After watching the two Doctor Who Christmas episodes I thought I’d watch the ‘behind the scenes’ programme ‘Doctor Who Confidential’. During one segment where they discuss the set used in the Christmas episode I spotted a bunch of machines with what look like Ubuntu boot screens on them. If you’re in the UK (or have access to Freesat in Europe) you can see it on BBC HD at 16:55 on 3rd January, or on BBC Three at 04:10 on 5th January. according to the iplayer page. The frame below was grabbed from 38:29 mins in.
They look like Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper Drake) to me. Probably multiple screens connected to one computer as they are all showing the same thing in the actual episode itself.
23 Comments
Wow, that’s brilliant. Keen eyes, popey, keen eyes! That does look very like it!
Nice spot Popey.
There’s a lot of Ubuntu lurking about at the BBC. Most of it by stealth – IT will only support the official Windows desktops, but a lot of the developers in Future Media and Technology use Linux instead. (Note that the head of FM&T is Erik Huggers, who is ex-Microsoft but is so far acting like no fan of their technology whatsoever.) The servers, of course, run on Red Hat and CentOS.
In the section of FM&T that I work in it’s an almost de rigeur ritual for a new hire to be handed a Ubuntu CD and left to get on with recommissioning their PC.
4th floor. Probably.
There’s a lot of LTS ubuntu servers in the bbc for internal use
“IT will only support the official Windows desktops”? You sure about that?
Every time they showed a production computer close-up on Doctor Who Confidential it was always a Mac of some type.
(Nope, I’m not an iFan; just pointing-out a fact…)
Looks to me like a newer version than Dapper to me as I can just about see what looks like FSCK running at the bottom.
Yeah definitely looks more like Karmic to me because of that text at the bottom. The reason you can’t see the background image better is probably something to do with the angle of all the screens.
Excellent spottage and I’m glad the BBC aren’t spunking money up the wall on props when they can help it.
Jaunty. Karmic doesn’t have the word “Ubuntu” next to the logo, just a plain centred logo. Jaunty had the logo and name.
TBF, Linux is used a LOT for computer interfaces in TV and Film. It’s just the quickest, cheapest way of getting something up on the screen which doesn’t look like Windows. Still, its pretty cool none the less.
Ubuntu Spotted on Doctor Who Set by @popey
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Nice catch, Popey!
Yep, good find!
There needs to more. Bring on Ubuntu!
Linux: you can’t use it with iPlayer, but you can find the drivers for an ancient piece of alien technology.
Heh, I like that. Except for the fact that I was watching that on iplayer, on Linux, in HD
Nicely spotted. I was lucky enough to visit the Doctor Who and Torchwood sets a year ago, and I spotted the same thing. All these machines are linked up to a Windows box, and from that they run a flash front-end to VLC. From there they can control each monitor separately. At least that’s how the Torchwood set was wired up.
I have some pictures, and a blog post here: http://foomandoonian.posterous.com/torchwood-set-photos-the-last
Superb! I bet Davros uses Windows Millennium though.
I bet Davros created Windows ME.
This was in part 1 or part 2 of The End of Time?
Neither, it was in the Dr Who Confidential, which is the behind the scenes programme. The scenery itself was used in both parts of The End of Time though.
Better than what they have in a lot of movies (as the RIfftrax guys call them, “Fake-intosh.”)
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