Linux in the military
Linux in the military
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.
I'm super excited to see SLES more in the US government space with RGS. RedHat was my goto champion of FOSS in public sector but since they have gone less Libre/FOSS SUSE is last big commercial Linux company still going commuting to FOSS.
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.
When we rolled into Baghdad, we did it using open source. - Major General Nicholas Justice
Check out the World of Tanks forums for information.
Oh you got a good chuckle out of me
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)?
Rockets probably use a dedicated OS that is safety validated. Getting something validated for critical operations is a massive endeavor.
Correct, missiles use something like RTEMS, which is named because it was used for missiles (no really, it originally stood for Real Time Executive for Missile Systems) and the operating demands for missiles have to be real-time given their unique edge cases.
Disclaimer: I worked on RTEMS in College
Not only is it hard to get certified for things like rockets but they usually use a realtime os like red hawk (a red hat fork).
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. 🤣🤣
Running a full OS on a rocket? Why? It's mostly some embedded stuff, some kind of arduino.
The launching platform though... maybe a minimalist OS with a curses interface.
That's a real brain fuck. Now I need to go research this.
Sadly yes, Linux kill
It depends on what side you are on. At the end of the day a tool is a tool
I said such things too, but one day I ask myself, could I said it in front of people bombed by my tools ? Our tools are not neutral things, but produce and distribute by social relationship that we could fight. Sorry but we the rise of fascism and ecological disaster we could not afford to give up our power as producer to mass murderer
Greek military uses Linux Mint, so yeah, it's used in some places. I believe the Indian one does too.
Well I know my local army base (US) was looking for Linux sys admins, so I figure they have some servers on base.
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.
COBOL has entered the room... although i've heard Ada is more popular in military applications.
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.
I imagine they use it in much the same way as any enterprise. Running servers and workstations, mostly.
F16's run Kubenetes clusters.
Lots of individual bits of hardware on specialized devices will be running embedded operating systems. QNX is big in automotive for the same reasons it'd work on a rocket.
Also big in healthcare/medical products,btw.
We used it as OS for the tank and airplane simulators, just because it made them cheaper compared to buying 500 Windows licenses
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.
Didn't they at one point use a bank of PS3s when they still allowed for Linux boot options?
Yeah I recall the USAF deploying a ps3 cluster years ago
I'm not sure about the military, but yes a number of researchers used PS3s for cheap computing power.
Most of that information is actually publicly available.
Stuff like this https://www.usaspending.gov/search/?hash=624182a957cfea14bc90717fb91ec1f8
I saw a youtuber once reviewing the distro that the Russian military uses. It had some crusty retro desktop environment iirc.
Tvwm ought to be good enough for anyone!
Linux distro NixOS is used by mil-tech company Anduril
I've heard of Palantir, now Anduril... What's next, Saruman Ltd.? Uruk-Hai-corp? Poor Tolkien doesn't deserve his mythology being co-opted by war profiteers. :(
BTW: Anduril is a startup from Luckey Palmer, the guy that built the Oculus VR headset in his garage. The later sold Oculus to Meta for 2 billion $. 3 ex Palantir guys started Anduril together with him.
Turkish military uses Pardus, a Turkish Linux distro, but I'm not sure to what extent.
When I was in the army the S1 desk jockeys were using dedicated word processors with 8" floppies. Get off my lawn! :-)
Knowing what the army is like, that could have been in 2010 lol
I'm not so worried about stormtroopers using linux as much as guns, bombs, prisons, cops, torture, genocide, nukes, etc.
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
I ask because using the funni penguin kernel in a weapons grade equipment is funny
A picture is worth a thousand words,