ATM operators eye Linux as alternative to Windows XP

Sorry if this has been posted already.

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Oy! If they think they're having upgrade problems now...

 

While I would love to say "thank heavens for that" I'm afraid they're using Linux as some form of scape goat thinking that it will not need updated. In 10 years time we will probably just have 10 year old Linux kernels in ATMs that were never updated. :/

Whatever OS they choose it will still need administered and maintained, though having a specially designed Linux distro over full blown XP would be progress. If the absolutely, absurdly massive life cycle that XP got isn't good enough for them I'm not sure what is.

 

What's absurd about using software that continuously meeting the requirements?

 

Well, with Red Hat they could get up to 13 years of support, depending on when they acquire the OS (13 years if they get it right at release of a given version). The release cycles are such that they can get at least about 10 years, as once you get far enough into one version's lifecycle a newer version is released.

Although that's not that different from Windows (XP's very long lifecycle being the exception), Linux's generally lower system requirements mean they might be able to keep using the same hardware longer.