The Linux community has rapidly spotted the Linux OS

Apr 9, 2015 09:07 GMT  ·  By

The Large Hadron Collider at CERN has been restarted after a two-year hiatus, and it looks like some of the researchers are using Ubuntu and a whole lot of other Linux-related props.

When researchers have to choose their operating system, they don't usually need too much time to think about it. They are going to use a Linux distribution, and the same happens with many, if not most, scientific endeavors. Whether it is the Fermilab in the United States, which actively works on Scientific Linux, or CERN in Switzerland, Linux is a given.

It's probably safe to say that there might be some projects out there that have gone another way, like Windows or some BSD flavor, but there aren't all that many. The server infrastructure of scientific projects like the Large Hadron Collider needs Linux, so why not use Linux on the workstations as well.

Scientists chose Linux

The Large Hadron Collider is now working again, and the people working there are not stopping after they found the Higgs boson, they want more. So, they are now back at work, and someone just posted an image from the control room of Atlas, one of the detectors at LHC.

You can immediately see an Ubuntu desktop, but some of you might notice that there is also some KDE in the background (Oxygen galore). There are probably many more Linux desktops lying around there, but you can't see them in the image.

Linux OSes have been spotted in all kinds of cool places, like on the International Space Station, in a NASA flight over the North Pole, in the Honda research labs powering the Asimo project, and even at the NASA headquarters. We are now adding the LHC to those places, although it's not a surprise.

If you've spotted Linux in a cool place, do not be shy and leave a comment below.