International Space Station Switches To Linux

[Rydian]

Short one this time. Basically the ISS can't take the lack of updates and patching for XP (which they were using), and decided to go for Debian for the for-astronaut-use laptops that go up and back and some of the ones that hang out there. This seems to be because they've gotten worms and such in the past (since they get users and data from all over), and Linux being inherently more secure in practical use (and way more quickly patched) means less time spent worry about their machines and more time spent tossing legos back and forth in microgravity with one hand while figuring out how to solve the testicular cancer boson unification theorem with the other.

Source

 

[Fear Zoa]

I'm actually surprised they didn't have their own custom linux/unix distro.

 

[Gahars]

Well, at least they'll have something to play while they're up there.

 

[Taleweaver]

Worms in space. Hmm...that somehow sounds way more sci-fi than it should be.

 

[mechadylan]

Wouldn't OSX have been equally secure? I smell budget cuts.

 

[Rydian]

Wouldn't OSX have been equally secure? I smell budget cuts.

Apple is notoriously slow at patching some shit, though, and the main reason they went to Linux was the speed and availability of fixes...

 

[pokefloote]

They said these laptops would be for actual use, osx isn't an option.

Spoiler

I feel like I must put that I'm joking.
I won't though.

 

[Bladexdsl]

no windows 7/8?

 

[Rydian]

no windows 7/8?

"Patch Tuesday" with sometimes-emergency patches apparently doesn't suit them.

 

[DaggerV]

I never would have guessed they still use XP, but then again, after being a consult to some of the local business, I'm not surprised.

 

[mechadylan]

What I want to know is, who's the jackhole that waltzed into the ISS with a virus? With regards to NASA, this should've been caught waaay before an av program on a Windows OS did, imao.

 

[Bladexdsl]

What I want to know is, who's the jackhole that waltzed into the ISS with a virus? With regards to NASA, this should've been caught waaay before an av program on a Windows OS did, imao.

the astronauts were probably downloading space porn

 

[Taleweaver]

Meanwhile, at the station...

Astronaut: *mumbling to himself* dum, di, dum...temperature, pressure, speed, velocity...okay. All is fine. Let's surf the web a bit...
computer: I'm sorry, Dave. I can't let you do that.
Astronaut: *over his shoulder* C'mon, guys! Cut it out already. That joke was old twelve years ago. I'm pretty sick of hearing it every other week. If you pull this shit again, we're going all linux over here.

 

[FAST6191]

Aw but that means my favourite sci fi/bad screenwriter thing of "of course you plug in the hostile's laptop/your comms system into your very important main network" is less likely to come to pass.

Worms in space. Hmm...that somehow sounds way more sci-fi than it should be.

http://www.space.com/6938-worms-space-study-microgravity.html ?

I never would have guessed they still use XP, but then again, after being a consult to some of the local business, I'm not surprised.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/19/it_is_rocket_science_chips_in_space/

Perhaps more importantly all the nice developer things that MS has been slowly stripping out of their OSes (decent serial/parallel support, raw sockets, whatever windows 8 has done to UAC and the firewall to make half the server programs I like to use far more hassle than it should be*...) could come in handy when popping down the shop is a bit inconvenient.

*I should note I do not lump the badly coded nonsense in there but that is less of a distinction when you have stuff that needs doing.

 

[p1ngpong]

Wouldn't OSX have been equally secure? I smell budget cuts.

Astronauts can't use ipads and macbooks because that would make them mad gay.

 

[Flame]

they should have used Ubuntu, does the job nicely.....

 

[FAST6191]

they should have used Ubuntu, does the job nicely.....

Debian is what ubuntu is based upon and by itself it is actually a pretty nice distro; the days of debian being a pain to install are quite far in the past.

 

[mechadylan]

the astronauts were probably downloading space porn

I think I read that it HAD to have been brought on board by someone and uploaded via USB. With this flaw in security, changing OSs is only addressing a small part of the problem.

 

[DinohScene]

NASA runs Win XP!?
What's next, the US Government runs Windows ME?

 

[Rydian]

With this flaw in security, changing OSs is only addressing a small part of the problem.

The problem is that "never let outside data touch any machine" is not plausible in the real world.