It's not new. I had a 4-hour wait at the terminal to get to a KLM plane in Chengdu a bit over 10 years ago, this was perhaps 2006. The reason became clear when they informed us upon boarding that "the in-flight entertainment system is unfortunately not available, but it is not connected to flight systems and has no impact on flight security".

The entertainment system on the seat backs was Linux in a reboot loop.