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US Navy buys 260 Apple Xserves to run Yellow Dog Linux

Wednesday, August 6, 2003 · 10:06 pm · 32 Comments

“Apple Computer has scored its biggest ever sale of Xserve servers – thanks to Linux. Terra Soft Solutions has announced that Lockheed Martin will buy 260 Xserve servers running its Yellow Dog Linux, with the eventual destination being the US Navy’s submarines. On board clusters of the Apple rack server will be used for real-time image processing… The deal is worth $1.9 million in hardware alone, Terra Soft founder Kai Staats told us today,” Andrew Orlowski reports for The Register.

Orlowski reports, “‘We’re the only Apple reseller on the planet with a license to install a non-Apple operating system,’ says Staats.”

Full article here.

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Comment Feed

32 Comments

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Birdseed

Wednesday, August 6, 2003 - 11:21 pm · Reply

Yellow Dog is pretty good, I used to use it on an old iMac. It’s a decent Linux distribution, which should be more than adequate for image analysis tasks.
Most (western military) imagery is manipulated and worked on, on Unix systems. This is a nice score for Apple. Hopefully they get more of these types of sales in the future.
Terra Soft must be mighty happy……..
Sol

Wednesday, August 6, 2003 - 11:24 pm · Reply

Is this a major shift for US Navy purchases? I thought they only used Windows NT products. From the footage I saw on television Windows and Dell hardware seems to be the usual combination of the military’s computer systems as well. In any case, it is good to see that Apple products are used in such important places as submarines. Next stop: space.
neilt

Thursday, August 7, 2003 - 12:40 am · Reply

space: nasa already uses macs all over….in fact nasa is one of the largest installations of Macs anywhere.
check this link as well:
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/jan2001/nf2001013_344.htm
don’t know what ever became of that experiment
Binky

Thursday, August 7, 2003 - 12:47 am · Reply

I work on Navy Acoustic Software for surface ships and submarines. Most mission critical task are strictly Unix based. With the Linux certification by the U.S. Govt’ yesterday, more linux based solutions will be the norm. The Navy does not like M$ in any mission critical system.

I don’t know what they use for normal office tasks.
Hes Nikke

Thursday, August 7, 2003 - 1:06 am · Reply

um… aren’t XServes supposed to be loud?? and aren’t submarines supposed to be quiet?

can someone please explain the logic of sticking noisy computers on a silent vessel?!
Kevin Arvin

Thursday, August 7, 2003 - 1:42 am · Reply

The US Navy has a 7 year/ 8 billion dollar contract with EDS called NMCI (Navy/Marine Corps. Intranet). Nearly all personnel are using Dell desktops, notebooks, or thin clients. All are running Win2K. Most servers are also Win2K. All other vendors are being phased out.

Some users are exempt, depending on their job function.
oliver

Thursday, August 7, 2003 - 1:54 am · Reply

the slot load Xserves are a lot quieter than the first generation. I am sure, if need be, they can be modified to be virtually noiseless.
drrbc

Thursday, August 7, 2003 - 2:03 am · Reply

Didn’t a divide by zero error on NT 4 bring an Aegis to a complete and total STOP and necessitate it being towed back to port a few years back? Or did I dream that?
Zack

Thursday, August 7, 2003 - 2:35 am · Reply

Wouldn’t a divide by zero error be the fault of the application programmer and not the fault of the OS?
gde

Thursday, August 7, 2003 - 2:39 am · Reply

re Aegis ship stopper , the navy’s mag “Proceedings” I think the title was did a write up on the event .. my impression was a major risk to vessel and crew occurred and that lives
in a different situation most certainly would have been lost
the question is “will you bet your life on windows” ?
Nagromme

Thursday, August 7, 2003 - 7:12 am · Reply

I’m sure an Xserve is not the loudest piece of equipment found on a submarine. The Navy can surely contain the fan sound.
David

Thursday, August 7, 2003 - 7:44 am · Reply

Zack, yes the divide by zero was the app programmers fault, but the crashing app was able to bring down the system, that caused instability in the ship wide network and crashed the rest of the systems. In a *nix variant the app would have crashed, but that would have been it.
dragon_x

Thursday, August 7, 2003 - 8:35 am · Reply

I really wish NT lusers would get over themselves and their MS Windows is everything and the ONLY thing anybody will buy or use. For real applciations and important tasks Linux and other systems crush Microsoft every which way. Problem is all to may IT lackies are Microsoft lemmings and only find out way to late that Windows OS is the biggest, buggiest and most compromised OS every built – that includes W Xp (NT 5.1) and Windows 2003 …
Fudge

Thursday, August 7, 2003 - 9:33 am · Reply

Who the hell decided to spend my tax dollars on a friggin’ MAC?!

Oh my God, this country is doomed! Installing toys in nuclear submarines – this is what it has come to now. How about using battle-tested server hardware for this demanding, mission-critical installation?

Idiots installing MACS into the military now. This will be bad.
Atomic Bomb

Thursday, August 7, 2003 - 9:35 am · Reply

Fudge,

True, the Navy chose Xserve because their existing server hardware was battle-tested – and failed the test.
Fred Mertz

Thursday, August 7, 2003 - 9:38 am · Reply

This will be great for Xserve (and even OS X Server) as word filters throughout the enterprise. They’ll take a look at the hardware and also the OS and see how great a solution (and inexpensive) it really is. And, Fudge, it’s “friggin’ Mac,” not “friggin’ MAC.” “Mac” is short for “Macintosh,” not an all-caps acronym. Please try to learn something about which you are commenting in the future.
Fudge

Thursday, August 7, 2003 - 9:43 am · Reply

It’s no surprise they ditched the MAC OS immediately, but I still would not trust hardware from a toy maker like Apple. What the hell is an Xserver? Get a real dual Xeon PowerEdge Dell blade server running Win Server 2003 for cryin’ out loud. This is a waste of money to buy MAC toys. They won’t work. I’m writing to my Congressman right now…
MJ

Thursday, August 7, 2003 - 9:45 am · Reply

With all the UNIX blades and servers, it is interesting that they at least chose the Xserve computer. Is it because the xserve is a great value and really is dependable, or is it because of the consultant group being Mac heads?

It would be nice to see the OS X in mission critical apps, but I’m guessing it isn’t quite there right now. As much as I like OS X, I wouldn’t want to depend on it either when facing an enemy sub. Give me a stable, vanilla unix that won’t crash once in 5 years–on two systems, and I’ll feel more secure.

Oh. I see the next article explains why the xserve–low power consumption. That means no Intel. The G4 has the most bang per watt. That is obvious. But good price/performance ratio is better news for people not in subs on batteries or in render farms.
MJ

Thursday, August 7, 2003 - 9:47 am · Reply

NOTE:
Do not feed the “Fudge” Troll. He is just jerking your chain. Why, he is probably using a mac right now — of course with one hand–so he can jerk with the other.
Mauricio Babilonia

Thursday, August 7, 2003 - 9:49 am · Reply

Isn’t Fudge slang for excrement? Certainly says something about what it’s posts are worth.