So it’s no secret that some parts of the army in the USA and my country (UK) sometimes use legacy software like DOS for niche roles as they’re robust including older versions of Windows.
But… where does Linux fit in this? It’s a kernel OS that’s used in top of the line supercomputers, workstations, medical equipment and weather stations.
I imagine some aspects of this would be military secrets but how do they use it? I know that Linux was used for certain space projects with NASA but I’m talking about army applications.
TLDR : Does the penguin OS power shooty shooty machines and tanks
I’ve heard that the DoD uses RHEL pretty extensively. RHEL in the US Military
That article says that the US military has the largest single install base for RHEL in the world, but that was about 15 years ago, I don’t know if that’s still true.
Apparently back then the US nuclear sub fleet and its sonar systems also ran on RHEL.
I suspect lots of military hardware runs some form of *Nix or BSD type system. Many embedded systems run some *Nix type OS, and a huge portion of the developed world’s weaponry is smart, so it it full of low power embedded systems and custom SoCs.
Red Hat has long benefitted from being the primary enterprise Linux company based in the US (no, we don’t count Oracle). SUSE created US-based Rancher Government Solutions to get some of that business and it seems to have been getting a lot of interest, despite being early days. They did a good job of focusing on modern technologies and immutable systems.
Don’t look too deeply into this unless you’re comfortable discovering that the military and security state is a prolific contributor to many open source projects.
SELinux was a product of the NSA. Maybe the best thing that agency has done.
I don’t find that problematic as they are the ones how are likely to push for good security and reliability
When we rolled into Baghdad, we did it using open source. - Major General Nicholas Justice
as they’re robust
I would argue they are just what was used during development. After that, it never changes.
Why did they use it back then? Were there many alternatives? I do not know.
I haven’t done any work for the military but i can say that all the legacy systems I’ve worked on were because the specific software they need was written only for Windows 98 and the developer or company that created it is long gone. Keeping it going is a chore but switching to literally anything else is out of the question.
I could see for military applications that having the known quantity of a working piece of software that isn’t changing anymore and can be swapped as an entire unit is an advantage, especially if it doesn’t touch the internet in any capacity. But eventually you run out of people who know what to do if any changes need to be made.
It probably depends how many billions are going into it.
For stuff that is still maintained but also legacy, military and contracting benefit from being a pretty insular community. Contractors are full of military retirees. What this does is give a pool of people who worked with the products for a very long time on one side who move over into maintaining them on the other, less knowledge is lost. It still happens and things must change eventually, but they manage to delay things where someone else like a bank might have a harder time when their knowledgeable employee leaves and they’re hiring people off the street.
Greek military uses Linux Mint, so yeah, it’s used in some places. I believe the Indian one does too.
That is actually terrifying. How do they secure and lock it down?
There are many reasons Microsoft software is only “good” (and I’m using that word loosely) in business and home settings. Can you imagine a rocket taking off and windows suddenly “rebooting to complete updates” (or whatever it is that it says along those lines)?
Obligatory https://youtu.be/xDLvUqhwHZc
I’ll watch it right now and come back. BRB.
Edit: now I have to “arrr” that series and watch it. 🤣🤣
Rockets probably use a dedicated OS that is safety validated. Getting something validated for critical operations is a massive endeavor.
Linux is commonly used in the communications systems, like on invidual radio “stations”. Propably used everywhere where high confidentiality and security is required.
Linux isn’t great in terms or high security. It isn’t bad but it does have a lot of CVEs. I imagine there is some highly compact and locked down OS used.
Sadly yes, Linux kill
It depends on what side you are on. At the end of the day a tool is a tool
Well I know my local army base (US) was looking for Linux sys admins, so I figure they have some servers on base.
I saw a youtuber once reviewing the distro that the Russian military uses. It had some crusty retro desktop environment iirc.
Why are you asking? Yes it is used but obviously the exact systems are kept secret. As far as I know it is a mixed environment. I do know the US Air Force uses Kubernetes
