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."
I already have these features (Score:1, Interesting)
in my Asus P5E3 motherboard. Now if only I can get the memory issues sorted out...
Vista just isn't good with normal laptops yet (Score:5, Interesting)
It takes way too many resources. Maybe 3 years down the line, but Microsoft really dropped the ball by ignoring the reality of the fastest growing segment in computer sales.
Because of this, Apple is having great sales on the high/upper-mid-end with it's very nice line notebooks and Linux is getting a start on the lower end.
Without Vista, I don't think it would have been possible for Linux to get a foothold.
The year of Linux on the Desktop is distant, but thanks to Microsoft, the Year of Linux on the notebook looks like it's becoming reality sooner rather than later.
And the way a distro like Ubuntu evolves so quickly from year to year, I think it's a mistake that MS can't afford to do again.
In a few years, we'll see that MS was the one who dropped the ball to allow the competition the elbow room to come in.
It's also making things worse by having so many different versions and while it's debatable that Vista should have been wholly 64bit (definitely by Windows 7), MS doesn't even have the decency to provide 32/64bit on the same disc but is trying to grab every nickel it can from it's customers who chose one or the other (many discs don't qualify from alternative media).
Re:Three Cheers for Appliance Based Computing (Score:5, Interesting)
Now it's "I just need web and email.".
Next month it'll be "Sound would be nice.".
Then you'll be bitching "Damn we need support for youtube and flickr up in this bitch.".
Then you'll say "Can we get a fucking IM client and some printer support? It's 2010!".
Ultra mobile / webtop / nettop / netbook / whatever is retarded.
Re:Wow! Wake On Lan! (Score:4, Interesting)
"The Intel-JaJah combination will enable you to dump your landline phone and use a PC-based VoIP phone without leaving your PC on all the time"
Re:It's the BIOS, not windows (Score:5, Interesting)
You both must be new here.
It doesn't matter if it's in the BIOS, or uses a second processor.
What matters is that it allows your laptop to "just work" rather than having to wait for the bloated monstrosity that is Windows to become usable (or as usable as it gets).
I was delighted to find that my old Compaq laptop allowed you to run on the CD player to listen to music without booting up the machine at all. This looks like an extension of that philosophy. I can imagine having a laptop that would never be fully booted except to run some "legacy" program. It only took us what, 20+ years to get here!
Microsoft Challenge? (Score:3, Interesting)
Whoopitydo (Score:1, Interesting)
I had that "feature" on my Dell laptop and I had to jump through all sorts of stupid hoops to disable it. It was a minimal Windows install. By default, pressing a certain button would either boot to it or f*** up my non-windows partitions. I don't like hardware vendors telling me what software I'm supposed to run, regardless of whether it's Microslop or somebody else.
why is this a problem, or news? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not news, it's fark^H^H^H^Hslashdot.com? Oh, and I know, please tell me about all the things RedHat comes with...except:
1)those extras aren't forced, they're easy to remove (unless they're gnome...), and they're all OSS
2)you're missing the point. The point is that the OS shouldn't be expected to provide EVERYTHING. It's not a problem when IBM modifies RedHat to work with their LPARs, and it's not news when someone makes a Windows appliance without Windows. That's supposed to happen, on a regular basis.
Re:It's the BIOS, not windows (Score:3, Interesting)
Well if you're never fully going to boot into the regular x86 OS you're wasting your money on a perfectly good hard drive, PC RAM, x86 CPU and mobile graphics card that sit in your laptop unused when only using the UMPC mode.
However I must agree that a web/mail appliance mode that just works sounds like a nice thing.
Re:New technologies (Score:2, Interesting)
The concept that a vendor could sidestep the restrictions imposed by Windows by using another OS is hardly new.
The idea of running a second OS on a laptop is hardly new. It's two computers in one box - that's not a new technology, that's space efficiency ;-)
Slow news day eh? (Score:4, Interesting)
I have an ancient machine that plays CD/DVD in 5 seconds without booting - it's called a DVD player.
Seriously, HP had PCs that can do that 2-3 years ago. Oracle worked on a DB server that can run without booting into Windows OS more than 5 years ago. On new mobile phones you can open up your email within 5 seconds. Stop giving free press to Intel and Dell until they have the real guts to get away from Windows entirely.
Re:Three Cheers for Appliance Based Computing (Score:5, Interesting)
If you want all of that in your long-life Windows laptop, then get yourself a $22 SDHC card and install Ubuntu on it with all the extras. I've tried it. Boots in 3 seconds. No moving parts. Snappy fast and low power if you set it up to turn off your HDD - or better yet, pull that out - you won't need it.
Re:Vista just isn't good with normal laptops yet (Score:3, Interesting)
It has dedicated graphics and 3GB of RAM and it has more then enough resources spare to do all of my work.
That *isn't* a normal notebook. That is a high-medium to high performance notebook. For everyone else they are lucky to get 2 GB of RAM and a dual-core CPU. Of course Vista will run on it, but XP or Linux is going to run like 10 times better on the thing.
Re:It's the BIOS, not windows (Score:1, Interesting)
Wow, imagine.. maybe someday we could put an entire operating system into the BIOS and, since it had to be small and fast to fit in there, we wouldn't have to load Windows at all!
And I'm not saying Linux would be that OS either. We should shoot for something smaller and more lightweight.
Re:Windows? (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't believe Microsoft is sleeping - they were woken up by the development of the OLPC project. But their problem was that Windows needs so much memory to run. A Linux system could run under 1 Gigabyte of memory, Microsoft wanted at least 2 Gigabytes.
That has woken up the PC manufacturers who now have to compete against PDA's, Blackberry's , smart mobile phones and Eee-PC's. For most people, managing E-mail and surfing the web for You-tube videos is all they want from a PC. All that requires is some multi-language support and audio/video codecs. Hard drives and graphics chips are small enough already - the only problem seems to be the memory usage of Windows and the desktop.
Re:Whoopitydo (Score:3, Interesting)
Yea, that's what I thought at first. "Hmm, sounds like that MediaDirect nonsense." But then I read TFA. And it's nothing like MediaDirect. Although the article is sketchy on details, what it sounds like is this:
Standard mode: Core 2 Duo processor booting Windows from hard drive.
Latitude ON mode: Atom processor booting from flash drive running Linux.
The system will have two separate processors, and the main selling point to this new mode is the battery life (est. at 19hours if you are running off the Atom and Linux SSD).
Re:It's the BIOS, not windows (Score:2, Interesting)
Wow, imagine.. maybe someday we could put an entire operating system into the BIOS...
This has already been kind of done: coreboot(LinuxBIOS), with a Kdrive(TinyX) X server.
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=nuzRsXKm_NQ [youtube.com]
It makes sense, because a normal BIOS menu already needs to function like an OS to some degree.
You don't want to keep all of the operating system on the BIOS, though, because certain parts of the OS will still have to be written to. And it would require specific drivers, that could only be configured whenever you flash the BIOS. If keep those drivers or modules on a hard-drive, and you lose the main advantage of BIOS booting: loading those drivers straight away.
Re:New technologies (Score:1, Interesting)
I agree with the other guy, I don't see it as very novel. Basically they just slapped a SoC in there and made it possible to boot into it. It's really just the next step to what some of the manufacturers have already been doing (i.e. embedded CD/DVD/media players), though it does have a certain coolness factor to it. But let's admit it, the only reason this got any play was because the embedded device runs Linux and it was an easy shot at Windows. Granted Vista is a fucking dog, but last time I checked the latest Linux distro releases aren't exactly instant-on, either. But it wouldn't be funny if you were replacing a full-blown Linux distro with this mini-distro, would it?
So why do I need the REST of the laptop? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm left asking, "What's the windows processor for, once I have a low power, light Linux system which boots in a flash?" I know I'm not currently the norm, but I think I'm more and more the norm. You don't have to add much to the system they're describing to make it everything I want in a laptop. (Not a desktop replacement laptop, but an ultra-portable take-with-me device.)
Re:Sideshow anybody? (Score:3, Interesting)
Sideshow is designed for small screens, however there is nothing which would prevent you from using a full screen except for increased power consumption for the backlight.
I'm just saying that it's not like Microsoft is ignoring the "Instant On Sub Computer" concept. It's just that Dell is deciding to make their own implementation.
Subverting the OS isn't the Answer (Score:4, Interesting)
Asus (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It's the BIOS, not windows (Score:2, Interesting)
However I must agree that a web/mail appliance mode that just works sounds like a nice thing.
What about an "everything" mode that just works?
If you look at it this way, The UMPC part may easily be built into its own hardware with display, keyboard etc. Then we'll have a platform that's
That would be something.
Linux is more power-hungry out of the box (Score:4, Interesting)
Linux is known to be more power-hungry than Windows; I noticed the same on my computers.
Windows XP works about 40min longer than openSuse11 on the same machine, using default settings.
Here is some reading material:
- http://www.lesswatts.org/projects/powertop/ [lesswatts.org]
- there was a white paper written by folk from Intel, I don't remember where I found it, but it could be somewhere here: http://oss.intel.com/en-us/casestudies/ [intel.com]
You need to switch to a tickless kernel, and tinker with powertop - that should improve things.
Note that in my case, none of the powertop tricks had any impact - I was surprised to see that no matter what I did, the estimated time would always be 1h45min. This is still an experiment in progress, so don't count this feedback as 100% certain.
Re:It's the BIOS, not windows (Score:3, Interesting)
it seems odd because there is a CPU, memory, etc already there vi the x86 CPU and system. Couldn't they just run that CPU under clocked and without using the hard disk to vastly improve battery life?
myself, I've run a liveCD every now and then when on the road just to keep access to personal info away from insecure networks. This also brings up the thought that a WUBI based boot option which runs memory resident and shuts down the HD could be very much like what Dell and others are doing with the BIOS or additional CPU system is doing. Obviously, setting CPU freq lower would be desirable for longer batt life.
LoB
Re:Here's a strategy for Microsoft (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe not in the USA with their tame Department Of Justice (but even there, a repeat offender might eventually be hit with harsher sanctions).
For the EU, however, this might be a reason for the next fine, this time exceeding a billion...