Slashdot Mirror
Quick Boot Linux Hopes To Win Over Windows Users
Al writes "A company called Presto hopes to exploit the painful amount of time it takes for Windows computers to start up by offering a streamlined version of Linux that boots in just seconds. Presto's distro comes with Firefox, Skype and other goodies pre-installed and the company has also created an app store so that users can install only what they really need. The software was demonstrated at this year's Demo conference in Palm Desert, CA. Interestingly, the company barely mentions the name Linux on its website. Is this a clever stealth-marketing ploy for converting Windows users to Linux?"
Who boots up anymore unless to fix/install something? Just hibernate. I know, I'm over generalising but still, I rarely reboot/boot my machine perhaps once a fortnight I just hibernate it. * Windows XP
I feel like this is too minor of a feature and too late to do any good. Windows 7 is apparently making huge strides toward reducing boot time, and I never hear anyone complain about boot time anyway. Including people who don't use the computer that much. Most of the people I know that aren't "computer people" leave their computer on or in standby/hibernate, so boot time is hardly an issue.
Whale
fastest boot
Just use suspend/resume. Even on my aging windows-XP notebook, it takes just a few seconds to resume from where I left.
I am fairly sure faster boot times wont cause most people to switch. For most people it comes down to being able to run their apps, and not the sometimes poor GNU replacements of their apps.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Hmm. It seems like it'd be really easy to do this yourself with a little ingenuity. I think I may have just found a nifty little project for this weekend.
All it should take is:
* Add an inittab runlevel (7?) for "shutdown to instant boot". /etc/rc7.d with a script that writes a file that records the fact that we're in "shutdown to instant boot" state, then switches to runlevel 6.
* Add an
* Add an init script in late in the normal startup sequence that checks for "shutdown to instant boot" state. If it finds that state, it removes the file and then initiates suspend or hibernate, depending on a configuration option.
At that point "sudo init 7" should cause your machine to shut down to "instant boot" state. Hitting the power button will then "instant boot" it.
"sudo init 0" or "sudo init 6" will do a normal shutdown or a normal reboot.
The final step would be to modify the "shutdown" command to go to runlevel 7 when given some new option, and then to modify the GUI-based shutdown tools to provide the instant-boot option as well, and maybe make it the default. Oh, and maybe modify the ACPI script that's executed when the power button is hit so that the power button does a "shutdown to instant boot" by default.
Pretty easy. Of course, in Linux I don't ever see any reason to shut the machine down anyway. My laptop pretty much only gets rebooted when there's a kernel update to install. Other than that, it just gets suspended. So, kind of pointless in Linux, but easy. The same would apply to *BSD.
HTH. HAND.
=Smidge=
Is it just my observation, or is eldavojohn an idiot?
Use Linux, or I'll give you a QUICK BOOT
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Just a seconds?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Although I agree that a shorter boot time would be attractive, I doubt this will increase the number of people using Linux. A lot of the resistance to using Linux is tied up in the number of applications that don't port to the operating system, not the boot time. It doesn't matter how quickly the OS is available if you can't do anything once it turns on. If you could make it so that the majority of windows applications ran without resistance, I think that almost no boot time could make Linux revolutionary. Until then, I think you're wasting man hours on the wrong problem.
Wow!! Who would have thunk this would be the killer feature which is going to cause mass
migration to Linux. I have another idea - when Windows boots, the screen is in black &
while & rather dull looking. Maybe Presto could exploit this by offering a version of
Linux which prints boot messages in colour.
Based on the copyright ("Copyright (c) 2009 Xandros Incorporated") I would venture to guess that Presto Linux comes out of Xandros Linux.
No, it's a clever ploy to exploit Linux. Linux has a long history of being used to mitigate the deficiencies in Windows, so this is a good and proper use of it. But this new trend of commercial vendors trying to cash in without admitting their products are Linux-based, and wrapping the Linux bits in ugly closed proprietary wrappers, is bush-league and doomed to fail. Linux thrives because of community support, and commercial vendors who think they can put one over don't make it.
The thing is overloaded with services/apps/processes that launch at startup. All stuff she doesn't need, but she's not smart enough to remove.
I've cleaned it up for her before, but it's a lost cause if she doesn't understand how to maintain it herself.
I'm sure once my mom learns about this Presto thing, she'll be all over it. Well... just as soon as she learns what an operating system is.
Actually, it doesn't appear to bother her like it does me and anyone else who tries to use it. She gets all defensive/protective of her pc when I point out how poorly it is performing. She just turns it on, walks away and makes some coffee, and by then it's ready to go.
Speaking as someone who owns a relatively new PC, XP, Vista, and 7 boot faster than the 'flasghip' Ubuntu. Not that it matters really.
Sweet! I could go for seconds right about now!
Bite my shiny metal ass!
One of the main reasons why modern operating systems take so long to boot is that they are very bulky: a huge amount of code needs to be read when a computer is first turned on. Consisting of far fewer lines of code than Windows, Presto needs just a few hundred megabytes of memory, says Jordan Smith, product marketing manager at Xandros. Microsoft's Vista operating system, in contrast, recommends at least 15 gigabytes of free disk space to install.
I don't think the reviewer really understands what's happening here. Recommended amount of hard drive space is not installed space (although I'm aware that Vista is a beast). And the reviewer has apparently compared RAM to HD space.
Several companies offer such functionality in their computer BIOSes. Sony's stupidly named XrossMediaBar that they install on everything from PS3s to televisions as well as some laptops being a prime example. These people are probably out of luck as if anybody actually wants this kind of feature, it will start to be provided in more and more BIOSes. Sure, the BIOS mini-OSes don't have the "app store" extensibility (although there's no reason why they couldn't), but, well good luck with that. And if (as I suspect) nobody is really interested because suspend/hibernate is plenty fast enough, then they're still buggered.
Oh no... it's the future.
If BIOS makers would do something trivial - simply allow the user to select a different drive from which to boot, then it would be trivial to offer a linux on a secondary drive (for desktops, or even laptops with an SD card).
It is a wonder that it is 2009 and this feature does not yet exist - almost like someone has colluded against it.
YES - to all of the obtuse slashdotters who will indicate that it is easy for them to switch their primary boot drive - I understand that it is easy for you and me. But it isn't so easy for Joe and Jane Six Pack. If they had a nice clean GUI that asked them to which system they'd like to boot, then Linux and other alternate OS would probably be a lot more popular - especially when Windows gets full of malware (most of these PCs are going in the garbage, now).
More
I don't have any issues with boot time in windows 7. It's up and running in about 20 seconds ... of course this is on an i7 proc w/ 6GB or ram and 15k Velocerapter drives
And how many applications are installed? Unless MS does something amazing, once you finish installing Office, windows boot times traditionally go out the window. And every application thereafter makes it worse. Also, keep in mind that what people are perceiving as boot time is from off to a useable state. For a server this means off->services running. For a user PC this means Off-> Fully Logged in and can launch applications.
Odd that they're showing off this new feature on a MacBook Pro front and center on their website. OS X has always been the 'holy grail' of quick starts for me. With SmartSleep I can configure it to do what I want depending on battery level.
For those that haven't had the opportunity to use OS X, it does a 'dual path' of both sleep and hibernation most of the time. Say you close your lid and the machine goes to sleep with 40% battery left. You forget about your laptop for a week and come back to a completely dead battery. Since OS X does hibernate also, all of your stuff is exactly as you left it (once you find power).
Windows so intelligently will run the battery dead in sleep and then lose everything.
A few seconds is still few-1 seconds too many I want a machine that can "stand by" using static ram so I can have it on stand by as long as I want without worrying about the battery power trickling away and have it power on instantly(ish)
They are definitely addressing an important usability problem. Slow UI makes the user frustrated. Google would never had made it big if it provided better results with slower search speed than the competitors.
When did we start using the term "app store" for them?
...basically Xandros (with CNR) with a Wubi installer? (since it's windows only at the moment) Why not just ship them an Ubuntu disk, it's cheaper... :D
Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
Anyone remember Lindows, and how they were going to take the Windows world by storm?
Are they still around? Didn't they change their name to Linschitz or Linspire or something? Sorry Lunix dudes, now that all the "stupid money" from the VCs is all dried up, I doubt you are going to be the next hot new internet start up to leverage new paradigm synergies of scale.
Thats...the first thing I saw when I went to the "app store"...why? What did they do to the strict Linux user rights? oO"
This will only impress the type of douchebag who lists his RAM timings in his tweaker forum sig. People aren't using Windows because it boots fast, they use it because it came with their PC, and they can bootleg Office from work, and play Snood.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I had a fast boot time on Xandros. But the packages in the repositories weren't up to date and there were very few applications to install without breaking the system. Yes I enjoyed the fast boot times but what's the point of having fast boot times if your computer is completely useless. Installing Ubuntu was pretty easy and gave me access to some more up to date software but then then the Ubuntu repositories are barely up to date. The next netbook I get will be a windows one with a bigger hard disk so I can dual boot. I don't want to be limited by the OS I use.
Clearly what we need is an apt-store.
I have an asus mobo with the quickboot environment, I can browse the web and use skype (though i have yet to actually USE it), however, what would be more interesting to me would be to have this environment be persistent while windows boots in the background, install a driver in windows that sends a message over to the preboot/quickboot environment that says "Finished booting, would you like to move this browsing session over to windows?" I'd click yes, enter my username/password to be passed as login credentials and it would load firefox in the background with all of my tabs (no cookies or sessions, safety first) and the preboot environment would go away until the next boot.
Of course I'd have 3 options at boot, preboot environment only, normal windows/linux boot, and the combo described above.
All of this technological innovation would save me rougly 2 minutes a day, maybe. Though now, the morning routine is to turn on the computer, grab a cup of coffee, and come back to a ready and waiting system.
Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
how many people who arnt already aware of linux will read this article? Im sure its still so that the reason the majority of (non-commercial) users havent tried linux, let alone switched is because theyve never herd of it
This seems like a perfect base OS for either Boxee or MythTV, where you might not want the Media Box sucking power 24/7, but you still want to be able to watch Tv when you want to rather quickly. Can anyone think of a reason why either Boxee or MythTV would be especially difficult to install on Presto?
On an old Pentium 4 system I had, it took 18 seconds to reach fully-ready desktop from a cold boot. This was a five-year-old installation, in constant use as my main computer.
Anybody browsing this article probably has the technical competence and interest needed to maintain the OS so it never takes any longer than 30 seconds.
Unless you've got McAfee installed, of course, in which case it'll take a significant fraction of your lifespan...
Aside: PEBKAC is tongue in cheek for alliterative goodness. I know developers bear more of the blame owing to the fact that it's their fault anything needs to be done at all.
These various onboard and compact Linux installations targeting Windows users are okay in thought, but not in practice.
Eventually all of the software would be out of date. And then what? The skype client might not connect, the Firefox might be riddled with vulnerabilities (because yes, its been prone to get them), the kernel itself might get root exploits, etc. Are you going to require the user to perform software updates on a distro which is supposed to allow them to work instantly and without delay? It's hard enough getting them to update their Windows installations.
Worse yet, what happens when something goes wrong? How do they reinstall it? Would they even bother?
I know that these aren't definite issues, but they're things to take into consideration when you're trying to pass off a compact operating system environment to people who are used to powerful ones with plenty of storage available and everything.
Anyway, that aside, the article is a bit extreme about startup times. Booting your computer will not take anymore than 30 seconds or so if you don't have it packed down with a bunch of shit. And the fact they even mentioned those lawsuits of taking 30 minutes is ludicrous exaggeration of a non-issue. If you're so impatient that you can't wait less than a minute, then computers are definitely not for you in the first place.
The solution to instant-on computing is taking better advantage of standby mode. It's entirely possible to have instant-on right now. It just depends on what your definition of the term is. There's no reason why it can't mean the same Windows/Linux/Mac installations we already have.
Ok, you could probably somebody an operating system that boots in 2 seconds and does nothing. But, I guarantee you that within a month the vast majority of people will load up their computers with a bunch of crap such that they will still take a minute to boot.
This is my sig.
It's all the OTHER crap that has to get done before you can use your computer. If you have only windows, no net connection, no 'SlowestNotes', no 'Norton-Nork anitvirius' software etc in your startup folder windows starts pretty quickly.
The problems start when you have a net login script on a bloated server that holds you back, then SlowestNotes starts and takes a few minutes to log you in and open your inbox, even longer to show your first new email. Then Norton-Nork anti-virus takes another few minutes to initialize and spit up a half dozen popups. Why can't all this crappy group-underwear run in the background in SILENT and let you open an app as soon as the OS is ready?
Not to mention that being Windows you probably have a ton of Maulware, Spyware, Viri and other infectious crap running in the background that Nortin-Nork didn't find. You don't stand a chance!
Increasing boot times by 300% when the average OS boots in under 3 minutes is about as useful as the average driver discovering that his quarter-mile top speed increased to 115 from 105 when they bought a new car.
In other words, who gives a shit anymore? I've got 5-year old laptops still running XP that I never shut down and always hibernate them. Same goes for my new Macbook.
Want to give me something useful? How about a browser that starts up in 1 second or less. Now THAT is something that we all use every day, all day.
Really, for a long time it's been acknowledged that few non-geeks know that Linux exists, what it is, what an Operating System is, or that there are alternatives to Windows (other than Mac). Probably most people who use Windows do get annoyed with how slow it is to boot, and especially how unresponsive the interface is for the first few minutes upon logging in. But I don't know that many would see this as THE reason to switch to Linux. People care about using their apps and being able to open their files. They want it to be completely seamless. They want their computer to just work, not to have errors, and not to need to be told how to work in some arcane shell language. Being slow is not good, but on the whole most people have learned to live with and accept it. Being fast (lean + efficient) without sacrificing usability and interoperability should always be an important goal whenever a system is designed, though. As long as Linux can offer that to people, people will love it, even if they don't even realize what they're running.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
What anoys me the most is booting Linux and I am forced to fsck my drives. could that not be done at shutdown when im not in a such a rush?
and why do you shut down your browser? ;-)
Are boot times really that much of a problem? I don't think I've ever seen a Windows system take more than a minute and a half to load. If anyone is experiencing 30 minutes of boot time they either have a very poor concept of time or there is something very seriously wrong with the computer.
My current computer probably takes about 45 seconds to boot, but only about 25 seconds of that is Windows Vista. The rest is POST, especially since I have a hardware RAID controller, which has it's own POST procedure. My previous machine, which ran Windows Server 2003 Standard as a desktop would boot in about 17 seconds, including POST.
That said, I probably only reboot once a month or so.
My dad considered "Instant-On" to be a much more important feature on a TV than color, and I don't disagree with his reasoning. (Some of you kids might not remember, but it was pretty common to switch from a very good monochrome TV to a relatively crappy color TV.)
I had an 80286 Tandy once with DOS 3.3 in ROM. I loved it, but unfortunately, cheapish 80386 machines were already out so I didn't use that computer for very long.
These days I just use iMacs and Macbook Pro's (my workplace is a 100% OSX shop), and I rarely, if ever, boot anything since OSX does such a good job at sleeping.
Basically I switched from Linux to OSX; I haven't really used Windows much since about 1996. Didn't everybody already switch to Linux back then anyway?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
..he has a point on what is "too heavy". Laptops just a few years ago where twice as heavy and people put up with it. Now the big complaint is battery run time, which could be easily solved if we just had laptop weight parity with that same few years ago and the manufacturers actually put in a decent big battery. Take one of these 2.5 lb notebook marvels they have now, add a 2.5 lb battery, still 5 lbs, which is just not that heavy.
As opposed to minutes, or hours?
I already dualboot Windows and Linux. Will Presto totally fsck up grub and/or the MBR?
Geology - it's not rocket science; it's rock science
Do all hip companies have to begin with a Z sound these days?
Xandros
Scion
Xanax
Xynergy
Zuffa
My UID is prime. Hah!
by "windows systems" they mean XP and Vista. My P3 ME laptop boots in 12 seconds including login time.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Any time I build a fresh PC from a Windows CD (not a recovery disk from a PC maker like Dell), Windows boots very quickly. When you start installing a bunch of apps that load on startup (especially on laptops), it starts taking longer and longer.
I reboot about once a week, and it's usually when I'm done working, not when I'm ready to start.
You'll be happy to know we have managed to get moblin 2 boot in about 5 seconds on the acer aspire one, as well as other netbooks on the market. See our presentation on "5 second boot" on lwn.net for more information.
I could probably use this on my now very old laptop (Celeron 1.33Ghz with 256MB RAM). It's essentially just an e-mail machine which I also use to seed torrents and access the internet when I don't want to turn on my main PC. I'll have to wait and see if it's worth the $19.95 price tag though.
Is this a clever stealth-marketing ploy for converting Windows users to Linux?
No, its just a way to focus people on their brand instead of the competition.
Being generous and deciding that by "power-up" you mean "bring the computer back from hibernation", I'd agree that yea it does take some time. But suspend brings the computer back up in seconds. Essentially your phone suspends itself when you don't use it, you can do the same with your laptop. So I don't get your point.
As far as the article, I have an instant Linux-based DVD player on my laptop and find it pretty handy. An instant Internet-oriented system is less useful since I'd have to configure wireless and similar, but I could see myself using it sometimes.
Power management in Windows works pretty well.
Unless I am doing maintenance - in Safe mode - I really don't much care how long the system takes to reboot because it is not something I have do every day.
-----
Apple and Microsoft won the battle on the ground - battles fought by users in the home and small business. The little guys - the Dilberts - who subverted the corporate hierarchy, the system administrator.
"The Cathedral and the Bazaar" are inverted in the Geek mind. It was OSX and Windows that were forged in the market place.
*NIX entered your world as the mandate from on high - and far too often still does.
The geek was never the rebel, the geek was the establishment.
The technocratic elite.
Is apt-get an app store then? What about synaptic (apt-get's visual cousin) ?
How does the community define "app store"
I personally own a ASUS mobo with expressgate enabled, when i was building it I've tested it without any drive just the ram cpu and video card, to see if everything was working, well it really is a 5 sec boot OS, and I've been able to connect on msn with pidgin in seconds, also was able to browse web pages, its quite great, but I wonder if I can change the expressgate os ? Surely its not for gamers, but it's quite an interesting option !
And here's how: 1) There will be some critical peripheral that the distro fails to recognize automatically. Linux generally fails at the device driver recognition problem solved well... adequately by Windows. 2) Users can't run their windows apps, and the web addled, Linux fanboys who make the distro won't preconfigure Wine and put it on the application menu, or auto-start it on launch with an easy switching system. They will once again fail to learn the lesson of IBM, which was successful not because its technology was superior, but because its technology was 100% compatible with existing, in-place technology, used by the majority of businesses (i.e. punch cards). Most people don't give a rat's patoot about Linux. They want stuff to work as reliably and thoughtlessly as a toaster or a macintosh.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
First: Who gives a shit if it's booting in half the time?
I press power once between standing up and breakfast (on). And once before going to bed (off).
It already boots faster than my brain. ^^
Second: This is very old news. This quick-boot "technique" (aka horrible hack). Exists for a long time now.
Besides: If I wanted to boot fast, I'd do it right, and use hibernation for the power button and long times of inactivity, and sleep for short times. With an optional real reboot (in case of kernel updates) between pressing the power button and going to hibernate (after being booted up again).
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Newflash: Windows users don't care about the "painful" amount of time it takes for Windows to boot and they aren't going to switch to a faster alternative away from the OS they know for just one startup feature; it's absurd to think anybody would leave anything familiar for such an option. The main reason is Windows users are accustomed to it and don't see it as painful.
There's no physical reason a modern OS can't boot under 5 seconds. If it takes considerably longer than that, it's due to redundancy and inefficiency. In short: bloat.
So yes, I can wait 30 seconds, but if see a system that boots in a rational (non-integer) amount of time I now it's very cruft-free. It wont hog my cpu needlessly, it won't spin my disk all the time. It was carefully designed, that's all.
And yes, I know that getting gimp as good as corel is more important to the success of linux than a fast boot time, but the thing is. It is hard. And boring. It requires new software, new research, et al. As for the boot time, it's just utilising right what you already have. Sure, a prefetcher may help, but choosing the right order of the daemons will impact more, and even more disabling needless ones.
I do turn off my computer at night. I don't think we have the luxury of wasting that energy anymore. And who cares, I know I'll take very much longer to wake than my pc will.
entropy happens
Seems to me that these folks are just creating a profitable product from free-as-in-beer components. No religion, no Linux evangelism, just capitalism at work.
The vast, vast majority of people don't give a frak about "intellectual freedom" and "revolution" -- what they want is an inexpensive tool that works.
All about me
anon@box:~$ uptime
21:01:36 up 247 days
All Windows OS's have poor startup times, compared with other distributions, and these times increase the longer the OS is installed on the hardware platform. Windows reboots are also required more frequently than most other platforms, most notably for the incremental updates that Windows Automatic Updates service insists are performed when patches are detected. While a short boot time after a Windows fresh install may be acceptable, over time the boot time can lengthen considerably and can become a nuisance. Without hacking the Windows Registry and performing manual maintenance, Windows must be re-installed to restore performance.
Snood!!
If you think that 30 seconds is fast just because it is a computer, then I think you have really low standards.
You're really emphasizing, by using <em> rather than <i>, eh?
Well... my hot redhead young WIFE takes 40 seconds to turn on completely!
(Oh wait, I don't have a wife...)
I'm sorry, but this isn't a clever ploy to get windows users to switch to linux. It's not very clever to think that something like boot times will makes someone switch their OS of choice.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
....they still could re: aftermarket accessories. A full extended range battery pack that slapped and snapped on the bottom of the case and then just ran a powerplug to the input/charger jack. The same size, it just adds some depth to the whole laptop then. Or heck, make it just half additional battery action and an optical drive, for those notebooks that don't have one. I don't really know what modern laptop batteries weigh, but say it extended the range by 4 or 5x plus gave it an additional drive. They'd sell some I am sure. Sort of like a dock but better. Then folks would have a choice on what they wanted to tote that day without having to buy two full complete machines.
Basically, I just like any kind of hybrids or changeable things like that, dual or triple use. It could be three way, the basic machine is just a good smartphone that fits in your pocket, that could snap into a netbook chassis that gave you a bigger screen and keyboard and maybe some more storage, and then the netbook could have the add on range and drive extender that snaps on the bottom.
If "clever marketing" is avoiding mentioning the name of the brand, then something is wrong.
Table-ized A.I.
Every time there is a discussion about boot times, someone very much like yourself comes out with the old chestnut of "are you so important and impatient that you can't wait 30 seconds for a PC to boot". I assume you guys have a secret clubhouse somewhere where you meet to discuss your strategy for defending the indefensible, but anyway...
Could this logic not be applied to any situation? E.g. you double click on an icon to start a program and your computer needlessly pauses for 15-30 seconds - but don't get mad, after all your life isn't so full that you can't wait less than a minute, right?
I honestly don't know what the crap PCs are doing in that 30-40 seconds. If it's scanning for hardware changes, well, newsflash, most people don't change their hardware every time they boot. I do know this: I currently have a clean XPSP2 installation on a system based on an AMD Phenom II 940, and it boots to desktop in under 15 seconds. Yet my last PC (Athlon XP 3000+) somehow took 40 seconds to boot to desktop. There is something totally arbitrary and unneccessary happening on most Windows machines which makes them boot much more slowly than they need to.
Read Pynchon.
My first computer, a Commodore 64, had the entire Operating System on ROM and was quick to boot up. My second computer, a Commodore Amiga, had its Kernel stored in ROM, and was also quick to boot up.
Why isn't this sort of thing being done today? Not only would it be a quick boot, but malware would have a harder time corrupting the OS, as the important bits would be locked down in unchangable ROM.
Of course, doing this *would* require a change to today's "We'll fix it later when someone complains" software development model. It would have to be right the first time.
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
from TFA:
"people who've filed lawsuits claiming that their employers should pay for this boot-up and shut-down time"
I'll add that to my list of things that disgust me about America*: "demanding money for sitting on my ass"
*Disclaimer: American, but Canadian if asked
why do I have to boot at all? Why not just make suspend to disk and resume faster? Why has suspend/resume to be so damned slow?
Booting looks like a totally archaic concept to me.
Finally, this kid will get decent performance from his computer!
It's been done- Damn Small Linux. Not as pretty but wicked fast.
Disclaimer: I'm Jordan Smith, Product Marketing Manager at Xandros. I launched Presto at Demo 09 (demo.com) last week. (And what a great experience that was!)
Presto is a simple Windows utility that downloads as an .exe and installs/uninstalls like any other Windows app in XP or Vista. It gives you the option on boot-up of choosing either Windows or Presto. Booting into Presto gives you quick (i.e. sub 10 seconds) access to Firefox, Pidgin and Skype, plus many other apps you can add through presto.cnr.com. In our experience, the aforementioned apps cover the vast majority of quick, online use cases e.g. updating Facebook, checking Gmail, etc. Shutdown is instant.
Presto is not meant to replace Windows. It's not even about Linux. It's about enabling people to quickly, easily and cheaply turn a dusty old computer into a fast, reliable, easy and secure browsing appliance. There's a strong market for this. I've even made a point about stripping out all the visible OS-like stuff because our users don't seem to want or need it. On the contrary: they appreciate the simplicity of Presto.
I'm very interested in getting your feedback on our beta, mainly to identify where we may have gaps in our hardware support. You can sign up for the beta at prestomypc.com. We'll have the beta up on downloads.com and tucows.com on Monday. It's under 500MB (including Open Office, a large chunk of that) and we're working on a way to make the DL less painful.
As always, I'm open to your constructive feedback at jordan.smith(at)xandros.com.
Thanks!
I really would not encourage a sneak attack, people need to know that Linux rocks and very hardcore like!
To see a few of my Android apps goto: www.hartwired.com
" Is this a clever stealth-marketing ploy for converting Windows users to Linux?"
So what if it is?
As long as it helps to limit the market-share of Microsoft, and promotes open-source, and thus freedom from monopolistic marketing, then it is good, IMHO.
That last statement in the summary makes it sound like some draconian, covert Op.
That seems to add at least 30 seconds to the log-in process, more if there are lots of policies to apply. I'm running Vista on an old P4 and it boots much faster than that. And Outlook only takes me a few seconds to launch.
I suspect you have processes from anti-virus or other software that are killing your start up time.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
My friend is a professional graphics artist, and he recently switched from using Photoshop to using GIMP. He likes GIMP better than Photoshop because he finds that GIMP is more "tweakable".
No thanks.
My XP installation boots faster than the last few Ubuntu versions I've tried. A substantial portion of most uers' Windows boot time can be attributed to bloatware and/or anti-virus apps, neither of which I tolerate on my Windows installation.
If I were a Microsoft MVP, I would be all over this story, whining about how irrelevant booting is and how I would just suspend since, like, we control the OEMs and don't have to care about crap hardware and we can only beat Linux if we can focus on awakening from sleep instead of boot!
Oh, all the other Microsoft shitbags already did that? Oh. Well. Nevermind.
"painful amount of time it takes for Windows computers to start up"
ahhh Slashdot is master in spreading FUD about Microsoft products
If you want to win over windows users:
Make ONE distro - Part of what make Windows so useful is that i know how to use every windows machine i see. They're all pretty damn similar. Instead of making a bunch of distros that can't compete, make ONE that can. All the flavors are confusing. Windows has 3 basic flavors, home, domain and server. Aim for that.
Make it run Halo, Planetside, MS Office and the games that don't work on consoles. FPS and RTS games just aren't the same with console controls. What this really means is: driver support for video cards. And NO, i don't want OO.o. i use it when i can, but it just isn't a competitor for MSO. So either get OO.o ready for prime time, or work with MS.
i'd love to not pay 100$ to 200$ for the OS, but i'd rather have a system that can DO THINGS. That can run my games and interact with the rest of the world.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
I think this company is going down a path thats really irrelevant. Its not the time that it takes windows to start up that will make people want to use Linux. The windows users that have the most trouble with windows are the ones that will have trouble with any technology that is out there. I should know. I've done tech support for years. Things like having to install drivers, viruses, and ad-ware cause most of the grief on the windows platform. But also that windows isn't as easy to use as everyone may believe.
The biggest barrier to entry for Linux right now I believe is the fact that hardware companies don't support it as well as they should. Compatibility with new hardware is the biggest pet peeve and the tweeking it takes to make hardware work is what drives some users batty. This is not to detract from the massive progress on this front. The next biggest issue is to have the software work well. Too often you install a package that has been put out and it isn't very usable due to some little issue. This isn't the case in every package but it happens enough to keep novice users away. Case in point Scribus. If anyone has tried to use this on ubuntu lately they will know the print function doesn't work very well. Documents on some printers are just not printed properly. This is annoying considering this is a desktop publishing package.
Another thing is the developers of open source should be to really go after new innovative functionality. They really want to push forward a perception that new technology shows up on open source first before windows in fact. Right now most of the advancements are under the hood. But flashy features that catch users attention will do more to promote open source then any other advancement.
www.hyperspace.com
You may experience some fimiliarity
Years (and YEARS!) ago when users in my office showed up for work in the morning, they would turn on their DOS (and later Win 3.1) systems and wait 30 to 40 seconds for their PCs to boot.
Big deal.
A couple of users used to complain to me about this terrible waiting time.
I wanted to yell at them "Clean up your DESK while waiting, you fucking slobs!". But instead I just grinned, and bore it.
Gee- 40 seconds of their day! Okay, maybe two minutes if they booted 3 times - "lost" out of their day.
One guy actually managed to get a PC upgrade from his boss, based on this "inconvenience"!
Today I boot my Vista & Win7 systems about once every five days.
Big deal.
So... I lose 40 seconds, while I pour my coffee.
"Plus ca change... etc"
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- aqk
F U
With the popularity of handheld devices / nifty cell phones, my tolerance for boot time has gone way down. Not so much for my desktop, but I would love to be able to flip open my laptop and pop off a new email then shut the laptop down completely to save battery in a very short amount of time (ideally quickly enough that using the larger keyboard I could do this + attach a file quicker than it would take me to type it out on a handheld device).
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