Aside from Linux running on NASA hardware, phones and consoles. Does it run on ATM machines, PDAs and point of sale monitors?
I ask this because I’ve seen Windows being used in airport terminals and really old versions being used for cash machines as well. The crowdstrike problem made this more prevalent by seeing “non end user computers” using the OS.
Does Linux fill this niche as well do you know? I don’t recall hearing any big name embedded distro used for those sorts of machines. Maybe Alpine Linux or NetBSD?
Thank you in advance for your input!
There are tons of computers running Linux besides PCs. By far the biggest part are servers and supercomputers. Microsoft even has their own distribution for their server business. Then there are all the Android phones and devices. Android is Linux. In Germany I’ve also often seen Linux used for kiosks at government agencies.
Linux is used in TVs and set top boxes. Everything that says Tizen or WebOS is powered by Linux. I’ve also seen it used as in-flight entertainment systems. And Lunduke had an example of Linux running on a machine controlling how cows are milked, if I recall correctly.
For most systems you won’t actually know what OS is used until you see a hardware error screen. Although Microsoft has made it a little easier with mandatory updates.
I am not positive but if it still true originally webos was not linux. It started off as a very ahead of its time cell phone os made by Palm Inc. After they failed to gain traction it was sold to LG or made open source then sold or bought. LG uses it in their TVs but if I recall the base os is not Linux but some form of palmos assuming it has not been moved to Linux.
Nah, WebOS was already Linux when Palm used it on their phones. I had one of them. I preferred the N900 and it could even run games made for WebOS.
A local shop has these self-checkout registers on which I saw they’re running CentOS.
I saw the self checkout machines in my supermarket being restarted a few times and caught a glimpse of what was shown on the screen. Before they were upgrade some time ago they showed that CentOS was running and now I think that I saw Rocky Linux running on there. So yes, these are definitely out there and used widely.
Also I’ve see pictures of Raspberry Pis being used almost everywhere.
Holy cow what country is this? All the self-service check outs in our Dutch Albert Heijns and Lidls use Windows 10/11!
A good boba tea shop, Sencha Silk near Arnhem Centraal, their self checkout used unregistered Windows 10’s and upgraded them to unregistered Windows 11’s recently, judging by the watermark on the bottom-right. Based.
It’s Aldi in Germany. Running Linux however does not prevent these machines from getting errors all the time so often times there are only 3/6 machines available since an employee has to reset the software manually.
I can say that, at least in the Southwestern US, our local Kroger stores all use Linux of some variety at their self-checkouts. I’ve seen the same as above: mostly CentOS and Rocky.
I’ve got two Orange pi zero 3’s (one acting as my “home lab” and the other one as my… lab rat.) which aren’t ATM machines or PDA’s, but… they are more like “very confused potatoes who think they are pcs” and everything “just werks” as intended.
I saw Linux used on Boeing passenger service systems.
Linux on phones and tablets is a thing. Typing from my Xiaomi Pad 5 Pro running postmarketOS and LibreWolf.
One, although it’s rare to have phones that support it, I do dream of owning a Linux phone one day.
Two, I have no idea why I was surprised to run across the OpenRGB guy on Lemmy.
Some automotive infotainment systems run on Linux.
I have had seen a few in-flight entertainment systems crash and reveal that they run Linux. The crashes have been due to network issues as far as I could tell ( so no strike against Linux for that ).
Similar story for display panels at fast food places and hotels. Online, I have seen at least one Linux billboard.
My company uses Linux extensively for video monitoring systems in vehicles like busses, fire trucks, ambulances, and police cars.
I want you to imagine an electronic device. Congratulations, you’ve imagined a device that runs some form of Linux…
There’s a jack-in-the-box here that runs linux on their drive-through screen. I only know because it’s had a “vmlinuz not found” error for a few weeks now xD
Examples I’ve seen in the wild:
- Argos POS terminals using CentOS
- ATM using OS/2 Warp
- Co-op tills running (I think) Windows Embedded POSReady
- TVs using Yodeck (ultimately Raspbian, I guess)
- Occasionally, ad terminal things using Raspbian
A ton of digital signage (think fast food restaurant menus) run Linux as well.
Most home routers do as well.
Don’t most routers run some form of BSD?
Never heard of a commercial home router running a BSD derivative, but I’m sure it’s possible. Almost all of them have a GPL li censée disclosure so…
Wouldn’t a home router with Windows cost way more because of the licence?
Probably would also need like ten times the amount of ram and disk space. These things usually run on 64/128Mb of RAM and anywhere from 8 to 32Mb of flash.
I think those numbers might be on the low side. Like, not by heaps though. My Asus RT-AC86U has 512MB of RAM and 256MB of flash. It’s not exactly new either, I’d imagine an AX router would need more.
Yeah for wifi ax/6 they are. But they are perfectly normal for AC. N even ran on stuff like 4mb of flash and 32mb of ram.
Huh, I guess that’s why they run merlin runs so well on them.
More, but not way more - they would be licensing window IoT, not a full blown OS, and they wouldn’t be paying OTC retail rates for it.
Most digital signage I see is a Chromebox running a specific kiosk software.
android on occasion as well
I recently saw Domino’s Pizza uses this touch device to take customer order that uses some very old version of Ubuntu (with unity DE)
At first, I was trying to think of some alternate explanation like they’d just bothered to install Unity on a newer version (which I instantly had to self-reject that notion as bonkers). My guess is that that’s the version the stack was developed for and initially rolled out at guinea pig restaurants before a wider introduction (I don’t know when these were introduced, as I rarely do Dominoes.).
Not really much of a problem with it, as if it’s 16.04, it’s still getting extended updates to 2028 and will probably have a paid extra two years offered that Dominoes is willing to pay. If it’s 14.04, then it’s already on paid extended support until 2024.
Not that I’d touch straight Ubuntu with a 39 and a half-foot pole anytime soon, though some derivatives manage to make good out of it, the best being in my opinion PopOS.
Maybe Domino’s headquarters in our country decided it was cheaper to keep using they linux port instead of paying for windows license. I make this assumption because this particular outlet was openedafter the covid lockdown. Though, I have no idea of their rationale behind using Ubuntu.
It hasn’t been long since I completely switched to linux. I have been using Ubuntu for 1 year. Just switched to fedora (after some distro hopping). Honestly, just so glad to be free from snaps and those awful modifications that they make. Maybe fedora has its own flaws, but for now, I love it.
For some reason, my brain forgot that Domino’s is a multinational chain. 🤦♂️ Still, I would say for POS systems Linux is better because the developer can have much more control than a Windows machine. Still, I see Costco using some POS machines that run Windows 10.
On another note, from what I’ve tried of Fedora, I liked what I saw. I mostly use Debian for several reasons: my first exposure to Linux was Ubuntu VMs and Raspberry Pis, Debian (as Ubuntu’s upstream) follows conventions I’m accustomed to (mostly apt, but also just how Debian groups packages in general), and has great community support (though its wiki kind of sucks, so I often check Arch wiki). I use Trixie (Testing) on my desktop to get newer software, but on my laptop, I run stable and just use Flatpak for anything that has seen significant updates since Bookworm came out.
Pretty sure ATM runs on super old stuff like OS/2 or Windows XP or Windows CE ?
