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USS Zumwalt — a Guided Missile Destroyer Running On Linux
New submitter SanDogWeps writes "Sean Gallagher over at Ars Technica reports that when the U.S.S. Zumwalt (DDG 1000) puts to sea later this year, it will be different from any other ship in the Navy's fleet in many ways. The $3.5 billion ship is designed for stealth, survivability, and firepower, and it's packed with advanced technology. And at the heart of its operations is a virtual data center powered by off-the-shelf server hardware, various flavors of Linux, and over 6 million lines of software code. From the article: 'Called the Common Display System, or CDS (pronounced as "keds" by those who work with it), the three-screen workstations in the operations center are powered by a collection of quad-processor Intel motherboards in an armored case, which gives new meaning to the nautical phrase "toe buster." Even the commanding officer's and executive officer's chairs on the bridge have CDS workstations built-in. Each CDS system runs multiple LynxOS-based Linux virtual machines, which can run on various networks partitioned by security level and purpose. '"
Stallman would be proud.
Are we supposed to be happy that the blood, sweat and tears of the thousands of developers who gave their time to an ideal of free software are now being used by the world's favorite rogue state to bring death and destruction to far flung corners of the globe?
Isn't there a provision in the license stating the software cannot be used for weapons purposes or something of the like?
The captain's name is James Kirk.
does it run linux?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that anti-ship missile technology has been ahead of defence systems now for quite some time, such that basically any ship that gets within range of them is basically always sunk. What's more, Russia, Iran and China all have such missiles. What exactly are these ships being built for, beyond the jobs they produce?
LynxOS is a proprietary Unix, compatible with Linux binaries.
It does not contain the Linux kernel and is closed source.
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I mean yeah redundancy and all, but that seems a bit out of proportion?
Perhaps it's appropriate that the first commanding officer of the Zumwalt will be Captain James Kirk (yes, that's actually his name).
Come on US Navy, you can tell us: you saw the name and went for it :)
As for the article, very nice! I never did get what "DDG-1000" stand for, but I think it's ominous. The T-800 and T-1000 were not the best names for hardware, and anything close to it is suspect by default.
A commenter said: "Also of note: the ship has a totally electric propulsion system, and has an integrated power system that will support future weapons like railguns and laser/RF system" - pretty interesting.
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
mis-read that as the USS Zubaz?
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Their displacement would raise the global sea level another few inches.
Yet another reason to run FreeBSD.
--libman
to transfer taxpayer dollars to the pockets of MIC CEOs - all else is padding.
'nuff said.
What's a "virtual data center"? It's either a data center or it isn't.
The design of the Zumwalt solves that problem by using off-the-shelf hardware—mostly IBM blade servers running Red Hat Linux—and putting it in a ruggedized server room.
Many servers are running Linux not Lynx.
one of the features of this ship is stealth. they won't shoot it down if they don't see it.
but it is a scary idea that a $10K missile can take out a $3.5B ship.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
If Linux can't dominate the world, no one else will either, after Linux destroys the world!!!
And I still can't get dual screens to work reliably/painlessly. Sigh.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
But does it run Windows?
Table-ized A.I.
..what happens when they run psdoom on the buggers....as root.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that anti-ship missile technology has been ahead of defence systems now for quite some time, such that basically any ship that gets within range of them is basically always sunk. What's more, Russia, Iran and China all have such missiles. What exactly are these ships being built for, beyond the jobs they produce?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that anti-plane missile technology has been ahead of defence systems now for quite some time, such that basically any plane that gets within range of them is basically always destroyed. What's more, Russia, Iran and China all have such missiles. What exactly are these planes being built for, beyond the jobs they produce?
the lead character in Rick Cook's Wizardry books?
Why did this get modded down?
On 31 July 2008, U.S. Navy acquisition officials told Congress that the service needed to purchase more Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, and no longer needs the next-generation DDG-1000 class.
A grand total of 3 will be built not because the Navy wants them but because Congress feels it can use the defense budget as welfare for their districts.
The first commanding officer of the Zumwalt will be Captain James Kirk (yes, that's actually his name).
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
I'm sorry Navy but I have to tell you, "keds" is not how you would pronouce that acronym. It would be CODS- COmmon Display System! First you guys write your name on your ass and then you command your ships via the cods...come on guys, this stuff just writes itself!
I hope they have 7 firewalls because the Cylons would go through that fast.
Military equipment is not evil per se.
It's the way Americans use it that's evil.
I heard of the Admiral via his brother, my civics teacher. This is the same admiral that was involved with the hover craft stuff the D.O.D. does. This linux vessel is right down his alley. My civics teacher, a good guy, but a round peg in a room full of square holes.
All hale the class of '72
Clearly, RHEL is used in the datacenter portion of the overall architecture. LynxOS, on the other hand, is not Linux, it's an RTOS (and not based on realtime Linux). It does offer Linux ABI compatibility, which is interesting, but there's no mention in the article of that mattering per se.
LynxOS is put to two uses, per the article:
the year of Linux in the Navy!
Chess.
Wut? In 4.5 years of sea time, including 3 WESPACs, I've never heard this.
You have to step up and over the bulkhead below a QAWTD (Quick Acting Water-Tight Door), and I've heard that called a "knee knocker".
But this "toe buster" smacks of some disinformatzya the writer tried to throw in there in order to sound cool, only to be outed by somebody who actually was "in the know".
--smitty_one_each
Coincidentally I went to jr. high with one of Admiral Zumwalt's granddaughters in NC.
The runcible rhythm of ravenous raisins rolled through the rookery rambling and raving.
I misread the name as USS Umwelt and I figured it appropriate that nobody could agree what OS it was running.
Also, the stealth features would have to be impressive: ... how did a giant wooden rabbit get this far out to sea?
Enemy1: What's that on our radar?
Enemy2: It looks like a US Navy Destroyer
Enemy1: I don't know it could be a small fishing boat
Enemy2: No, wait
Knowledge Brings Fear
Why must guided missile destroyers use motif?
Virtualization for isolation is lame.
The CDS uses the LynxSecure Hypervisor with Linux as the Guest OS. Other systems on the ship use the LynxOS hard real-time OS, which is not Linux, and does not have any Linux source code in its kernel. Unlike Linux which last time I looked did have LynxOS code in it.
Linux runs on old hardware.
Linux runs on embedded hardware.
Linux runs on XBOX.
Linux runs on a toaster.
Some geek out there is smugly telling his friends "I made Linux run on a US Navy Destroyer".
Yay.
Even if there's an advantage to the offense once the missile has been launched, in order to get to that point the attacker must
(1) Find the ship (stealthy, under EMCON, and moving)
(2) Get within range
(3) Live long enough to fire the missile.
Use of open source software in a military context violates the ethics of open source software systems.
These ethics are inherent I would like to point out, and are not arguable. Particularly if you are from a country this weapon will be parked next to if your private central bank refuses to do business in federal reserve notes.
Open source is a human endeavor and since it holds no boundaries such acts as including it in state weapons is blasphemous.
The blow back from this sort of weaponization of LINUX will be EPIC I can assure you.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Windows for warships was used in the past and one it crashed taking down a few systems with it.
I just can't wait for it. Sounds really cool. I just hope they don't use D-Link firewalls with backdoors.
This sounds like a worse clusterfuck of Linux distros and software than what you find in a lot of IT departments.
You want to run the Linux kernel on a specialized piece of hardware? Okay. Then write specialized software to run with it. Don't write a bunch of generic pieces of Linux software which rely on the dozens of libraries that could have numerous undiscovered vulnerabilities or bugs. Even my fucking phone has a specialized Linux distribution. I think a billion dollar warship should have the same level of attention.
The US Navy is running out of money to even keep its ships afloat. But this is a new low. This boat is doomed with technical failure in its future.
Isn't there a rule against this?
Agreed. I've deployed about DDGs and CGs as a contractor, and they're knee-knockers.
I have Read about this Ship long Back, It has amazing Features Design is huge plus points for this Multi Mission Destroyer, Graphical Images and On-board Weapons have released way back “The combat system will be based on the total ship computing environment (TSCE) utilising open architecture, standardised software and commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware.“ Source: http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/dd21/