NASA replaces Windows XP on international space station laptops by Debian

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NASA has decided to use the operating system on the laptops in the international space station are used, to replace. In place of Windows XP, the machines will be equipped with Debian, a Linux-variant. NASA says that Debian is more secure and easier to manage.

The migration project covers dozens of laptops. These machines are used by the astronauts in the International Space Station used for daily activities, such as keeping a close eye on the inventory and control of cameras inside and outside the international space station. The notebooks operate within the so-called allows you to save network and were up to now equipped with Windows XP. The American space agency NASA decided, however, that the Microsoft operating system on the laptops will be replaced by Debian, a popular Linux distribution.

According to Keith Chuvala, who works for a company that the migration will run, and for a number of reasons decided to switch to Debian. So the NASA operating systems, the more quickly yourself can patch and adjust as needed. Also the stability and reliability of Linux in general and Debian in particular would have played a role. Chuvala receive migration path to Debian, which still is chosen for Debian 6.0 instead of the newly released 7.0 ‘Wheezy’, the help of The Linux Foundation.

Linux is already widely used in the ISS; so run a lot of systems on Scientific Linux and versions of Red Hat Linux. Also the robotic arm is controlled using the open-source operating system. The laptops which the astronauts participate in daily, worked, turned, however, still on Windows XP. Probably plays in the decision to have XP to phase out also a role that, for the operating system from april 2014 no more updates are coming. In addition, the OS for years the butt of malware. In 2008, a Russian cosmonaut even a laptop to the iSS with which the W32.Gammima.AG worm was installed. The machine had to with the necessary effort to be disinfected.