If until now the astronauts on the international space station NASA had used some laptops with Windows for everyday tasks, NASA has decided to totally radical change, migrate all their laptops on board to Linux, including the operating system of the first humanoid robot in space, it’s Robonaut (R2).
The Linux chosen for this important task has been Debian 6 and despite the fact that Debian 7 is now available, the new variant has not yet received due attention, as do several tests are needed for the new OS is appropriate for the various missions station.
According to Keith Chuvala, head of all operations performed by space station computer, Linux has been since the launch of the station, although it was not used for key tasks by astronauts. NASA has used it in its ground facilities and monitoring of the station for a long time, although the migration to Linux is now deeper. IT technicians and other mission engineers, who have yet to adopt Linux, receive training from the Linux Foundation.
Among those who have used Linux and use the astronauts, it has to RHEL/Centos, Scientific Linux and other Debian variants. NASA so far has realized that Linux is flexible enough to do things that Windows is a bit more complicate. Yes, the critics that has been put to the space station in the hands of Linux, say they now have to wrestle with the patches, compilations and other tasks that would not have needed to do with Windows … What do you think?