I may be the only nut that does this, but if I see a computer on a show I will tediously go back and freeze the frame to see what OS the show is using. Sometimes it’s a made up nondescript one and sometimes it’s the OS that shalt not be named, but a surprising amount of times it’s some spin of Linux.
Thought I’d start a topic out of curiosity if anyone has done the same. And if so, what have you found?
I’ll start – The obvious: Mr. Robot (wasn’t a fan, but saw they stressed the Linuxes)
Ultraviolet: A weird show that I never finished, but an unabashed version of Linux was present a lot.
Unit 42: I think they used Linux mostly, but the main hacker girl had a sticker on her machine that read: “Bash Hard”. I thought it was cool.
What have you guys noticed?
Penelope the tech wiz in Criminal Minds was always seen in front of a Linux PC, not sure if this was to improve the geek cred of her character in the show or if in real life the FBI use Linux but it was cool to see her setup on the show.
It might be that using Linux on PC’s is a financial one, often it’s clear that the windows or Mac PC is product placement so they get the machines as part of the promotional deal, but if they aren’t being paid to show the ‘Logo’ it makes sense for them just to have a random Linux on the laptop/Desktop PC and no Windows Tax, It’s probably a case of pay us or we won’t promote your product.
In Bing Bang theory, if I remember correctly they did not show a screenshot, one character mentions Ubuntu.
I do the same. When I see a Linux distro in use, I have to go back to see if it was for real and probably the distro and desktop.
Very cool. Didn’t know that about CM. That’s pretty sweet.
Good to know I’m not the only one!! 
Hahahahahaha!!! Nice catch!
In many TV shows and Movies they use Macbooks with the Apple Logo. Product Placement as a Marketing Strategy.
As there is no marketing behind Linux, we have to stop the video to check out if there is something linuxy on the displays.
And sometimes there is. 
I’ve been watching this French show called La Mante (The Mantis) and most of their computers are predictably that other OS. But on one computer I couldn’t make the OS out – it was probably not Linux, but was blurry so I couldn’t tell. But every time they show a screen for video or whatever they have some strange paint program up, too. Couldn’t tell what it was…looked like Gimp, but could have been PS. shrug.
I’ll keep looking…