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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."
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...
what a great way to spy on naive commuters
Penguins CAN fly!
Otherwise it might be a good place (or not?) to do some hacking things...
just wonder why there are so many anonymous cowards in this world....
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?
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
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.
Hope they secure these well. With all the business travelers it would be a great place to drop a rootkit. From the article it sounds like each seat actually has a thin client, which would in effect reinstall the OS after each user/flight which is good from a security standpoint. But with access to a keyboard and USB hub, it still sounds a bit more vulnerable to abuse than a standard kiosk.
Airlines are not going to put an OS synonymous with "crash" in front of passengers. Everything, right down to the lighting has to work well to keep the appearance of order. Anything else makes the passengers nervous and looking for another airline.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
TFA says that the systems run Microsoft Office, not StarOffice. Unfortunately, their video doesn't show any office software, so it's hard to tell. Maybe someone will hack up a version of portable OpenOffice capable of running on the systems.
the article that you linked to talks about the cargo version.
nerds can join their own version of the mile high club!
Not according to the article you link to. That's talking about freighter version.
... welcome our new linux-carrying plane overlords! Wait? Wrong Meme? ...oh
That's for the cargo version of the plane. Note that your article states that Airbus had diverted resources to work on the passenger version of the plane, which is the subject of the current article.
Sorry about that... yes, Singapore Airlines, Emirates and Qantas have all purchased planes. My fault.
I'm a frequent traveler and have already seen the KrisWorld systems that were in place on the Boeing 777-300ERs that Singapore Airlines have. It's really just an entertainment system that runs on top of Linux and nothing much more. It doesn't offer more than what other in-flight entertainment systems offer. To add on, I saw this back in 2006, so the system isn't new. I wouldn't be surprised if they used the system on their new A380s, as it does the job.
Though, I have to say that my main impression of the system was ingrained into me when it crashed in the middle and rebooted with a little penguin logo at the top-left. This actually happened two times in flight. It makes me wonder how badly these things might damage the reputation of Linux in general.
Not by the engines. Often it is a small dedicated turbine in the tailcone. That way you can have relatively quiet power while you are on the tarmac, and nobody gets sucked into the engines, and the relibility is higher because they are run at lower stresses ( ie: never at 100%, like the main engnes do at takeoff)
Which part of 'and there's a USB slot for importing/exporting documents or plugging in your own keyboard/mouse' didn't you get? I'd like to know that my documents won't be stored somewhere in some temp directory, personally. Security is a real issue for many business travellers.
Tell me these are networked with the computer helping fly the plane. ;)
No, it won't "crash". It will "deboot".
Enjoy a few pics here. Incidentally "Song airlines" were the first ones Delta put these on. Song went out of business (there's a Frontline episode you can watch about it) and the Song planes were turned back into Delta planes. Now all the Delta planes are scheduled to have the inflight video stuff too.
But hey, here's a question: Let's say the airline makes a bunch of modifications to the GPL software they're using. I understand that they do not need to release those modifications unless they distribute the software. Does making Linux-machines available to their customers count as distribution?
Which would prefer to get flight assistance from: A bird or a paper clip?
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
But hey, here's a question: Let's say the airline makes a bunch of modifications to the GPL software they're using. I understand that they do not need to release those modifications unless they distribute the software. Does making Linux-machines available to their customers count as distribution?
I shouldn't think so.
The software stays in one place - the airplane's computers. The passengers do not download the binaries, they just use the software while flying.
Ignore this signature. By order.
No.
You better hope these penguins and the flight computer are on different networks.
Sounds like they will let you plug things in...
Every seat is fitted with a USB (Universal Serial Bus) port that lets passengers access documents carried on a thumb drive or portable hard disk. The port can also be used to connect a USB keyboard or mouse, making it easier for business travellers to create and edit documents without having to dig out their laptops and power cords, Tong said.
Time zone converter
This could help with the uptake of ODF (and possibly odf compatibility in MS products), if enough people do their work in transit on these machines.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
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.
Surely, someone will r00t the terminal, take over the plane's guidance systems, and from there, the entire air traffic network!!!
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
It wouldn't count as distribution any more than making Linux available to your employees would be distribution. The aircraft and the on board systems belong to the airline, the airline is making them available to customers, if they would let you take the machine home then it would be distribution. Even if you were using windows and the associated MS back office kit, you would only need to have licenses for each seat, not each new user, and you certainly wouldn't need to have a license that covers distribution (again, unless you give the kit away at the end of the flight..).
OT - Does anyone know when they started making you give back the earphones you used to get in flight? I remember when I was a kid that you could keep them, now you have to give them back... (not that I want them but it was a fond memory of sorts.)
I don't think so, at least not under GPLv2. They've only distributed copies to each machine, not given copies out to customers. I'm not sure how this changes under GPLv3
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
Lord, I don't know which would be the worse nightmare - being behind the guys taking full size keyboards and though a TSA checkpoint on a bad day, or sitting beside them when they try to use the full size with number pad keyboard on typical tray table.
Three Squirrels
This is one thing I liked about Die Hard 4 (besides Bruce Willis killing a heli with a car) --- the fact that they actually acknowledge that not all computers in the universe are connected to the public internet. I like how they had to physically break into the power station to hack the computers controlling the grid.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Yeah, right... when penguins fly!
Despite what is said above, the Singapore Airlines website doesn't mention StarOffice, but MSOffice. Using Wine maybe ?
____
nico
Nico-Live
see here (not sure if this is fake).
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
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.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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."
ot, but i love the sig
"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."
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.
But, in the end, I suspect the real deal here is about price. The cheapest solution won. It would be hideously expensive to have Windows Vista PCs with Office 2007 on every seat of a jetliner.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
Nope. It'd be the same situation as me using a modified Apache for a web server* or a internet cafe running modified Ubuntu. Distribution is when the software leaves your posession (or is copied) for someone else.
*Yes, I know Apache isin't GPL. But, for this example, assume it is.
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
I hope there's actually at least 2, or some other way of making it possible to use a keyboard, mouse and USB flash drive at the same time.
I really wonder if they are using Virtual machines. The ease that they can be erased and start from scratch would be handy in that type of environment, and it wouldn't matter what you did to it. It would also help in isolating the network, so you couldn't mess up all the other computers.
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.
When they have their own people on it, which they probably have (for security alone), there is no stock upping.
And Linus does not receive anything directly for any sold linux distribution. (though he probably still has stock handed over by some of them)
If you mod this up, your slashdot background will turn into a beautiful sunset!
imagine a beowulf cluster of these...
Singapore Airlines will be rolling out the A380 superjumbo on October 26th
Here's a link as well... http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20070816/sc_space/a
And if you want to see one in person... http://www.aviation.com/business/070814_a380usdemo tour.html
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
... can I get a keyboard without so many boogers on it?
But seriously. If they now start putting some sort of PC in every hotel room there would be far fewer reasons to even be carrying around a laptop. A pocket sized device like the N800 would be good enough for quick web access.
" . . . this seat-back pocket is full of core files."
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.
... but is terribly slow. I tried it on a SIA 777-300ER from Zurich to Singapore.
Someone who reads everything I write but is still clueless, says:
Well, following your logic, now they have an OS synonymous with "difficult" in front of passengers.
That would be great from the airline's perspective. Pulling off that "difficult" and high tech thing called flying is what they are all about. I'd say it's easier to maintain a gnu/linux box than an airplane, but the one the passenger sees will instill trust in the other. We would all hope that the aircraft maker is lord and master of every line of every code that flies and that they can transfer that competence to the airline.
You might not have noticed but recent events have all played to free software's advantage. Secret, artificial and greedy are all very much out of favor. There are poison food, lead painted toy, wiretapping, voter fraud and scandals all contributing to a sudden outbreak of common sense. In food, Whole Foods and the like are cleaning up. Just try to give someone's kid a toy from China now and see how they look at you. State and local election commissions are looking at non free voting booths the same way. People are just starting to get angry about wiretaps, extraordinary rendition and other evil practices. In the software world, the greedy, non free way is failing in every way. You will see more gnu/linux because freedom, honesty, integrity and efficiency are things people crave.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
...you've surfed pr0n at 20.000ft
this is probably the most boring sig in the world
On my flights from Minneapolis to Amsterdam and from Amsterdam to Memphis the in-seat entertainment on the A330-300 screens ran RedHat. They booted it and like others on here have already mentioned, it showed the familiar penguin on the boot loader. And something that got a bit of a laugh out of me was that Garden State was showing on them and they cut out the beginning scene of the movie where the plane is going down. Anything to keep passengers from thinking of a crash.
Yes but will it run .......oh wait,
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).
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.
I seem to remember linus immediately selling any distro stock he was given to avoid potential conflict of interest.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Singapore Airlines is one of the best airlines in the world (I'd rank only ANA ahead of them). The last time I rode them across the Pacific I was amazed at the service their stewardesses gave. I was seated second row from a bulkhead and behind infant row and was amazed at all the attention the parents got to help their crying babies. They gave them more personal attention in an hour than an entire US carrier plane gets an entire flight.
They already offered a computer equivalent entertainment system (in coach!), but this sounds even better.
I hate most carriers and I hate flying with all the security and no-smoking crap, but in a bad environment, Singapore Airlines and their sister Silk Air do quite a nice job and Changi Airport is *sweet* as International airports go.
The Singapore government may have issues with some, but all my experiences with Singapore have been positive. Reading this makes my day.
Yes, and you'll notice they felt the need to virtualize that Linux-based OS under an RTOS.
The purpose of slashdot is to just make comments. You are not supposed to RTFA or TFS. That's cheating!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
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.
it was sarcasm. I was implying that they could have got more or less the same thing (fedora),if not better, for free. So many people still don't trust open source or free software and insist on installing commercial software, even when there are identical free versions out there. products like redhat are a necessary [evil] step in getting linux adopted into the mainstream OS market
Is this going to cause another delay?
-William
God is everything science has yet to explain.
This plane won't crash :P
Business Class: "You can also access built-in Microsoft Office software that allows you to create documents....." How are they using Microsoft Office in REDHAT? Is this some Mistake? Or, are they using Windows Vista for Business class?
The captain, co-pilot and navigator have been outfitted with Windows Vista Supreme!
.
- aqk
F U
More specifically, RTCore provides the Hard Real Time interrupt and thread handling as RTlinux alone is only Soft Real Time capable. But make no mistake, RTlinux is not used as an in flight entertainment system in the EFIS/One.
The following paper has a good description of what RTCore is and does for RTlinux.
http://vir.liu.se/~TDDB72/rtproj/reports2006/04-v
But will it blend?
Ramen
Having joked a bit about Windows Vista, I must say WTF are these snide "Windows crashes" innuendos all the time here?
/.ers are a bunch of whiny kids living in the past (excuse the oxymoron, morons)
continually sneering that Windows and the Antichrist Bill Gates deserve no respect.
I cannot help but get the idea that
Sorry, kiddies... I've been using Win2K, WinXP and Vista on my home LAN now for several years.
Win2K occasionally has a BSD, but as far as I can remember, XP-PRO has never crashed.
And Windows Vista, which I have dual-boot with Ubuntu 7 so far has not crashed
(but hey, let's give it time- gee it's only been up'n running now for 4 months)
But to use Linux, I had to install a wireless bridge- Ubuntu doesn't seem to support my laptop's wireless.
And I dare not let Ubuntu "go to sleep" - the system freezes and I have to power off/on.
Oh yeah.. the sound card doesn't work either. Geez.. Why don't you pinoqachole-addled a--oles go back to mommy's basement?
Oh. Sorry. Forgot you were already there!
.
- aqk
F U
"Airbus S.A.S. A380 and The Boeing Co. 787 Dreamliner, when these aircraft enter service"
It is what he was describing here:
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.
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
If I Wine do I get a Windows seat?
I would suggest you have a good look at the %temp% location of a PC in a cybercafe to see just how easy it is to leak confidential stuff. Few are aware that looking at a document online means you leave a pristine copy in %temp% when you walk away..
Not in a gazillion years for anything sensitive, IMHO.
Insert
I should add that I'm currently installing XP Pro on a relatively high end desktop machine (dual 4Ghz, 2GB RAM). This of course gives me a very long time to read slashdot while I wait because it is still a slow process. The home computer operating system advocates forget that some of us know what we are talking about when we insist that some of the Microsoft software really isn't very good.
The 1990s called and would like their Win95/98/ME FUD back. ... XP it's been mostly stable. It will go months between every time I have an involuntary shutdown ...
There's not much difference between those releases, XP and Vista.
Everyone I know who uses XP boots it at least once a day because power management does not work for them. The widows web servers you mentioned with expensive hardware can barely make thirty days on average. Do you want airline customers to see a boot screen?
With Windows, you are stuck with a choice of an old OS that sort of works and the new one that does not. If they go with XP, they will soon look and be dated. How long do you think they could run XP and have it look new? Parts will be harder to get and reliability will go down toilet as the upgrade train leaves XP behind. You might as well recommend Win98 or W2k. Then there's Vista. The biggest problems with Vista involve media which, I presume, will be a major function of airline computers.
Non free software never really works because you would never have to replace it if it did. This makes Windows the wrong choice any year you care to bring it up.
Outside of Windows, you can use gnu/linux with cheap commodity hardware. It looks good and works well. Even you have noticed how well gnu/linux upgrades. That's exactly what airline passengers want to see, something that looks good and just works. Airline operators can look forward to giving them that for at least five years before they have to replace the system due to ordinary wear and tear. Can you tell them as much for XP?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
They could easily subsidize the hardware required to run the system. Airlines would even demand they pay for the extra fuel the heavier computers would require ;-)
They could also go the thin client with beefy server route. Maybe not as good for a in flight entertainment system, but good enough for browsing and emailing.
But they will probably wait until people (read: their astroturf teams) start complaining OpenOffice is not Office and refuses to read their MSOOXML files before they announce their move that will "save" the airlines from the headaches of the previous system.
Never underestimate neither their weaseliness nor the depth of their pockets.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
I love this comment:
Despite the hostile shake rattle and roll environment, you know they mostly reboot when they want to not at random. Notice how it was not a big deal for them to oblige the picture taker? They knew all of them would come back up.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
I went on the inaugural non-stop KLM flight between Amsterdam and Manila some two years ago. They had some serious issues with their RedHat set-up back then, and I felt embarrassed as it was very much like the BSOD:s seen in many airports. Hope they managed to improve on stability.
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.
There are, accoding to this document 160 planes on order from 14 customers as of May 2007.
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.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
May I inquire as to why selling software is evil?
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
...off a USB stick? Cause that would be awesome. And if I could bring my own mp3s and movies too... oh boy!
Deltron 3030 - Virus (music video)
That is just not possible.
Not only it is in different network, but also flight systems are based on different standards and not on regular OS's.
Airbags are only useful in a very narrow range of impact speeds. If the impact speed is low enough, you don't need them, but over 70MPH they don't tend to make much of a difference. Coincidentally, this is the range in which most car crashes happen. But for airline crashes, it's an entirely different story. Furthermore, the airbag mechanism is rather bulky, which means less room for passengers.
The same would be required of BSD, Solaris or Windows NT, neither of which have hard realtime scheduling either. Only OSX might be able to be used in such a fashion without virtualizing, if the Mach microkernel was hardened w.r.t. its realtime scheduling behavior.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Political incorrectness, FTW! ;)
Why would they let you install a new operating system on their computer?
When You Can't Travel With Your Mom's Basement, Choose Singapore Airlines.
they could just put it through an X-Ray scanner by itself, away from the clutter of the bag. I mean, passengers would have to take their laptops out of their bags, which would be a bit of a hassle, not like the airlines would care.
And maybe even have some kind of bomb chemical wipes for especially suspicious cases. Yeah, that'd work.
Oh wait...
You all have Oo.o and Firefox, so get World Wind.
"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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It is a little known product called Wine.
So what are you going to use to power your safety-critical systems if it's not your 'plane power'? Get everyone in the back to pedal some dynamos?
which is totally what she said
I'd make it unionfs-based, with a read-only persistent filesystem on disk, coupled with a read-write tmpfs. Sort of like a livecd, but without the CD -- just reboot, and you have a fresh session.
Please tell me those economy seats don't use touch-screens. Imagine the fun of someone poking the back of your seat's headreset for 12 hours while they work on their PowerPoint presentation.
I was quite surprised in 2004 when my SAA flight booted to a penguin and LILO. Linux on a plane's entertainment system is many years old.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
I observed a similar in-flight entertainment system on-board an Air Canada flight recently. It was running some variant of Windows. Quite "entertaining". The interface was not responsive at all, taking, I would guess, more that 10 seconds to respond to the touch screen presses. Then, after the lengthy selection process, many items were not available. The system seemed basically unusable. Kind of funny to me, because two of my most hated corporations working together made the most piss-poor excuse for a system I have seen in a long time. The system actually reminded me of that flash animation spoof, "Windows RG". FYI, I was flying on a ticket purchased for me by someone else.. I would never recommend or choose to pay for an Air Canada ticket.
It's not really all that difficult. Streaming video at ~5Mbps, which is pretty much standard for mpeg4 non-HD IPTV multicast on a star topology with access switches for every 15-20 seats. The most you'd ever hit on a usual in-flight entertainment system with ~12 channels is 5*12=60Mbps each link, assuming that of those 20 people, at least 12 of them would each be watching their own channel. Realistically, you'd probably be looking at 20Mbps of IPTV for each access switch.
*woosh*
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
"Bluetooth: new device found (Airbus A380)"
There are a number of anecdotal comments already about Windows/Linux media centers on planes, and how "robust" they are. Many of these failures are hardware failures - specifically, "Single-Event Upsets" (SEU), which are bit-flips in hardware memory that occur regardless of software choice. As feature sizes on modern RAM and CPUs shrink, their susceptibility to neutron radiation increases, to the point (which was about a decade ago) that operators at aircraft altitudes should expect some type of memory failure (CPU register, program/data cache, RAM, etc.) every 2-3 hours on equipment which has not been rad-hardened (expensive/heavy) or designed to withstand these effects (expensive). EDAC can help to prevent some of these errors, but not all of them, since software alone can not guarantee detection of SEUs. In-flight entertainment centers are probably not the first place the airline decides to spend all of their money - these systems are probably as SEU-tolerant as any run-of-the-mill desktop.
http//baencd.thefifthimperium.com/ is a site offering free downloads or online reading of all the books Baen has released on CD (which is quite a lot of them). The CD's are licensed for free redistribution, and while the baencd webmaster does encourage people to purchase from Baen and is in touch with the publishing house, he neither pays not is paid by them, and offers the books for people to read with no strings attached.
While I was hoping that WiFi coming to commercial airliners would make it possible to access the site while in the air, making those books accessible through in-seat computer terminals would be both satisfactory for me and probably very commercially beneficial to Baen.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
"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."
While the link below describes ground based flight control operations rather than in flight aircraft controls it is still pretty damn critical stuff. The implementation described in the article is impressive. From the article:
"DFS Deutsche Flugsicherung GmbH developed a radar data-processing system called PHOENIX, which runs on SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server for high availability and performance - helping ensure safety for aircraft across Germany."
Link to full article with video:
http://www.novell.com/success/dfs.html
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
Happily running openSuse 10.2 with KDE/Beryl-SVN as my primary OS.
the picture link seems to indicate ms office./ entertainment/screens.jsp
http://www.singaporeair.com/saa/en_UK/content/exp
so which is it ?
if