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Why Do Companies Still Use Microsoft Windows For Displays?

205 points by edent 13y ago

seivan 13y ago
Like anything shitty in tech being used, decisions pulled by non-engineers.
- vincie 13y ago
  Bingo!
- _random_ 13y ago
  ...who are good at estimating business value rather then playing with obscure unsupported tech.
  - stephen_g 13y ago
    No, usually they're going with the option that feels 'safe'. Things that tick the right boxes on paper, but may often end up being far more expensive/difficult to support etc. when it actually comes down to it...
  - seivan 13y ago
    Sure dude.
  - Iftheshoefits 13y ago
    No, typically the "non-engineers" in this case are management-level types who are at least somewhat skilled in estimating the impact of their decisions on their status with respect to internal politics. That's "business value" in some sense, but not the one you seem to mean.
- chromanoid 13y ago
  They have to use and sell the stuff.
kmfrk 13y ago
I think all the departure table screen I've ever seen have run Windows. Always wondered what the hell, especially since it doesn't even seem to provide stability.
rwmj 13y ago
Some ideas: - The cost of a Windows license is tiny compared to the cost of the hardware and software. - The cost of installation and maintenance: How much does it cost to pay someone to attach that screen to the wall and run wires around the building to the room containing the server? - Back in 1995 it probably did make sense to use Windows, since it had wider support for hardware and good developer tools. Now that there is a huge amount of software written in the 90s for Windows, it's going to take a very long time to change that (if ever). - Windows might actually be better for this even now.
- mtgx 13y ago
  If Microsoft is selling them these "solutions" (not products) directly, then it's likely the hardware costs several times more than if you'd buy it from the store.
JIghtuse 13y ago
Yep, it is pretty common. In Novosibirsk (Russia) such displays installed in subways (metro) and all of them shows some error when I see them. It is weird.
radicalbyte 13y ago
The total cost of using Windows is (probably) lower than using Linux. These displays are often custom work - building something like that is a couple of days work for a WPF or Flash (/Air) developer. The vast majority of those use Windows. And I've not even touched on the administration costs.. To be honest I'm more concerned when I see ATMs running Windows 98; at least these advertising displays can't do any real damage...
- MarcScott 13y ago
  It freaked me out when an ATM BSODed on me. Its happen when I've used a Tesco self-service checkout as well.
  - jbrooksuk 13y ago
    Tesco self-service checkouts break all the bloody time on me. Watching it reboot is kind of fun though.
sillysaurus2 13y ago
Because .NET makes it very easy for average developers to write GUI programs, and Visual Studio is what they use to write them. In theory, this developer could just use Mono to run his .NET app on Linux. But that requires them to learn how to do that. Personally, I've never found a clear tutorial on how to take a .NET GUI app that you've just written in Visual Studio and get it running on Mono. I haven't looked in several years, so I thought I'd give it a try right now. I googled "visual studio mono" and these were the top 3 results: http://www.mono-project.com/Visual_Studio_Integration http://www.mono-project.com/Visual_Studio_Integration http://www.mono-project.com/Working_with_Mono_and_Visual_Studio http://www.mono-project.com/Working_with_Mono_and_Visual_Stu... http://www.mono-project.com/GettingStartedWithMonoTools http://www.mono-project.com/GettingStartedWithMonoTools None of those are clear at all. The second page links to this screencast: http://www.mfconsulting.com/product/prj2make-sharp/tutorial/TestInMono-SwfApp.html http://www.mfconsulting.com/product/prj2make-sharp/tutorial/... which illustrates how to use this thing with Visual Studio 2003(!) and demonstrates part of the problem: the Mono version of the app looks noticeably different from the native Windows version. Sure, this can probably be fixed, but it's yet another issue that the dev has to spend time learning how to hack around. This situation results in substantial cognitive overhead. It's unlikely that an average .NET dev will be able to go into work, install this Mono plugin, compile their app using it, and present to their coworkers, "Look! We don't have to change our process at all, and we can deploy our app on the latest Ubuntu with a minimum of hassle." It's hard to imagine how wonderful it is to build .NET apps compared to dealing with Qt, because Visual Studio's GUI designer is just so good. Suffice to say, there are a lot of network effects that keep a developer mentally locked into Visual Studio's paradigm of "here's how you make this GUI form;" a paradigm which is immensely difficult for Linux to support natively. I think it's a mistake for Linux to even try to support this, though, because it's probably focusing on the wrong problem. The way to beat Microsoft is to make it so easy to write cross platform business apps that newer generations never even bother figuring out how to install Visual Studio. I think the web browser will be that solution within the next decade. It's not quite there yet -- it's way easier to get a GUI workflow up and running using VS's designer -- but it seems inevitable. So if you share the author's concerns, then the best course of action is to write some quality tutorials for your web frameworks, and to invent easier frameworks. The advantages of the web will naturally outweigh any possible native program advantage.
mariusz79 13y ago
Most of the software dev in the world don't know anything besides one language (either java or vb) and one operating system they encountered right after school. And even when they do - management doesn't.
zdw 13y ago
People use what they know. Given a hammer, everything looks like a nail. If you work in IT for any length of time, you come across people who use Excel as a text combiner to parse tabular text in ways similar to how a regex could, or have similar convoluted workarounds for any number of tasks. In some ways, these are quite clever hacks. In other ways, it's kind of sad as it obviously shows how badly GUI-centric "It's a fancy typewriter" attitudes toward computers have ruined generations of users by giving them substandard tools which they barely can make work for an automation task. I'd love to see a "Signs in Stores-ix" as much as the next guy... but most people who do this are probably designers or businesspeople whose computer worldview doesn't extend behind Photoshop and Powerpoint. And thus, that's what was mandated on the displays...
- Havoc 13y ago
  > people who use Excel as a text combiner to parse tabular text in ways similar to how a regex could, or have similar convoluted workarounds for any number of tasks. Yep. Large parts of the finance crowd are Excel experts so it makes sense to use that. Why bother with regex when you know the Excel shortcuts, functions & behaviour off by heart. That plus I don't need to explain to IT/manager why I'm messing with software they haven't seen before.
  - Systemic33 13y ago
    Before I got a studentjob, I thought I was pretty good with the Office Suite and the rest of Windows, but then when you get a job in that kind of industry, you realise, that these people who wouldn't know how to open regedit, use Excel in ways you wouldn't think possible. For that reason, whenever i look at job postings, if there is any mention of Excel or VB script, i instantly close the browsertab... I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole.
- Spearchucker 13y ago
  I would argue that Windows is a great platform for such displays. Not sure how many of these were written, but knocking up an attractive list template in XAML and binding it to a list is a walk in the park. Dev cost must be next to nothing. Call it what you will, but it's the front-end I'd prefer to develop such displays on. WinRT makes such a use case even more compelling. And Mono unfortunately doesn't support WPF.
ericcumbee 13y ago
One of my responsibilities was to serve as admin for our campuses digital signage system. It used windows based machines. The cost of the Windows OS was trivial compared to the cost of the hardware and the license for the digital signage software. it also helped that if need be these systems could be managed with our existing toolset such as SCCM and remote desktop. and if we needed to do something that the Digital Signage software could not do for special occasions if there was a windows app for it, it was that simple.
joosters 13y ago
Because the hardware support is good. Because the licensing costs are pretty small compared to the project costs. Because there is plenty of tech support available. Because Windows flash support is good. Because there are plenty of developers who will customize it for you. Because it is easy to add to the existing networking systems being used. There are plenty of reasons to choose Windows for this kind of thing. why is the article even complaining that the OS is old? No need for cutting-edge here. (EDIT: Oops, that was in the comments section) (LOL at the mouse jiggler software though!)
- _random_ 13y ago
  I agree. Used both Flash and WPF (XAML) for public-facing screens - both worked fine and I didn't have to use mouse jiggler.
- bkm 13y ago
  The mousejiggler is probably because of AD group policy restrictions to screensaver configuration.
- shittyanalogy 13y ago
  Also, Any general purpose OS would have these problems It's stable Tech support is easy to find Software can be easily demoed A better title for the article would have been: Who's paying these shitty IT guys?
tlarkworthy 13y ago
I bet the whole ecosystem of updating, remotely maintaining, selling an advert and designing an advert on a display in a train station is deeply engrained in windows technologies, and swapping the front is not trivial. I bet everyone knows its shit long term but the cost of migration outweighs the short term fixes (mouse wiggler!). Probably its what the customers want anyway
ExpiredLink 13y ago
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?NobodyEverGotFiredForBuyingMicrosoft http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?NobodyEverGotFiredForBuyingMicrosoft
- Qantourisc 13y ago
  High time for me to become a manager then!
cyclotron 13y ago
I'm not a fan of Windows, but when I saw this post it reminded me of a picture I took at 30th street station in Philadelphia. I guess this was an attempt to use Linux for an visitor information kiosk. http://imgur.com/oULGTjJ http://imgur.com/oULGTjJ
- mousefad 13y ago
  You want some information, visitor? Well here you go. Enjoy.
- _random_ 13y ago
  I think maybe it's actually good for Linux image that it's not being used more for this kind of stuff.
- keithpeter 13y ago
  Frustratingly low definition but that looks like a kernel panic => not enough testing on target hardware. I've seen dead signage and kiosks from all the main OSes and OS/2. It happens, what I'm interested in is automatic reboot methods...
- jfim 13y ago
  We have ones running Ubuntu in our local transit system. https://plus.google.com/108455147088522730235/posts/bjQyyUipEDu https://plus.google.com/108455147088522730235/posts/bjQyyUip...
jballanc 13y ago
A quick Google search of the phrase "build an animated display" with one of the following strings appended to the end reveals the answer, I should think: "raspberry pi" -- 1,060,000 results "linux" -- 4,890,000 results "os x" -- 6,910,000 results "windows" -- 32,800,000 results
- alexchamberlain 13y ago
  There's an office near work that gives its receptionists Macs; it looks great, but an insane amount of money for the functionality they use I'm sure.
  - simonw 13y ago
    Alternatively, if it saves them a few days of work in lost productivity due to malware, viruses and unintuitive software, it's a great investment.
    - pionar 13y ago
      Ha, I had to laugh at the "unintuitive software" bit. It's only unintuitive to a Mac user. I'm not insulting here, it works the other way, too. I recently bought a Mac to see what all the fuss was about, and am finding many things in OS X to be very counter-intuitive as a PC (Win/Linux) user for so many years.
    - jamesjguthrie 13y ago
      This comment (simonw's) should be the downvoted one and not its parent. Edited for clarity.
    - ShirtlessRod 13y ago
      Are you being serious with this comment?
  - enscr 13y ago
    You are forgetting the IT support headache for 2 Windows PC while the rest of the company might be using Macs
terhechte 13y ago
I've worked for quite some time in the digital display industry, at a company which has a very feature rich, Mac OS X based digital signage solution [1] with high profile customers such as Mercedes-Benz, or Disney. Since the company is small, it is easy to be part of all steps of the process, including marketing and sales. I learned a lot about B2B buying behaviour while I worked for this company. We oftentimes ran into the situation where a potential customer really liked our solution, but wanted to run Windows instead of Mac OS X (this was arguably a lot tougher in 2005 when we started, and less so after the iPhone hit). There were a variety of reasons for this: - Windows was the OS that the company was also using for employee machines, so they knew it. - The IT department only wanted Windows machines on their network (our grand solution for this was that our machines were sold with direct support and did not need to run on the customers network, which also removed a lot of security pain) - The customer was afraid of Mac OS X because they thought it would not be stable enough But most importantly, it came down to simple risk aversion. The employee at a big company that was internally responsible for the 'digital signage' project, would base every decision on which choice would be less risky for his carreer in case the project fails. Lets say they roll out digital signage, and it costs a lot of money, and it doesn't work right. In that case, the employee needs to be able to defend himself against all sorts of questions: "Why was this product chosen", "Why was this vendor chosen", "Why was it implemented in this way", etc. In that case, being able to answer "We choose Windows, because it is the de facto standard" is better for the career than having to say "It seemed to be a stable product". Out of this reason alone, we found companies would choose a solution where they knew that it was far worse (less stable, less flexible, less features) simply because on paper it looked less risky. [1] http://www.videro.com/ http://www.videro.com/
- TheCondor 13y ago
  Are these solutions sold as devices or are they sols as software products that you bring your own hardware to?
  - terhechte 13y ago
    Depends on the solution that you buy. Some digital signage vendors sell complete black boxes where you get a hardware that you connect, and it runs just fine, others sell licenses that you have to install on your own hardware. The Videro solution is a full packaged system that you connect to a display and to a network (if you're connecting to wireless, there's a special remote UI that pops up after first start and lets you enter wireless info, much like on Apple TV systems) just runs. It usually connects to a cloud system, and then you can distribute content to it. It is really hassle free, which is also important for large scale deployments. (If one machine breaks, you can just pop it out, and put a new machine in, one click and it will receive all the content from the previous system and continue the job).
kayoone 13y ago
Honestly, even if it was using Linux, there could be a million ways for the app to crap out and show dubious messages. Doing it this way was probably the easiest way in the mind of the responsible engineer and i am sure it generally works fine. That MouseJiggler thing is pretty lame though ;)
blahbl4hblahtoo 13y ago
8.1 allows you to boot into a single metro app... at least the desktop won't interrupt...
UnoriginalGuy 13y ago
Last year I was on an aircraft watching the IFE, then it froze, I got a kernel panic, then it restarted, I was left looking at a Linux logo then the init output before being thrown back into the IFE interface. My point is that no general purpose OS is immune from fault. All you can really do is remove or disable things which aren't absolutely needed to get your work done. In this case they should have disabled Windows explorer (which, by the way, is supported) or used one of the specialized cut-down versions of Windows (e.g. Windows Embedded 8). PS - Although I will readily admit that Microsoft makes it insanely hard to licence Windows Embedded, particularly for SMBs. But Microsoft's licensing is far harder than it needs to be across the board, they have an old-mode mindset where they can charge more if they make the whole process harder.
- dhimes 13y ago
  I saw one boot last week on a Delta flight. I was very surprised to see Tux.
  - highlight_all 13y ago
    Four reboots on an eight hour international flight. Somewhat annoying.
  - UnoriginalGuy 13y ago
    Me too! I tried to get a picture but was too slow unfortunately.
    - kalleboo 13y ago
      I've seen it a few times Thai Air, the projector kept rebooting throughout the whole flight http://www.flickr.com/photos/kalleboo/3911989854/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/kalleboo/3911989854/ Singapore Air, initial reboot as we were boarding http://www.flickr.com/photos/82365211@N00/2473197800/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/82365211@N00/2473197800/
  - krallin 13y ago
    Same on United — we actually got to watch the full boot sequence (^ ^)
justincormack 13y ago
I did once have a Linux boot screen come up on the Coca-Cola sign at Piccadilly Circus (with two penguins, it was a dual CPU back in the day), after a power cut. Alas I didn't have a camera with me. After that I moved the boot console to a different output. Back in the day when I was in this business flash was the big thing that pushed people to Windows as people wanted to do flash content as thats what Ad agencies could produce.
chromanoid 13y ago
When you don't know why this is, you are either a passionate hobbyist or you don't see reality. Choosing an operating system is nothing you should do for the sake of it. Not everybody is as passionate as you and want to memorize CLI commands. Why do you think Windows and iOS are so successful? Most developers feel like most end users, they don't care as long as it runs and it can be easily operated. And this is a wise attitude.
roryhughes 13y ago
I would say when they need some displays set up, they don't want to buy in any new computers so they just get the old office PC's which aren't in use anymore.
jsingleton 13y ago
A lot of these systems are just displaying a web page which makes it very easy to move to Linux. I know a lot of the transport ones are simple static web pages on auto refresh. I built some smarter screens which use AJAX and JavaScript which is less jarring when it updates. I've changed a set of digital signs from running full screen IE on windows (with very long VGA cables) to chromium on Raspberry Pis. The new system behaves a lot better but there were lots of little things to tweak to get it running well. I wrote a short blog post with all the relevant configuration: https://shutdownscanner.com/Blog/Posts/Raspberry-Pi-Digital-Sign https://shutdownscanner.com/Blog/Posts/Raspberry-Pi-Digital-... A lot of the new TVs are smart and come with a built in android browser so you don't need anything else. We have one of these and run Pis on all the existing dumb TVs.
kaeluka 13y ago
I've seen presentations being really embarrassing because of windows-updates too.
- tripa 13y ago
  Yet Windows updates are a conveniently globally shared problem. For real embarassment, nothing beats the unpaid software nag.
salient 13y ago
Because unfortunately, most of these companies are clueless about technology, and buy from whoever comes to them through the door, pitching them about how awesome it would be to buy some thousand dollar/unit such displays, and have them show info to their customers.
AshleysBrain 13y ago
I've noticed a lot of ATMs run Windows for the display, and suffer similar problems. It's really quite unnerving to really need to use an ATM, but a Windows XP Start bar is showing with some strangely named programs running...
mtgx 13y ago
Why not just use low-cost Android tablets, since those displays only need very basic full screen apps anyway?
- bkm 13y ago
  Or even on those portable Android sticks. I fear this will commoditize the Digital Signage industry on the long run, Android devices need zero support and a fool can install the apps with the Play store. Plus Android devices often have very sophisticated GPUs, making them suitable for visuals.
300bps 13y ago
Inaccurate title. It should read, "Why Do Companies Still Use Something I Hate?" Seriously, complaining that an out of disk space error message pops up on signs? I have a Slackware Linux box that has been running for years. Probably ran out of disk space a dozen times since I first installed it so I know from personal experience it's not immune from running out of disk space.
will3942 13y ago
It gets even worse, an airport's departures time table ran Windows and just showed the desktop, causing me to have to walk to the other end of the terminal to check the Gate number. (source: https://twitter.com/Will3942/status/394915432660234242 https://twitter.com/Will3942/status/394915432660234242)
stusmall 13y ago
"When all you have is hammers the whole world starts looking like nails." Sure as hell not the way I'd do it, but for a non-critical system that really just kind of sits there and doesn't cause any problems when it crashes, why not if they only know Windows desktop dev and are only deploying a few? Use what you know.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
rangelreale 13y ago
I'm the lead developer in a company that does just digital signage software in Brazil. Recently we rewrote from stratch our software in Qt so it would run on Linux and Android, even on the Raspberry Pi. The main barriers we found in Linux adoption were: - Support staff only knows Windows. This gets worse when screens get installed in remote areas, like we have some screens at Manaus, in the Amazon Forest. There is just no one to support Linux there. - Flash support state in Linux is unknown. Adobe seems to be discontinuing support for flash in Linux, and flash movies cannot be run on the Raspberry Pi or any ARM device. - HTML5 is the next target, but even on Windows the embedded webbrowsers are not up to par yet on performance, in Raspberry Pi it is inviable. It cannot replace 100% Flash yet. - Remote admin support on dynamic IP is great in Windows with Logmein, terrible on other platforms. Yes there's TeamViewer on Linux but it seem not too stable, not to say it looks like to be running emulated. Our customers don't trust it the way they trust Logmein. That said, we are seeing increased Linux adoptions for some markets. If the Qt5 Blink-based webbrowser is more on par in performance with current desktop browsers, than the adoption may rise a lot. EDIT: fix newlines
- toddkaufmann 13y ago
  To login to remote machines with dynamic IPs, have a loop on the remote machine that logs in using ssh to your server and creates an ssh connection back to it. Remote has ssh key, with ssh config that says "Remoteforward 23456 localhost:22" and on your server have the shell for the remote id be a command like "sleep 300". Tunnel will restart every five minutes (unless it has active connections), this reduces the likelihood of it hanging. A ~20 line cron or daemon script, an ssh key, ssh config file, account on server, authorized_keys entry with command specified, and some testing.
michaelfeathers 13y ago
A friend of mine collects photos of monitor and advertising display fails in airports. He's been doing it for years and he has a large collection. I think that over 95% are Windows.
AsmMAn 13y ago
I want to get into real market to see how many unstable is Windows. I really, really want to see that.
- dmaselbas 13y ago
  Not so much windows, but if you run your app in ie, you will run out of memory in a day or so. I had auto reboot every night at midnight. On the other hand I have run a small tomcat server on a cheap hp box running bare minimum win7, and it literally ran for years without an issue.
jamesjguthrie 13y ago
To me this clearly just looks like a plug for the guy's friend. Hardly an interesting article.
romanovcode 13y ago
>Why Do Companies Still Use Microsoft Windows For Displays? Because it's cheaper. All you talk about is license but what about actual work of setting it up and making it work? Also, you really think that only WinOS kiosk systems are crashing? You really are so ignorant to think that LinuxOS kiosk systems never crash?
esolyt 13y ago
Well, the short answer is they don't know about other operating systems or what an operating system is.
JohnDotAwesome 13y ago
I worked with an IT department (all windows shop, but not afraid of Linux) who setup large screen high definition tv's around the facility for a request to support digital signage. The department wanted to save money, so they took on a DIY attitude instead of building it themselves. Well, they know the windows platform and had windows machines lying around. They hooked up PC's to these TV's mounted high up on the wall, either mounted the PC on the TV or put it somewhere that couldn't be seen, and put powerpoint viewer on the PC's. This might sound like a disaster, but the higher-ups loved it. And it worked quite nicely to my surprise. Windows can easily be configured to start the powerpoint file of your choice in fullscreen mode when the machine starts. Creating the material was as easy making a powerpoint. So, in the end, the cost of materials and time was minimized because these guys used Windows + Powerpoint for their digital signage. And since they weren't using some buggy piece of custom software, it was fairly stable. You may not like Windows, but it's a _fine_ computing platform. People get _work done_ with it. Personally, I'll stick with OSX.
apaprocki 13y ago
Just wanted to point out that Microsoft does offer an embedded version of Windows that is supposed to be used for these types of applications so stuff like in the post does not happen. But, due to how extremely annoying it is to configure (properly) and create an image, most users probably skip it and opt for a standard Windows image and all the issues that come with it.
shdisi 13y ago
I've been talking about this for years: http://shitdigitalsignage.tumblr.com http://shitdigitalsignage.tumblr.com
qas1981 13y ago
I think its really about lowering barriers to entry. The more people that understand how to operate a system decreases risk. Plenty of people understand Window OS and how to run an application. With this knowledge everyone just can be an expert on how to operate the displays.
w0rd-driven 13y ago
Ahh something I can speak to directly. At my current gig, we use SiteKiosk which locks windows down tight. It uses the IE WebBrowser control via ActiveX/COM/.Net/however the hell it works. Its basically IE but slightly shittier due to there not being a 1:1 between it and IE proper. SiteKiosk has some pretty powerful digital signage features you don't really get from a Windows Embedded scenario. One feature of 8.1 I was looking forward to was "kiosk mode" but with WinRT being blocked from talking to localhost, except through a hack (yes, fuck you Microsoft) it was stillborn for my tastes. .NET apps are ClickOnce or xbap, which is basically pre-Silverlight. This is the suckiest part. SiteKiosk can run normal applications and Silverlight with no problems but it took SL 5 to get proper COM support and it isn't terribly easy to make your normal .NET library "just work" so that wrapper for a card dispenser isn't as easy to leverage. Due to the low number of these apps (2), we haven't bothered migrating away from shitty xbap. The largest amount of applications use typical wamp running a lightweight PHP framework and sometimes MySQL as localhost. Some are completely or partially Flash driven applications as well. SiteKiosk and leveraging IE lets us focus on perfecting the experience though I've become complacent. IE development is just too slow now and testing in Chrome with superior dev tools are absolutely essential. The problem there is we can easily paint ourselves into a Chrome-only corner if we aren't careful. Leveraging the POS equipment like barcode readers, card dispensers, or printers are the only thing the web proper isn't really suited for unfortunately. This may be where Windows has much more leverage due to their driver model. Most equipment we interfaced with had a .NET library or simple instructions of use with P/Invoke. I saw very little (<1%) that had anything to do with Linux and in typical fashion wasn't something to simply use via something like PHP or Ruby/Rails. Maybe we chose Windows friendly vendors, though, so take this with a grain of salt.
rockin 13y ago
Just because some people don't know what they are doing, doesn't mean you can't run windows to drive displays. I founded a company 9years ago that did just that and let me tell you, that we prided ourselves with never having had something like this happen!! And we deployed over 100.000 such devices! Besides, the $15 for a windows license are irrelevant if you look at the project cost. It also made sense from a technology point of view... .NET is great for UI heavy stuff, there is not a single media format that's not supported on windows and you get great drivers for all the hardware that's out there! Microsoft also helps you with distribution/promotion of your solution. And like others already mentioned...it was also easier to sell windows based systems to corporations because it was the defacto standard! The problem with the digital signage industry is, that the barrier of entrance seems to be low and therefore everybody tries to put together his own little crapy solution. That's why the whole market is fucked up and that's also why I sold my company as soon as I could.
silverbax88 13y ago
I love the fact that the author thinks Windows is unsuitable because the people who are using it for displays don't know how to turn off a screensaver, but somehow those same people will magically understand how to run Linux without a hitch.
aviraldg 13y ago
For the same reasons why companies still use Microsoft Windows.
dragontamer 13y ago
I don't think Linux supports the 18-screen configurations that Windows can support. http://semiaccurate.com/2013/06/13/sapphire-shows-18-screen-demo-in-computex/ http://semiaccurate.com/2013/06/13/sapphire-shows-18-screen-...
informatimago 13y ago
That said, I have seen panic'ed linux systems on such screens too. But granted, it is easier to run a single program as /bin/init on a linux system than to configure a proprietary OS.
SloughFeg 13y ago
I noticed a malfunctioning display on the CTA here in Chicago and it was running on chrome. Still on Windows but at least they had the foresight to make it portable.
tammer 13y ago
Adding Linux or other OS support to a Windows IT shop requires more than a trivial amount of work and added overhead, especially if security is regulated. It's always cost/benefit.
tmcw 13y ago
Well, Windows-supporting hardware is cheap. Raspberry PIs don't have the processing power to run anything more than basic HTML pages. Finding 'cheap macs' is a losing battle - Apple hardware holds its value. Running Linux on a display-ware system with a fancy video card relies on drivers for that fancy video card, and there aren't any.
protomyth 13y ago
When we bought a display for purely display (Samsung), it came with Microsoft Windows built-in so there was nothing else to buy and we didn't need to mount another device. Before that, we had a Mac mini in the conference room because we found a nice mount, and now we are just buying TVs and mounting an Apple TV.
ChuckMcM 13y ago
I don't know the answer to the question, I do know the answer to the question "Why do digital signage vendors use Windows as their host platform?" seems to be so that they can hire unskilled labor. In various embedded forums I see questions about doing digital signage on Android/Linux while exploiting the graphics acceleration of the SoC get met by stony silence (no drivers) or complex installs (blobs + release compatibilty). Its way too much work so these guys get Windows, and all the vendors have Windows drivers and are willing to let you incorporate them into your code and hiring a Windows programmer has a bigger pool to draw upon. Combine that with customers who want to use Windows tools to configure/upload to their signs and IT folks who are "comfortable" with Windows on their network and voila, mutual lock in.
jroseattle 13y ago
There is a Windows-based digital display in the grocery near our house. It is perpetually displaying some Windows dialog about the advertising program they have installed has failed/ab-ended in some manner. Seriously, I'm not sure the display has ever worked correctly (I go there a lot.) However, I watched the crew on a Virgin America flight announce that we had to "reboot" the plane because the entertainment system was frozen. It was, and everyone could see it -- it was Linux-based (not certain which flavor, pretty sure it was Debian-based though.) It had frozen, and all the screens (one for every seat) had a console stuck in some batch job and displaying the output to the screen. Luckily, we were still on the ground, so the reboot wasn't so bad. But it was alarming. Reboot a Windows-based advertising display? Who cares. Reboot the plane because the Linux-based system is frozen? Quite a bit more alarming.
- deleted 13y ago
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deleted 13y ago
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SunboX 13y ago
Seen lately on big airport (Frankfurt) in Germany: https://www.dropbox.com/s/50x9xhme7r5tm8e/Foto%2003.10.13%2016%2010%2002.jpg https://www.dropbox.com/s/50x9xhme7r5tm8e/Foto%2003.10.13%20...
INTPenis 13y ago
My brother works for a digital signage company here in Sweden and combined with my experiences in IT I would say there simply isn't enough competence. On one hand it scares companies because they think they can't find Linux people when they need them. On the other hand the universities are crunching out .NET and Java coders who have no ideological reason to use Linux. Something that could fill the niche here is open software platforms for digital signage. Because the more user friendly Linux gets, the more I'm seeing of it in Enterprise environments. So if only someone could make the Fedora or Ubuntu of digital signage using open source.
shmerl 13y ago
They can build their own custom made kiosk using Mer as a base (and Qt for UI) in a matter of days. The reason they are using Windows is probably inertia and ignorance.
rythie 13y ago
I wondered this until we did it and then all of the suitable solutions used Windows (we are mostly a Linux house). We didn't want to build our own solution so just used that. We actually just use http://www.cool-screensavers.com/onlinews.html http://www.cool-screensavers.com/onlinews.html - I'd much prefer a HTML5 or even a flash solution, but I've never found a suitable one. We've been running the same system for 6 ish years, sometimes people ask us to put powerpoint or videos on the displays, which would be more difficult if it was a Linux system. The main problem with the displays is not viruses, but rather pop-ups telling you need to do some update or other (like the one shown in the article).
jeffeld 13y ago
Windows has had a kiosk mode since at least XP. It's still there in 8.1 (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/hyperyash/archive/2013/10/25/enable-kiosk-mode-in-windows-8-1.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/hyperyash/archive/2013/10/25/enable-...). All the benefits of a managed Windiws installation, and suitable for 99.9% of kiosk requirements. Probably.
ksec 13y ago
I think most of these would have worked on a Display connected to AppleTV.
duncan_bayne 13y ago
At the company I work, we use Windows for an array of monitors running in our network operations centre. The only reason we went with Windows was that the display multiplexer thingy we bought doesn't support Linux. Our app is entirely web-based, so it was quite possible to choose any reasonably modern OS. http://xkcd.com/934/ http://xkcd.com/934/
dmaselbas 13y ago
At one point I was writing a small custom DS platform for a client with a big corporate MS it staff. They all had their microsoft books on their desks relating to their job responsibilities. Any mention of something that didn't have a ms or cisco logo on it, was instantly meet with disapproval. Long story kinda short, I failed and lost out to another vendor, because i couldn't convince the IT guy I had been partnered with that Java and javascript weren't the same thing. I was having issues with js on ie9, they read it as incompetence; little do they know (or not now for that matter).

205 points by edent 13y ago

seivan 13y ago

Like anything shitty in tech being used, decisions pulled by non-engineers.

vincie 13y ago
Bingo!
_random_ 13y ago
...who are good at estimating business value rather then playing with obscure unsupported tech.
- stephen_g 13y ago
  No, usually they're going with the option that feels 'safe'. Things that tick the right boxes on paper, but may often end up being far more expensive/difficult to support etc. when it actually comes down to it...
- seivan 13y ago
  Sure dude.
- Iftheshoefits 13y ago
  No, typically the "non-engineers" in this case are management-level types who are at least somewhat skilled in estimating the impact of their decisions on their status with respect to internal politics. That's "business value" in some sense, but not the one you seem to mean.
chromanoid 13y ago
They have to use and sell the stuff.

kmfrk 13y ago

I think all the departure table screen I've ever seen have run Windows. Always wondered what the hell, especially since it doesn't even seem to provide stability.

rwmj 13y ago

Some ideas: - The cost of a Windows license is tiny compared to the cost of the hardware and software. - The cost of installation and maintenance: How much does it cost to pay someone to attach that screen to the wall and run wires around the building to the room containing the server? - Back in 1995 it probably did make sense to use Windows, since it had wider support for hardware and good developer tools. Now that there is a huge amount of software written in the 90s for Windows, it's going to take a very long time to change that (if ever). - Windows might actually be better for this even now.

mtgx 13y ago
If Microsoft is selling them these "solutions" (not products) directly, then it's likely the hardware costs several times more than if you'd buy it from the store.

JIghtuse 13y ago

Yep, it is pretty common. In Novosibirsk (Russia) such displays installed in subways (metro) and all of them shows some error when I see them. It is weird.

radicalbyte 13y ago

The total cost of using Windows is (probably) lower than using Linux. These displays are often custom work - building something like that is a couple of days work for a WPF or Flash (/Air) developer. The vast majority of those use Windows. And I've not even touched on the administration costs.. To be honest I'm more concerned when I see ATMs running Windows 98; at least these advertising displays can't do any real damage...

MarcScott 13y ago
It freaked me out when an ATM BSODed on me. Its happen when I've used a Tesco self-service checkout as well.
- jbrooksuk 13y ago
  Tesco self-service checkouts break all the bloody time on me. Watching it reboot is kind of fun though.

sillysaurus2 13y ago

Because .NET makes it very easy for average developers to write GUI programs, and Visual Studio is what they use to write them. In theory, this developer could just use Mono to run his .NET app on Linux. But that requires them to learn how to do that. Personally, I've never found a clear tutorial on how to take a .NET GUI app that you've just written in Visual Studio and get it running on Mono. I haven't looked in several years, so I thought I'd give it a try right now. I googled "visual studio mono" and these were the top 3 results: http://www.mono-project.com/Visual_Studio_Integration http://www.mono-project.com/Visual_Studio_Integration http://www.mono-project.com/Working_with_Mono_and_Visual_Studio http://www.mono-project.com/Working_with_Mono_and_Visual_Stu... http://www.mono-project.com/GettingStartedWithMonoTools http://www.mono-project.com/GettingStartedWithMonoTools None of those are clear at all. The second page links to this screencast: http://www.mfconsulting.com/product/prj2make-sharp/tutorial/TestInMono-SwfApp.html http://www.mfconsulting.com/product/prj2make-sharp/tutorial/... which illustrates how to use this thing with Visual Studio 2003(!) and demonstrates part of the problem: the Mono version of the app looks noticeably different from the native Windows version. Sure, this can probably be fixed, but it's yet another issue that the dev has to spend time learning how to hack around. This situation results in substantial cognitive overhead. It's unlikely that an average .NET dev will be able to go into work, install this Mono plugin, compile their app using it, and present to their coworkers, "Look! We don't have to change our process at all, and we can deploy our app on the latest Ubuntu with a minimum of hassle." It's hard to imagine how wonderful it is to build .NET apps compared to dealing with Qt, because Visual Studio's GUI designer is just so good. Suffice to say, there are a lot of network effects that keep a developer mentally locked into Visual Studio's paradigm of "here's how you make this GUI form;" a paradigm which is immensely difficult for Linux to support natively. I think it's a mistake for Linux to even try to support this, though, because it's probably focusing on the wrong problem. The way to beat Microsoft is to make it so easy to write cross platform business apps that newer generations never even bother figuring out how to install Visual Studio. I think the web browser will be that solution within the next decade. It's not quite there yet -- it's way easier to get a GUI workflow up and running using VS's designer -- but it seems inevitable. So if you share the author's concerns, then the best course of action is to write some quality tutorials for your web frameworks, and to invent easier frameworks. The advantages of the web will naturally outweigh any possible native program advantage.

mariusz79 13y ago

Most of the software dev in the world don't know anything besides one language (either java or vb) and one operating system they encountered right after school. And even when they do - management doesn't.

zdw 13y ago

People use what they know. Given a hammer, everything looks like a nail. If you work in IT for any length of time, you come across people who use Excel as a text combiner to parse tabular text in ways similar to how a regex could, or have similar convoluted workarounds for any number of tasks. In some ways, these are quite clever hacks. In other ways, it's kind of sad as it obviously shows how badly GUI-centric "It's a fancy typewriter" attitudes toward computers have ruined generations of users by giving them substandard tools which they barely can make work for an automation task. I'd love to see a "Signs in Stores-ix" as much as the next guy... but most people who do this are probably designers or businesspeople whose computer worldview doesn't extend behind Photoshop and Powerpoint. And thus, that's what was mandated on the displays...

Havoc 13y ago
> people who use Excel as a text combiner to parse tabular text in ways similar to how a regex could, or have similar convoluted workarounds for any number of tasks. Yep. Large parts of the finance crowd are Excel experts so it makes sense to use that. Why bother with regex when you know the Excel shortcuts, functions & behaviour off by heart. That plus I don't need to explain to IT/manager why I'm messing with software they haven't seen before.
- Systemic33 13y ago
  Before I got a studentjob, I thought I was pretty good with the Office Suite and the rest of Windows, but then when you get a job in that kind of industry, you realise, that these people who wouldn't know how to open regedit, use Excel in ways you wouldn't think possible. For that reason, whenever i look at job postings, if there is any mention of Excel or VB script, i instantly close the browsertab... I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole.
Spearchucker 13y ago
I would argue that Windows is a great platform for such displays. Not sure how many of these were written, but knocking up an attractive list template in XAML and binding it to a list is a walk in the park. Dev cost must be next to nothing. Call it what you will, but it's the front-end I'd prefer to develop such displays on. WinRT makes such a use case even more compelling. And Mono unfortunately doesn't support WPF.

ericcumbee 13y ago

One of my responsibilities was to serve as admin for our campuses digital signage system. It used windows based machines. The cost of the Windows OS was trivial compared to the cost of the hardware and the license for the digital signage software. it also helped that if need be these systems could be managed with our existing toolset such as SCCM and remote desktop. and if we needed to do something that the Digital Signage software could not do for special occasions if there was a windows app for it, it was that simple.

joosters 13y ago

Because the hardware support is good. Because the licensing costs are pretty small compared to the project costs. Because there is plenty of tech support available. Because Windows flash support is good. Because there are plenty of developers who will customize it for you. Because it is easy to add to the existing networking systems being used. There are plenty of reasons to choose Windows for this kind of thing. why is the article even complaining that the OS is old? No need for cutting-edge here. (EDIT: Oops, that was in the comments section) (LOL at the mouse jiggler software though!)

_random_ 13y ago
I agree. Used both Flash and WPF (XAML) for public-facing screens - both worked fine and I didn't have to use mouse jiggler.
bkm 13y ago
The mousejiggler is probably because of AD group policy restrictions to screensaver configuration.
shittyanalogy 13y ago
Also, Any general purpose OS would have these problems It's stable Tech support is easy to find Software can be easily demoed A better title for the article would have been: Who's paying these shitty IT guys?

tlarkworthy 13y ago

I bet the whole ecosystem of updating, remotely maintaining, selling an advert and designing an advert on a display in a train station is deeply engrained in windows technologies, and swapping the front is not trivial. I bet everyone knows its shit long term but the cost of migration outweighs the short term fixes (mouse wiggler!). Probably its what the customers want anyway

ExpiredLink 13y ago

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?NobodyEverGotFiredForBuyingMicrosoft http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?NobodyEverGotFiredForBuyingMicrosoft

Qantourisc 13y ago
High time for me to become a manager then!

cyclotron 13y ago

I'm not a fan of Windows, but when I saw this post it reminded me of a picture I took at 30th street station in Philadelphia. I guess this was an attempt to use Linux for an visitor information kiosk. http://imgur.com/oULGTjJ http://imgur.com/oULGTjJ

mousefad 13y ago
You want some information, visitor? Well here you go. Enjoy.
_random_ 13y ago
I think maybe it's actually good for Linux image that it's not being used more for this kind of stuff.
keithpeter 13y ago
Frustratingly low definition but that looks like a kernel panic => not enough testing on target hardware. I've seen dead signage and kiosks from all the main OSes and OS/2. It happens, what I'm interested in is automatic reboot methods...
jfim 13y ago
We have ones running Ubuntu in our local transit system. https://plus.google.com/108455147088522730235/posts/bjQyyUipEDu https://plus.google.com/108455147088522730235/posts/bjQyyUip...

jballanc 13y ago

A quick Google search of the phrase "build an animated display" with one of the following strings appended to the end reveals the answer, I should think: "raspberry pi" -- 1,060,000 results "linux" -- 4,890,000 results "os x" -- 6,910,000 results "windows" -- 32,800,000 results

alexchamberlain 13y ago
There's an office near work that gives its receptionists Macs; it looks great, but an insane amount of money for the functionality they use I'm sure.
- simonw 13y ago
  Alternatively, if it saves them a few days of work in lost productivity due to malware, viruses and unintuitive software, it's a great investment.
  - pionar 13y ago
    Ha, I had to laugh at the "unintuitive software" bit. It's only unintuitive to a Mac user. I'm not insulting here, it works the other way, too. I recently bought a Mac to see what all the fuss was about, and am finding many things in OS X to be very counter-intuitive as a PC (Win/Linux) user for so many years.
  - jamesjguthrie 13y ago
    This comment (simonw's) should be the downvoted one and not its parent. Edited for clarity.
  - ShirtlessRod 13y ago
    Are you being serious with this comment?
- enscr 13y ago
  You are forgetting the IT support headache for 2 Windows PC while the rest of the company might be using Macs

terhechte 13y ago

I've worked for quite some time in the digital display industry, at a company which has a very feature rich, Mac OS X based digital signage solution [1] with high profile customers such as Mercedes-Benz, or Disney. Since the company is small, it is easy to be part of all steps of the process, including marketing and sales. I learned a lot about B2B buying behaviour while I worked for this company. We oftentimes ran into the situation where a potential customer really liked our solution, but wanted to run Windows instead of Mac OS X (this was arguably a lot tougher in 2005 when we started, and less so after the iPhone hit). There were a variety of reasons for this: - Windows was the OS that the company was also using for employee machines, so they knew it. - The IT department only wanted Windows machines on their network (our grand solution for this was that our machines were sold with direct support and did not need to run on the customers network, which also removed a lot of security pain) - The customer was afraid of Mac OS X because they thought it would not be stable enough But most importantly, it came down to simple risk aversion. The employee at a big company that was internally responsible for the 'digital signage' project, would base every decision on which choice would be less risky for his carreer in case the project fails. Lets say they roll out digital signage, and it costs a lot of money, and it doesn't work right. In that case, the employee needs to be able to defend himself against all sorts of questions: "Why was this product chosen", "Why was this vendor chosen", "Why was it implemented in this way", etc. In that case, being able to answer "We choose Windows, because it is the de facto standard" is better for the career than having to say "It seemed to be a stable product". Out of this reason alone, we found companies would choose a solution where they knew that it was far worse (less stable, less flexible, less features) simply because on paper it looked less risky. [1] http://www.videro.com/ http://www.videro.com/

TheCondor 13y ago
Are these solutions sold as devices or are they sols as software products that you bring your own hardware to?
- terhechte 13y ago
  Depends on the solution that you buy. Some digital signage vendors sell complete black boxes where you get a hardware that you connect, and it runs just fine, others sell licenses that you have to install on your own hardware. The Videro solution is a full packaged system that you connect to a display and to a network (if you're connecting to wireless, there's a special remote UI that pops up after first start and lets you enter wireless info, much like on Apple TV systems) just runs. It usually connects to a cloud system, and then you can distribute content to it. It is really hassle free, which is also important for large scale deployments. (If one machine breaks, you can just pop it out, and put a new machine in, one click and it will receive all the content from the previous system and continue the job).

kayoone 13y ago

Honestly, even if it was using Linux, there could be a million ways for the app to crap out and show dubious messages. Doing it this way was probably the easiest way in the mind of the responsible engineer and i am sure it generally works fine. That MouseJiggler thing is pretty lame though ;)

blahbl4hblahtoo 13y ago

8.1 allows you to boot into a single metro app... at least the desktop won't interrupt...

UnoriginalGuy 13y ago

Last year I was on an aircraft watching the IFE, then it froze, I got a kernel panic, then it restarted, I was left looking at a Linux logo then the init output before being thrown back into the IFE interface. My point is that no general purpose OS is immune from fault. All you can really do is remove or disable things which aren't absolutely needed to get your work done. In this case they should have disabled Windows explorer (which, by the way, is supported) or used one of the specialized cut-down versions of Windows (e.g. Windows Embedded 8). PS - Although I will readily admit that Microsoft makes it insanely hard to licence Windows Embedded, particularly for SMBs. But Microsoft's licensing is far harder than it needs to be across the board, they have an old-mode mindset where they can charge more if they make the whole process harder.

dhimes 13y ago
I saw one boot last week on a Delta flight. I was very surprised to see Tux.
- highlight_all 13y ago
  Four reboots on an eight hour international flight. Somewhat annoying.
- UnoriginalGuy 13y ago
  Me too! I tried to get a picture but was too slow unfortunately.
  - kalleboo 13y ago
    I've seen it a few times Thai Air, the projector kept rebooting throughout the whole flight http://www.flickr.com/photos/kalleboo/3911989854/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/kalleboo/3911989854/ Singapore Air, initial reboot as we were boarding http://www.flickr.com/photos/82365211@N00/2473197800/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/82365211@N00/2473197800/
- krallin 13y ago
  Same on United — we actually got to watch the full boot sequence (^ ^)

justincormack 13y ago

I did once have a Linux boot screen come up on the Coca-Cola sign at Piccadilly Circus (with two penguins, it was a dual CPU back in the day), after a power cut. Alas I didn't have a camera with me. After that I moved the boot console to a different output. Back in the day when I was in this business flash was the big thing that pushed people to Windows as people wanted to do flash content as thats what Ad agencies could produce.

chromanoid 13y ago

When you don't know why this is, you are either a passionate hobbyist or you don't see reality. Choosing an operating system is nothing you should do for the sake of it. Not everybody is as passionate as you and want to memorize CLI commands. Why do you think Windows and iOS are so successful? Most developers feel like most end users, they don't care as long as it runs and it can be easily operated. And this is a wise attitude.

roryhughes 13y ago

I would say when they need some displays set up, they don't want to buy in any new computers so they just get the old office PC's which aren't in use anymore.

jsingleton 13y ago

A lot of these systems are just displaying a web page which makes it very easy to move to Linux. I know a lot of the transport ones are simple static web pages on auto refresh. I built some smarter screens which use AJAX and JavaScript which is less jarring when it updates. I've changed a set of digital signs from running full screen IE on windows (with very long VGA cables) to chromium on Raspberry Pis. The new system behaves a lot better but there were lots of little things to tweak to get it running well. I wrote a short blog post with all the relevant configuration: https://shutdownscanner.com/Blog/Posts/Raspberry-Pi-Digital-Sign https://shutdownscanner.com/Blog/Posts/Raspberry-Pi-Digital-... A lot of the new TVs are smart and come with a built in android browser so you don't need anything else. We have one of these and run Pis on all the existing dumb TVs.

kaeluka 13y ago

I've seen presentations being really embarrassing because of windows-updates too.

tripa 13y ago
Yet Windows updates are a conveniently globally shared problem. For real embarassment, nothing beats the unpaid software nag.

salient 13y ago

Because unfortunately, most of these companies are clueless about technology, and buy from whoever comes to them through the door, pitching them about how awesome it would be to buy some thousand dollar/unit such displays, and have them show info to their customers.

AshleysBrain 13y ago

I've noticed a lot of ATMs run Windows for the display, and suffer similar problems. It's really quite unnerving to really need to use an ATM, but a Windows XP Start bar is showing with some strangely named programs running...

mtgx 13y ago

Why not just use low-cost Android tablets, since those displays only need very basic full screen apps anyway?

bkm 13y ago
Or even on those portable Android sticks. I fear this will commoditize the Digital Signage industry on the long run, Android devices need zero support and a fool can install the apps with the Play store. Plus Android devices often have very sophisticated GPUs, making them suitable for visuals.

300bps 13y ago

Inaccurate title. It should read, "Why Do Companies Still Use Something I Hate?" Seriously, complaining that an out of disk space error message pops up on signs? I have a Slackware Linux box that has been running for years. Probably ran out of disk space a dozen times since I first installed it so I know from personal experience it's not immune from running out of disk space.

will3942 13y ago

It gets even worse, an airport's departures time table ran Windows and just showed the desktop, causing me to have to walk to the other end of the terminal to check the Gate number. (source: https://twitter.com/Will3942/status/394915432660234242 https://twitter.com/Will3942/status/394915432660234242)

stusmall 13y ago

"When all you have is hammers the whole world starts looking like nails." Sure as hell not the way I'd do it, but for a non-critical system that really just kind of sits there and doesn't cause any problems when it crashes, why not if they only know Windows desktop dev and are only deploying a few? Use what you know.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

rangelreale 13y ago

I'm the lead developer in a company that does just digital signage software in Brazil. Recently we rewrote from stratch our software in Qt so it would run on Linux and Android, even on the Raspberry Pi. The main barriers we found in Linux adoption were: - Support staff only knows Windows. This gets worse when screens get installed in remote areas, like we have some screens at Manaus, in the Amazon Forest. There is just no one to support Linux there. - Flash support state in Linux is unknown. Adobe seems to be discontinuing support for flash in Linux, and flash movies cannot be run on the Raspberry Pi or any ARM device. - HTML5 is the next target, but even on Windows the embedded webbrowsers are not up to par yet on performance, in Raspberry Pi it is inviable. It cannot replace 100% Flash yet. - Remote admin support on dynamic IP is great in Windows with Logmein, terrible on other platforms. Yes there's TeamViewer on Linux but it seem not too stable, not to say it looks like to be running emulated. Our customers don't trust it the way they trust Logmein. That said, we are seeing increased Linux adoptions for some markets. If the Qt5 Blink-based webbrowser is more on par in performance with current desktop browsers, than the adoption may rise a lot. EDIT: fix newlines

toddkaufmann 13y ago
To login to remote machines with dynamic IPs, have a loop on the remote machine that logs in using ssh to your server and creates an ssh connection back to it. Remote has ssh key, with ssh config that says "Remoteforward 23456 localhost:22" and on your server have the shell for the remote id be a command like "sleep 300". Tunnel will restart every five minutes (unless it has active connections), this reduces the likelihood of it hanging. A ~20 line cron or daemon script, an ssh key, ssh config file, account on server, authorized_keys entry with command specified, and some testing.

michaelfeathers 13y ago

A friend of mine collects photos of monitor and advertising display fails in airports. He's been doing it for years and he has a large collection. I think that over 95% are Windows.

AsmMAn 13y ago

I want to get into real market to see how many unstable is Windows. I really, really want to see that.

dmaselbas 13y ago
Not so much windows, but if you run your app in ie, you will run out of memory in a day or so. I had auto reboot every night at midnight. On the other hand I have run a small tomcat server on a cheap hp box running bare minimum win7, and it literally ran for years without an issue.

jamesjguthrie 13y ago

To me this clearly just looks like a plug for the guy's friend. Hardly an interesting article.

romanovcode 13y ago

>Why Do Companies Still Use Microsoft Windows For Displays? Because it's cheaper. All you talk about is license but what about actual work of setting it up and making it work? Also, you really think that only WinOS kiosk systems are crashing? You really are so ignorant to think that LinuxOS kiosk systems never crash?

esolyt 13y ago

Well, the short answer is they don't know about other operating systems or what an operating system is.

JohnDotAwesome 13y ago

I worked with an IT department (all windows shop, but not afraid of Linux) who setup large screen high definition tv's around the facility for a request to support digital signage. The department wanted to save money, so they took on a DIY attitude instead of building it themselves. Well, they know the windows platform and had windows machines lying around. They hooked up PC's to these TV's mounted high up on the wall, either mounted the PC on the TV or put it somewhere that couldn't be seen, and put powerpoint viewer on the PC's. This might sound like a disaster, but the higher-ups loved it. And it worked quite nicely to my surprise. Windows can easily be configured to start the powerpoint file of your choice in fullscreen mode when the machine starts. Creating the material was as easy making a powerpoint. So, in the end, the cost of materials and time was minimized because these guys used Windows + Powerpoint for their digital signage. And since they weren't using some buggy piece of custom software, it was fairly stable. You may not like Windows, but it's a _fine_ computing platform. People get _work done_ with it. Personally, I'll stick with OSX.

apaprocki 13y ago

Just wanted to point out that Microsoft does offer an embedded version of Windows that is supposed to be used for these types of applications so stuff like in the post does not happen. But, due to how extremely annoying it is to configure (properly) and create an image, most users probably skip it and opt for a standard Windows image and all the issues that come with it.

shdisi 13y ago

I've been talking about this for years: http://shitdigitalsignage.tumblr.com http://shitdigitalsignage.tumblr.com

qas1981 13y ago

I think its really about lowering barriers to entry. The more people that understand how to operate a system decreases risk. Plenty of people understand Window OS and how to run an application. With this knowledge everyone just can be an expert on how to operate the displays.

w0rd-driven 13y ago

Ahh something I can speak to directly. At my current gig, we use SiteKiosk which locks windows down tight. It uses the IE WebBrowser control via ActiveX/COM/.Net/however the hell it works. Its basically IE but slightly shittier due to there not being a 1:1 between it and IE proper. SiteKiosk has some pretty powerful digital signage features you don't really get from a Windows Embedded scenario. One feature of 8.1 I was looking forward to was "kiosk mode" but with WinRT being blocked from talking to localhost, except through a hack (yes, fuck you Microsoft) it was stillborn for my tastes. .NET apps are ClickOnce or xbap, which is basically pre-Silverlight. This is the suckiest part. SiteKiosk can run normal applications and Silverlight with no problems but it took SL 5 to get proper COM support and it isn't terribly easy to make your normal .NET library "just work" so that wrapper for a card dispenser isn't as easy to leverage. Due to the low number of these apps (2), we haven't bothered migrating away from shitty xbap. The largest amount of applications use typical wamp running a lightweight PHP framework and sometimes MySQL as localhost. Some are completely or partially Flash driven applications as well. SiteKiosk and leveraging IE lets us focus on perfecting the experience though I've become complacent. IE development is just too slow now and testing in Chrome with superior dev tools are absolutely essential. The problem there is we can easily paint ourselves into a Chrome-only corner if we aren't careful. Leveraging the POS equipment like barcode readers, card dispensers, or printers are the only thing the web proper isn't really suited for unfortunately. This may be where Windows has much more leverage due to their driver model. Most equipment we interfaced with had a .NET library or simple instructions of use with P/Invoke. I saw very little (<1%) that had anything to do with Linux and in typical fashion wasn't something to simply use via something like PHP or Ruby/Rails. Maybe we chose Windows friendly vendors, though, so take this with a grain of salt.

rockin 13y ago

Just because some people don't know what they are doing, doesn't mean you can't run windows to drive displays. I founded a company 9years ago that did just that and let me tell you, that we prided ourselves with never having had something like this happen!! And we deployed over 100.000 such devices! Besides, the $15 for a windows license are irrelevant if you look at the project cost. It also made sense from a technology point of view... .NET is great for UI heavy stuff, there is not a single media format that's not supported on windows and you get great drivers for all the hardware that's out there! Microsoft also helps you with distribution/promotion of your solution. And like others already mentioned...it was also easier to sell windows based systems to corporations because it was the defacto standard! The problem with the digital signage industry is, that the barrier of entrance seems to be low and therefore everybody tries to put together his own little crapy solution. That's why the whole market is fucked up and that's also why I sold my company as soon as I could.

silverbax88 13y ago

I love the fact that the author thinks Windows is unsuitable because the people who are using it for displays don't know how to turn off a screensaver, but somehow those same people will magically understand how to run Linux without a hitch.

aviraldg 13y ago

For the same reasons why companies still use Microsoft Windows.

dragontamer 13y ago

I don't think Linux supports the 18-screen configurations that Windows can support. http://semiaccurate.com/2013/06/13/sapphire-shows-18-screen-demo-in-computex/ http://semiaccurate.com/2013/06/13/sapphire-shows-18-screen-...

informatimago 13y ago

That said, I have seen panic'ed linux systems on such screens too. But granted, it is easier to run a single program as /bin/init on a linux system than to configure a proprietary OS.

SloughFeg 13y ago

I noticed a malfunctioning display on the CTA here in Chicago and it was running on chrome. Still on Windows but at least they had the foresight to make it portable.

tammer 13y ago

Adding Linux or other OS support to a Windows IT shop requires more than a trivial amount of work and added overhead, especially if security is regulated. It's always cost/benefit.

tmcw 13y ago

Well, Windows-supporting hardware is cheap. Raspberry PIs don't have the processing power to run anything more than basic HTML pages. Finding 'cheap macs' is a losing battle - Apple hardware holds its value. Running Linux on a display-ware system with a fancy video card relies on drivers for that fancy video card, and there aren't any.

protomyth 13y ago

When we bought a display for purely display (Samsung), it came with Microsoft Windows built-in so there was nothing else to buy and we didn't need to mount another device. Before that, we had a Mac mini in the conference room because we found a nice mount, and now we are just buying TVs and mounting an Apple TV.

ChuckMcM 13y ago

I don't know the answer to the question, I do know the answer to the question "Why do digital signage vendors use Windows as their host platform?" seems to be so that they can hire unskilled labor. In various embedded forums I see questions about doing digital signage on Android/Linux while exploiting the graphics acceleration of the SoC get met by stony silence (no drivers) or complex installs (blobs + release compatibilty). Its way too much work so these guys get Windows, and all the vendors have Windows drivers and are willing to let you incorporate them into your code and hiring a Windows programmer has a bigger pool to draw upon. Combine that with customers who want to use Windows tools to configure/upload to their signs and IT folks who are "comfortable" with Windows on their network and voila, mutual lock in.

jroseattle 13y ago

There is a Windows-based digital display in the grocery near our house. It is perpetually displaying some Windows dialog about the advertising program they have installed has failed/ab-ended in some manner. Seriously, I'm not sure the display has ever worked correctly (I go there a lot.) However, I watched the crew on a Virgin America flight announce that we had to "reboot" the plane because the entertainment system was frozen. It was, and everyone could see it -- it was Linux-based (not certain which flavor, pretty sure it was Debian-based though.) It had frozen, and all the screens (one for every seat) had a console stuck in some batch job and displaying the output to the screen. Luckily, we were still on the ground, so the reboot wasn't so bad. But it was alarming. Reboot a Windows-based advertising display? Who cares. Reboot the plane because the Linux-based system is frozen? Quite a bit more alarming.

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SunboX 13y ago

Seen lately on big airport (Frankfurt) in Germany: https://www.dropbox.com/s/50x9xhme7r5tm8e/Foto%2003.10.13%2016%2010%2002.jpg https://www.dropbox.com/s/50x9xhme7r5tm8e/Foto%2003.10.13%20...

INTPenis 13y ago

My brother works for a digital signage company here in Sweden and combined with my experiences in IT I would say there simply isn't enough competence. On one hand it scares companies because they think they can't find Linux people when they need them. On the other hand the universities are crunching out .NET and Java coders who have no ideological reason to use Linux. Something that could fill the niche here is open software platforms for digital signage. Because the more user friendly Linux gets, the more I'm seeing of it in Enterprise environments. So if only someone could make the Fedora or Ubuntu of digital signage using open source.

shmerl 13y ago

They can build their own custom made kiosk using Mer as a base (and Qt for UI) in a matter of days. The reason they are using Windows is probably inertia and ignorance.

rythie 13y ago

I wondered this until we did it and then all of the suitable solutions used Windows (we are mostly a Linux house). We didn't want to build our own solution so just used that. We actually just use http://www.cool-screensavers.com/onlinews.html http://www.cool-screensavers.com/onlinews.html - I'd much prefer a HTML5 or even a flash solution, but I've never found a suitable one. We've been running the same system for 6 ish years, sometimes people ask us to put powerpoint or videos on the displays, which would be more difficult if it was a Linux system. The main problem with the displays is not viruses, but rather pop-ups telling you need to do some update or other (like the one shown in the article).

jeffeld 13y ago

Windows has had a kiosk mode since at least XP. It's still there in 8.1 (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/hyperyash/archive/2013/10/25/enable-kiosk-mode-in-windows-8-1.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/hyperyash/archive/2013/10/25/enable-...). All the benefits of a managed Windiws installation, and suitable for 99.9% of kiosk requirements. Probably.

ksec 13y ago

I think most of these would have worked on a Display connected to AppleTV.

duncan_bayne 13y ago

At the company I work, we use Windows for an array of monitors running in our network operations centre. The only reason we went with Windows was that the display multiplexer thingy we bought doesn't support Linux. Our app is entirely web-based, so it was quite possible to choose any reasonably modern OS. http://xkcd.com/934/ http://xkcd.com/934/

dmaselbas 13y ago

At one point I was writing a small custom DS platform for a client with a big corporate MS it staff. They all had their microsoft books on their desks relating to their job responsibilities. Any mention of something that didn't have a ms or cisco logo on it, was instantly meet with disapproval. Long story kinda short, I failed and lost out to another vendor, because i couldn't convince the IT guy I had been partnered with that Java and javascript weren't the same thing. I was having issues with js on ie9, they read it as incompetence; little do they know (or not now for that matter).