Interesting how much Linux has made in roads into our lives. It seems that some of the aairlines who use the Boeing 777 are using Linux as their entertainment center. Seems that each seat on the 777 has a built in screen so the passengers can choose different movies, music or other forms of entertainment. One of the bloggers over at Intel, Nathan Zeldas, stated that on a recent flight he spotted the Penguin:

So, I’m heading home from the US, and I fly on this Boeing 777, which is a really well-designed plane. Each seat has this touch screen in front, and every passenger can select from dozens of movies and shows, and view them at any time, in any order, with freeze, rewind and FF controls. With hundreds of passengers, this implies a central hard disk based video system of awesome proportions. Neat!

So guess what happens halfway across the Atlantic?

The flight attendant declares on the PA system that she’s sorry, some folks aren’t getting the video right, and she has to stop and restart the system. Yes, you got it: she has to do a reboot. The movie disappears, and every screen on the plane shows scrolling lines of techie text, as the system is loading this and initializing that. And at the top, what do you know? The cute little penguin, Tux. Hundreds of penguins, one per seat. This jetliner is running Linux!

Whoever said penguins can’t fly?…

So it is good to see that the TUX penguin is alive and well and that some of the airlines have chosen Linux to run their entertainment centers.

Have you seen the Penguin in any other applications? Let us know.

Comments welcome.

Intel blog by Nathan Zeldas here.

[tags]boeing, 777, linux, entertainment, center, [/tags]