Aside from Linux running on NASA hardware, phones and consoles. Does it run on ATM machines, PDAs and point of sale monitors?

I ask this because I’ve seen Windows being used in airport terminals and really old versions being used for cash machines as well. The crowdstrike problem made this more prevalent by seeing “non end user computers” using the OS.

Does Linux fill this niche as well do you know? I don’t recall hearing any big name embedded distro used for those sorts of machines. Maybe Alpine Linux or NetBSD?

Thank you in advance for your input!

  • data1701d (He/Him)English
    1·
    1 month ago

    For some reason, my brain forgot that Domino’s is a multinational chain. 🤦‍♂️ Still, I would say for POS systems Linux is better because the developer can have much more control than a Windows machine. Still, I see Costco using some POS machines that run Windows 10.

    On another note, from what I’ve tried of Fedora, I liked what I saw. I mostly use Debian for several reasons: my first exposure to Linux was Ubuntu VMs and Raspberry Pis, Debian (as Ubuntu’s upstream) follows conventions I’m accustomed to (mostly apt, but also just how Debian groups packages in general), and has great community support (though its wiki kind of sucks, so I often check Arch wiki). I use Trixie (Testing) on my desktop to get newer software, but on my laptop, I run stable and just use Flatpak for anything that has seen significant updates since Bookworm came out.