Linux in Space







The six-person ISS has over 140 laptops on board, around 80 of which are working at any one time, along with a variety of internal networks for operations, crew support, and telemetry. These are used to manage on-board systems and handle some of the 50GB of data the ISS puts out and receives every week.



United Space Alliance (



"We migrated key functions from Windows to Linux because we needed an operating system that was stable and reliable -- one that would give us in-house control. So if we needed to patch, adjust or adapt, we could," The crew of the International Space Station (once they've fixed their leak ) will trade their old Windows XP laptops for Debian-powered systems to use in their Operations Local Area Network (Ops LAN).The six-person ISS has over 140 laptops on board, around 80 of which are working at any one time, along with a variety of internal networks for operations, crew support, and telemetry. These are used to manage on-board systems and handle some of the 50GB of data the ISS puts out and receives every week.United Space Alliance ( USA ), the Earth-based contractor who maintains Ops LAN, has been using Windows XP laptops for the Ops LAN setup. However, with that operating system going into retirement -- and prone to frequent crashes -- laptops and network integration team leader Keith Chuvala decided it was time for a change."We migrated key functions from Windows to Linux because we needed an operating system that was stable and reliable -- one that would give us in-house control. So if we needed to patch, adjust or adapt, we could," he said

And it seems that Google is



The decision to make Debian the default image type for Google Compute Engine was announced by the company on Thursday. As a consequence, Google's stripped down Linux OS GCEL (Google Compute Engine Linux) is being deprecated in favor of Debian 6.0 and 7.0



..."We feel that customers will get a great experience having a Linux distribution that is maintained by the Debian community. Debian and derivatives thereof (such as Mint and Ubuntu) are among the most popular on the Internet, and Google itself is a heavy contributor to the Debian code base. We will also continue to offer CentOS [another Linux distro], and are actively exploring other operating system options based on feedback from our customers," a Google spokesperson told us when we asked about the reason for the change.

So, it looks like Debian will be supported for a long time to come. Unlike, say, Windows XP. A tip of the hat to Charles C. for yet another interesting item And it seems that Google is switching from their custom version of Linux to Debian:So, it looks like Debian will be supported for a long time to come. Unlike, say, Windows XP.