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."

Comments

Out of curiosity...

[neokushan]

How many people "switch" to Linux every month? I mean, if anyone has such a statistic, I'd be interested in seeing just how much this figure could potentially impact that (I know, chances are 99% of the people using these motherboards will still boot windows, but satisfy my curiosity =P).

Re:Out of curiosity...

[neokushan]

Interesting. So 300million linux devices per year, 1% of those are servers/desktops, that makes 3million a year, right?
That's not as much as I thought it would be, these motherboards should certainly boost that figure.
I wonder how long before Microsoft start shipping an embedded Windows version....

Re:Out of curiosity...

[Ageing Metalhead]

You got to realise that almost all TV STBs are now using Linux, the only exceptions are the one's running MS Mediaroom (al la U-Verse). So I would suggest that it would be more than 300 million per year. AM

Re:Out of curiosity...

[abolitiontheory]

This would be interesting to know in terms of other statistics, such as how many new computer users are there every month. If people are "switching" to Linux but that number is outweighed by the number of uninformed new users just picking up a Windows machine, then its just noise.

The fact is it still takes a very informed choice to switch to Linux. This type of thing could go a long way towards solving that ("what, an operating system already onboard?!"), but at the same time this is only one manufacturer and its the kind of thing only people building their own PCs are going to see, anyway.

The general market still has so much to learn about other options besides Windows. Mac is gaining popularity because of cool-factor and crossover conversions, none of which Linux has. Honestly, it won't be until you can fool someone into using Linux before they figure out its not Windows that you will see a change in general market trends. Either that or some unforeseen landmark change in the computer landscape is going to have to take place.

In this regard, the comparison between open source solutions and alternative energy options makes sense here, except that the open source industry has had _superior_, WORKING solutions for the past decade, and the alternative energies industry hasn't. Its kind of like people choosing to stick with their internal combustion engine technology and refusing to try out a hydrogen car because "no body else does." But really, its because there's been no mass awakening to it, and unlike the energy crisis, there isn't likely to be unless someone brings it about.

Still, this is the extreme value of Linux to me: it's portability. Not *mobility*--we'll have to wait for Andriod for that--but its ability to fit on almost any system in any way. Scaleability and flexibility also apply here. I'd love to have a trusted operating system living at the hardware level of my comptuter. It seems to make sense in a way, even: the logical extension of CMOS in a way. Honestly, you're telling me motherboard hardware has improved for the past 10-15 years but we still have no better built in soft/firmware?

I'm doing more brainstoming than actual technical analysis here, but these are the kinds of things that get me excited like that: speculating, hypothesizing, dreaming about a more open and inherently good future.

Technorant, out.

Re:Out of curiosity...

[hairyfeet]

I don't know if it includes it,but I have found that "refurbing" old Windows boxes makes a great way to get reliable computers into the hands of those that don't have them. I often find working with SOHO shops that they have a couple of old machines they are getting ready to toss. Most are happy to donate them to me when i tell them I'll wipe the drive and put a free Linux on them and give them away to single mothers so their children have a way to work at home.

I found that Puppy seems to be the best mix of size and usefulness,especially on former Win9X machines. I just think it is a shame how many functioning machines end up in the dumpster when they could be given a good home. Hell,my first gaming rig,which was a Pentium 100Mhz with a whopping 32Mb of RAM is still in use at a local lumbar company running DOS 3 as a ISA controller for an ancient lathe they have making custom columns. So the thought that folks will throw out a good running computer still just strikes me a wasteful to the extreme. But that is my 02c,YMMV.

Oh,and as a disclaimer-I have actually thrown out a running machine in the past. I had a girl bring in her old computer to see if I could upgrade it for her in class. This poor girl had actually been doing her schoolwork on a 30Mhz with 12Mb of Simm RAM running Win 3.11. I took one look at that ancient thing and told her to leave it and I'd see what I could do. When the girl left the teacher asked "you aren't actually going to try to UPGRADE that thing,are you?" I told him HELL no! And when she showed up the next day I presented her with a 550Mhz that one of my SOHO clients had donated. Last I heard her kid was still doing his reports on his "new" machine,just as happy as a clam. I tried for a week to find a use for that 30Mhz,but damned if I could find a use for it.

Re:Out of curiosity...

[ozbird]

I wonder how long before Microsoft start shipping an embedded Windows version....

Probably as soon as they can get vista to fit in 1gb of flash memory, make it boot instantly, be cheap, and not be a POS...

They'd probably push Embedded XP. They've already backflipped on XP availability for the Asus EeePC etc., which does nothing to improve the image of Vista. ("Look, our soon-to-be discontinued 2001 OS can compete with Linux in the 'ultra-low cost' computer market!")

However, I think they've painted themselves into a corner. If they bully Asus into providing an embedded XP version of the motherboards, the customer is bound to ask: "I don't want Vista; why can't I run XP as the OS on the same motherboard?" The more features that can be crammed into the embedded Linux version, the sillier Microsoft's inevitable justifications will seem ("It's not really XP", "you can't do real work in an embedded environment" etc.)

Huh.

[SatanicPuppy]

I always bought Asus anyway; they make good boards, and the few times I've had problems they've replaced them...Once I even got a free upgrade because they'd discontinued the board I had.

So it's not going to change my purchasing, but it's still nice.

Re:Huh.

[Znork]

they make good boards

I have to agree. I've made some forays into MSI (a relationship that was abruptly and permanently terminated when I discovered I had to have XP to upgrade the BIOS), EPoX and AOpen.

But after that MSI foray I'll be sticking to ASUS for the foreseeable future; I have yet to purchase an ASUS board that I haven't been perfectly happy with throughout its lifecycle (well, I had one or two die of the bad capacitor issue a few years ago, but that was only 30% of my ASUS boards while 100% of the other branded boards died from it).

Re:Huh.

[multipartmixed]

He said "a few years ago"

I'm assuming it was those specific few years ago when a Taiwanese capacitor company was selling bad caps. These caps had electrolyte in them made with a formula stolen from a Japanese company. Said Japanese company, though, was wise to the industry pirates and slipped them a time bomb.

Those caps made it in *everywhere* -- or so it seemed. And is actually probably why it's so much easier to find Slot 1 and Socket 370 CPUs than it is to find boards to put 'em in.

Oh, look, here's a nice wikipedia article about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

Can you roll your own Splashtop?

[drinkypoo]

This is only useful if I can make my own splashtop image. Then it's useful for ALL KINDS of things, including media centers and most especially THIN CLIENTS. Also if you have... uhh, kexec I think? That lets you load a linux kernel from a linux kernel? Then you could jump from this right into your real distribution without having to re-POST.

Neat - but not all that useful

[Anonymous Coward]

I have one of the ASUS P35E Deluxe motherboards at home, and one of the reasons I picked it was for Splashtop. It wasn't the main reason, but I figured it was a neat addition. But honestly, Splashtop isn't all that useful.

For one thing, for all that it's "instant on", it still doesn't load all that much faster than XP. Now maybe it's just because I have a hot processor, or a really lean XP installation, but honestly the difference isn't that noticable. Splashtop does load faster, but it's hardly "instant on"; you still need for the OS to boot.

Then, there's the fact that all my info -passwords, bookmarks, etc.- are on my hard-drive and thus not accessible (at least, not by default) to Splashtop. So I'd have to punch all that info into a second OS (and there's no security on Splashtop, so I'd recommend against leaving any passwords in the browser).

I suppose for laptop users Splashtop may be marginally more useful, although even they may prefer to load up the main OS, since it doesn't take that much longer to run and then they get access to all their information.

I do like having a security blanket of having a way to check the web for help just in case XP hoses itself. Boot to Splashtop, surf the web for an answer, and then use that information to fix Windows. But in the end, Splashtop is more of a toy than a genuinely useful feature.

Bad Precedent

[geekmansworld]

This seems like a really bad idea. Microsoft is immediately going to feel the need to compete with this (irrational as that may be). Soon enough we'll have Windows APIs embedded in the ROMS of major motherboards, and we'll pay more for these "Microsoft certified" motherboards because the added loading speed is a "feature".

Hardware should never be tied to an operating system. I'm a Mac user, and even I believe in that sacred tenet. The consumer needs to be able to choose whatever components they want, and tose components should work together to the best of their ability.

Because it's free, Linux on Asus boards may not impede my consumer choice at the moment. But it sets a precedent which could greatly damage the environment of choice we currently enjoy.

Re:Is it really that exciting?

[jmorris42]

> And, even if you like Linux (which I do), would you want to keep
> the version supplied with your m/b?

You would probably keep Splashtop because it is in flash, probably in a larger BIOS chip. It isn't intended to be your primary OS. ASUS fully expects 99% of these motherboards to end up with Vista on a normal hard drive before it is delivered to the end user.

The right question is how many of those end users will try Splashtop and find it handy for quick excursions into the net. If that number is large Splashtop will prosper and begin to add more and more features. Five years from now will be interesting if that happens.

Re:This is not Linux

[bberens]

I think it would be really interesting to boot my computer into "energy conservation mode" which doesn't even power up the hard disks but allows me to browse the web and send e-mail with near-instant on capability. Then, if I needed more 'stuff', I could switch to "normal" mode and get to all the rest of my stuff if need be. Having spent some time using things like feather linux, the responsiveness of using a RAM disk would make almost ANY average user wet themselves with glee.

Re:This is not Linux

[Shatrat]

No one is going to "switch to linux" because their motherboard has a linux based diagnostic included I expect a lot of people will try linux for precisely that reason. There is a pretty large community of hardware tinkerers and overclockers that know lots and lots about cache sizes and bus widths but fairly little about software. I have met lots of these types who convince themselves that linux is "free as in crap" so that they won't have to learn anything more powerful that windows XP.

Now if ASUS which is a darling of the hardware enthusiast community says that linux is a powerful tool I expect some of those perceptions will be changed.