Inflight crash

I'm safely in Beijing now but what a close call.  We had a crash on board.  Of the inflight entertainment system, that is.  I was in the middle of watching a movie when the system bluescreened!

Northwest airlines has these new on-demand video systems built into every seat, including economy class, and while I was listening to music it suddenly went dead and up popped a debug window.  I couldn't believe it.

Then I saw the familiar penguin, showing that the whole thing was written in Linux and I said to myself Wait a Minute, I thought Linux systems never crash.  Hmmm... 

Fortunately the airplane itself is not running Linux.   And meanwhile my Vista machine has been humming happily without any crashes whatsoever.

 

 

Published 12 November 06 04:45 by sprague

Comments

# Alexandre Rafalovitch said on November 12, 2006 10:05 PM:

Richard,

I know you were baiting, but did you consider that they may have been running the whole on-demand system from a machine about as powerful as your Vista laptop.

Several hundred interactive video streams might be a bit of a load on a single server built several years ago.

And speaking about the airplane not running Linux, let's hope it is not running Windows either.

After all, 800 planes nearly crashed by one windows instance in 2004 was bad enough. If you don't remember the reference, I blogged about it back in the day:

http://blogicblog.blogspot.com/2004/10/connecting-microsoft-dots.html

# sceptical said on November 13, 2006 2:09 AM:

well, a picture would be nice

# Efraim Karsh said on November 13, 2006 9:03 AM:

In fact you would be surprised about Linux usage in embedded airplane devices. Exactly because the system doesn't crash (unless you want it to :-)

Besides, there's no "blue screen" in Linux, you idiot troll.

And that shit "vista" has been banned from all my laptops because of "snotty intrusiveness".

# Janne said on November 13, 2006 9:41 AM:

Of course, someone COULD post those multitudes of stories and screenshots of ATM's, timetables, entertainment-systems etc. etc. that show nothing but crashed Windows. But what's the point? The fact remains that Linux is overall a lot more stable than Windows is. Can't say anything about Vista though.

# Kevin said on November 13, 2006 10:24 AM:

OK, This is to lame ! No comment ( this article don't worth one... )

# kokot said on November 13, 2006 10:38 AM:

BS

# Jamyskis said on November 13, 2006 12:41 PM:

Erm...bluescreen? Linux systems don't bluescreen, they have a kernel panic. I've seen countless bluescreens from Windows in telephone boxes, cinema booking terminals, ATMS (!) and so forth though.

Funnily enough, our local (public-funded) buses have a neat little screen which shows where you are on a particular route. The company claimed they were running Linux, but the blue debug screen was unmistakably Windows. I didn't bother asking the driver because he wouldn't have known what I was talking about either way.

I'm not going to sit here preaching all and sundry about Linux systems never crashing - they do - but not on the frequency that Windows XP crashes. Maybe Vista will be a pleasant surprise when the final release version comes out - I'll be waiting for the reviews before I go and out and buy it.

# Keith said on November 13, 2006 1:09 PM:

Penguin != Linux.  Linux doesn't "bluescreen" =)  If an error in an application were to occur, only a single application would halt, and the system as an entity would continue to process.  You should be thankful that only a movie crashed, not the flight control (which would NEVER survive on MS, mind you ;))

I do find it funny that these things happen though, no matter the operating system.  Our local channel uses Win2k to broadcast, there is ALWAYS an error message on instead of a show xD  (Yes, I know it's not Window's fault, but their horrible program's.)

# Miguel said on November 13, 2006 1:14 PM:

Yes, and I've seen OS X crash twice in short time, it was the laptop controlling the projection on a Joaquin Sabina concert. And I've also seen Windows crash during an Opera, it was controlling the "subtitles". And, as a Linux user, I've also seen it crash, especially when opening multiple X instances, a bug wicked ATi isn't willing to fix.

The thing is, if you are using anything other than ReactOS, your computer will crash. It just happens that *NIX systems have longer average uptimes, it just happens.

# Sammi said on November 13, 2006 1:28 PM:

MS propaganda...

# Toby Smithe said on November 13, 2006 2:09 PM:

Fortunately the wonders of open source software mean that the bug, whatever it should be, can be quickly fixed and the fix distributed. Unfortunately, when I used Windows, I just learnt to put up with it. It seems strange how people just do that with Windows, but with anything new, they beat it to death.

# Raster said on November 13, 2006 3:25 PM:

Troll!

# anon said on November 13, 2006 3:41 PM:

More Vista propaganda from someone who believes Linux is a programming language.

"...the whole thing was written in Linux..."

# Jean Azzopardi said on November 13, 2006 3:47 PM:

Sure..I'd like to see some proof for one thing...and also, who said that Linux never crashes? It can crash, but luckily, not as frequently as Windows.

And please don't compare 1 Vista machine to a whole system...

# Ron K said on November 14, 2006 10:54 AM:

http://www.miguelcarrasco.net/miguelcarrasco/2006/10/blue_screen_of_.html

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