Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Linux in Real Life - Uses Around the World

My little niche here on the internet is largely devoted to talking about various forms of the Linux Operating System. Truth be told, however, I can blog about Linux until my fingers fall off from typing and the vast majority of what I wrote would be meaningless to the average person. Even with its slowly growing popularity, Linux is still a largely unknown thing to many people. Why should Average Joe care about Linux? This alternative operating system doesn't affect his life at all - or does it? The truth of the matter is this: Almost every adult who uses technology in today's world uses or has used something that is Linux powered.

Don't believe me? Lets take a look at some of the places Linux is used around the world today. In the world of retail, Linux is used as the sole operating system of two major clothing retailers:
These companies use Linux both as a server back-end and as a desktop solution.

Now maybe you are like myself and you have never shopped at either of the above listed stores - don't worry there are plenty of other places Linux is hiding in the world around us. If you live in the United States then you should be pleased to know that our government uses Linux is several areas including:
  • The Postal Service
  • The Federal Courts
The postal service uses Linux clusters to sort bulk mail and the federal court system uses Linux systems for case management, case tracking, accounting, and probation services.

Alrighty - maybe you live outside the United States, meaning you have never used either of the two services listed above. How about this: Do you ever go to the movies? Many companies that produce movies use Linux, including:
They use Linux based production machines for rendering 2D art work, 3D graphics, and special effects.

Still a few of you out there who think you haven't used Linux yet? Don't worry, I'm not even close to being done yet. Anyone have either of the following two items hiding in their entertainment center:
Yep - you guessed it, both are Linux powered devices.

How about mobile devices? The company LG has been powering their cell phones with Linux based technology for several years now. Perhaps you have heard of (or possibly even own) one of these handheld devices:
Are all high-end devices running various forms of mobile Linux.

Whew! Did you find where you fit into the world of Linux yet? Wait - did I just hear a "no" still? Alright - do you use the internet? (rhetorical question, you are reading a web-blog) Since the answer to my previous question is most obviously yes - I'd be willing to bet you have used one of the following two web pages at some point in time:
Both companies are largely (or in the case of Amazon - almost entirely) powered by Linux. In addition to these, it relatively safe to say around half the internet runs on Linux powered Apache servers.

I think I've covered just about everyone who uses technology at this point in some form or another. Does anyone still think you haven't used something Linux powered at least once in your life? No? Good. :)

Does anyone else know of some other common places Linux is used by the masses or another large retailer/company that is Linux powered that I missed? If so, please drop a comment to let me know.

Update: Check out this article for a whole pile of places that are running Linux!

~Jeff Hoogland

31 comments:

  1. most high-performance supercomputers are running linux.

    www.top500.org/stats/list/34/osfam

    Shrek, Lord of The Ring, King Kong and Avatar (to name a few) are rendered on Linux.

    open-source is dominating the world, cheers...=)

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  2. Anyone using the Internet uses DNS and a very large number of DNS servers out there run Linux.

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  3. Anyone that has a TomTom or another hand held navigation device and alot of external hard drives and media devices use linux.

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  4. Many (if not most/all) consumer modem/routers are powered by Linux.

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  5. Hi, I don't think the PlayStation 3 uses Linux, I know it can run linux, but that doesn't make it a Linux powered device.

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  6. You forgot my BMW 5 Series.

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  7. Lowe's the Hardware company uses Linux and FAA, the control towers to bring flights in and out of airports, big ones and little ones uses it also! And National Weather Service uses it to forecast each and everyday!

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  8. Oh and I forgot to mention, I use it! Ubuntu and Mandriva, like Mandriva a whole lot more than Ubuntu for some reason, it seems more stable!

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  9. Re: the supercomputers, probably the most visible product to the general public from those are the weather forecasts. It's pretty safe to say that a good portion of them are calculated on Linux. Not that the simulation software is necessarily any different from when/where it is run on AIX/Solaris/Irix etc...

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  10. You forgot the NYSE (New York Stock Exchange)and now the LSE (London Stock Exchange) is actually migrating to Linix. Weta Digital, the digital studio that rendered Avatar, uses Linux farms. Oh, and you forgot the Computer Tech Industry, like IBM, HP, Intel, AMD, Dell, Lenovo, Sony, Toshiba, Acer, Asus,Oracle, Novell, Cisco, Panasonic, Samsung, Motorola et all. Even the US Naval and the Army uses Linux.

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  11. In Texas, there's a large grocery chain called H-E-B. Their pharmacy has a call-board that displays whose drugs are ready for pickup. I have noted that this computer is running some form of Unix or another, based on the look and feel of the main window's frame (it's very obviously connected to a computer running software). This might be Linux, but I can't be 100% certain. At the very least, it's not Windows and certainly not Mac.

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  12. Very cool! Learned a few places there I was not aware of using Linux - as for stock exchanges, I know the Tokyo stock exchange recently made the change to Linux as well :)

    ~Jeff

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  13. I would like to get some information correct in my thinking so I can brag about linux. I know you say certain businesses use a server or for graphics, etc. When you say they (any of the above mentioned businesses or groups) use Linux, does this mean they use a version of the linux kernel?

    thanks.

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  14. @Anonymous - that is correct. Any form of Linux requires some form of the Linux kernel to function on a computer system. Regardless of it's size or function.

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  15. Tim Horton's (timhortons.com) uses linux for their servicing machines and large screen video (product) displays.
    L8R

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  16. Hi, You seem to have missed an obvious retailer. Here (in the UK) we know it as Asda. In the US you know it as Wal-Mart. I've never seen it in a press release but I was told by somebody who works at the UK HQ (in Leeds) that their worldwide EPOS is built on Linux and has been for some time.

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  17. While travelling in a bus in Dubai, I have noticed the internal display of routes screen in the bus (Mercedes) appears to be rebooting and noted the Linux kernel 2.6.19.x. was getting loaded. In Mercedes, are they using Linux for some niche area of the bus or the main systems which controlling, I don't know.? Because this route system is completely online and it get update the display on the move. Interesting to see the Linux kernel .... tk.jose@gmail.com

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  18. Linuxcaffe, while small potatoes compared to most of the giants listed here, uses linux in every part of the operation; from accounting, point-of-sale and security, to multimedia and the free WiFi access points, While it does take some expertise to manage, it is solid and secure, and allows us to do some things the the "other OS" just can't do.
    (http://linuxcaffe.ca)

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  19. Don't forget that Wikipedia has migrated to Ubuntu Linux. Not that they weren't on Linux before, a mixture of Redhat and Fedora.

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  20. Ripley's Believe it or Not in San Diego has a some type of arcade game there that you stand in front of and view. It was being re-booted by a tech, and I noticed it was some older version of Mandriva.....

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  21. My DVD player (an early DivX player) runs Linux, as does my Laptop, My MythTV (digital video recorder) box, my router, my DSL modem and since last week my Dad's iMac. He wanted some free software to do stuff. He loves his Mac. However, we found it quicker to make his Mac run Ubuntu from a USB stick and have access to all the free applications in the Software Centre than to track down free apps for the Mac.

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  22. It has been used in space too. :)

    The Mars rovers used a lot of open source software, though I'm not sure if they had a linux kernel on board or not.

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  23. I have read from numerous sources that msn.com (Microsofts network) runs off linux servers and apache since windows own IIS cannot handle that kind of traffic. How ironic.

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  24. You also vorgot Peugot, they have already migrated over 20.000 Desktops to Linux :)

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  25. I'd like to echo what Jim said. The Playstation 3 does not run Linux by default. Its OS is XrossMediaBar (XMB) not Linux.

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  26. i've work in a broeker agency we migrate all to linux we where tired of virus and all that stuff related with microsoft

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  27. In-flight entertainment systems?
    On a flight recently, the entertainment system started to reboot. And I noticed the linux penguin.
    That made me so happy!!

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  28. I have read from numerous sources that msn.com (Microsofts network) runs off linux servers and apache since windows own IIS cannot handle that kind of traffic.The Playstation 3 does not run Linux by default. Its OS is XrossMediaBar (XMB) not Linux.

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  29. You can add Ernie Ball the Guitar string maker to the list of Linux users. They converted the factory and Offices (including desktops) to Linux in 2003 after microsoft accused them of pirating Microsoft Software, and demanded a punitive payment.

    I use their strings on my guitar, and they are the best strings I've tried, they stay in tune better than anything else I've used on my guitar.

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  30. Last time I went to Chuck E. Cheese's a lot if not all of their digital attractions were running Fedora. Too bad I had to see the machine get rebooted to find out.

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  31. What is "interesting" is that Amazon, for example, depends on Linux for its operations yet it refused to provide a Linux client for its own ebook format.

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