Turbulence strikes Linux on a plane
Linux fans will be delighted to know that their operating system of choice is being used to power an airplane's multimedia system. Not such great news, though, was its fallibility, as recounted by Brandon Watts at OS Weekly, who tangled with Tux, the Linux penguin mascot, while returning from Paris.
While others on the plane could use touch screens to watch movies and TV or play games, Watts' screen showed a Red Hat error message--"a black and white boot screen of doom," he said. He figured out that touching the bottom-right corner of the screen repeatedly restarted the system, but it crashed 15 minutes into the movie. During a second attempt, others started experiencing the same problems, and ultimately the entire system crashed and had to be rebooted.
"I don't know about you, but the word 'reboot' isn't exactly something that I want to hear while flying in a plane at 30,000 feet in the air, even though it was funny to see Tux plastered on hundreds of screens at the same time," he said.
Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science. E-mail Stephen, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stshank. 
