this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2026

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Ubuntu spotted in the wild (lemmy.ml)

submitted 4 weeks ago by mosspiglet@discuss.online to c/linux@lemmy.ml

63 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Airport advertising sign, looks like they forgot to make the looping video full screen.

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[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 59 points 4 weeks ago (8 children)

It's literally in every display you see in the world. OEMs stopped fucking with Windows years ago.

Go to any fast food restaurants with those vertical displays? Linux.

Check-in kiosks that have been deployed in the past 5 years? Linux.

Your router, most platforms you interact with online, media devices, cars (they should be using RTOS, but many use Debian), movie theaters, POS systems...

Linux is the most deployed OS on this planet by far. I'm kind of annoyed when people don't realize this.

I actually hate when engineers are just letting a desktop sit like this. It's sloppy and unnecessary.

[–] mosspiglet@discuss.online 21 points 4 weeks ago

Right, the thing that caught my eye was running a full desktop OS for a sign board.

[–] AngryPancake@sh.itjust.works 15 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

The display in the underground trains of Munich and Nuremberg still uses windows. It's such a pet peeve of mine, why would they pay for a license for such a simple use case?

[–] Goodlucksil@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

Bold of you to assume they are paying for a license

[–] wltr@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 4 weeks ago

Otherwise they’re an easy target for some fines, I think. It’s rather they pay the licence and nobody cares the money is wasted. And funnelled to the US, instead of staying locally.

[–] thomasw@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I saw this windows-based display just last week. Either something went wrong activating it or they don't pay

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[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 3 points 4 weeks ago

They probably paid for some long ago, and don't want to pay again for updated versions of everything. They could probably even get away running stuff on Wine 🤣

[–] kautau@lemmy.world 9 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (2 children)

engineers are just letting

That’s a bold claim cotton, I’m sure there are no project managers, middle managers, or executives involved

[–] jaybone@lemmy.zip 7 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (2 children)

Tbf it is a lot easier to just leave the DE running than try to tweak a non DE env, especially for media playing.

Also it is probably easier for whatever IT technician to use this thing, update content, do troubleshooting, etc.

[–] wltr@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 4 weeks ago (4 children)

I imagine an IT technician running around pressing keys on real physical keyboards connected to all machines, instead of connecting via ssh, or even using Ansible.

[–] jaybone@lemmy.zip 3 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah this was what I was trying to get across to the other reply here. That tech is probably using VNC or something, rather than a shell over ssh. And they follow what I imagine are very bad docs from whoever built this thing, click on this, click on that, click loop video, click enable fullscreen.

And that was probably a requirement for the devs to deliver it that way. Because they know what kind of techs that customer hires to maintain these things. And anyone comfortable with Linux and the CLI is not applying for this technician job. (lol I’m making a lot of assumptions here. AITA?) This is the story I have created in my mind about this broken kiosk and I’m sticking to it.

[–] wltr@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 4 weeks ago

I’m totally with you on this!

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[–] jjlinux@lemmy.zip 2 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I disagree. Using a DE is more 'intuitive', but using CLI commands I way easier and effective, if you know the commands. A couple of scripts can run on cron schedules and you can just forget about it until it breaks (if it ever breaks).

[–] jaybone@lemmy.zip 4 points 4 weeks ago

For a dev/engineer/linux user, I agree. For the IT technician who probably mostly works with Windows fixing printer drivers, who every now and then has to go change the ad content on the kiosks, he probably curses “that damn Linux” every time. I’m betting for him the CLI is not easier.

[–] bytevoyagerdev@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 weeks ago

As an engineer who actually made one of these systems, can confirm management drove the use of Ubuntu desktop

[–] tomiant@piefed.social 7 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

The transit information around here is all running some janky ass kernel from 20 years ago, and sure, it works, until it don't. I appreciate the effort and all, but damn I wish they'd take shit more seriously.

[–] Matriks404@lemmy.world 2 points 4 weeks ago

I mean if it works, what's the problem? Do these often break down?

[–] hexagonwin@lemmy.today 4 points 3 weeks ago

for some reason, all these devices i see around these days seem to run android (one of 5/6/7/8 based on the exposed ui) or win10.. haven't seen any linux desktop-ish thing here

[–] jlow@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 4 weeks ago

ATMs? Why, Windoge, of course! What could possibly go wrong!

[–] UnspecificGravity@piefed.social 2 points 4 weeks ago

Yep. Even a lot of the cheap little game consoles and shit you get from China run some variety of Linux.

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[–] url@feddit.fr 49 points 4 weeks ago (4 children)

Who runs a full desktop on these things

[–] OldChicoAle@lemmy.world 35 points 4 weeks ago

This airport

[–] wltr@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

Yeah, I wonder will mpv run on its own, without any DE? At least we can run Kodi that way, but I guess at least some video players are able to run without any DE or even WM. If not all, but I’m not really sure on this.

[–] pryre@lemmy.world 12 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Not sure about mpv, but I use a gstreamer pipeline to tender cameras to the raw KMS terminal display. It works much more reliably (I.e. Predictable loading times and no stutter) compared to loading a DE first. Noting that it was on a low power RPI.

[–] wltr@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

I used to run LibreELEC (a standalone Kodi with some very basic locked down Debian) on a Raspberry Pi 2B with 2 GB microSD card. Works very well running 1080P H264 content (version 1.2, version 1.1 does not run 1080P well) over LAN.

I upgraded the setup for Orange Pi PC One, as it allows to be less picky about what I download, and decodes H265. But even RPi2 is quite capable, especially when you need to loop one video, which you can encode as you like.

Saying that, it’s surprising someone would even consider running a full blown Ubuntu on it. To me, that’s a sign of a sheer incompetence. I have no other explanation for this phenomenon.

[–] jjlinux@lemmy.zip 7 points 4 weeks ago

It's totally doable from CLI. A script using either mpv - - vo=drm should be a good starting point.

I think on X server you could just use startx or xinit as well.

[–] Atomic@sh.itjust.works 7 points 4 weeks ago

It's not running an individual desktop for each screen. The screens are just mirrored to one desktop.

You'll usually have a couple of "ad desktops" and then you just hook up multiple screens all over your facility to those desktops, so you have some redundancy and can easily run different ad cycles so they all don't sync up.

[–] MousePotatoDoesStuff@lemmy.world 5 points 4 weeks ago

Hey, as long as it works...

[–] Matriks404@lemmy.world 38 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

Linux is pretty common in embedded devices. Information screens in buses in my city (Kraków) which display stuff like next stops, OSM map, time, etc. run some kind of customized Linux distribution I think, and you can often see bunch of Tuxes along with console output when it boots up.

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 18 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Sadly, Windows is also common in signage. Why ever.

[–] MangoCats@feddit.it 5 points 3 weeks ago

There was that recent "malware security" update that crashed so so many systems in airports. I saw more than one Blue Screen of Death that day.

[–] Hazel@piefed.blahaj.zone 17 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

They had to reset my screen in the airplane once, booted into Linux too 👍🏼

[–] Petter1@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 4 weeks ago

I had an android one

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 15 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

that's an old ass version of ubuntu. here's hoping this screen has very restricted network access.

[–] Matriks404@lemmy.world 6 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

Knowing Canonical and Ubuntu it is probably still suported and it will be for the next decade.

[–] Mwa@thelemmy.club 6 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

a kinda old Ubuntu version ngl.

[–] wilmo@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

18.04 it looks like

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[–] jol@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 4 weeks ago

With Microsoft destroying it's reputation for very long device support, I can only imagine they've also destroyed all trust in them from the embedded devices and outdoors hardware industry. These machines don't get a lot of updates and it would suck to have to throw them away because software support ended.

[–] boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net 5 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Imagine running thunderbird and firefox on an info board

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[–] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 4 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

cual aeropuerto es eso?

[–] OldChicoAle@lemmy.world 4 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

AIQ. Querétaro Intercontinental Airport.

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[–] Cromer4ever@lemmy.world 3 points 4 weeks ago

In my city's history, there's a TV that has a TV box running Ubuntu. It's always on the home screen

[–] AnnaFrankfurter@lemmy.ml 3 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

that's Ubuntu 18

[–] Vitaly@feddit.uk 2 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I think my bus runs openbsd or Linux too!

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[–] DataCrime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 4 weeks ago

Loooooooooooooooong Boi 🐧

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