Intel inside' *chuckle*

stability of Linux versus Solaris

[spif]

The article mentions that JPL doesn't want to run Linux on servers because Solaris has a longer, more reliable and stable life cycle. But Red Hat Enterprise Linux has a comparable life cycle. They should be honest and just admit that they're more comfortable with Solaris because they've traditionally been a Solaris shop. If they had said that they rely on a lot of closed source applications that only run on Solaris, or in-house proprietary code that would be difficult to port, that I could buy. Otherwise it's just a comfort zone thing for the admins, managers and/or users. Which doesn't seem like a good reason to continue wasting tax payer dollars on overpriced hardware and support.

Re:stability of Linux versus Solaris

[pl1ght]

As opposed to wasting taxpayers dollars on revamping the whole system/hardware/code/personnel? Ill take paying for what they use now thanks.

Strange comment to make...

[Skiron]

... when they have their own 'distro' designed for spacecraft:

http://flightlinux.gsfc.nasa.gov/

FTFA?

[NewmanBlur]

And just one sentence after that:

"Supporters of Linux on the server may argue that these are similar traits enjoyed by -- if not pioneered by -- Linux. Nevertheless, Brack said there are already plans to upgrade to Solaris 10 in the near future."

NASA has orbiting brain lasers?

[Rhinobird]

This was the first thing that popped into my head:

http://www.ubergeek.tv/article.php?pid=54

too the moon alice!

[v3xt0r]

too the Recycle Bin, Windows!

Linux at NASA GSFC

[internic]

When I worked at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center I saw Linux in use for desktops, fileservers, web servers, you name, it. There was some Solaris thrown in too, of course, and I think there was even a DEC machine (not a web server), but all the newer *nix machines seemed to be Linux. On the desktop there were also a fair number of Macs running OS X, and Windows probably had the smallest minority in the building I worked in. The only time most of them used Windows was when they had to make a powerpoint presentation. With the development of OO.org Presenter, I'm not even sure how much they'd use Windows for that these days.

There's a flip side to that

[delcielo]

It's not hard now to say that Solaris/AIX/HPUX/Win are palatable only because they don't have the source, and therefore don't know what kernel problems there are in those platforms. That's probably a bit apocryphal; but not a LOT.

On the flip side, when they eventually do endorse Linux and use it on their servers, I think it's a real feather in Linux' and Linus' caps.

That's my glass-half-full take on the matter, anyhow.

Solaris 8

[Anonymous Coward]

The interviewee says that they are primarily a Solaris 8 shop for delivery of services. OK. But patches to Solaris 8 are known to have been deployed which have altered key kernel data structures (contrary to Sun's own accepted practice), resulting in loss of functionality for some number of apps until the offending changes are backed out, or the apps are patched themselves. This hardly seems like a sound frame of reference from which to cite instability in the Linux kernels. If he had just said that he would have someone on whom to hang the blame in the case of a kernel problem, then it would have made a lot more sense.

I just like to point out

[Anonymous Coward]

This means we now own Mars

Thanks
Darl McBride

If so, ditch Solaris for OpenBSD.

[emil]

I haven't used Solaris recently, but aren't they bundling:

• PostgreSQL
• Gnome
• Java

You will find none of this in the heavily-audited OpenBSD base. You also get added protection from W^X, randomized order in loading shared libraries, a malloc that uses mmap and discontiguous memory, gcc propolice, plus other defenses that make weaknesses in C code harder to exploit. There is at least one other C defense mechanism that is available if you run SPARC rather than i386. True, some of the previous list does exact a slight performance penalty.

(I assume that) an equivalent of W^X is available under Solaris (if you are on the right CPU), but most of the other stuff wouldn't be.

nasa computers - inevitable Amiga post

[Anonymous Coward]

the inevitable Amiga post :) - NASA/JPL used Amigas for several telemetry needs for a while, anyway....

http://www.polyphoto.com/upchug/HalInterview-eng.h tml

amigaboy
http://www.amigau.com/

Re:What we do not know - No SUNS or Linux here

[Anonymous Coward]

No, a million dollars of hardware never relies on a sun OR linux desktop. Period. The hardware relies on FPGA's, firmware, and radiation hardened processors on the spacecraft, running vxWorks or another embedded OS, using very carefully tested hardware.

Fine

[flyinwhitey]

Then either the article's author is lying (and writing this story and putting your name to it is a pretty god damned dumb thing to do if one is lying) or the anonymous guy on slashdot is.

Yeah, it must be the author...

SUN rises at NASA

[Heembo]

We don't run our main servers on Linux, because there are too many flaws in main Linux kernel.'"

No doubt. NASA is a *big* SUN shop. When you are doing calculations like NASA, sorry Linux, you need SUN and Solaris. SLOW-aris indeed is true, but you need some special software to handle SUN BIG IRON. Go ahead and shoot me, but sorry, I ain't gunna put billions and billions of $ worth on transactions on Linux.... yet. :)

kernels

[Mr. Underbridge]

Agree, for the most part. Personally, I don't use a new major kernel until the minor # reaches 10, just as kind of a minimal standard. Slackware shipped with 2.4 forever. In fact, I'm not sure it doesn't still do so. That should tell one something

Re:kernels

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, latest Slackware still defaults to 2.4 with 2.6 available on one of the CDs if you want it.

VMS: unmatched in security and clustering

[emil]

Solaris or Tru64 or VMS(!) for anything flight- or vehicle-related

If security or availability is a must, go VMS. The aforementioned link will astonish you.

Re:VMS: unmatched in security and clustering

[Procrastin8er]

None of this suprises me, I sorely miss VMS (Had to leave it 7 years ago).

Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

The title of the submission is "Linux Desktops Send NASA Rovers to Mars". The article talks about what NASA runs on desktops and servers, and mentions they don't generally run Linux on the servers. Even if they DID run Linux on the servers, I don't really see how that's relevant. Whatever platform they run the real brains of the operation is their custom mission control software, which I would imagine could be ported to a number of platforms. The operating system doesn't really matter; it's the applications. Granted the overall stability of the platform is important (in general an application crashing on Linux won't take down the system whereas it still happens on Windows), but the applications are fore more important than what operating system they run on.

Makes me think...

[jschmerge]

I've been spending a lot of time at work lately working with machines that are running RedHat Enterprise Linux. At home I use my own variant of Linux From Scratch. In the past year or so, I've been noticing a surprising trend... My home machines (running stock kernel.org versions) are remarkably more stable than the machines at the office running RedHat's "stablelized" kernel.

In general, Linux vendors really need to make more of an effort in making sure that their kernels are as stable if not more so than the ones released on kernel.org... I have absolutely no faith that the programmers at RedHat/SuSe/YourLinuxVendor are able to do a better job with the kernel than Linus and the rest of the core kernel developers.

Re:Makes me think...

[Anonymous Coward]

"I have absolutely no faith that the programmers at RedHat/SuSe/YourLinuxVendor are able to do a better job with the kernel than Linus and the rest of the core kernel developers."

Which is kind of surprising since the top core kernel developers are mostly Red Hat employees.

Oh, I forgot you were a dumbass ignorant teenager, sorry

RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

and you'll get what you're looking for. Or you can go on making ignorant comments about something you haven't read. That's SOP around here, so you should be able to pull off for a while yet.

I doubt it...

[Ice Wewe]

When I went and got a tour of JPL, from a staff member, not a tour guide, I looked in on their server clusters, they were running Fedora Core 4 smp. Now, perhaps this is just an isolated case, but everywhere I looked, there were computer's running Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows. When we got a tour of the main control room, where they had terminals displaying the data being received from the space probes/landers/craft, they were running linux. Therefore, I tend to doubt whoever said that the linux kernel wasn't 'stable' enough for their purposes. Perhaps they're just trying to keep Microsoft happy, because when I was there, it [Windows] certainly wasn't the majority OS.

Kernel flaws

[demigod]

We don't run our main servers on Linux, because there are too many flaws in main Linux kernel.

Sounds like Linus kicked back somebody's kernel patch back to them and they decided to take thier ball and go home.

Fine, how about this one?

[pscottdv]

JPL Visualization Supercomputer

Re:no shit

[Treeluvinhippy]

And posting this anonymously,
 
  ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Of course these are the same guys...

[windowpain]

For what's it worth, these are the same guys who lost a $125 million Mars probe because they failed to do a conversion from imperial to metric units of measure. (Who in science and engineering still uses imperial anyway?) D'oh!

Re:Of course these are the same guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Who in science and engineering still uses imperial anyway?

Lockheed Martin.

They lost Mars Climate Orbiter, not NASA.

Re:Of course these are the same guys...

[be-fan]

Aerospace engineers in the United States generally still use imperial units. The main reason being that a lot of existing data is in imperial units, as are a lot of emperical equations, rules of thumb, etc.

Ah Hah!

[Anonymous Coward]

"...and a group of them are using FreeBSD!"

Ahhh, now I know the rovers will be safe!

you miss my point

[EccentricAnomaly]

Using Linux machines as workstations is not the same as using them as Desktop machines. You use Desktop machines for Word, Powerpoint, Canvas, Illustrator, Mail, etc. You use workstations primarily to run computations. Linux has widely replaced Suns, HPs, etc as Workstations at JPL. The article seems to claim that Linux has replaced Macs and Windows machines on the desktop at JPL.... this is false. Even the LaTex jockeys who don't use Office prefer working on Macs for such tasks to Linux.

Re:you miss my point

[Perl-Pusher]

The point I was making is yes, the CONITS contract is for Windows. But except for managers and admin and such, hardly anybody is using them. If I do all of my work on a Linux box, including sending emails and surfing slashdot in my spare time, and never even turn on the windows machine except when instructed to run windows update. Which is my desktop? The machine in front of me I'm typing on now or the one turned off behind me? The technical staff here is almost all contractor, out numbering nasa employees 12 - 1, it's the technical people who don't care which OS they use as long as it has a unix heritage. Yes we have workstations here lot's of them, most are not Linux. It's the guys that want to use ssh, not putty, bash not dos prompt and cannot stand Norton Internet Security or a system tray that takes 4 minutes to finish loading.

Re:you miss my point

[EccentricAnomaly]

I guess we have different environments.. JPL is like 60% mac and percentage among technical employees is harder. So we use Macs for most of our unix-y goodness and only use Linux for stuff that has to be configuration managed or requires a powerful computer (most of the macs are laptops). And we have to write a lot of powerpoint presentations and memos... doing such things on Linux is less than fun, which is why we have desktop computers to do that sort of work as well as stuff like Illustrator, Omnigraffle, FastTrack, etc.

Re:you miss my point

[Perl-Pusher]

Codeweavers does wonders, I have a powerbook with Office 2004 for Mac but I use OpenOffice more because that's usually what I'm on. I found MathCad on Linux with codeweavers is exactly the same user experience as natively for me. I do all my presentations with OpenOffice it's got alot better interface than powerpoint.

Solaris, OpenOffice.org

[Anonymous Coward]

When I visited NASA's JPL last summer, I noticed many Solaris workstations with OpenOffice.org. I also saw Thunderbird on an employee's Windows laptop, but I only noticed one Red Hat system.

Of course, I didn't see everything. ;)

In Soviet NASA...

[p3d0]

...Linux is only for the desktop.

Which OS Is Most Motivating?

[camperslo]

"I'm sorry Fred.
The only way we'll let you off of your Windows ME box and onto XP, Linux, or a Mac, is if you design a rocket to launch that machine into a star."

Re:Which OS Is Most Motivating?

[Mike Peel]

Oddly enough, my first thought would be "Time to get the pen and paper out!"

So in other words, you are a poseur?

[Anonymous Coward]

You use an obscure OS just to make the geek technical analog of a fashion statement, instead of choosing a tool that helps you work efficiently and effectively? Our valiant Astromen in the Challenger may have suffered cheap deaths simply because you were more concerned with being a contemporary "cyber-rebel". This is what our scarce tax dollars are going to, paying a salary to someone who couldn't shed a high school anti-clique mentality? No wonder the USA lost it's technological lead in the 1980s.

But hey, you're the l33t haxor, right? After all, that's all that matters in your juvenile universe.

Kernel flaws

[Anonymous Coward]

"We don't run our main servers on Linux, because there are too many flaws in main Linux kernel".. but they run solaris and AIX on their servers? WTF?!? (i dont know what they run now, but the JPL used to be a full of bugs)

No, a numerical cluster isn't a server

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know when the language got all fscked up, but people
don't seem to have any idea what "server" and "workstation" mean anymore.

A "server" is a computer which serves services to other others. WWW, FTP, database, and other services all count.

While some companies might use an Altix cluster as a server, NASA does not. Such machines are used as, get this, computers. As in, they are used to compute. Hard core, heavylifting, old-school number-crunching. Such a machine is not a server, and it is almost degrading to refer to one as such.

Similarly, unless you are writing codes, doing CAD or other engineering design, scientific data analysis, etc. on it, the computer in front of you is not a workstation. It's just a PC. A machine which only runs wordprocessors, spreadsheets, web browsers, and games is not a workstation.

we don't use linux servers...

[Anonymous Coward]

b/c we use OPM to buy the servers.

OPM is other people's money.

would you buy a solaris system or a linux system, all else being equal?

yes, when it comes to government, NOBODY considers tax dollars as an issue of any concern, whatsoever...

that's why we are $9,000,000,000,000 in debt with deficits of about $600,000,000,000 a year...

I expected that.

[jd]

I worked at NASA Langley in the late 1990s, and there was a move towards the desktop and away from X terminals. However, the desktops they gave everyone were Windows based and did not have Cygwin installed, making them damn-near useless as all the applications were X.

As I recall, I was one of the first there to really kick up a fuss about Linux, and since that time I'm very glad to say that most of the computational fluid dynamics code (ie: the stuff they use to simulate aircraft and jet engines) almost universally supports Linux. Not quite - the stuff for migrating CAD to grids and back isn't Linuxified - but everything else seems to be.

One of my really fun tasks, whilst there, was to migrate FROM Visual Basic to X/Motif. Yeah, sure, Motif wouldn't have been my first choice either, but I got the interface to work many times better under that than it did under VB.

About the only thing I really hated about Nasa Langley was their insistance on using rsh for all network connections (even over the Internet) and their use of .rhosts files on all internal machines. It was a major hole and I can remember expressing my displeasure to the chief of network security at Langley. Strangely, I was sacked shortly thereafter. Since then, I've learned rather more tact, but I guess my core complaint hasn't changed a lot. It's all fine and good, talking about "bugs in the Linux kernel", "FIPS-180", etc, if it gets the organization to do better than they would otherwise. When it is used to cover their ass because they know what they have is crap but they don't want to risk change, then I regard their excuses as little more than the Peter Principle in action.

It sounds, from what I'm seeing today and what the article and others are saying, that NASA has largely come out of cryogenic storage and is showing signs of a fully functional intelligence.

Only signs? Sure. Donald Becker (who also worked at NASA) didn't just complain about problems with the network drivers - he wrote his own damn drivers, and it took a very long time for anyone to come close to writing drivers even a fraction as good. Nor did he complain about the lack of clustering capability, he wrote his own - bproc - and the supporting tools that collectively became known as Beowulf.

And the rest of NASA's problem is...? Sure there are bugs in the kernel. And NASA has a small army of programmers fixing inconsequential bugs in old Fortran code that has been in solid use for 20+ years. Let's say that NASA held a 2 month bug-squelching fest. It might still not get Linux to the point where Goddard or JPL were willing to use it on production servers in general, but I'll bet you anything that:

• It'll mean the Fortran codes running on Linux boxes will run more reliably, for less effort, than could have been achieved by continuing to fix the Fortran for the same length of time
  
• It'll inspire the regular kernel developers and may even encourage those on the fringes to become kernel developers
  
• As most servers don't need the full range of capabilities, NASA will be able to produce a rock-solid "micro Linux" designed specifically for specialized servers
  

NASA has made a big difference to the software available for Linux (at least, if you're interested in moving objects), and in the distant past made a revolutionary difference to Linux networking. They could make a revolutionary difference again, if they loosened up on the distribution of their Open Source and/or got another Donald Becker to get some critical segment of the kernel working absolutely perfectly. I'm not holding my breath, but there is so much potential there that they'd be foolish to ignore it.

Linux Kernel has too many flaws?

[DarkKnightRadick]

I'm scared. I mean, what are they comparing the linux kernel to? God OS?

Time for a fork? Re:What we do not know

[chris_sawtell]

I've noticed this too. Perhaps it's time for a fork. We need to get back to the release regime which used odd and even numbers to indicate stable and development. Yes, I do know the reasons for the change, but imho it just isn't working right. Using the 2.6.xy series is just like fiddling around with the 2.3 and 2.5 series, with the disadvantage that there is no 'stable' release into which the significant bug fixes can be backported. The old way might have resulted in more work, but there is now a financially supported OSDL full of helpers who can do that sort of drudgery.

Re:Time for a fork? Re:What we do not know

[m50d]

I think it's time for a fork. There are too many questionable design decisions. I'm with you for the coding time I have (which isn't much, but I'll do what I can).

Re:Time for a fork? Re:What we do not know

[NutscrapeSucks]

Perhaps it's time for a fork. We need to get back to the release regime which used odd and even numbers to indicate stable and development.

The Fork has already happened -- It's called RedHat Enterprise and SuSE Linux, and Linus is quite open about suggesting that you use one of those for stability.

Re:Time for a fork? Re:What we do not know

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a fucking retard.

Re:Time for a fork? Re:What we do not know

[m50d]

Says the guy anonymously insulting people on slashdot.

Audience matters, not JPL employees

[AHumbleOpinion]

anyone who works at JPL understands the distinction between a Desktop and a workstation, and whoever wrote this article should as well

Wrong, all that matters is the intended audience for the article.

Fortran 77 still used

[AHumbleOpinion]

Is fortran 77 useful? Or does NASA just have old fortran 77 code lying around? I'm asking because I'm considering a summer job where I'd learn fortran 77, and I want to know if I'd ever use it again. It seems like a more recent fortran would be better.

I had Fortran 77 in an undergraduate class and never imagined that I would see it again. Then DOW Chemical had me move old apps from mainframes to PC. I'd expect that NASA also has a bit of old code laying around. Other than (1) some "old" engineer that only knows Fortran is writing code, (2) a major overhaul of an existing Fortran app is taking place, or (3) the target architecture is parallel computing, I'm not to sure why someone would be writing new code in Fortran.

Re:Fortran 77 still used

[HuguesT]

FORTRAN is still an evolving language, look for FORTRAN 90, 95, and 2003.

Many graduate students in applied mathematics and statistics write their new code in these languages, especially since one can find a excellent F95 compiler, free for non-commercial uses on Linux.

Re:Fortran 77 still used

[AHumbleOpinion]

Is this inertia or are they hoping to run on a parallel architecture?

Java is widely used for Rover mission as well

[run26.2]

Since the article didn't mention it, Java was used for much of the ground-based command/collaborative software. http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/features/mars.ht ml

the author was 'spinning' the truth

[EccentricAnomaly]

My point is that they intentionally made the article more sensationalist by claiming Linux is being used as "desktops" rather than saying "workstations". Would this story been a big deal if it was about JPL using Linux engineering workstations instead of Suns? The author knew damn well that he was spinning the truth.

Re:the author was 'spinning' the truth

[shaitand]

It's not a question of not understanding the difference between a workstation and a desktop. A workstation IS a desktop used in a corporate environment. I'm not sure how YOU use the terms but I assure you, you are not privy to some universal truth in the distinction you are making.

Re:the author was 'spinning' the truth

[EccentricAnomaly]

I was referring to the way 'workstation' is used at JPL and in aerospace and other engineering fields. I was referring to workstation the way Sun (who invented the concept of a 'workstation' class computer) has used it for years. Since the article is about JPL, the definition of the term in engineering rather than in other businesses is apropos.

Re:the author was 'spinning' the truth

[Art Tatum]

The term "workstation" has long been used to differentiate crappy IBM clones (or Macs) used to perform business-oriented tasks and boxes from Sun, IBM, HP, Dec, NeXT, or SGI that contain RISC processors, run UNIX-based operating systems, and are generally used to perform mathematically intensive engineering, visualization, and scientific tasks.

As the quality of desktops has improved in the last 10 years, the lines have begun to blur a bit. But I think most people who have been paying attention to the industry for any reasonable length of time know the difference.

Re:the author was 'spinning' the truth

[emurphy42]

However, since a significant fraction of the readership does not work at JPL or similar, would you please just explain the darn difference already? (I think someone else did in another sub-branch, but I'd appreciate hearing it from you because your comment launched this portion of the discussion.)

Re:the author was 'spinning' the truth

[Brandybuck]

As the quality of desktops has improved in the last 10 years, the lines have begun to blur a bit.

They've done more than blur a bit, they have merged.

Re:the author was 'spinning' the truth

[shaitand]

"The term "workstation" has long been used to differentiate"

I believe you mean "was long ago used to differentiate". Nowdays those "crappy IBM clones" are server class machines.

Re:the author was 'spinning' the truth

[EccentricAnomaly]

I have in several places in this thread... look there or look it up in wikipedia

Re:the author was 'spinning' the truth

[Art Tatum]

Yeah, I might have understated it somewhat. My guess is that places like JPL are still quite "conservative" in terms of computing though. At least, that's the impression I got from one of the other posters here who claims to work there.

Re:the author was 'spinning' the truth

[Art Tatum]

It hasn't been all that long. Most people writing about the industry, I would hope, still remember the difference. And it seems from some other comments here that JPL is still using a lot of Sun and SGI hardware on desktops.

I have to say, however, that my comment being moderated as "Informative" is rather worrying. :-)

Re:the author was 'spinning' the truth

[emurphy42]

*reads*

Mmm, so you have, though it took a good bit of digging through those posts to suss out the intended meaning. (Wikipedia stated it flat-out, as usual, as did answers.com)

I still think that the alternate definition of "workstation" as simply a synonym of "desktop" (#2 in the Computer Desktop Encyclopedia, copyrighted by Sun of all people) is sufficiently ubiquitous that, while the author may be expected to know the difference (depending on how often they write about JPL-type companies), the same expectation cannot be reasonably applied to the general readership.

Re:what are they running that exposes kernel flaws

[peterfa]

You have to really fux0r with it and install all kinds of weird things. Add the Con Covolis (sp) and some patches for the wrong version on accident and there you go. Of course, just reboot to an old kernel and you're up and running, no problems.

Nobody seems to notice...

[Kickboy12]

The article never said they used Windows for servers, though. They just didn't use Linux. Wouldn't that suggest a possiblity they use Unix? Maybe FreeBSD or OpenBSD. I wish the article would specify.

Duh...

[dingletec]

Whatever you're making, it's way too much, and you certainly owe your company six hours... mount -t smbfs //servername/sharename /mountdirectory -o username=mywindowsusername,password=mywindowspassw ord

Linux Desktop != Linux Workstation

[EccentricAnomaly]

Very few people who are making any sort of professional class presentation or writing any sort of professional document would use OpenOffice, StarOffice, etc. These pacakages are unstable and missing many important features. More people would use LaTex, but most people by far use software that is not available on Linux things like Office, or PageMaker, or Keynote, etc.

On the other hand very few people who have to do any sort of serious calculations would do it on anything other than Unix. A workstation is a high performance computer that is intended to be used by a single user to perform processor intensive work (not games). A PC running Linux can be a workstation without really being useful as a desktop (i.e. not having desktop applications). The long standing dream of Linux on the Desktop is not Grandma running CFD code, it's grandma using Linux to do what she does on Windows now. Saying JPL uses Linux for workstations has nothing to do with Linux succeeding on the desktop, and such 'spin' by the author is an intentionally deceptive ploy to increase site traffic.

Re:Linux Desktop != Linux Workstation

[shaitand]

"not available on Linux things like Office, or PageMaker, or Keynote, etc."

All of those run perfectly on linux via the wine API. For some functions they actually perform better than they do on the Microsoft implementation of win32.

"On the other hand very few people who have to do any sort of serious calculations would do it on anything other than Unix. A workstation is a high performance computer that is intended to be used by a single user to perform processor intensive work (not games). A PC running Linux can be a workstation without really being useful as a desktop (i.e. not having desktop applications). The long standing dream of Linux on the Desktop is not Grandma running CFD code, it's grandma using Linux to do what she does on Windows now. Saying JPL uses Linux for workstations has nothing to do with Linux succeeding on the desktop, and such 'spin' by the author is an intentionally deceptive ploy to increase site traffic."

So in your mind engineers use workstations and everyone else using a computer to get serious work done is using a desktop? You also almost imply that workstations are actually physically different than desktops. Of course in the modern x86 dominated world there is little difference between server hardware and desktop hardware, and no difference between stable desktop hardware and workstation hardware. Actually workstation from a hardware vendor's standpoint has more to do with OS class and warranty.

Workstation has been used in the computer industry, by system and network admins (as opposed to engineers who really have no place in this discussion) to indicate a client desktop machine in an office environment. As opposed to a desktop machine used at home. Secretaries and management use desktops that could also be called workstations.

Re:Linux Desktop != Linux Workstation

[EccentricAnomaly]

All of those run perfectly on linux via the wine API. For some functions they actually perform better than they do on the Microsoft implementation of win32.

Who the hell do you call for support with such a configuration. Good luck getting any help from Red Hat. The App vendor certainly isn't going to help. Are you going to hire a Wine programmer on staff to fix problems? If you are really producing something important with these office apps you can't afford to have them fail right before something important... you need support.

Workstation has been used in the computer industry, by system and network admins (as opposed to engineers who really have no place in this discussion) to indicate a client desktop machine in an office environment. As opposed to a desktop machine used at home. Secretaries and management use desktops that could also be called workstations.

Maybe my network admins who don't know what they're talking about. "Workstation" is a term invented by Sun to fit a new class of computer that they invented. And every network admin that I've worked with has known what a workstation was.

Only in the last couple of years has x86 hardware been workstation class... and even them only high end x86 hardware. There is no need for a workstation for normal office tasks. You need a workstation for CAD, 3d rendering, FEM, CFD, atmospheric modeling, etc, etc. You don't need a workstation to run WordPerfect (even though it will run on a Sun).

Besides, you keep ignoring my main point that just because Linux machines are used for engineering code at JPL doesn't mean that they are any more ready for the desktop. The author of the story tried to say as much, and in doing so he was being misleading.

Re:Linux Desktop != Linux Workstation

[shaitand]

"Who the hell do you call for support with such a configuration."

You're IT staff, that is what they are there for. Last time I checked, office application support did not require a programmer. You certainly do not get a programmer supporting you when you run office on windows.

"Only in the last couple of years has x86 hardware been workstation class..."

For the last several years x86 hardware has been SERVER class.

"Besides, you keep ignoring my main point that just because Linux machines are used for engineering code at JPL doesn't mean that they are any more ready for the desktop. The author of the story tried to say as much, and in doing so he was being misleading."

If they are being used as simple number crunchers you are right. If they are being used by the engineers as their general purpose workstations then it is certainly valid to call those machines desktops. In modern times the term workstation has been adopted to mean a business class desktop.

Re:Linux Desktop != Linux Workstation

[Bert64]

We tended to call codeweavers when we needed support with running apps on their implementation of wine...

We had payed for support, and recieved it when we asked.

Re:Linux Desktop != Linux Workstation

[Bert64]

OpenOffice/Staroffice is no more buggy than msoffice... Having used both suites quite extensively i can quite honestly say both have more than their fair share of bugs. Wordperfect was always a vastly superior suite.
On the other hand, i would feel ripped off having paid $400 for msoffice, yet $80 for staroffice doesn't seem quite so bad and $0 for openoffice means i can just delete it again and have lost nothing.
Considering msoffice/openoffice are on a similar level right now in terms of bugs, but openoffice offers more features usefull to me (open fileformat which i can tweak in a text editor if i want to, regular expressions in find & replace, can use python as a macro language instead of forcing me to learn a new language that's useless for anything else, can be loaded and run from a usb stick on any computer i happen to be using and won't leave detritus in the registry, and runs the same on almost any os i might have access to)

Pagemaker i've never used, and Keynote i've barely glanced at. Latex is very powerfull but has quite a learning curve to go along with it.

Personally, i wouldn`t touch msoffice with a barge pole, openoffice is almost as bad, and i`d always use latex given the choice.

Re:Linux Desktop != Linux Workstation

[EccentricAnomaly]

good to know. thanks.

Linux users are idiots...

[Anonymous Coward]

...is as valid as "NASA" doesn't use Linux. JPL loves to be both "JPL" and "NASA" (the former for successes, the latter for failures), and frequently quotes come out of JPL which are attributed to "NASA", but are really specific to JPL/Caltech (or a sub-unit). Linux (and *nix) is there, and often in prominent places. NASA is big (not as big as DHS, but over 90k employees and ~250k systems). What is in use in one group may not be the same as another. Some field centers are more uniform than others, but the IT environment is really an incredibly diverse beastie. Think "one of everything", including what most would use solely as a space heater (if we had free electricity). Spacecraft design is frequently Windows-based due to limited engineering software choices feature-set (AutoCAD, et al) on the *nix side. Spacecraft data processing is frequently *nix-based. Simulations, visualizations, physics, wind tunnels, etc. are likewise (typically) *nix-based. The ODIN contract (outsourcing), which primarily provides end-user desktops/services is predominantly Windows-based, but also provides Macs and *nix systems at some locations.

For NASA OSS, Google "open source" site:nasa.gov. Or "linux" site:nasa.gov. Or...

sure :-)

[r00t]

That distinction is...?

Yeah confusing,

[dbcad7]

But, I think that "Brack's group" is a subset of "the overall lab"

"Brack's group" "is exclusively Mandriva" I take it., and
"the overall lab" "actually run more Red Hat Linux"

Perhaps he should write drivers tests for the DMV

gumstix

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess firewalls and gumstixes are bloated too. And I'm sure NASA likes to experiment all the time with the latest 2.6 on rovers and stuff.

oh, that's funny as Hell

[r00t]

You chose a very bad example. See the Documentation/devices.txt file in the kernel source. I'll quote it for you:

54 char Electrocardiognosis Holter serial card
0 = /dev/holter0 First Holter port
1 = /dev/holter1 Second Holter port
2 = /dev/holter2 Third Holter port

A custom serial card used by Electrocardiognosis SRL
<mseritan@ottonel.pub.ro> to transfer data from Holter
24-hour heart monitoring equipment.

Re:oh, that's funny as Hell

[ScentCone]

Actually, you're right, that is funny. I hope you still get my point about apps and hardware being the things that also need long-term testing and tuning, though. The most stable O/S in the world won't save your life if the hardware's flaky or the app isn't written for real life craziness.

Watching the PBS specials...

[csoto]

I noticed all of the "mission control" workstations were Sun SPARC boxes. NASA has a long history of running Unix boxen.

Grammar?

[i41Overlord]

Our personal view is that Linux, period, is only for the desktop.

Why would you put the period in the middle of the sentence? Even when speaking, you say "period" to denote a conclusive end to a statement.

Re:Grammar?

[Hosiah]

The period begins 28 characters into the sentence, though...

The next rovers...

[B1gP4P4Smurf]

With the work being done in the -rt patchset Linux is quickly developing into a world class RTOS. Today Linux runs the desktops, the next generation of rovers could run Linux for the control systems.

Re: the stability of 2.6, a lot of the increased churn is necessary if Linux wants to be viable on the desktop. Lots of key features that desktop users expect to Just Work are still not 100%, like wireless and suspend on laptops.

Servers are boring, if you want a rock-solid server just run Linux 2.4.

Re:what are they running that exposes kernel flaws

[Uzik2]

I read through the article and it looks like they're having driver problems, not kernel problems. We all know all hardware is flawless... ;)