Vendors Rally While Windows Sleeps 321
Anti-Globalism sends along a PCWorld article outlining two technologies from Intel and Dell that do an end run around Windows. "Dell, Intel and their partners announced last week new technologies that represent major leaps forward for mobility. The companies seem to have discovered the secret to making such bold leaps: Cut Microsoft out of the deal. One technology involves enabling users to gain instant access to a laptop's e-mail, browser and other basic functionality — without booting Windows at all. The second technology enables an Internet-based message to wake a Windows PC from sleep mode. These new technologies are perfect metaphors for what's happening in the industry... Windows is asleep while Microsoft's own partners give users what they really want."
It's the BIOS, not windows (Score:4, Informative)
You could at least read the summary, it's a BIOS that runs Linux without booting windows.
Re:WTF is this shit? (Score:5, Informative)
Fuck it, I'll reply to myself.
"Microsoft has been pushing Remote Desktop and its communications software for years. But apparently it never occurred to anyone in Redmond that people might want to leave their PCs in sleep mode, then have them turn on for remote access or VoIP calls."
Remote Desktop supports wake on LAN.
When you try to connect, it tries to wake the machine up. If the machine has wake on lan enabled, and you don't have any NAT issues, it'll work.
Re:It's the BIOS, not windows (Score:5, Informative)
Re:New technologies (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Vista just isn't good with normal laptops yet (Score:4, Informative)
Really? Linux on the laptop is growing? Just based on non scientific study but i'm in a lot of airports across the United States. I can count on the one hand the laptops I've seen that are running Linux this year, 2. I do see a growing a number of Macs, but I am hearing more and more of the Vista startup sound on Laptops as the year goes on.
If this growth in Linux laptops are growing, I haven't seen them
Useful links for more info (Score:2, Informative)
PC World has a decent summary of Intel Remote Wake Technology.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/149863/2008/08/.html [pcworld.com]
Then there's also the actual Intel site
http://www.intel.com/technology/chipset/remotewake.htm [intel.com]
Re:Vista just isn't good with normal laptops yet (Score:3, Informative)
Sorry call BS with that.
I have a Dell XPS M1330 running Vista Ultimate, and its been flawless and has been for 9 months now.
It has dedicated graphics and 3GB of RAM and it has more then enough resources spare to do all of my work.
At times I have had to host visualised servers on it running exchange and domain controllers while performing server migrations and Vista has performed admirably while balancing resources with the Virtual OS's and running my mail and other programs I usually run.
I do have a lot of criticisms of Vista but to say its not ready for normal notebooks is just outright BS.
Re:Vista just isn't good with normal laptops yet (Score:3, Informative)
As long as I'm not doing anything that's running the hardware into the ground I get about 2.5 to 3 hours off a full charge, thats with a 6 Cell battery and I've been meaning to upgrade that to a 9 cell.
Been done before... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Vista just isn't good with normal laptops yet (Score:1, Informative)
If by dedicated graphics you mean the Nvidia 8400 card vs the intel x3100, you should be careful, the chips are doomed:
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/07/27/dell-models-defective-nvidia
FWIW, the x3100 is a dog for 3d [i.e. CAD, modern games - barely runs NWN1], but it's enough to run vista business with the gratuitous eye candy on.
Other than that, the 1330 is indeed nice - I considered getting it but went with the thinkpad x61. Nice little tablet, even if the higher res screen would have been a better idea :)
Re:Vista just isn't good with normal laptops yet (Score:5, Informative)
Depends what you mean by a normal laptop. For example, I've got a Toshiba Satellite Pro with a Core2Duo 1.66 GHz, 2 GB RAM and a 250 GB HDD. I'm run both Vista Business and Ubuntu 8.04 on this thing and noticed the following:
* Both systems support standby/hibernation properly, but Vista is quicker to resume from either mode. Ubuntu does hibernate quicker though.
* Vista actually lasts longer on battery than Ubuntu. I don't have values, merely observations based on the same kind of work (eg. browsing, email, etc). Probably helps that Vista fully supports multiple power-saving features that either aren't enabled in Ubuntu or aren't up to the same level of maturity as in Windows.
* Ubuntu suffers from a "bug" whereby many hard drives will spin down after several seconds of non-use, which kinda reduces the lifespan Vista doesn't have this issue, although it's hard to determine if that's only because the drive is always flashing every so often.
* Both systems are zippy enough when configured well, although Vista takes absolutely forever to start from a cold boot which is why standby/hibernation is a must with it.
Because I much prefer the software selection and functionality of most Windows software compared to Linux variants, I'm sticking with Vista as my primary on this machine, but Linux is certainly getting better for laptops.
Re:It's the BIOS, not windows (Score:5, Informative)
Dell is the only one who puts an extra CPU in there to run the Linux BIOS image so all that hardware you mentioned, except the hard drive, is fully used by the Linux image on the other systems.
It seems strange that Dell would put in a 2nd CPU but it does make it drop dead easy to design this way. There are tons of ARM based SoCs to pick from and pretty much all of them have Linux BSPs.
LoB
Re:Vista just isn't good with normal laptops yet (Score:3, Informative)
.
I dislike echoing one of my own recent comments.
That said:
The Dual Core 4 GB RAM 32 Bit Vista Premium laptop at Walmart.com is $850. Acer 16" Aspire 6920-6508 Laptop PC w/ Intel Core 2 Duo Processor [walmart.com]
The 64 Bit Dual Core Vista Premium laptop with 4 GB RAM is $1000.
The 64 Bit Dual Core Vista Premium laptop with Blu-Ray and NVIDIA 9600 series graphics is $1500.
Re:It's the BIOS, not windows (Score:5, Informative)
No, New Here already posted...
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=649601&cid=24653097 [slashdot.org]
Re:It's the BIOS, not windows (Score:3, Informative)
Have you seen the recovery console? Or setup in Windows XP? That's pretty much the kernel, filesystems and a text mode UI. Actually NTLDR itself is an interesting beast - it's a stripped down single tasking kernel+read only filesystem that loads the real kernel off NTFS. It even supports normal SCSI miniport drivers. In fact in a hint of NT's Risc origins it's actually protected mode Bios extender underneath OSLOADER.EXE. On Risc, OSLOADER.EXE is used without the code to switch to protected mode and back to v86 mode to use the Bios, i.e. the x86 cruft.
Microsoft haven't productised a kernel+text mode UI, but logically it must exist because it's necessary to bootstrap a full GUI Windows machine and internally they must have got something like this to work before they started to port the GDI and shell. In fact they demoed MinWin publically once.
Re:It's the BIOS, not windows (Score:1, Informative)
That does sometimes happen with a shipped kernel. Try compiling. It's really not that hard. Even if you just compile generic (but still make sure you've SMP multiprocessor support flagged appropriately, that's ussually the biggie). If that still doesn't work, you may require some further kernel configuration.
If compiling the right kernel just doesn't work, then yeah, you're better off using windows until you get good hardware.
Re:When did Microsoft become a hardware company? (Score:5, Informative)
Basically it's an instant-boot into something and instant-on can give a laptop some credibility where it didn't before, i.e In A Hurry. (Stop gloating you non-Windows users, this isn't about you!) Drag that work laptop to the airport and check your mail via the web before it's time to show the security guy the holes in your socks. Sometimes the web is all you need, or Skype, and some companies issue laptops for their consultants but not Blackberries or other decent PDA.
This gives you a chance to do something with a company-approved laptop SOE that doesn't involve waking the slow, cranky and belligerant dragon that is Vista or XP Pro. This Is A Good Thing. Oh, and you can push a button on the screen that boots Windows if you need to read the boss' Powerpoint. If you have the time, that is. Takes a while to wake the dragon.
The reason why they can do this is they are a specific hardware company (ASUS the example I know) who don't have to cater to all forms of hardware -- just their own. Full-cut OS' can't be that inflexible. So it's a quick little trip from the BIOS to a v.fast PDA screentop. Most of what I need is on that little thing, for the rest you press your OS button and load your standard desktop.
Re:Vista just isn't good with normal laptops yet (Score:3, Informative)
Um I'm been bargain hunting lately for a laptop and 3-4GB dual core laptops are what you get for $400-$800 these days.
Re:Vista just isn't good with normal laptops yet (Score:3, Informative)
Define "normal laptop". My ex bought what I consider to be a mid-price laptop (around £700) which shipped with Vista Home Premium, and it works perfectly. Plenty responsive enough and no issues that either of us has seen.
It's also making things worse by having so many different versions
There are two versions that the vast majority of people will be exposed to, Home Basic and Home Premium. Yes, business users will also have to choose from Ultimate and Business, but if you go out to buy a PC from a shop it's either Home Basic or Home Premium.
MS doesn't even have the decency to provide 32/64bit on the same disc
Actually the retail versions do come with 32 and 64 bit versions on the same disc; OEM versions don't, however.
Re:When did Microsoft become a hardware company? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Asus (Score:2, Informative)
The article does mention Asus --
What Dell is really doing here is building the equivalent of a secondary Asus Eee PC into a full-featured, full-size laptop.
Re:Sensationlist much? (Score:5, Informative)
Where the have you been all these years? Nothing stopping hardware OEMs from selling hardware with non-Windows OSes my ass. Jean-Louis Gassée found that one out when he first began to try pitching BeOS to hardware OEMs. He wrote an article [essential.org] on why PC manufacturers won't sell non-MS products (more info on this here [theregister.co.uk] and here [birdhouse.org]). The Windows monopoly is reinforced by anti-competitive agreements that Microsoft has with all of the major hardware OEMs. If one of these OEMs violates the agreement, they lose the OEM discount on all the other Windows PCs they sell, and consequently their Windows-based computers wind up costing much more than those vendors that decided to abide by the agreement. You can guess what that would mean to a major OEM.
In a way, this move by Dell is interesting since it shows to what lengths they've gone to avoid violating the contract. They could have used the same CPU to run the Linux firmware here, but no, they had to include a full ARM SoC to do the same instead. Granted, that has some advantages (given that the x86 CPU is much too overpowered and would eat the battery alive), but perhaps the agreements they have with Microsoft may also have something to do with it.
Re:Vista just isn't good with normal laptops yet (Score:2, Informative)
Dell Media Direct (Score:3, Informative)
Before Latitude ON, there was Dell MediaDirect [dell.com], a Windows XP Embedded [microsoft.com] partition that booted in about 10 seconds.
The only user focused difference between the 2 that I see, is that MediaDirect is/was positioned as a way to access your files - and Latitude ON is positioned as a way to access the Internet.
Technically, the whole "embed an ARM PC into an x86 PC" may be a better idea than the convoluted MBR and partitioning schemes MediaDirect employed [goodells.net] - but it's certainly more expensive as well.
Then, as mentioned, there's Windows Sideshow [wikipedia.org], which even Dell is prototyping [sideshowdevices.com]. SideShow [microsoft.com] is more ambitious than Latitude ON, encompassing everything from sinlge line text displays to show system stats, to ARM based Windows Mobile devices to check email, play media files, etc. So far, it's failed to gain much traction in the marketplace - but, I think that it's still too early to call it dead.
If you take a look at some of the prototype developments [ricavision.com] in the SideShow remote computer spaces, I think you'll agree that all the functionality of Latitude ON is there - it's just a seperate device instead of being housed in the same case as a laptop.
So - it's not like Microsoft isn't aware or working on this market, Dell and Co. just decided to go their own way. Big deal - happens all the time. While MediaDirect used XP Embedded, other manafacturers were using Linux based OS's. Wake me up in 2 or 3+ years when the market has settled down, and we can declare a winner.
Re:Vista just isn't good with normal laptops yet (Score:3, Informative)
.
--- which buys you a 7" screen, an 800 MHz Celeron, 512 MB RAM and 4 GB flash. Asus Eee PC 4G Surf [amazon.com]
Walmart.com lists an Acer Linpus Linux netbook - but no Eepc. The problem is the next step up - the $500 laptop - where OEM Linux runs out of gas.