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NASA Space Software Linux

Linux Desktops Send NASA Rovers to Mars 349

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the easier-to-tweak-by-hand-when-things-go-wrong dept.
joestar writes "It's not a secret that Linux has been used at NASA for a long time, and it appears that they have been using it quite extensively on the desktop. From the article: 'At the JPL, it is common to see Red Hat Inc., SuSE or Mandriva Linux running on users' desktops alongside Windows. [...] that's still a lot of Linux on the desktop.' More surprisingly, they seem to be reluctant to use Linux on servers: 'Our personal view is that Linux, period, is only for the desktop. We don't run our main servers on Linux, because there are too many flaws in main Linux kernel.'"
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Linux Desktops Send NASA Rovers to Mars More

Linux Desktops Send NASA Rovers to Mars

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  • What we do not know (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SirCyn ( 694031 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @01:34PM (#14447379) Journal
    Our greatest strength is to know our flaws. I think any OSS appplies here.

    • Re:What we do not know (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SatanicPuppy ( 611928 ) <Satanicpuppy@nosPAm.gmail.com> on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @01:38PM (#14447424) Journal
      I think the biggest issue anyone could have with Linux is that it comes with too much stuff by default.

      For a mission critical app with a zillion dollars worth of hardware riding on it, I might be more comfortable putting my faith in a much tighter, more easy to audit OS. Not that there aren't Linuxes like that, but they're usually not supported by the big Linux support companies, and that is the second reason why I might go with IBM or SUN, for example.
      • IBM or SUN is A LOT HARDER to setup in an extreme minimum install than a GNU/Linux or *BSD machine.

        Any saying otherwise completely disregard both facts and how easy/hard it can in be done on such and such system.

        • Re:What we do not know (Score:3, Informative)

          by brunson ( 91995 )
          I'm certified in AIX and Solaris system administration and I've been running linux on the desktop and servers since 1994 and I can assure you that is a ridiculous statement.

      • I work in Mission Control and... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by EccentricAnomaly ( 451326 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @02:07PM (#14447741) Homepage
        this article is BS.

        I've worked in mission control at JPL for several years and I've never seen Linux used as a Desktop OS by more people than I can count on one hand. In fact JPL has a contract with Lockheed Martin to supply Desktop computers that makes it very hard to run anything other than Windows or MacOS.

        But, I have seen many workstations running Linux, and many servers running Linux. In fact, I think virtually all navigation is now done from Linux servers. And when workstations and Servers don't run Linux they run Solaris. There used to be some HPUX machines around, but you don't see many of them anymore after the crap HP put people through with HPUX-11 (what the hell was HP thinking by dropping fortran-77??)

        Anyway this article is complete BS. Much like one MacWorld ran a while ago claiming JPL used Macs for everything.
        • But I read it on Slashdot! you mean its not true! Oh the shame! ;)

        • Re:I work in Mission Control and... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Arandir ( 19206 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @02:34PM (#14447968) Homepage Journal
          But, I have seen many workstations running Linux...

          To most people, a workstation is a desktop. "Desktop" itself is a very nebulous term, originally meaning a computer small enough to put on your desktop, but now meaning any client system you directly interact with. You also have the problem of many people using "desktop" to refer to a GUI operating environment. A "workstation" however, comfortably fits into all of the above. Workstations are desktops.

        • Re:I work in Mission Control and... (Score:5, Informative)

          by Perl-Pusher ( 555592 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @03:12PM (#14448351)
          Well I work at NASA Langley and have worked at Goddard. In peoples cubicles you will find mostly RedHat Linux or a few have SGI & Sun workstations. We have two Clusters running RedHat. We have about 25 Origin servers (about 300k each), 20 or so Sun & SGI workstations and a very large AMASS tape storage system (5 silos).

          Most cubicles have a windows machines in addition to the others, that windows machine is the only thing supported by the CONITS contract. JPL mission control is not indicative of all of NASA.

          Most developers I work with have Linux desktops and or laptops, some dual boot with windows. System admins around here seem to prefer SGI's, they scarf up many of the used SGI workstations as they get upgraded or bid on pallets of discarded ones. Some have Linux Boxes, and a group of them are using FreeBSD! I had a compact Alpha running Redhat until about 6 Months ago. Now I'm using FC4 on a AMD64 system, and I have a company bought powerbook.

          Among the scientists it's about 65% Windows with Linux making up almost all of the rest. Windows Laptops were running almost 100%. But every meeting I see an new Powerbook on the desks. Last Science team meeting I attended had about 5 powerbooks and the same number of windows laptops. I remember 3 years ago I had the only powerbook in the room. Mine is still the only one that dual boots Yellow Dog. It's my uber geek badge ;)

          • Using Linux machines as workstations is not the same as using them as Desktop machines. You use Desktop machines for Word, Powerpoint, Canvas, Illustrator, Mail, etc. You use workstations primarily to run computations. Linux has widely replaced Suns, HPs, etc as Workstations at JPL. The article seems to claim that Linux has replaced Macs and Windows machines on the desktop at JPL.... this is false. Even the LaTex jockeys who don't use Office prefer working on Macs for such tasks to Linux.

          • I expected that. (Score:5, Informative)

            by jd ( 1658 ) <imipakNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @05:07PM (#14449399) Homepage Journal
            I worked at NASA Langley in the late 1990s, and there was a move towards the desktop and away from X terminals. However, the desktops they gave everyone were Windows based and did not have Cygwin installed, making them damn-near useless as all the applications were X.


            As I recall, I was one of the first there to really kick up a fuss about Linux, and since that time I'm very glad to say that most of the computational fluid dynamics code (ie: the stuff they use to simulate aircraft and jet engines) almost universally supports Linux. Not quite - the stuff for migrating CAD to grids and back isn't Linuxified - but everything else seems to be.


            One of my really fun tasks, whilst there, was to migrate FROM Visual Basic to X/Motif. Yeah, sure, Motif wouldn't have been my first choice either, but I got the interface to work many times better under that than it did under VB.


            About the only thing I really hated about Nasa Langley was their insistance on using rsh for all network connections (even over the Internet) and their use of .rhosts files on all internal machines. It was a major hole and I can remember expressing my displeasure to the chief of network security at Langley. Strangely, I was sacked shortly thereafter. Since then, I've learned rather more tact, but I guess my core complaint hasn't changed a lot. It's all fine and good, talking about "bugs in the Linux kernel", "FIPS-180", etc, if it gets the organization to do better than they would otherwise. When it is used to cover their ass because they know what they have is crap but they don't want to risk change, then I regard their excuses as little more than the Peter Principle in action.


            It sounds, from what I'm seeing today and what the article and others are saying, that NASA has largely come out of cryogenic storage and is showing signs of a fully functional intelligence.


            Only signs? Sure. Donald Becker (who also worked at NASA) didn't just complain about problems with the network drivers - he wrote his own damn drivers, and it took a very long time for anyone to come close to writing drivers even a fraction as good. Nor did he complain about the lack of clustering capability, he wrote his own - bproc - and the supporting tools that collectively became known as Beowulf.


            And the rest of NASA's problem is...? Sure there are bugs in the kernel. And NASA has a small army of programmers fixing inconsequential bugs in old Fortran code that has been in solid use for 20+ years. Let's say that NASA held a 2 month bug-squelching fest. It might still not get Linux to the point where Goddard or JPL were willing to use it on production servers in general, but I'll bet you anything that:


            • It'll mean the Fortran codes running on Linux boxes will run more reliably, for less effort, than could have been achieved by continuing to fix the Fortran for the same length of time
            • It'll inspire the regular kernel developers and may even encourage those on the fringes to become kernel developers
            • As most servers don't need the full range of capabilities, NASA will be able to produce a rock-solid "micro Linux" designed specifically for specialized servers


            NASA has made a big difference to the software available for Linux (at least, if you're interested in moving objects), and in the distant past made a revolutionary difference to Linux networking. They could make a revolutionary difference again, if they loosened up on the distribution of their Open Source and/or got another Donald Becker to get some critical segment of the kernel working absolutely perfectly. I'm not holding my breath, but there is so much potential there that they'd be foolish to ignore it.

      • Re:What we do not know (Score:3, Informative)

        by panthro ( 552708 )

        In my experience, it's a heck of a lot easier to get a minimal Gentoo Linux or FreeBSD server running than a minimal Solaris server. I'm not denying that Solaris kicks butt on Sun hardware, but it's a stretch to call a Solaris system minimal even if you install only the core packages that it (according to the installer) won't run without.

      • The quote from the blurb:

        "because there are too many flaws in main Linux kernel"

        Whether or not there is "fluff" seems to be moot.

      • Re:What we do not know (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Malor ( 3658 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @02:43PM (#14448064) Journal
        The biggest issue anyone could have with Linux is that it fucking breaks.

        NASA has this dead on. When you're dealing with failures that can cost millions, the 2.6 kernel is simply not reliable enough. Hell, if you're dealing with failures that cost thousands, it's not reliable enough... and most server failures cost at least that much for midsize and larger companies. Downtime is really expensive. And you're entirely likely to have it with 2.6.

        We in the open source community have this collective groupthink that Linux is extremely stable. It ISN'T, not anymore. 2.2 was incredibly robust... in my opinion, one of the best pieces of software ever written. 2.4 was problematic but eventually mostly stabilized... it still has occasional issues with unusual hardware combinations, but by and large it's pretty solid. 2.6, on the other hand, has been a complete nightmare from the point of view of pretty much any professional sysadmin. Constant regressions, constant bugfixes, and they won't fucking leave it alone and let it stabilize.

        It takes YEARS to shake the bugs out of a piece of software, but they refuse to commit to backporting bugfixes to anything older than a couple of months. They just wave their hands in the air and expect 'the distros' to fix their coding errors, instead of doing it right in the first place. So everyone else has to scramble around and backport bugfixes, or else adopt a pile of new features every couple of months. Then we get the bugfixes for the new code, along with MORE new code, with yet MORE bugs. Rik van Riel has stated, I kid you not, that's he's perfectly okay with only one in three 'stable' kernels actually being, you know, stable.

        So of COURSE NASA doesn't use it on servers. Linux is not being written for reliability. It never was, it just happened by accident. It was ALWAYS intended as a desktop Unix, but it was so amazingly robust in its early, simple incarnations, that it was pressed into wide server duty. And instead of realizing why Linux became so popular, the devs seem to have stayed with their desktop orientation... and in fact have changed the development process so it's more fun for them. It's a nightmare for everyone ELSE, but now they don't have to deal with the boring, nasty grunt work of making sure the code actually works in every single case.

        I can't find the quote now, but at one time, Linus said something along the lines of "Hardware is inherently stable; there's no reason why software can't be written to the same standard." But he seems to have forgotten that completely. Linux has turned into the Windows of Unix.... lots and lots of features, not so hot on reliability. You KNOW it's a problem when Ars Technica, one of the most competent geek websites anywhere, switched back to Windows for _stability_. The Linux dev team should be completely ashamed of themselves for that one.

        I've been using Linux since late 93 or early 94. I put it into real production service in business in '98 or so, and relied on it for years. All we had back then was ext2, which lost data if the box crashed... but it didn't matter much because it never crashed.

        That is SO not true anymore.

        • kernels (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Mr. Underbridge ( 666784 )
          Agree, for the most part. Personally, I don't use a new major kernel until the minor # reaches 10, just as kind of a minimal standard. Slackware shipped with 2.4 forever. In fact, I'm not sure it doesn't still do so. That should tell one something

        • Re:What we do not know (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Neil Watson ( 60859 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @03:41PM (#14448599) Homepage
          I agree that 2.2 was super stable and that 2.4 was less so. However, I've found that 2.6 is very stable. Certainly more that 2.4. A lot of stability issues come down to how you build your kernel. Build only what you need. Don't use things marked experimental. Research your kernel/hardware combination before hand.
        • I've noticed this too. Perhaps it's time for a fork. We need to get back to the release regime which used odd and even numbers to indicate stable and development. Yes, I do know the reasons for the change, but imho it just isn't working right. Using the 2.6.xy series is just like fiddling around with the 2.3 and 2.5 series, with the disadvantage that there is no 'stable' release into which the significant bug fixes can be backported. The old way might have resulted in more work, but there is now a financial

    • Re:What we do not know (Score:5, Funny)

      by tomhudson ( 43916 ) <barbara@hudson.barbara-hudson@com> on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @01:41PM (#14447463) Journal

      We don't run our main servers on Linux,

      ... you'd think they could find someone to run linux on their servers ... its not like it takes a rocket scientist

      oh, right, thie is JPL ... :-)

  • Linux (Score:5, Funny)

    by taskforce ( 866056 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @01:34PM (#14447387) Homepage
    Linux's kernel may be flawed, but the GUI is perfect, right?

  • Pot calling the kettle black? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @01:35PM (#14447391)
    Any organization that manages to screw up metric and imperial on a several billion dollar project has no right to comment on "flaws in the kernel".

  • Linux desktops? (Score:5, Funny)

    by tehshen ( 794722 ) <tehshen@gmail.com> on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @01:35PM (#14447392)
    I thought they used space shuttles to send things to other planets. Oh, the things you learn...

    • Re:Linux desktops? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Dunbal ( 464142 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @01:38PM (#14447432)
      I thought they used space shuttles to send things to other planets.

            Naw, the shuttle is just to put things into low earth orbit. To get to the planets you need the desktops...

  • Ironic, isn't it? (Score:5, Funny)

    by grasshoppa ( 657393 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @01:35PM (#14447397) Homepage
    It's ironic, isn't it, that most companies and corporations find the exact opposite to be true.

    Says something about Nasa, don't it?

    • Re:Ironic, isn't it? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @01:40PM (#14447459) Journal
      Yes, that they've been using Unix and variants for decades, and while they may not feel confident of Linux on servers, they work in an environment where *nix is extremely common place, and very likely desirable as compared to alien operating systems like Windows.
      • Yes, that they've been using Unix and variants for decades, and while they may not feel confident of Linux on servers, they work in an environment where *nix is extremely common place, and very likely desirable as compared to alien operating systems like Windows.

        Their choice of course, their money..oh wait, it's *my* money ( tax dollars ).

        This kind of blanket policy is scary. Servers die, services need to go somewhere. Instead of wasting a couple grand per box on the OS alone, they should be investigating

        • Re:Ironic, isn't it? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @01:49PM (#14447543) Journal
          I'll wager that the vast amount of NASA's management and engineering software is written in C and for *nix platforms. Now, if you're responsible for deciding what operating systems to put on workstations, and the choice is between an operating system that is in many respects foreign in architecture and development tools, and an operating system which is very similar to what's running on your servers and offers identical or nearly-identical tools, which one will you pick?

          This is what Microsoft has never really understood, and because it's never put that much effort into getting *nix software to easily port over (they did have good intentions with NT 3.5), there are a huge range of applications, particularly at the high end, which will likely never be found on a Windows machine.

      • Yes, that they've been using Unix and variants for decades, and while they may not feel confident of Linux on servers, they work in an environment where *nix is extremely common place, and very likely desirable as compared to alien operating systems like Windows.

        Aliens? Windows? NASA? What are proposing?
    • Don't know why this is modded troll. It may not be hugely insightful, but it's a prefectly reasonable thing to point out. I was thinking the same thing.
      • Considering TFA says they're running Solaris, I'm not quite seeing anything here other than a blatent zealot's assumption that if it's not Linux, it must be Windows, and Evil.
      • ... its just that they prefer Solaris for at least one reason stated. Obviously they have a thing for Linux, because they are deploying it massively on the desktop, where most businesses would just slap a copy of Windows...

    • Re:Ironic, isn't it? (Score:3, Informative)

      by HardCase ( 14757 )
      Dunno...at my company, most workstations run either Linux or Windows (depends on the software requirements). The main servers are all Sun. There are "server" farms that run on Linux, but they are for processing data (running electrical simulations, etc), not really acting as servers, per se. The heart of the company's research and development network is all Sun. Anything that is mission critical runs on those servers. And the UNIX admins cite the same reason as the article did for using Solaris 8 on th

  • Interesting article (Score:5, Interesting)

    by coastin ( 780654 ) * on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @01:36PM (#14447402) Homepage
    I have also seen Linux being used extensively by NOAA in the last few years for weather data tracking and forecasting. I run a combination of Linux, Mac and one XP PC in my lab at Texas A&M Agriculture Program where we run a network of crop-weather (Crop Weather Program for South Texas) stations and an extensive on-line decision support system for cotton growers along the Texas coastal plains. The servers are Linux along with my desktop and notebook, there are four Macs counting one notebook and one MS XP machine to run a Campbell Scientific application that communicates with the weather stations. If Campbell Scientific were to offer a Linux build of LoggerNet I would not need the XP box at all.
    • one MS XP machine to run a Campbell Scientific application

      I don't know whether you've thought of it, but you could try Wine or (more stable IMHO) the commercial version CrossOver Office [codeweavers.com].

      But I'll grant you it's probably less trouble to run it like you currently do.

  • Just Ask Yourself (Score:3, Funny)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @01:36PM (#14447412) Homepage Journal
    Which would you prefer to be used for mission critical applications, where failure can cost hundreds of millions of dollars in time and material, not to mention lost opportunity.

    if bill gates' wife was admitted to the hospital and put on life support managed by one particular OS, which OS do you think he'd actually trust?

    • if bill gates' wife was admitted to the hospital and put on life support managed by one particular OS, which OS do you think he'd actually trust?

      That would depend on the prenup and life insurance policies;-)

    • No need to ask. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ScentCone ( 795499 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @01:46PM (#14447527)
      if bill gates' wife was admitted to the hospital and put on life support managed by one particular OS, which OS do you think he'd actually trust?

      No doubt you're implying that he'd opt for one of the heavily scrutinized Linux distros with native support for emergency room cardio equipment? What, Red Hat hasn't done that yet? No widespread testing yet for Hoary Hedgehog, EKG Edition?

      If I were Bill, I'd probably choose Win2K... but that's not really the issue. It's the application, the drivers, and the comm interfaces letting the machine talk to the life support stuff. I'd want to be hooked up to whichever of those has seen the most hours of use in the most places under the most circumsntances. And if the O/S that happens to have been the platform on which all of that use-time was racked up happens to be Bill's, then so be it. Win2K is very, very stable - especially when you're not surfing to Russian pr0n sites, installing free casino software, or trying to overclock under a beta video driver for maximum frag resolution.

      • Re:No need to ask. (Score:4, Funny)

        by panthro ( 552708 ) <mavrinacNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @02:48PM (#14448102) Homepage

        Most of that "life support stuff" has been running on low-level embedded control systems and, in more complicated cases, proprietary UNIX variants, since before either Win2K or his wife were a twinkle in Bill Gates' eye.

        Systems like that, used in medical, industrial and military applications, make Win2K look as stable as an overweight donkey on ice skates. Windows, like most general-purpose things, is a clumsy, plodding hack that does a mediocre-at-best job of a variety of things instead of a really good job at one. Linux, as the term is used most of the time, falls under the same category, albeit perhaps somewhat less clumsy and plodding. I wouldn't trust a desktop PC to run my toaster.

        Generally, control devices used in critical applications like life support machines are rock solid. There are some PLCs at the plant I work in that have been running continuously for years in a harsh environment (aluminum foundry) without incident.

    • Re:Just Ask Yourself (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Chirs ( 87576 )

      Probably it would be one of the tiny realtime OS's that nobody but embedded people care about.

      I do kernel development for a living--I'd feel more comfortable with something a bit smaller and more easily understood running my life support.

    • Re:Just Ask Yourself (Score:3, Informative)

      by Arandir ( 19206 )
      if bill gates' wife was admitted to the hospital and put on life support managed by one particular OS, which OS do you think he'd actually trust?

      The answer had better be "Windows", because that's what he is going to get. I work for one of big three medical technology corporations, and EVERYTHING is migrating to Windows. Even your lowly EKG. It's gotten to the point that many realtime requirements are being abandoned because Windows won't support it.

      Small medical technology companies still use embedded and r

  • The name of the game is Linux (Score:5, Funny)

    by digitaldc ( 879047 ) * on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @01:38PM (#14447427)
    In Brack's group however, the name of the game is exclusively Mandriva Linux. In fact, it should be noted that this Mandriva deployment is the largest in the world.
    "In terms of [Linux] distros for the overall lab though, we actually run more Red Hat Linux," Brack said. But, regardless, that's still a lot of Linux on the desktop.

    So let me get this straight, the name of the game is exclusively Mandriva Linux, but they actually run more Red Hat Linux?
    Is Mandriva really exclusive to the game? or is that actually Red Hat? I'm so confused.

    • Re:The name of the game is Linux (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @01:46PM (#14447520)
      There is an aspect about IT at JPL that does not come across in the article. There are something like 5500 employees at JPL and there are roughly 3-4 computers for every employee. Now if you consider that most employees only have one computer, it is more like 6 computers for every scientist or engineer.

      This means that we have a diverse and decentralized IT make up. Certain core services are within a particular group. But every engineering group is left to themselves regarding how to apply computer resources to projects. So the group that Brack provides administration for (roughly 200 users I think) exclusively uses Mandriva Linux (and only on workstations). While JPL as a whole uses Red Hat for most installs and JPL as a whole does not have a problem with using Linux for servers. In fact you will find almost every type of server OS represented (yes, even the *BSDs).

      Having said that, our relationship with Sun is largely historic. Since JPL is run by CalTech we have always gotten that incredible education pricing on Sun hardware and since it ran so well too it was used A LOT in every sector of IT at JPL. Sun has lost some ground to Wintel, Lintel and Mac OS over the years. But it is still highly respected at JPL and heavily used.

    • In Brack's group however, the name of the game is exclusively Mandriva Linux. In fact, it should be noted that this Mandriva deployment is the largest in the world. "In terms of [Linux] distros for the overall lab though, we actually run more Red Hat Linux," Brack said.

      So let me get this straight, the name of the game is exclusively Mandriva Linux, but they actually run more Red Hat Linux?

      There are two different groups here: there is Brack's group, and there is "the overall lab". Brack's grou

      • Oh yes, I forgot to mention: we are talking about NASA JPL here. So, it's important to consider what "the lab" means in context of that. And remember that "JPL" stands for "Jet Propulsion Laboratory". So, "the lab" probably refers to all of JPL. And that's a lot of people. I don't know exactly how many, but it is a few thousand if I recall correctly.

        The point being, Brack could have said, "At NASA JPL, the most common Linux distro is RedHat, but in my own group at JPL, we use pretty much exclusivel

  • Rumor Control (Score:5, Informative)

    by flood6 ( 852877 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @01:39PM (#14447446) Homepage Journal
    More surprisingly, they seem to be reluctant to use Linux on servers: 'Our personal view is that Linux, period, is only for the desktop. We don't run our main servers on Linux, because there are too many flaws in main Linux kernel.

    They mentioned Windows in the summary, so to head off the "so they use Windows servers over Linux???" comments, TFA said they run Solaris on the servers because they have found it to be more stable, reliable, and have a longer lifecycle. I'm not saying I agree, just clarifying a summary I can see leading to pointless comments.

  • Linux at Nasa (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Shaggy101 ( 945133 )
    I am currently an Intern at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. All I can say and from personal frustration, hate, and headaches, GSFC likes Sco. Need we say more about their Linux choices.
  • Of course, NASA has a huge SGI Altix cluster, which runs linux.

    http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/28/ 1427228 [slashdot.org]

  • Flaws at linux? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bubulubugoth ( 896803 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @01:47PM (#14447528) Homepage
    No doubt, but... where, and which are?

    There is a lot of NASA contrib at networking, drivers, etc, but the kernel flawed, that is interesting.

    TFA also says that the NASA is a SUN shop, and they are still using Solaris 8, and they have no doubt to switch to Solaris 10. So this means that they have 6 years old hardware? Becose, I dont think that new SUNs hardware is supported by Solaris 8...

    I wonder, do they buy comodity hardware? Becose, if you are planning to roll a massive linux installation, the first thing you do, is check for hardware compatibility...

    The article, actually isnt very useful, to help for or detract the linux usage at servers or desktop. It would be nice, that this kind of public funded enterprises, to had their methodology at public access, so we can learn more about that kind of stuff...
     
    • Part of why they are a Sun shop is that Sun systems (in their experience) have longer lifecycles, thus 6 years of use.

      Servers cost money, and getting more bange for your buck is a *good* thing.
  • Linux dominates the server market, and the NASA says it sucks. But they use Linux for desktops, where the market is dominated by Windows - which sucks.

    Now I'm confused! :-S

    • Not only that. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by AltGrendel ( 175092 )
      Linux is open source! If they know that the errors/flaws are there, they could patch it.

      Couldn't they?

    • Linux dominates the server market, and the NASA says it sucks.

      That wasn't a "Linux sucks" for servers, so much as it was "we have more experience with and trust in the stability of Solaris" for servers.

      But they use Linux for desktops, where the market is dominated by Windows - which sucks.

      This looks like ( mostly ) a personal preference of the engineers- but they get these x86 laptops ( or desktops ) and need to communicate with Solaris servers, so what would you run? Like them, I'd run some sort of Linu

  • Scientists and Linux go way back (Score:4, Interesting)

    by i_should_be_working ( 720372 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @01:48PM (#14447535)
    In physics and math departments at universities and national laboratories around the world it's not a strange thing to see people using Linux.

  • Ready for desktop since... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by just_another_sean ( 919159 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @01:49PM (#14447548) Journal
    1993 according to this [liw.iki.fi].

    I quote:
    During 1992 and 1993, the Linux kernel gathered all the necessary features it required to work as a replacement for Unix workstations, including TCP/IP networking and a graphical windowing system (the X Window System). Linux also received plenty of industry attention, and several small companies were started to develop and distribute Linux. Dozens of user groups were founded, and the Linux Journal magazine started to appear in early 1994.

    Just one of several examples of doing a google search on Linux History. I personally have bene using Linux on my desktop and servers since I discovered Slackware [slackware.com]in 1996. (Thanks Patrick! :-)
    • For people raised on the Unix culture, Linux on PC's is a natural progression from workstations and before that, VAXen.

      Linux (OK, OK, GNU/Linux) was meant as a Unix clone, and it is only natural that Linux has displaced Solaris, whatever Silicon Graphics was doing, and so on.

      For people raised on the DOS/Windows culture, it is not as natural a progression. A lot of us (those doing lab computers for data collection, using computers for scientific computation, other academic pursuits) came to DOS and late

  • An error made by a human using software is no less an error than an error made by a computer using software.

    Assessing an operating system purely on its "technical merits" and ignoring usability is faulty reasoning. Software runs on both its user and the computer -- a bad UI will causes errors every bit as damaging as bad kernel code.

    Please enter parachute deployment altitude IN KILOMETERS.

  • In NASA... (Score:5, Funny)

    by menkhaura ( 103150 ) <espinafre@gmail.com> on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @01:56PM (#14447620) Homepage Journal
    In NASA Linux is only for desktops!

  • Solaris, Tru64, Win2k3 Server... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @02:01PM (#14447682)
    I work as a sysadmin in Houston for the aerospace company that operates as NASA's prime contractor for ISS. We work very closely with the tech people over at the Johnson Space Center on the Station and Shuttle contracts and perform tasks for them that include large-scale analysis and number crunching (we recently handled the foam debris analysis for STS-114). We use a mix of systems on the back-end, but the breakdown generally is Windows 2000 AS & 2003 Enterprise Server for misc. (non mission-critical) application hosting and e-mail and printers and general office automation stuff, and Solaris or Tru64 or VMS(!) for anything flight- or vehicle-related, and dedicated mainframes for large (or legacy) tasks.

  • They don't run their servers on Linux, eh? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pscottdv ( 676889 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @02:03PM (#14447704)

    We don't run our main servers on Linux

    Oh, really?

    So explain this guy [top500.org] (www.top500.org).

  • I worked in the planetary program in the late-1980's and 1990's when VAX and Sun OS were all you'd see. You used to see a lot of XV! I would have been surprised if Windows had any significant presence. I know scientific computing is a small market, but Sun, DEC, and SGI really gave it away. Scientists loved them.

  • Its a VERY subjective comment.
    If you tell me in COMPARISON to VMS, or OS2, or Solaris, I would agree with that.

    If you said that in comparison to windows, I would say just because you cant see it dosent mean its not there (although admittedley NASA has access to the windows code. I would say in comparison to several full enterprise implmentations that statement is correct, but agains windows ? come on...

  • I worked at NASA once (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rkanodia ( 211354 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @02:19PM (#14447847)
    A few years ago, I had an internship at the Air Traffic Control lab at Ames Research Center in Mountain View (technically Moffet Field is its own city, but whatever), California. The people were nice and pretty good at what they did, and the desktops were mostly Red Hat, but the IT system there was pretty weird. I sat in a cubicle next to a one filled with unused desktop machines and monitors. Pentium 2/3, G3/G4 Macs, 17" CRTs, all kinda of stuff that was just 1.5-3 years old. Even so, people who were coming in would get new computers. Why? Because you can't just take one of the computers from the storage cubicle; you have to fill out forms and it needs to go through a bunch of processes to make sure that it works, that the hard drive is wiped, and a clean install of the OS is performed.

    Obviously, the IT department would rather just open up a new machine than spend a bunch of effort refurbishing an old one, so they made the paperwork to have an old machine put back into service much more complicated than the paperwork to order a new machine. Furthermore, there was a tactical element involved: I ended up with a brand new, top of the line machine because my boss wanted one, but wasn't due for a new computer for a couple of years. If I remember correctly, because I was an intern, he was able to justify the purchase for 'a new employee' on the accounting side, while keeping the ownership rights from IT's perspective - so when I went back to school, he took the machine I'd been using and - you guessed it - dumped his old one in The Cubicle.
  • admittedly I don't anything odd with my linux boxen, but
    I've never seen a kernel problem. They're much more stable
    than any windows machine I've ever run. I do just the reverse,
    linux servers only.
  • The article mentions that JPL doesn't want to run Linux on servers because Solaris has a longer, more reliable and stable life cycle. But Red Hat Enterprise Linux has a comparable life cycle. They should be honest and just admit that they're more comfortable with Solaris because they've traditionally been a Solaris shop. If they had said that they rely on a lot of closed source applications that only run on Solaris, or in-house proprietary code that would be difficult to port, that I could buy. Otherwis
  • ... when they have their own 'distro' designed for spacecraft:

    http://flightlinux.gsfc.nasa.gov/ [nasa.gov]

  • NASA has orbiting brain lasers? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Rhinobird ( 151521 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @02:31PM (#14447941) Homepage

    This was the first thing that popped into my head:

    http://www.ubergeek.tv/article.php?pid=54 [ubergeek.tv]

  • Linux at NASA GSFC (Score:3, Informative)

    by internic ( 453511 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @02:32PM (#14447952)

    When I worked at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center I saw Linux in use for desktops, fileservers, web servers, you name, it. There was some Solaris thrown in too, of course, and I think there was even a DEC machine (not a web server), but all the newer *nix machines seemed to be Linux. On the desktop there were also a fair number of Macs running OS X, and Windows probably had the smallest minority in the building I worked in. The only time most of them used Windows was when they had to make a powerpoint presentation. With the development of OO.org Presenter, I'm not even sure how much they'd use Windows for that these days.

  • We don't run our main servers on Linux, because there are too many flaws in main Linux kernel.'"

    No doubt. NASA is a *big* SUN shop. When you are doing calculations like NASA, sorry Linux, you need SUN and Solaris. SLOW-aris indeed is true, but you need some special software to handle SUN BIG IRON. Go ahead and shoot me, but sorry, I ain't gunna put billions and billions of $ worth on transactions on Linux.... yet. :)

  • I doubt it... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Ice Wewe ( 936718 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @03:05PM (#14448281)
    When I went and got a tour of JPL, from a staff member, not a tour guide, I looked in on their server clusters, they were running Fedora Core 4 smp. Now, perhaps this is just an isolated case, but everywhere I looked, there were computer's running Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows. When we got a tour of the main control room, where they had terminals displaying the data being received from the space probes/landers/craft, they were running linux. Therefore, I tend to doubt whoever said that the linux kernel wasn't 'stable' enough for their purposes. Perhaps they're just trying to keep Microsoft happy, because when I was there, it [Windows] certainly wasn't the majority OS.

  • Of course these are the same guys... (Score:3, Funny)

    by windowpain ( 211052 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @03:24PM (#14448460) Journal
    For what's it worth, these are the same guys who lost a $125 million Mars probe [jamesoberg.com] because they failed to do a conversion from imperial to metric units of measure. (Who in science and engineering still uses imperial anyway?) D'oh!

  • Which OS Is Most Motivating? (Score:3, Funny)

    by camperslo ( 704715 ) on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @04:07PM (#14448860)
    "I'm sorry Fred.
    The only way we'll let you off of your Windows ME box and onto XP, Linux, or a Mac, is if you design a rocket to launch that machine into a star."
  • I'm scared. I mean, what are they comparing the linux kernel to? God OS?

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