9 Powerful Things Powered By Linux!

Linux being just limited to personal computers is a thing of past. How about the most powerful things of the world sharing your operating system? Yes, Linux is growing and how! We bring to you 9 awesome technologies running on Linux!

9. The Most Powerful Supercomputers Today Run Linux!

Yes you might know about this one as we wrote a story about this fact titled Here Are The 10 Most Powerful Supercomputers And They All Run Linux!. And if the talk about the top 500 fastest supercomputers, 90 per cent of them run on some variant of Linux.

8. Linux Powers Japan's Bullet Trains

We all know about the Shinkansen, (popularly known as Bullet Train), which is the network of high-speed railway lines in Japan. The trains are famous for their super fast speeds of 240–320 km/h. The Shinkansen uses an Automatic Train Control (ATC) system to eliminate the requirement of the trackside signals. Additionally, it uses the Automatic Train Protection system which is a centralized traffic control that networks and computerizes all tasks related to train movements, tracks, stations and schedules. And yes, most of these systems are powered by Linux.

7. High-Tech Road Traffic Control Running On Linux!

How about high-tech traffic control system, which can read and influence the rate of traffic flow, read the time intervals of outgoing and incoming network traffic that can help in making complex network traffic policies and shape the mechanism using a variety of algorithms. Sounds like a super technology? As per Funtoo's report, San Francisco has recently started to use such traffic controllers and yes they are powered by Linux.

6. In-Vehicle-Infotainment And Communications Systems Of Toyota Runs Linux

The In-Vehicle-infotainment (IVI) systems which are used in automobiles is the latest trend in the auto industry which delivers entertainment and information content to the travellers. Although every IVI system has different features, the basic functions these devices perform are managing and playing audio content, utilizing navigation for driving, delivering entertainment to the rear seater like movies, games, social networking, reading out incoming and sending outgoing SMS text messages, making phone calls, and providing access to the network-enabled content like traffic conditions, sports scores and weather forecasts.

And one of the largest automobile manufacturers, Toyota is using Linux as the base platform for its IVI technologies! Aren't you proud?

5. Linux Powers The New York Stock Exchange

One of the fastest moving businesses of trading stocks, bonds and derivatives, the world of financial exchanges are becoming Linux friendly. Yes, the largest exchange of the world, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has replaced their Unix based systems with Linux. The systems can generate 1,500,000 quotes and process 250,000 orders every second together with producing acknowledgments of every transaction within two milliseconds. Go Linux!

4. Linux Helping In Power Particle Physics Research

CERN, the largest particle physics laboratory of the world trusts upon our beloved Linux to control its huge particle accelerator. The laboratory makes use of Scientific Linux (SL), the Linux distro produced by Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). Scientific Linux like any other Linux distro is free and open sourced and is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

3. Linux On Air Traffic Control Systems

The FAA's (Federal Aviation Administration) Common ARTS software of the United States has been moved to Linux. The air traffic control computer system, Common ARTS (or Automated Radar Terminal System), is used to track aircrafts. It automates the air traffic controllers job by synchronizing various radar and human inputs. Most of the TRACONs around U.S. are using this system.

2. Nuclear Submarines Running On Linux

The U.S. Department of Defense is using Linux in many of its technologies and the U.S. Army is “the” single largest install base for Red Hat Linux. But the most amazing amongst all of these is the nuclear submarine fleet of US Navy which is powered by Linux. This nuclear submarine was delivered by Lockheed Martin to the US government in 2004, and it is powered by Red Hat Linux.

1. The Four Web Bigshots, Google, Amazon, Twitter and Facebook; They All Use Linux!

The largest search giant Google, the biggest social networking sites Facebook and Twitter, and the most popular e-merchant Amazon they all share your OS, Linux, for various web and cloud services!

So next time you tell some one that you are using Linux, say that proudly!