What Are the Weirdest Places You've Spotted Linux?

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What Are the Weirdest Places You've Spotted Linux?

Posted by timothy on Tuesday February 11, 2014 @05:34AM from the upside-down-mig-while-communicating dept.

colinneagle writes "Bryan Lunduke recently pulled together a collection of the weirdest places he's found Linux, from installations in North Korea and the International Space Station to a super-computer made out of Legos and computer engineer Barbie. Seen any weird places for Linux not mentioned in this list?"

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Pizza place by royallthefourth · 2014-02-11 05:40 · Score: 3, Interesting

Like many others, I had several shitty jobs during college. One of those jobs was delivering pizzas for Papa John's. Running in the office of our store was a desktop computer with some really locked-down Linux on it that was limited to running some awful console program and a PDF viewer.
Toronto Parking Meters by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-11 05:40 · Score: 4, Interesting

At the Toronto Linux Users Group I heard a story about how the parking meters used to crash because some setting would randomly kill processes when Linux was running low on memory.
1. Re:Toronto Parking Meters by cayenne8 · 2014-02-11 06:38 · Score: 2
  
  I've seen Ubuntu Linux running on the new Wizard of Oz pinball machine from Jersey Jack.
  I've pulled up the command prompt on it, and has been kinda fun hacking the machine with new sounds, music and videos.
  
  --
  Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
2. Re:Toronto Parking Meters by hawguy · 2014-02-11 07:48 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  At the Toronto Linux Users Group I heard a story about how the parking meters used to crash because some setting would randomly kill processes when Linux was running low on memory.
  That's probably the Out of Memory handler in Linux. It's not exactly random, the OOM handler ranks processes by "badness" and prefers to kill off newer processes that are using a lot of memory before going to older, long running processes.
  There's a sysctl.conf setting that will tell the kernel to panic and reboot in an OOM condition instead of trying to kill off enough processes to continue running, which is probably would be better for an unattended parking meter.
3. Re:Toronto Parking Meters by Zaiff+Urgulbunger · 2014-02-12 04:29 · Score: 2
  
  A photo booth at a mall I think had 'kernal panic' on the screen, so I assume it was linux.
  Wouldn't you feel insulted if it had a kernel panic right after taking your picture?!
Bill Gates Mansion? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-11 05:41 · Score: 2, Funny

It must be in some embedded system, there, somewhere.
1. Re:Bill Gates Mansion? by cusco · 2014-02-11 07:41 · Score: 2
  
  Most of the IP security cameras on the market run a Linux kernel, so yeah.
  
  --
  "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
The strangest place? by Joe+U · 2014-02-11 05:41 · Score: 5, Interesting

I once saw Linux on some average users desktop. Total non-techie, and there he was using Ubuntu.
1. Re:The strangest place? by oodaloop · 2014-02-11 05:58 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  I call bullshit.
  
  --
  Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
2. Re:The strangest place? by steveha · 2014-02-11 07:53 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  I didn't think it was really strange, but a while back I saw some desktop computers running Firefox on Ubuntu in a coffee shop. This was the old GNOME 2 desktop, so it worked almost exactly like Windows, and the customers in the coffee shop just used the computers and it wasn't any big deal.
  I have set up multiple family members, including both of my parents, with Linux computers. I seem to be the guy who gets called when a computer melts down with malware, so I'm motivated to get people off of Windows and onto something else.
  These days my go-to distro is Linux Mint with MATE. I might switch back to Ubuntu once MATEbuntu is available... on the other hand, I have hopes for Cinnamon, so maybe in the future I'll be using Linux Mint with Cinnamon.
  But for non-geek users, I definitely don't want a poor rip-off of Mac OS X (i.e. Unity) and I definitely don't want the desktop that is just different from anything else ever made (GNOME Shell).
  The MATE desktop has the smooth polish of man person-years of work and the input of usability studies, and it's IMHO the best choice for non-geek users.
  
  --
  lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
On the desktop by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-11 05:42 · Score: 5, Funny

"This year is going to be it."
1. Re:On the desktop by mark_reh · 2014-02-11 06:44 · Score: 2
  
  Windows is finally ready for the desktop!
  FTFY
Delta infotainment by bhenson · 2014-02-11 05:42 · Score: 2, Informative

In deltas infotainment head rest. Saw it netbooting when it powered up
1. Re:Delta infotainment by twotacocombo · 2014-02-11 06:55 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Got to watch the headrest units do an infinite reboot loop from DC to Dublin on a United flight last year. Every single one on the plane was doing it, for 7 hours straight.
2. Re:Delta infotainment by mjwx · 2014-02-11 14:58 · Score: 2
  
  In deltas infotainment head rest. Saw it netbooting when it powered up
  Not uncommon, Singapore Airlines uses Gentoo. When you think about it, it makes sense as an airline IFE system would need a robust multicast system.
  
  Up until a few years ago I would have said a phone. Linux is so common on embedded systems these days that its hard to find an odd place for it. I guess an advertising platform, I once saw a 7x1 metre advertising screen reboot with the CentOS logo.
  
  The strangest OS in a place I didn't expect I've seen in recent years is DOS on an new industrial lathe. Apparently DOS is the best application for the sub mm precision that they needed.
  
  --
  Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Coffee Machine by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-11 05:49 · Score: 2, Interesting

Just the other day the coffee machine in my office rebooted, and it is running Linux under the hood. One of these http://www.cafection.com/en/products/innovation-series/total-1.
Airline Flight by TheNinjaroach · 2014-02-11 05:58 · Score: 2

I was on an airliner once that had movies running to screens built into the back of each seat. I wasn't watching the movie, but at some point the host announced there was an issue with the movie playback and that they had to restart the system. A minute later I was looking at the Linux boot process scrolling across every screen on the plane.

--
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
Also a pizza place by brokenin2 · 2014-02-11 06:03 · Score: 3, Interesting

I was at a Chuckecheese with the kids for one of their friends birthday parties when one of the machines freaked out...
It was a photobooth that took your picture, and then made a sketch like version of your picture and printed it out for you..
When the employee came to reset it, I got to see either Redhat or Cent boot up.. Somewhere I've got a picture..
In a theatre in Milan by r1348 · 2014-02-11 06:06 · Score: 2

Went with my wife to see Much Ado About Nothing, noticed that the theatre's booking/ticketing system ran on an old version of Fedora with Gnome 2. Might be because the theatre is just next to Milan's Polytechnic...
Insane asylum. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-11 06:27 · Score: 2, Funny

Before I escaped I saw they were running CentOS.
Re: I once saw the FreeBSD Daemon on a condom mach by Anonymous Coward · 2014-02-11 06:29 · Score: 4, Funny

Having sex under a BSD license is the way to go.
On a floppy disk by CrowdedBrainzzzsand9 · 2014-02-11 06:42 · Score: 2

A very early linux...on a floppy disk
In the military... by Lumpy · 2014-02-11 06:43 · Score: 5, Funny

I was stationed at a small base just outside roswell and we were dispatched to investigate an aircraft crash site. when we arrived these little grey guys were running all over the place waiving their arms about, when I looked inside the strange sausage shaped craft there was a computer teriminal running that I had no idea what it was until 1992 when I first saw linux.
Those little guys were running linux. I think they were put in a government protection program and one of them was shipped off to Finland.

--
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
1. Re:In the military... by marcello_dl · 2014-02-11 08:56 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Cool story, bro, but... ...if the aliens craft actually ran linux, it would not have crashed in the first place.
  
  --
  ---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
Re:Weirdest? by Lehk228 · 2014-02-11 07:25 · Score: 2

I saw an ATM a few years ago boot up O/S 2 Warp

--
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Re: I once saw the FreeBSD Daemon on a condom mach by Kichigai+Mentat · 2014-02-11 07:45 · Score: 2

I'll go hang it right over my bed immediately!

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Rawr
Re:Likewise by gnunick · 2014-02-11 07:49 · Score: 2

Which, due to Linux's efforts to guard every user account against every other user account, is an absolute nightmare.

With a comment like that, it's quite apparent you don't know much about Linux system administration. You should read up on the appropriate uses of 'sudo' before you go messing things up.

--
I have no special gift, I am only passionately curious. --Albert Einstein
Multimedia overlay on ruins in Rome by photonic · 2014-02-11 08:11 · Score: 3, Interesting

Last year, I visited the Palazzo Valentini in Rome, which is just a few steps away from Piazza Venezia and within falling distance of Trajan's column. They dug up some Roman remains of houses and temples in the basement of a more modern building. They did quite some effort to make it into a multimedia show, with beamers projecting accurately aligned overlays of all kind of things that had disappeared. One cool effect was for example to extend a mosaic, of which only a small piece was left, over an entire room. I was observing how the tour-guide started the shows, he was just launching a VLC player or so on a linux box sitting in a rack in the corner. From the looks of the icons, it was probably an older version of Ubuntu (8.04 or 10.04).

--
karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
Re:A 'specialty' shop by Kichigai+Mentat · 2014-02-11 08:13 · Score: 2

Damn! For a moment there I thought I had found another enthusiast...

...of table tennis.

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Rawr
Re:platelet separator by Kichigai+Mentat · 2014-02-11 08:19 · Score: 2

I think that it's just a certain level of paranoia. The Minnesota Lottery has their terminals set to automatically reboot at like 8:30p or 9p daily.

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Rawr
There are no weird places for Linux. by Z00L00K · 2014-02-11 08:20 · Score: 2

But I bet that some places that do run Linux would be really weird for Windows.

--
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Channel 1000 of my Home TV! by stevew · 2014-02-11 08:26 · Score: 2

I have a Fedora login prompt on channel 1000 (The Comcast test channel) on my home TV.
The problem is - I can't find the keyboard anywhere near by to try and log in!?!

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Have you compiled your kernel today??
Re:Weirdest? by kaladorn · 2014-02-11 08:58 · Score: 2

Probably until at least 2001-2002, the a large federal police force's main communications gateways were running OS/2 Warp Connect. Why? It was pretty robust (as long as you didn't use HPFS which didn't behave well in a machine crash as far as preserving open files).

I liked OS/2. It's a real pity IBM marketed Windows 3.1 and later 95 with its IBM desktops when OS/2 was a) available, b) more capable, and c) better thought out. The triumph of marketing over quality (much like the ancient Beta vs. VHS battle).

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-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
LOL. On Walmart laptop, wifi ONLY worked in Linux by raymorris · 2014-02-11 10:33 · Score: 2

> On some laptops, Ubuntu can even use the wireless card without all the typical struggle to get the driver into the kernel.
Funny you mentioned that. The last laptop I bought was from Walmart. Since Walmart only carries a couple of laptops in the store at any given time, I figure they must sell millions of those models.
I got it home and spent a few minutes checking to make sure everything worked with the factory disk image before I put an OS on it. Hmm, everything was fine except the wireless. Control panel said the driver wasn't installed. That's odd, why sell millions of units and not bother to install the wireless driver? So I go to download the driver, can't find one. I guess that explains why the driver wasn't installed - apparently there was no driver for that version of Windows. No big deal, we weren't going to use the wireless anyway. So I pop in the CentOS Linux installation stick with my kickstart file on it and walk away. An hour later I come back and I see it's downloading updates. What the heck? I haven't plugged it into the network yet. The Linux distro included the wifi drivers, drivers that weren't available for the new version of Windows.
Niche software, such as occupation-specific software, sometimes requires Windows XP or whatever specific version of a specific OS. Lately, I've had better luck with drivers on Linux than on Windows. My HP printer "just works" on the Linux devices. On Windows, the driver is bundled with a 150 MB download.
Re:Faux Knews by Glock27 · 2014-02-11 12:46 · Score: 2

Well, you win for the most inane comment on this topic.
Stereotypes are bad, m'kay?
The "tolerant left"...an oxymoron for sure.

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Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait