Bypass Windows With Fast-Boot Technology 348
thatnerdguy writes "Phoenix Technologies, a developer of BIOS software, is working on a new technology called Hyperspace that will allow you to instantly load certain applications like email, web browser and media player, without loading windows. It could even lead to tailoring of computers to even more specific demographics, like a student laptop preloaded with word processor, email and an IM all available at the press of a button." Why is this story setting off alarms in my brain?
Re:The end of dual-booting? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Whoah (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=885&num=1 [phoronix.com]
It does use Linux BTW and the Motherboard is very Linux Friendly.
Re:Sounds possible (Score:0, Informative)
Re:"With the exception of Apple" (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Bypassing Windows and... (Score:3, Informative)
Basically what I'm saying is that I want a proper OS, not something that runs one app at a time. I doubt I'm alone in that. Now, give me a decent OS that runs lots of things loaded into an area of Flash memory so it starts up quickly and I'm yours.
It's things listed in your post that popular OS vendors have forgotten about... We need to be pandered to. There's a reason that Vista sales are in the toilet, Linux hasn't been able to break into the market in a decade and why Apple is a cool, but small niche vendor. They need to create an OS based on what their customers want, not based on a list of features Jobs or Gates thinks is cool. Aero was written to be as slick as a Mac, and Macs have taken repeated steps to become more like PCs (close case to open case, adopting Intel architecture, etc.) Linux isn't exempt from the imitate success bandwagon. By trying to replace windows instead of doing what it does best, run apps, no distribution has been able to be both slim and fully functional. It's going to take someone thinking outside the box (pun intended) to get an OS that meets the needs of an increasingly tech-savvy and tech-reliant society to abandon windows. If that means revolutionizing the hardware and dumping the entrenched OS companies at the same time, I say bring it on.
your sig (Score:5, Informative)
Wild turkeys can fly. Domestic turkeys are too fat.
http://www.kidzone.ws/animals/turkey.htm [kidzone.ws]
(search for "unable to fly")
As someone who's had flocks of wild turkeys fly over his head, I can attest to their ability to fly first hand. I've also seen them fly away after being shot. That's why you always aim for the head; their feathers are too tough for shotgun pellets.
Re:"With the exception of Apple" (Score:3, Informative)
Just make sure you don't do this with your iPhone if you're outside the US [slashdot.org].
Re:Whoah (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Um.. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:your sig (Score:3, Informative)
Not really, pellets will penerate their feather just fine. The problem is that their vital organs are both well padded by non-vital tissue and they are fairly small. Their head and neck offer much more direct routes to inflict fatal damage. A gut shot wild turkey can run for miles before expiring and bleed very little in the process, rendering it untrackable.
As for their ability to fly it is limited. In the sig joke you reply to the turkeys were a) domestic, and b) dropped from a helicopter. I'm not sure that even widl turkey would have been able to maintain flight long enough keep from hitting the ground with terminal (for them) velocity.
What an innovation! (Score:3, Informative)
A simple yet functional OS and applications on a chip! Why didn't someone think of doing this before!?
OH WAIT, THEY DID AND MICROSOFT PUSHED THEM OUT OF THEIR MARKET AND SENT THEM OUT OF BUSINESS [wikipedia.org]
Re:"With the exception of Apple" (Score:2, Informative)
If you setup the system correctly you'll get the same behavior from a windows (xp/vista) machine.
On all the laptop I had my hands on. That behavior was already set.
My current laptop and my workstation are setup to "Suspend To RAM".
And I can get my workstation up faster them my monitor.
Re:Sounds possible (Score:3, Informative)
That's why my laptop can recovery from 'stand-by' or 'hibernate' modes in almost no-time, but a cold boot still takes a veritable lifetime - approaching two minutes before the system is fully loaded and operational, and why solid state drives only shave 6-8 seconds from boot times while offering nano-second seek times.
Back in the old days you hard-coded the memory addresses, IRQs, DMA addresses, etc of the hardware in the boot files, which is why older (much slower) systems booted so fast. No parsing every IRQ and memory address in the system looking for new hardware, asking each piece of hardware 'what are you, what kind of drivers do you use, which IRQ do you want
Re:"With the exception of Apple" (Score:1, Informative)
For Windows, you have the choice of hibernating (store memory to hard drive, then cut power) or sleeping (CPU stops, power is fed to RAM to keep apps in memory). Wake from sleep takes a few seconds, wake from hibernate takes about 30 for me (depends on how much memory you have).
In Mac OS X, there is no need to choose - it does the best of both worlds. When you close the lid, it immediately stores memory to the hard drive (like hibernate would). Then, with data safely stored away, it switches into sleep mode (supplying power to RAM to keep apps in memory). If you open the lid in within a day or two, it wakes up instantly, as if you put it to sleep. But if you leave it sleeping forever and the battery runs out, then when you eventually plug it in and reopen, it wakes from hibernation.
So the PC is offering sleep-vs-hibernate that only tech-saavy people know how to use. But the Mac is offering a fundamentally better option that you can't get in the PC world, and it's available to all users.
I've never been an Apple fanboy, but since I bought a Mac a few months ago features like this continue to impress me.