Lewis
Member
50 Places Linux is Running That You Might Not Expect
It was not long ago when Microsoft Windows had a tight stranglehold on the operating system market. Walk into a Circuit City or Staples, it seemed, and virtually any computer you took home would be running the most current flavor of Windows. Ditto for computers ordered direct from a manufacturer. In the last decade, though, the operating system market has begun to change. Slightly more than 5% of all computers now run Mac, according to NetMarketShare.com. Linux is hovering just beneath 1% of the overall market share in operating systems. And although that might sound like a small number, Linux is far more than just a fringe OS. In fact, it's running in quite a few more places than you probably suspect. Below are fifty places Linux is running today in place of Windows or Mac. For easy reading, they are divided amongst government, home, business, and educational usage.
Government Users of Linux
Governments at all levels (national, state, federal and international) have opted to deploy Linux across their computer systems for a host of reasons. Some are purely technological, with the governments in question preferring the open-source benefits of the OS. Others are financial, as Linux is typically far less expensive than buying a license for Windows. Still others are political, as organizations like the World Trade Organization have actively pressured governments to shun Microsoft products. In any case, here are some of the governing bodies that now run Linux on their computers.
U.S. Department of Defense
According to Linux.com, the United States Department of Defense is the "single biggest install base for Red Hat Linux" in the world. Nor was it an unconscious choice, as Brigadier General Nick Justice, the Deputy Program Officer for the Army's Program Executive Office proclaims "open source software is part of the integrated network fabric which connects and enables our command and control system to work effectively, as people's lives depend on it." Justice went on to state that "when we rolled into Baghdad, we did it using open source", and that he was indeed Red Hat's "biggest customer."
U.S. Navy Submarine Fleet
FreeSoftwareMagazine.com reveals that "the US Navy nuclear submarine fleet is using GNU/Linux" as well.
The City of Munich, Germany
The city of Munich, Germany has "chosen to migrate its 14,000 desktops to a free Linux distribution, rather than a commercial version of the open source operating system" according to a 2005 ZD Net report. The distribution Munich chose was Debian, and is said to have "considered several alternatives before choosing Debian", settling on it ultimately because of price and the degree to which it could be customized to meet Munich's municipal computing needs. The German Foreign Office, as well as the city of Vienna, also opted to make the switch to Debian in 2005.
Spain
LWN.net maintains that Spain has long been the strongest supporter and user of Linux from a national government standpoint. Linux has spread rapidly throughout Spain since 2002, when the government of Extremadura actually created its own cutomized Linux distribution (called LinEx) based on Debian, using GNOME as its "default desktop environment." Since then, the government "gave away the product CDs at every opportunity -- in government offices, magazines and even daily newspapers" as part of a determined and ongoing effort to get LinEx out to everybody." By handing out the software for free and continuing to publicize its availability, Linux spread from Extremadura throughout the rest of Spain and remains widely used today.
Federal Aviation Administration
Few government users of Linux appear to be happier with their choice to switch than the United States Federal Aviation Administration. According to Wikipedia, the FAA announced in 2006 that it "had completed a migration to Red Hat Enterprise Linux in one third of the scheduled time and saved 15 million dollars" in the process of doing so. Score it another big-time government client for the Red Hat distribution of Linux.
French Parliament
French Parliament opted in November 2006 to dump Windows in favor of Ubuntu Linux, according to ZD Net The move was part of a comprehensive shake-up in the software run on Parliament computers, resulting ultimately in "1,154 French parliamentary workstations running on Linux, with OpenOffice.org productivity software, the Firefox Web browser and an open-source e-mail client." Despite the training costs, Parliament officials named cost savings and technological superiority of open-source software for parliamentary purposes as reasons for the switch.
State-Owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of China
According to a 2005 InformationWeek report, the state-owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of China "decided to roll out Linux in all of its 20,000 retail branches." As the largest bank in all of China, the institution committed to buying "an unrestricted user license" as part of a full-blown integration of Linux "throughout its entire banking operations network" culminating in 2008. At the time, InformationWeek stated that this represented the largest deployment of Linux to date in the Chinese financial sector. Essentially, Linux became "the basis for its web server and a new terminal platform" at the bank.
Pakistani Schools & Colleges
In 2002, the government of Pakistan launched a Technology Resource Mobilization Unit to promote the spread of open-source software (including Linux) throughout that country. The unit (comprised of academics, businesspeople and government officials) has largely succeeded in educating computer users throughout Pakistan about what free software has to offer. As a result, Pakistan is using Linux in many of its public schools and colleges and plans to ultimately run it on all of its government computer systems. In countries like Pakistan, where little money is available for government investment in technology, Linux and other open source software is appealing from a cost perspective.
Cuba
Cuba, never a fan of capitalism or corporate enterprise, took the step of developing its own Linux distribution (called "Nova") to replace Microsoft Windows in February 2009. According toCarribean Net News, the switch to Linux was motivated not by technology or cost issues, but instead constituted "the latest front of the communist island's battle against what it views as U.S. hegemony." Nova was introduced during a conference held in the name of "technological sovereignty" and was touted as essential to Cuba's "desire to replace the Microsoft software running most of the island's computers." Evidently, Cuban officials feared that U.S. security agencies could access Microsoft software code and in the process discover secrets belonging to the Cuban government. Whether or not Cuba's switch to Linux has any practical effect on relations between the two countries is debateable, but they have been using Nova ever since.
Macedonia's Ministry of Education and Science
Ubuntu.com reported in November 2007 that every student in Macedonia would use computer workstations powered by Ubuntu Linux, as part of that country's "A Computer For Every Child" program. In total, more than 180,000 workstations were covered by the project, described as "one of the largest known thin client and desktop Linux deployments ever undertaken." Indeed, Macedonia's Minister for the Information Society dubbed it "the largest and most important education project undertaken in the 15-year history of the Republic of Macedonia." Under the agreement, 160,000 of the 180,000 workstations were to be virtual PC terminals, while the other 20,000 were to be stand-alone PCs, all of which accomodated one student each and ran the Ubuntu Linux OS.
U.S. Postal Service
The U.S. Postal Service is a textbook example of a once-avowed Windows loyalist switching to Linux for purely technical reasons. While the Postal Service ran Windows NT on its servers until the bitter end, they then switched to using over 900 Linux clusters spead throughout the country for use in sorting the nation's bulk mail. They use technology from Pacific Northwest Software, who proudly explains in-depth the work it has done in switching the Postal Service to a Linux-based infrastructure. Those interested are encouraged to check it out here.
U.S. Federal Courts
Wired.com reported in 2001 that the government of Mexico City had concluded that "they can no longer justify the ever rising cost of Microsoft Windows when the cost of Linux software is very low." In an interview with Wired, the city's technical coordinator, José Barberán, "announced plans to switch city computers to the Linux operating system and to use the money it saves to fund social welfare programs." At the end of the day, when faced with pressure to increase social spending, "cutting costs by moving to open-source software was a logical choice for the mayor."
Garden Grove, California
Perhaps the earliest governmental adopter of Linux on our list is Garden Grove, California, which made the switch all the way back in 1995, according to Linux Journal. Evidently, the city was in a cash crunch when it opted to give Linux a try, and found that it saved so much money that they later decided to roll out Linux across the city, including on some desktop systems.
Largo, Florida
A 2003 Linux.com article entitled "Largo Loves Linux More Than Ever" explains how the Floridian city came to rely so heavily on Linux software. After having such great success running city computers on Linux, Largo's municipal government soon thereafter was "talking about Linux-based terminals in all the city's police cars." To their credit, Linux.com remarked that Largo's system administrators (who are responsible for managing the city's Linux machines) were "the least harassed, least worried, calmest sysadmins we have ever met." Perhaps there is a correlation?
It was not long ago when Microsoft Windows had a tight stranglehold on the operating system market. Walk into a Circuit City or Staples, it seemed, and virtually any computer you took home would be running the most current flavor of Windows. Ditto for computers ordered direct from a manufacturer. In the last decade, though, the operating system market has begun to change. Slightly more than 5% of all computers now run Mac, according to NetMarketShare.com. Linux is hovering just beneath 1% of the overall market share in operating systems. And although that might sound like a small number, Linux is far more than just a fringe OS. In fact, it's running in quite a few more places than you probably suspect. Below are fifty places Linux is running today in place of Windows or Mac. For easy reading, they are divided amongst government, home, business, and educational usage.
Government Users of Linux
Governments at all levels (national, state, federal and international) have opted to deploy Linux across their computer systems for a host of reasons. Some are purely technological, with the governments in question preferring the open-source benefits of the OS. Others are financial, as Linux is typically far less expensive than buying a license for Windows. Still others are political, as organizations like the World Trade Organization have actively pressured governments to shun Microsoft products. In any case, here are some of the governing bodies that now run Linux on their computers.
U.S. Department of Defense
U.S. Navy Submarine Fleet
The City of Munich, Germany
Spain
Federal Aviation Administration
French Parliament
State-Owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of China
Pakistani Schools & Colleges
Cuba
Macedonia's Ministry of Education and Science
U.S. Postal Service
U.S. Federal Courts
AAX.net explains that the U.S. Federal Courts rely on Linux for all manner of administrative tasks, including "case management, case tracking, finance and accounting, probation and pretrial services." Linux has been used by the courts since November of 2003, when PEC Solutions assisted in orchestrating a "migration of the Federal Judiciary to a Linux-based system."
Government of Mexico City
Garden Grove, California
Largo, Florida
