Airbus 380 To Have Linux In Every Seat

jpatokal writes "Singapore Airlines will be rolling out the A380 superjumbo on October 26th, and a surprise awaits in the seat of every passenger: their personal Linux PC, running Red Hat. In addition to running the in-flight entertainment, passengers can also use a full copy of StarOffice, and there's a USB slot for importing/exporting documents or plugging in your own keyboard/mouse. Screen size is 10.6" (1280x768) in economy, 15.4" in business and a whopping 23" in first class (along with free noise-canceling headphones). The system is already available on current B777-300ER planes and will also be outfitted on the upcoming B787 Dreamliners."

Comments

Delta/Song already uses Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a full machine, but if you've flown Delta and used their in-flight entertainment machines (the trivia is great), they're using Redhat. I know this because I watched it crash and a subsequent reboot which was grub...

the kernel was a 2.4 version as I recall...

Re:Delta/Song already uses Linux

[jc42]

You do _not_ talk about Linux crashing on Slashdot.

Heh. One question that came to mind immediately was: Did those people actually see linux crash, or did they see linux rebooting. These are two very different things, of course, but I've found that even experienced users can be rather sloppy about such insignificant details.

I'm sure that most people who've taken commercial flights have noticed things like the cabin lights all flickering at times, especially during takeoff. No big deal for lights, but this will "crash" pretty much any computer using that power system. And the crew obviously has control of the lights; why would you be surprised if they could also control all the computers? Just as the control panel has buttons to turn all the lights on and off, I'd expect that you could reboot all the seatback computers from the control panel. You could also override what they're doing and show some particular video clip.

I'd think that the ability to tell all these little computers to do something simultaneously would be a good selling point. And considering how the power-supply systems work in commercial airliners, I'd expect that it would be normal to do a net reboot of the little buggers frequently. The ability to easily do such things from a central control system would be a major selling point.

So, rather than us _not_ talking about linux "crashing", I'd think we'd be interested in information about how these seatback computers are configured and how they're managed by the crew.

Not that I expect to see much real information here. And I'd guess that much of the airlines' control software is proprietary, for "security" (by obscurity) reasons.

FWIW

[The Living Fractal]

I don't know how they are setting up their installations but I would _highly_ recommend they use unattended installation images and re-image the installation EVERY day. Seems only logical to me. Neh?

Re:FWIW

[EvanED]

Every day? I'd do it after every flight. They have enough other things going on then.

Or use something like Knoppix, where things aren't written to stable storage at all. (Surely there would be a way to make RedHat behave that way.)

Re:FWIW

[modecx]

Why not have a single server, and have the client heads netboot off of the server after every flight? That way, it makes it super simple to push updates, kills the chance of having people permanently mess with the systems, and everyone is happy.

Re:FWIW

[tftp]

Well, this thing is no different from an internet cafe, and we know that those are popular enough. It's probably because most users of an internet cafe do not care about their email passwords. Business users are typically issued company notebooks which connect to the company's mail server through a VPN. But if a company permits direct access to its internal webmail then it assumes the risk of passwords being stolen one way or another, since you type them into the browser. Any keylogger, or a custom build of Firefox, would do the stealing easily, since the cafe owner is the sysadmin on all the computers. But all things considered, I would trust a large airline more than a shady Internet cafe owner.

Re:FWIW

[Jarik_Tentsu]

Actually, our schools uses that kinda thing too, 'cept with Windows and a zero-card.

It works extremely well...

In my old school, all hard drives were writable and despite the admin's trying to limit privaledges, PCs had to constantly be nuked and reinstalled due to the crap people put on there. Here, every time a computer restarts, it wipes its HDD and installs from a zero-card.

The great thing about this is that it doesn't restrict what students can do while they're using the computers (installing applications required for work, etc) but it keeps each system perfectly clean.

~Jarik

This is not the first Airbus with Linux

[S.Gleissner]

Last year in february, i flew from Frankfurt, Germany to Johannesburg, South Africa with a brand new South African Airlines A340-400 Airbus. Just after boarding, the cabin crew resetted the In-Flight-Entertainment-System and several hundred screens in the seats showed a typical Linux booting screen with a small penguin in the upper left corner. They did not use a spash screen and it was possible to take a quick look at the booting messages... by the way, they made a network boot.

Re:StarOffice or Microsoft Office?

[jours]

> TFA says that the systems run Microsoft Office, not StarOffice

Yeah, the two articles don't agree on that. But the system is based on the Panasonic eX2 which is Linux by all accounts. And simple math (500+ seats times $299 per office license) tells you a single plane would have an IT cost roughly equivalent to that of a mid-sized company.

I think the smart money's on StarOffice here...

Re:Dedicated turbine

[tftp]

Usually each engine has a primary generator that is powering the airplane's circuits. This ensures that an engine failure (or shutdown) does not turn the entire airplane off, but only reduces the available power. An airplane needs an awful amount of electricity to fly; even your common strobe lights, mandatory in flight, consume kilowatts, and the landing lights are usually more powerful and must be on during the landing. But there is plenty of more important hardware on board, such as engine and flight control, navigation, radio, deicing, gear, fire suppression, etc. Imagine losing all power at 40,000 ft at night - you could be falling like a stone and not knowing it ... because of that every passenger airplane made in last 50 years carries some batteries, and if they are used then they only feed the flight support group (essential instruments) and only for so many minutes (10-20) because of the current needed.

Also many airplanes have an auxiliary power plant, as you say placed at the tail, it is usually needed to provide fast moving air to spin the main engines, but can produce electricity as well. It is started by an electrical motor, which is powered from the truck on the ground. Batteries may be used, but only as an emergency measure.

Also some airplanes have a small external generator which can be used in an emergency. If you lose lots of power from engines at 40,000 ft you often have more altitude and more speed than you need (depends on where you plan to land,) and if so you can drop both and at the same time get some electrical power.

But in any case, an airplane is well provided with power, except in emergencies. A 50W here and there do not count, and besides the main cabin's lights and entertainment are the first to go if a power source fails.

Re:In Singapore

[tgatliff]

This application is also ideal for Linux. Meaning, linux is best in computers or embedded devices where you need high reliability and you want to be able to specify the exact amount of the functionality it should have. Windows CE, at least in my opinion, does not stand a chance here..

In my opinion, the best part about this is Star Office. Eventhough in reality it probably is quite unlikely many people will use it, from the vendor's standpoint, it was nearly trivial to implement... That is the true power of OSS, which is over the longterm adding allot of functionality with limited cost.

StarOffice ?

[nsebban]

Despite what is said above, the Singapore Airlines website doesn't mention StarOffice, but MSOffice. Using Wine maybe ?

Gutenberg

[WindBourne]

If they are going to include terabytes of movies, they would do well to include gutenberg for those who like to read. Perhaps even offering a web server on board so that the book can be downloaded to the personal PC. Finally, they might want to approach one of the major e-book sellers and get them to port to Linux. This way they have nearly everything covered at a cheap price.

Don't forget the RAT

[daBass]

Don't forget the RAT, or Ram Air Turbine. If all else fails, it will power enough systems to allow you to glide safely to the ground:

"A ram air turbine (RAT) is a small propeller and connected hydraulic pump, or electrical generator used as an emergency power source for aircraft. In case of the loss of both primary and auxiliary power sources the RAT will power vital systems (flight controls, linked hydraulics and also flight-critical instrumentation). Some RATs produce only hydraulic power, that is then used to power electrical generators."

Re:In Singapore

[burnin1965]

While I would like to point out this is not about critical flight control systems (where I doubt any Linux would be certified as it costs a lot to be) and in-flight entertainment machines are OK to crash sometimes, the specific functionality is, probably, a win for Linux distros.

Doubt no more...

RTLinuxPro is shipping in the just released Gen4 EFIS/One glass cockpit from Blue Mountain Avionics.
"Airspeed, Altitude and VSI, magnetically slaved all-attitude compass, HSI, solid state AHRS (Attitude Heading Reference System), a 12 channel GPS navigation engine and the highest resolution 3D terrain available. There's also a built in digital autopilot with altitude hold and ILS capture, a full air data computer with fuel burn and fuel totalizing functions, a flight planning system and digital monitoring of up to 32 engine gauges. The built in flight recorder and the new flight performance software, monitors flights, engine performance and much more."

Now obviously this is not your average linux distro, but then there are many reasons one could expect to find linux used in a flight control system, one of those reasons is the robust nature of linux and its reputation for not crashing. That's not to say that linux never crashes, but in my experience crashes involve running questionable code, i.e. closed source graphics drivers and the games that require those drivers.

Re:In Singapore

[sortius_nod]

This is actually not anything big - Malaysia Airline uses Linux as their in-flight entertainment system (I only know as I managed to crash it while flying).

I suppose the big thing is actually being able to be productive mid flight. Until they start offering RJ45 sockets for me to browse the net freely on my own notebook I'm not going to be excited.

What is this for?

[Tatsh]

I would still much prefer to bring my laptop (all risks recognised). I can see how non-business passengers could use these, but I see no reason why business passengers would use these over their laptops. Laptops can plug in, and they have EVERYTHING a business passenger needs, rather than just some. And since it is StarOffice, not MS Office, business passengers will hate it. Plus, businesses would be worried about the data security anyway.

I have not flew as a business passenger just yet in my lifetime, and I would still bring my laptop even if they had these on the plane. I definitely plan on not using these until they make further improvements, like including the keyboard and mouse, adding OpenOffice and Firefox, and a good set of games. If I were running this, I would have the computers reset from network image before every take-off.

Lastly, why do they not have keyboard and mouse included? They could easily have very ergonomic touchpads/mouseballs and keyboards. I know this is not too costly for them. Nobody should have to bring a keyboard and mouse for the plane, especially when there is only one USB port (oh yeah add a hub is the solution? pathetic).

Re:What is this for?

[jpatokal]

The inflight entertainment controller has a control pad for moving the mouse pointer and a miniature QWERTY keypad on the back. Sounds fairly painful for any serious writing, but better than nothing.

Cheers,
-j.

Re:In Singapore

[tgatliff]

The problem would be the video. Meaning, if you go with a thin client approach, it would be very difficult to get enough bandwidth across many devices to get at least the 15fps required... I suspect it is a blend of the two. Meaning, they have less powered computers (probably flash based) that drive the end user, and then a main file server the distributes the video data.

Re:StarOffice or Microsoft Office?

[sabit666]

You mean this? http://portableapps.com/apps/office/openoffice_por table

Re:In Singapore

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree completely. I'd rather fly economy with Singapore airlines then business with most North American airlines. Sure, the food is better in business, but the entertainment system in Singapore airlines economy gives all North American airlines a _serious_ run for their money in any class.

Re:Well, no wonder.

[dbIII]

Yes, but the above poster forgets that many of the linux advocates here are also responsible for quite a few Microsoft systems too and know from a lot of personal experience why you need backup domain controllers, rebooting machines at short intervals (eg. every week) due to memory leaks and the need to keep different services on different machines despite low resource usage - plus all the desktop hassles. They also forget that these long uptimes on other sytems are often on low end desktop hardware that has been retired from destop use and used as print servers or various other task - so the server class hardware argument does not carry.

There's too big a difference between stability over a eight hour period on a single user system that gets shut down nightly and other machines - hence the 2003 version and even 2000 version instead of XP.

Long uptimes have a suprising downside - I always forget how long it takes Solaris to boot and get nervous staring at a blank screen for a long time every time I start it - once every year (we don't need it over Christmas so it goes down for a week). An uptime of a year is no major accomplisment for any decent operating system. That is what people in the last decade or two mean by computer stability - and Microsoft software despite all it's advantages and improvements is just not playing in that game at all. They got to where they are by being cheap enough and just good enough. It gave us what is really the Microsoft PC instead of the IBM PC, which makes me grateful that I can effectively put a relatively inexpensive more powerful version of games machines into a rack to make up a processing cluster instead of something expensive from Sun or IBM.

Re:In Singapore

[dave420]

Comparing it with Windows CE is a bit flawed - you should look at Windows XP Embedded. You can pull anything out of the install you want, add anything you want, and make a version of Windows that is anything from just a command prompt through to MS Office, Windows Media Player or DirectX-capable games machine. You specify what drivers you want installed, and it spits out an image perfect for burning to CD or booting from across a network. I had a decent XP install on my PC that was about 100MB. It allowed me to do everything I wanted.

Do they know something we don't?

[raju1kabir]

I am a little worried that this is a result of Singapore Airlines management knowing something that the rest of us don't - namely, that it won't be long before laptops are banned from the passenger cabin for "security" reasons.

SQ is already the preferred airline for most business travelers who fly their routes. After this, they'll be able to lock up the rest, providing at least a usable means for productivity to business travelers who would otherwise have to sit on their hands the entire flight.

But can it run MAME...

[FauxReal]

...off a USB stick? Cause that would be awesome. And if I could bring my own mp3s and movies too... oh boy!

Re:In Singapore

[Anonymous Coward]

"While I would like to point out this is not about critical flight control systems (where I doubt any Linux would be certified as it costs a lot to be)"

Open Source operating system are used more than you think in avionics. A real time version of OpenBSD is used in military aircraft, for example.

Re:Security?

[drspliff]

Touchscreens are not a solution to badly designed kiosk software. I was once in a Kodak photo printing shop which let you put in your media card, their kiosk stuff scanned it, found all the pictures and let you do basic editing before submitting it for printing.

After a few minutes I'd managed to kill the kiosk software, bring up the on-screen keyboard and start browsing around their local network shares - which had "saved" customer pictures on.

My point is that for kiosk style systems it should be an absolutely minimal customized install with restricted network access. Obviously on aircraft entertainment systems they'd be completely separate, but you just need one badly judged integration combined with an off the shelf system and you'll end up with another disaster like the Kodak shop.