The Benefits of an Embedded OS

2024-10-24 / Rob Spearman / Software

At Digitalis, we have taken a lot of extra time and care to build easy to use and easy to maintain planetarium systems. One exceptional but often misunderstood feature is our embedded operating system (OS).

What this means is that Digitalis maintains the OS for you — your planetarium system is akin to an appliance where you just turn it on and it starts up right to the simulation of the universe. Users and IT administrators are freed from having to understand or manage the OS or any applications and the immersion is never broken. Critically, we should note that our software updates are never going to interrupt your shows — you have complete control for when you want to schedule them.

Digitalis uses the popular open source Linux OS because it is fast, secure, customizable (by us), and has a large ecosystem of users and developers.

Here are some interesting data points about Linux:

• The 500 fastest supercomputers in the world all run Linux.
• SpaceX uses Linux for the primary flight computers of both the Dragon capsule and its rockets. The thousands of orbiting Starlink satellites run Linux.
• Linux powers more than 85% of smartphones, including all Android devices.
• More than 96% of the top 1 million websites are hosted on Linux servers.
• Facebook and Google both rely on Linux servers for their services, and Google uses Linux for employee desktops.
• Car companies including Audi, Ford, Honda, Mazda, Nissan, Mercedes, Suzuki, and Toyota run Automotive Grade Linux.
• Linux is a popular OS for self-driving cars.

Some IT administrators are rightly concerned about adding another device with an operating system they are unfamiliar with. However, with an embedded OS there is no need to learn Linux since no access to the OS is exposed to anyone. The system can just be treated as any other untrusted network device, and only given Internet access for software and data updates. A USB rescue disk allows restoring the OS from bare metal should the need arise, and Digitalis support experts can walk anyone through the process.

If someone tells you you have to learn Linux to use our systems, they are lying to you. Because of the extra effort we spend, you don't have to know how to maintain Linux — or any other OS — so that you can spend more time on more important things like your shows!