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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Linux in the military (lemmy.world)

submitted 5 months ago by Tekkip20@lemmy.world to c/linux@lemmy.ml

58 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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

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[–] Lettuceeatlettuce@lemmy.ml 53 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Bitrot@lemmy.sdf.org 16 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works 3 points 5 months ago

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.