Er. Am I the only one to comment that this is a refreshing change to all the displays in shops, airports, etc that show the many ways that Windows errors and BSODs?
Linux on the desktop? Hell no, it’s on 80’ billboards.
(It’s not Arch btw)
Since the Raspberry Pi has been released it’s pretty common.
I just said “You know when Linux has taken over the world? When you don’t see blue screens on billboards.”
I mean, we have systemd-bsod now…
Not that I’ve ever seen it of course.
Running Windows for digital signage always struck me as an absolute waste of computing power. Just shove some low power Linux SBC into it and forget about it for about a decade or so
A lot of the time, the whole company that runs the signage uses Windows, and the signage just uses one of their standard PCs with their standard Windows image. They probably already have a bunch of spares. Makes it easier for IT if they don’t have to support another configuration.
Same here, was at the airport just last week and saw two screens running windows, absolute joke.
Gentoo?
Looks like systemd to me
It booted into a GUI afterwards, and had grub installed.
You would have seen Grub way before this screen.
It did and it went by so fast I couldn’t take a pic.
that is the exact opposite of systemd: sysvinit
you can recognize it by the iconic makefile line in the output, which indicates the setting CONCURRENCY=makefile has been chosen.
Ah, back in the days before Lennart and RHEL killed linux.
Having only run debian for a job interview - where I had to learn systemd and I fucking crushed it, woo - I would never have picked out that makefile line. Kudos.
Having run automation in 2002 based on package triggers, makefile, cron and awk, I completely approve of using makefiles to orchestrate startup. That’s actually genius.
I’m still furious they intentionally broke CentOS. And then had the audacity to emulate SmallFloppy Glasspane and bake some spyware into Fedora.
This is the first I’ve heard about spyware in Fedora. Care to elaborate?
Anonymous data is useless. Most any data can be de-anonymized. And tracking data is always to “improve services” until the companies are offered significant sums for it…
Linux is also used on billboards now? Nice
Always has been
I think I saw Windows on billboards and projectors a few times in my country. Don’t remember seeing Linux much
Maybe because Linux rarely die?
Good point
Always has been
I wonder if this being a digital billboard is actually cheaper than just hiring some workers to swap out the printed advertisement every, I dunno how often they normally change, week or so?
Labour is expensive
The benefit is being able to display 3+ different ads on rotation that change every minute or two. That, and labor is cheaper when they’re not 50ft off the ground
The digital ones are also visible at night so the advertiser gets more impressions and the billboard ad company can charge more.
I dunno how often they normally change, week or so?
Quick bit of googling suggests printed billboards have a ~$1k startup cost to the advertiser then a flat rate monthly fee, so I’d hazard a guess its probably 3-6 months at a time to amortize the startup cost
Not necessarily Debian
But systemd for sure!
the wilds of Nova Scotia
Walking across the Windsor Street exchange is wild for sure.
They have a cross walk now, I feel so safe now.
Guess the screen is too small to see the error on the bottom? Geez, they need a bigger screen?
looks like it’s starting cron? I’m assuming that’s debian/ubuntu then.
Could be anything else, but if i had to posit a likely guess that would be mine.
It’s “Debian”, btw.
Dang it. I swore I typed it out right. Uggh,
No way, Debian uses systemd, and systemd uses systemd-journald for logging, and doesn’t need cron, because it has timers.
Since systemd is default since Jessie (~2015), the question arises: How old is the billboard? Or how old is the software running on it?
I’m on debian bookworm right now and running rsyslogd and cron, because I prefer them.
Cron is active on all my Debian 12 boxes
Hardly the wilds: https://maps.app.goo.gl/Gw2aiyPXBCL8jJhV8
Wow, did the place change in two years. That blue building just SHOT up there.
The blue stuff is insulation/vapor barrier on new construction, so it’s not even completely built yet.
Why billboard system would have sane installed? I don’t think Debian or derivatives install it by default. Vnstat is also a bit odd, but maybe that’s just me. I assume they have multiple of these displays around and for them it would make more sense to use something more centralized, like zabbix, to monitor the whole network (obviously they could do that too).
I refuse to believe that Nova Scotia is a real place
It’s in Canada. Which is on Earth! Which is in Canada.
Maybe Devuan or another Debian derivative.
My money is on Raspbian. Because it’s very likely powered by a Raspberry Pi.
Reminds me of the garbage can that keeps crashing at the Tim Horton’s downtown
