Slashdot Mirror
Linux Desktop to Appear On Every Asus Motherboard
An anonymous reader writes "We first heard about Splashtop back in October, when the instant-on Linux desktop was announced. At the time it was a really exciting concept but Asus only rolled out the technology on high-end motherboards. Splashtop just announced that Asus will be expanding the desktop to the P5Q motherboard family and later on to all Asus motherboards. That's embedded Linux shipping over a million motherboards a month! The release also mentioned that the technology will be appearing on notebooks this year as well."
Including an OS on the motherboard makes sense for Asus - at least it is then possible to do basic hardware diagnostics independently of, say, Windows diagnostics.
But, in terms of Linux adoption, it's only exciting if people keep linux once they've finished building the computer, and the precedents here are hardly promising.
And, even if you like Linux (which I do), would you want to keep the version supplied with your m/b? On my first EeePC, I tried to get to like Xandros, I really did, but in the end I wiped it and installed Kubuntu. My Dark Side Brother played with Xandros until he broke it, and then installed XP. And it's going to happen even more with the EeePC 900, since the Linux version has a larger SSD than the Windows version (at least in the UK), so you buy the Linux version in order to install Windows.
Virtually serving coffee
In total, about 300 million Linux devices are produced each year. About 1% of that are servers and desktops. A larger proportion are laptops. Asus alone, sells more than a million Eee PCs per quarter. Consequently Linux laptops outsell Apple by a wide margin.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Why not just include an SD card reader on the motherboard and let OEMs/end users integrate a system of their choice? In their approach, the system is not getting any security fixes. Potentially, the built in browser can be owned by simply visiting a web site. There is no way to install even a single extra application. Sounds like this has more to do with marketing than technology.
Just because you can not install applications in ROM, doesn't mean you can not infect or format local disks, USB devices or launch an attack on the Intranet which is otherwise behind a corporate firewall.
Also, the vast majority of those 1 million motherboards per month are sold to OEM's who may or may not enable the Linux functionality on their finished product. How much do you want to bet that MS will quietly put pressure on said OEM's to disable it?
ASUS has great overclocking options in their BIOS too...until OEM's get a hold of them and put their customer BIOS in place that leaves out all the good stuff. This will be the same.
I switch to linux every month or so.
But I get fed up.
Then I promptly switch back to whatever OS I feel like installing.
Then I get fed up again.
And I think 'Oh, someone on slashdot said that this is the time to switch to linux! I should try it AGAIN!'...
then I switch to linux.
Until I get fed up...
why must someone be "uninformed" to use Windows.
Maybe instead they are informed of what software they wish to use, what OS it operates well with, and thus make a VERY INFORMED decision to not use an OS that would require substantial work to use with their software of choice.
Just because someone doesn't use Linux, doesn't mean they are stupid.
And with this type of prevelant attitude among Linux user's, you can bet that they will remain a very small minority.
The true competition to Windows isn't linux, not on the desktop. It's Apple, and will be becuase Linux lacks quite a few things that everyday people require.
It's one thing to have your OS die and you've got to reboot. It's another if your motherboard dies and you've got to buy another.
> but what if I want Apache on my installation and they don't offer it?
:)
Bad example since they all do include Apache, but I get your point. Ok, here is how it works. Lets take Fedora since I was talking about RPM based systems and I don't know nearly as much about Debian based ones.
Fedora is based in the USA and sponsored by Red Hat, Inc. so they can't include certain radioactive bits that almost everyone wants, like mp3 support. So you just hop over to rpm.livna.org and click on the link for your version of Fedora. It serves you up an RPM package for their repository and the browser does the right thing. Up pops a dialog box asking if you want to install the package and if you say yes it prompts for the root (administrator for you Windows folk following along) password. Once that one small package is installed all of the software maintained by Livna (safely outside the USA) is a part of your system.
But nothing much has actually happened yet. Next you launch the same package manager you use to add/remove OS components and you find that a lot of new things have appeared. And when Livna updates a package it appears in the list of packages that need to be updated right along with the ones Fedora updates.
Contrast with the Windows/Mac world. Each 3rd party application, game, utility, etc. has to have it's own mechanism to find out if it has been updated, code to bug you to update, etc.
The best comparison would be to imagine a world where Microsoft made Windows Update an open platform that everyone could use. So that one unlucky morning you booted up and the Windows Update gadget in the toolbar announced you had a critical update to IE, a couple of random Windows bug fixes, bug fixs from Adobe for Photoshop and Flash Player and a new version of your fav utility that displays your hard drive temp was available. Grr. there goes an hour and a couple of reboots.
And it all 'Just Worked.' You don't have an OS and a motley collection of 3rd party apps, you have a seamless System.
Democrat delenda est
I love, love, love the idea of a RO OS!!!
Currently if I go to my banking site, I have no idea whether my system is currently owned, and some keystroke logger is busy sending off my bank passcode to somebody who is going to empty my account.
With a RO OS, I can reboot, and I'm much more likely to be able to complete the transaction without it being subverted.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"There's also the 93% of the world's population who don't live in the USA. Some of them have businesses and computers too.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
Huh? Asus reported 350k the last quarter of 2007, and 700k for first quarter 2008. They project 1.2 million for second quarter. However, a majority of that will be the models that come with Windows.
Consequently Linux laptops outsell Apple by a wide marginNot even close. Apple sold 1.4 million laptops first quarter. Asus's 700k plus the rest of the Linux laptop vendors don't come anywhere near that.