US Navy buys Linux to guide drone fleet

I have seen several items in the past that show that USA Defence recognises the greater security the Linux OS gives to Defence systems. I already know that the reason Linux is not reaching the wider desktop is mostly Microsoft and its control over OEMs.

But I still sit back in amazement and watch these two "streams of consciousness" in both America and to much the same extent in Australia. On the one hand you see Defence moving to a Linux menu of security, stability and low cost; on the other, you see Joe Average content to shovel software garbage into his "IT mouth"...and actually be happy to pay exorbitant amounts for using what I consider to be defective Win products. Like I say, one can only sit back and be amazed (and greatly dismayed) at how well the combination of clever PR, a huge warchest, and control of OEMs works in order to maintain the dominance of a product that should have been discarded a decade ago.

My all-time favorite headlines had fun with "Windows For Submarines", when the British Navy lost its mind and decided they needed MS software.

@tuxchick......I'm a retired officer in the Royal Australian Navy. The Brits replaced Unix systems with Windows on their nuclear subs. I am still amazed at that foolishness - and if I had been a submariner and know what I know now, I'd have been terrified to sail in one of those vessels. Can't wait to have a BSOD at 1000 metres below the surface.

All the electronics and communications within body armor the US Army uses is now controlled by Linux. My son in law is a Staff Sergeant in the tech division that deals with support and maintenance of this equipment and he's thrilled at the decrease in malfunctions and system crashes since they switched. When it was a specially written Windows software that controlled these units, there was mayhem with communications and video feeds. The Linux software they use now has all but made these problems disappear,

When a computer user has a software failure, it is an annoyance, When a soldier has a software failure, soldiers die.

I'm glad they got around to figuring this out. The Linux Combat Control Systems have now been deployed world wide.

Heh. UEFI-incompatible.

@gus3, well said...because that statement by implication exposes the whole cynical and disgusting exercise UEFI actually is. The USA Defence package for the drones does not require UEFI and yet outperforms the heap of security rubbish that Windows always was and continues to be. Surely the lessons being learnt so well by Defence will spread ? I hope ??