Every seatback came equipped with a small touchscreen entertainment console that included a wide variety of mediocre on-demand media (Meet the Spartans, Be Kind Rewind, Ugly Betty) and games. These systems usually run an embedded version of Red Hat Linux, combined with a custom frontend. The consoles were a prime example of a great idea spoiled by lousy implementation. Many of the games had on-plane networked capability, but the connectivity features were limited to high-score lists and competing against other players in quiz games. There was a Prohibition-era Chicago-themed casino game which seemed like a ideal opportunity for networked competitive card games, but sadly, it had no network capability. The games were all either sloppily-coded games by DTI Software, or clumsy ports of Atari arcade classics (Centipede in particular suffered from slowdown and awkward d-pad controls–the original version featured a trackball). The browsing interface was clunky, too, especially when using the handheld control rather than the touch-screen. Strangely, there were about 2 minutes of ads tacked onto the front of all the video content, but the fast-forward functionality wasn’t disabled, so you could just skip through them.

It’s really too bad the offerings were so weak, because seat-back entertainment is a fantastic place for embedded Linux systems running on low-end hardware. Linux is ideal for applications where a low-end client is pulling content from a more powerful server.  Now, if they could only find a way to populate it with decent content. With video game companies like Nintendo dipping into their back catalog for downloadable content, I wonder how difficult it would be to license, for example, SNES titles for in-flight entertainment. Networked SNES Mario Kart competing against other passengers would be truly awesome. Alternatively, there are tons of really fun, casual flash games out there that could be adapted for airplane play. Tower defense would be another great way to pass the time on a plane.

I suspect the problem is that the software is provided as a package deal by the same company that sells the hardware, as part of a “complete in-flight entertainment solution,” which probably leaves that company phoning it on the games, rather than paying to license better content.

In the long run, this is probably irrelevant because the future of in-flight entertainment is obviously internet access. Some international carriers like Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines had already deployed Boeing’s in-flight wifi internet access system, but unfortunately US carriers were unwilling to shell out the money need to equip their planes, and without the US market Boeing could never make its system profitable. Eventually the costs will likely drop to the point where carriers start widely deploying onboard internet connections, and when that happens, you’ll never have to be bored on a plane again.

The name Debian is a portmanteau of project-founder Ian Murdock’s name with his then-girlfriend’s (now ex-wife’s) name, Debra. The lesson: don’t use girlfriends’ names for tattoos or software projects. Debian is famous for taking the concept of free software incredibly seriously. They even re-branded the Firefox browser as “Iceweasel”, because the name “Firefox” and attendant logos are trademarked by the Mozilla Corporation and the Debian project felt the terms of their use were incompatible with their policies on free software.

Debian is important for historical reasons, but also because it serves a base for numerous other popular distributions such as Ubuntu, Xandros (which is the default OS on the popular eee PC) and KNOPPIX.

While there are many people who do run Debian as their primary OS, I’ve always thought that it was in this aspect that Debian truly excelled–as a large pool of stable software for other distro developers to draw upon. The Debian project is nothing if not ambitious: it includes over 18,000 software packages and supports eleven different hardware architectures, most of which you’ve probably never heard of. You can run Debian on everything from the ARM chip which likely powers your cell phone, to giant IBM mainframes (your desktop computer is most likely an x86 architecture).

But trying to do so much inevitably leads to shortcomings. Debian has been famously plagued by slow release cycles, almost 3 years passed between woody and sarge (all Debian releases are named for Toy Story characters). As a desktop OS, Debian lacks the polish of desktop-focused distros like Ubuntu or SuSE. Debian has been accused of lacking focus, with resulting conflict and controversy between different developer communities.

But for the most part, Debian does a fantastic job of providing quality code, and it’s even more to the developers’ credit since they labor in relative obscurity on a massive workhorse project, not on the latest flashy project at the top of the DistroWatch list. And hey, any distribution that comes with its own manifesto is alright by me (I’ve always wanted to write a manifesto!).

Oh, also, this hostel has free internet terminals that run Linux, which is pretty sweet. I haven’t been able to figure out which distro, but the window manager looks like maybe a modified blackbox.

The terminals are connected to a wifi network which is locked (WPA encryption), and “not ready” for guests to use until October, so they won’t give us the key, which is very strange. BUT, there are wired ethernet jacks underneath each terminal. I’m assuming there used to be computers connected with ethernet here, but the jacks are still live so I pushed the keyboard and mouse from the non-functional terminal out of the way and set up my laptop. Since setting up here, I’ve loaned my laptop to like 5 different people to check their email or banking stuff.

Also, I am apparently the only person in the world who carries an ethernet cable along with my wireless-capable laptop. Maybe it’s just because I’m kind of a geek, but that seems very strange to me. There are still plenty of places where there’s no wireless, and carrying a patch cable just seems like carrying the power cord  to me.

But about 3 people have seen me with the laptop and been like, “Oh, is there wifi?” and I go, “No, but you can plug in right here.” and they’re like, “Oh, I don’t have a cable.”

Anyway, this XKCD is incredibly resonant.

If nothing else, these experiences have put the fear of God in me with regard to data backups and I’ve been burning CDs, uploading to servers and saving to flash drives like crazy during the good periods. The all-or-nothing nature of the issue leads me to suspect the problem might be as simple as a loose cable connecting the drive. I don’t have the necessary tools (a very small screwdriver, basically) with me to open up the computer and take a look, but I’m going to try to borrow one.

In the meantime, I did manage to download and burn a copy of the Ubuntu LiveCD, so at least I’ll be able to have a functional system, even without a hard drive. The worst/most annoying part about this is just not having any confidence in the hardware. It’s not fun playing roulette to see if your computer will work when you need it to. This goes for other pieces of tempremental, but vital equipment, too: cars that only start half the time, bikes that frequently get flat tires. In some ways, it would almost be better if they didn’t work at all. That way, you’d know where you stand.

Anyway, I’ve got a bunch of notes (mostly on paper) from the Budapest conference and the last couple of days, so I’ll try to get up to date when I get a chance. I’m flying to Palermo, Italy in a few hours for another hacker conference, but I’ve got a 10-hour layover in a small regional airport outside of Milan. I’m debating whether it’s worth going into town for lunch. Right now, I have to go pack.