Phoenix BIOSOS?

jhfry writes "In an interesting development by an unexpected source, Phoenix Technologies is releasing a Linux-based, virtualization-enabled, BIOS-based OS for computers. They implemented a full Linux distro right on the BIOS chips, and by using integrated virtualization technology, it 'allows PCs and laptops to hot-switch between the main operating system, such as Windows, and the HyperSpace environment.' So, essentially, they are 'trying to create a new market using the ideas of a fast-booting, safe platform that people can work in, but remain outside of Windows.'"

Comments

If it works . . .

[arizwebfoot]

It works.

And if it works, it might be a good thing.

Re:If it works . . .

[Tacvek]

Hyperspace is an extremely fast booting (approx 4 seconds) Linux based mini OS. It is available in two flavors. On PCs without the Intel's VT extensions it is just a fast booting OS, but you can only dual boot it.

On PC's with VT, the bios loads a hypervisor which then boots both Hyperspace, and windows. (It may defer starting windows until hyperspace has loaded). The result is that within for seconds you can begin using the computer, doing things like browsing the web while windows. Once Windows is up, users can instantly switch back and forth.

In theory there should be little reason why other OS could not be used instead of windows, although the system may be installing special drivers in windows to help mitigate some issues.

Re:If it works . . .

[physburn]

Sure its a good thing. Thats the environment i'll boot into to fix the boot block of windows or linux, whenever they become unbootable. Hope it has room, for fsck, mkfs, a partitioner and most of the common filesystem types.

Re:If it works . . .

[Brian Gordon]

What about updating the kernel or compiling in new drivers? Do you have to flash the BIOS every time? Risky.

Re:If it works . . .

[Zero__Kelvin]

Please don't ask sincere questions and pass them off as rhetorical. Learn about Hypervisors, then post. Stop sounding stupid.

Re:If it works . . .

[beav007]

Stop sounding stupid.

I've tried this with people before, and it never works. Never fear - I have a plan!

sudo Stop sounding stupid.

Re:If it works . . .

[camperdave]

I've tried this with people before, and it never works. Never fear - I have a plan!

sudo Stop sounding stupid.

beav007 is not in sudoers file. This incident will be reported.

Re:If it works . . .

[Brian Gordon]

If you can get to the desktop in 4 seconds then most of the OS is on nonvolatile memory.. so do you have to "flash" it with awkward tools every time you want to change it? It's a legitimate question

Re:If it works . . .

[afidel]

Not really, all decent systems have two separate BIOS flash areas and will only update the second one after a successful startup from the primary. Heck some systems have that AND a minimal BIOS in ROM so they can always recover even if the flash is scambled (HP workstations and servers do this, stick a floppy in and hit a special key during powerup or flip a DIP and they will read the flash file from the floppy and write it to BIOS flash).

Re:If it works . . .

[beav007]

D'oh :(

OT: wow, that sig brings back memories. We used to own (a physical copy of and a license for [ :P ]) that on VHS. I wonder how many people remember it...

Re:If it works . . .

[Mage Powers]

It's only dangerous to update parts of the bios that cannot be avoided like the first block that gets booted. Just need enough programming to be able to read a new BIOS off of somewhere else, kinda like the BIOS' BIOS. Sadly the bios updater from ASUS rewrites the bootblock :-/

Re:If it works . . .

[Hucko]

2?

Re:If it works . . .

[Alt-Ctrl-Freak]

gosh...

$ sudo /etc/init.d/audio --stupid stop

if that doesn't work...

$ su
# kill -9 987471

Re:If it works . . .

[jimicus]

Who says you have to use the version of Linux in the BIOS as your main OS? More to the point, who in their right mind is still regularly recompiling their own kernel?

Re:If it works . . .

[icebraining]

I recompile my own kernel - it's useful to reduce boot time in old hardware and add stuff like TuxOnIce.

Re:If it works . . .

[Brian Gordon]

Gentoo users? You get a much smaller kernel image and a faster boot. Of course, I stopped recompiling when a new version started breaking things.

Re:If it works . . .

[mihay42]

Overall this is an interesting architecture and I believe that it provides a viable approach to finally using all of the cores on multicore processors.

First post

[Nethemas the Great]

first post, nothing useful to say but. Cool!

Re:First post

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why you first post as anon.

Hrm

[CSFFlame]

The Geek in me says: "awesome" The Hacker in me says: "jackpot"

Re:Hrm

[umeboshi]

The Paranoid Conspiracist in me says: "This is an essential step for the trusted computing platform, where a government or corporate owned rootkit could exist on your computer, with little to no ability to be replaced or removed by the owner of the machine."

Re:Hrm

[Wingman 5]

In the fourth case, the core security software grabs input and output from the network and disk to check the data for security threats. In that case, "you won't even really know you are using hyperspace," Hobbs says.

Talk about the setup for the rootkit from hell.

Re:Hrm

[Wingman 5]

There is so much FUD about Trusted computting. Go watch Security Now Ep. 99 It will change how you think about trusted computing. It will separate the truth from the FUD.

Re:Hrm

[bit01]

Talk about the setup for the rootkit from hell.

BIOS flash memory is simply mass storage that, just like the hard disk, retains its contents when switched off.

They didn't talk about it in the article but I'd be surprised if there wasn't some way to recover if it gets corrupted, either deliberately (virus), or accidentally (buggy software). Maybe protected memory that does initial boot or provides a re-flashing mechanism.

If there's no such hardware protected method for recovery then yes, root kit hell.

---

Don't be a programmer-bureaucrat; someone who substitutes marketing buzzwords and software bloat for verifiable improvements.

Re:Hrm

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing about so called "Trusted Computing" is that in practise, the owner of the "trusted" computer (the customers that buy the computer) do not have control over their computer. In practise, it is a company (probably a very weathly multinational company) that holds the control.

Re:Hrm

[Mr2001]

He basically makes the argument that TPM is a dual-use technology: it can be used for good or evil. Problem is, the evil uses could easily be disabled without impairing the good uses... but that hasn't happened.

"Remote attestation" is for DRM, plain and simple. It's evil. There is no reason I'd want my computer to produce a report of what software I'm running without giving me the ability to change that report before it's sent out. That feature is useless for me as a user; it's only useful to third parties that want to restrict the software I'm allowed to run (e.g. by refusing to send me a video stream unless they know I'm using their preferred player).

If they removed remote attestation from the TPM spec, or simply put a switch on the side of the computer so the owner could forge attestations whenever he felt like it, it wouldn't be evil. So the question is, if Trusted Computing is such a boon for users, why does it still have features that only serve to undermine those very users?

Re:Hrm

[jmorris42]

> So the question is, if Trusted Computing is such a boon for users, why
> does it still have features that only serve to undermine those very users?

Or you might consider a slightly bigger world than your basement and uses for computers besides downloading porn and playing WoW. Remote attestation might not be something you care for, but if you were designing an ATM system you might feel differently about the ability to know, with a pretty high confidence, that the remote terminals are uncorrupted.

You are stuck on the idea that it is YOUR computer and that will always be so, that the person in front of the display owns the machine. But that just isn't true in a great many scenarios. I'd really like a system that allowed me to know if one of the workstations around here had been compromised. All of our machines are 'mine' in the sense I'm the one responsible for them, the employees sitting in front of em just use em.

Even remote attestation can be used for either good or evil. The key is to resist when big media tries to use it for evil. And it's evil because the machines aren't TimeWarner's yet they want to assert ownership over them just because they are displaying their precious IP.

Re:Hrm

[umeboshi]

Thanks for point that out. :)

I'm still listening to that darned episode, but they've only been babbling about ssl certificates and other items in their listeners mailbag.

My point was that the os in bios was an essential component, as the tpm is also. I never tried to say that tpm == trusted computing, rather that it is just a component of it. Hardware virtualization is also an essential component (it's also dual use, and I run virtual machines very frequently). A builtin hypervisor (or rootkit, depending on who's controlling it) is able to restrict access to the tpm, allowing only "trusted entities" to configure it. If you own the machine, but don't have full access and control of the hypervisor, this is bad. If you don't own the machine, and don't have that access and control, this is good.

Re:Hrm

[Zero__Kelvin]

Thank you for self-imploding ;-)

Re:Hrm

[Anonymous Coward]

If you managed a network filled with whatever crap stems from users clicking on the dancing monkey in the web page, you might have a different perspective on the value of attestation. Knowing what's running on a PC isn't just about DRM. Being able to quarantine end-nodes based on failure to attest to running known-good images would be useful.

Re:Hrm

[Mr2001]

Remote attestation might not be something you care for, but if you were designing an ATM system you might feel differently about the ability to know, with a pretty high confidence, that the remote terminals are uncorrupted.

Fair enough. But if I were designing an ATM (or a kiosk, or any other public-facing terminal where remote attestation might have a legitimate use), I could put whatever additional hardware in there I wanted. I'm already adding a keypad, card reader, touch screen, etc. so why not one more thing?

Remote attestation isn't something that needs to be built into the average PC. On a typical user's desktop, remote attestation doesn't really have any legitimate uses, only evil ones.

I'd really like a system that allowed me to know if one of the workstations around here had been compromised. All of our machines are 'mine' in the sense I'm the one responsible for them, the employees sitting in front of em just use em.

If those workstations came with a switch on the side for forging attestations, and you didn't want users doing that, you could simply disable the switch. Just like you can already disable CD-ROM drives, USB ports, or whatever else users might use to compromise the workstations.

Re:Hrm

[644bd346996]

The problem isn't with getting rid of such a rootkit. You can always physically replace the chip it resides on. The real issue is detecting the rootkit before your credit card number is stolen. By using SMM and VT and not storing any data except on the flash chip itself (which very few users can read from), a rootkit can hide itself from all but the most determined experts.

Re:Hrm

[MightyMartian]

You're both right, which is why the parent's point is valid. I administer a large number of workstations, and would love the capacity to know what's running on them, to recognize whether they're compromised, but on my home computer, I still don't want Big Media spying on me. Somebody owns every computer out there, and that somebody should have the right to determine what kind of data about the computer's operation and about what it is being used for is being shipped out, and to whom it's being shipped out to. If it's a corporate LAN, then by all means, the IT department should have a window, if it's the computer in my basement, then I should be able to tell Time Warner to fuck themselves.

Re:Hrm

[mlts]

Its a tool, and can be used for good/ill. I actively build/buy servers and laptops with TPM functionality because it allows me to enable encryption with BitLocker, save the recovery key someplace secure (safe deposit box), and from there on out, the encryption is completely forgotten about. On laptops, I enable the PIN functionality so an intruder would have to have the tech of a chip fab to coax the information needed to grab the HD contents. Even though TPM chips are not hardened against physical attack, few thieves outside of intel agencies have the tech to rip open a chip's package and attach probes to the chip's microscopic pads.

Either way, servers can reboot unattended while the data is encrypted, and laptops are protected against brute force password attacks. If an intruder tries to repeatedly guess a PIN, the TPM will just keep forcing longer and longer delays, if not permanently locking.

All a TPM is, is a cryptographic token that is on the hardware, with two pieces of additional functionality: The ability to validate that the MBR and booting parts of the hard disk have not been tampered with, and remote attestation.

The ability to check for tampering is important because in theory, someone can put a keylogger on the boot sector, then pass the info onto the real preboot authentication system (PGP or TrueCrypt) while saving the boot passphrase for an attacker in some safe area. If someone tries to tamper with the BitLocker subsystem, the TPM won't allow the machine to boot and it will be obvious that something is fishy.

Remote attestation is controversial, but you don't have to turn it on in BIOS. Same with Intel's vPro stuff.

Finally, by the TPM spec, all TPM chips are shipped turned off and disabled by default, so a software maker can't depend on one for DRM reasons.

Re:Hrm

[jhol13]

FUD ... hmmm.

The idea of the TPM module is to keep valuable keys in it, right?
How do I make a backup of them?

Re:Hrm

[Craig Ringer]

Remote attestation isn't something that needs to be built into the average PC. On a typical user's desktop, remote attestation doesn't really have any legitimate uses, only evil ones.

As a system administrator, I disagree in the strongest possible terms. I'd love to be able to have the domain clients here restricted to an authorized software list. I could let users install things they needed or wanted instead of having to do everything for them, but I could restrict the list of available code to things I'd verified were safe and wouldn't cause system issues, security problems, etc. It'd also offer significant protection against resident malware. It'd be great.

Even being able to detect when a machine had unauthorized software on it would be a huge plus.

The parent poster's point is an excellent one - often the user of the computer isn't the owner, and/or isn't the person responsible for managing and maintaining it. In these cases remote attestation becomes highly attractive.

Re:Hrm

[Damarkus13]

Remote attestation isn't something that needs to be built into the average PC. On a typical user's desktop, remote attestation doesn't really have any legitimate uses, only evil ones.

You're assuming manufacturers are going to produce a separate line of motherboards for home use and office use? I think that would drive the cost of hardware up.

If those workstations came with a switch on the side for forging attestations,

On a typical user's desktop forging attestations doesn't really have any legitimate uses, only evil ones.

Honestly, turning the attestations off may happen, but do you really think the hardware manufacturers are going to let you forge them?

Re:Hrm

[afidel]

You seem to be under the impression that consumers buy the majority of computers, they don't.

Re:Hrm

[Wingman 5]

My nw8440 can do it, it creates a encrypted backup of your keys, and it can only be reloaded back in to the TPM

Re:Hrm

[MrKaos]

So the question is, if Trusted Computing is such a boon for users, why does it still have features that only serve to undermine those very users?

Because it's about vendors trusting they have control of *your* machine, not about you *trusting* control of your machine.

Re:Hrm

[Thaelon]

I think you've got a skewed perspective.

I'm assuming here that you're some sort of administrator or something. Based on that assumption I offer this perspective: Your job only exists to enable them to do theirs. You're a meta-worker, they're the workers. Certainly there is some allowance for pride in your work in that it's "your" network or "your" computers, but you're really only there to enable them. Without them, you wouldn't be necessary. As long as you keep that in mind, everyone benefits.

Re:Hrm

[bit01]

The problem isn't with getting rid of such a rootkit. You can always physically replace the chip it resides on. The real issue is detecting the rootkit before your credit card number is stolen. By using SMM and VT and not storing any data except on the flash chip itself (which very few users can read from), a rootkit can hide itself from all but the most determined experts.

The same is true for a hard disk. Special tools can read both the hard disk and the flash memory in raw form but a root kit can hide data on both, including using SMM+VT for both. Virus scanners that run inside the system they are checking are snake oil.

Booting off a CD is a convenient way to bypass a hard disk root kit for checking. The so-called anti-virus companies should've created such CD's years ago. The flash memory needs an equivalently convenient mechanism, maybe boot via a protected memory mini-BIOS to CD.

---

Don't be a programmer-bureaucrat; someone who substitutes marketing buzzwords and software bloat for verifiable improvements.

Re:Hrm

[Mr2001]

As a system administrator, I disagree in the strongest possible terms [...] often the user of the computer isn't the owner, and/or isn't the person responsible for managing and maintaining it. In these cases remote attestation becomes highly attractive.

Hi, and thanks for reading the first two paragraphs of my comment!

Since you're a system administrator, I'd like to extend a special offer to you: click here to read the final paragraph of my comment, absolutely free! I think you'll find it specifically addresses your concerns.

Re:Hrm

[Mr2001]

You're assuming manufacturers are going to produce a separate line of motherboards for home use and office use? I think that would drive the cost of hardware up.

I don't think it would. If TPM had been designed from the beginning to be less evil, then remote attestation could be disabled by setting a jumper or cutting a trace -- or controlled by a switch.

On a typical user's desktop forging attestations doesn't really have any legitimate uses, only evil ones.

Retaining control of my computer is a legitimate use.

So is discouraging the spread of invasive DRM: if every would-be digital tyrant knows that the attestations coming from my computer might be fake, then they won't pursue DRM schemes that rely on restricting the software I'm allowed to run. I might not even need to use the forgery switch; its mere presence might be enough to keep those third parties from trying to control my PC.

Re:Hrm

[Falconhell]

Anybody seen that sock with the 3.5" hard drive in it, the roll of old carpet and the bag of lime?

Re:Hrm

[Darinbob]

The engineer in me says "BIOS, who uses a BIOS anymore?"

Re:Hrm

[shutdown -p now]

Because it's about vendors trusting they have control of *your* machine, not about you *trusting* control of your machine.

So, do you have any actual, real-world example of TPM being used that way? Or just spreading the old recycled FUD around?

Re:Hrm

[Hurricane78]

That's simple: Block it with a firewall. I bet there is another way to disable it too.

Re:Hrm

[Hurricane78]

You're assuming manufacturers are going to produce a separate line of motherboards for home use and office use?

Nah. They only need to flash a different BIOS on them. Done in seconds. No problem.

Re:Hrm

[jabjoe]

And what about when it's your machine and it's an app you need to use and are being prevented from using? Maybe for work machines, but I will not buy hardware for home with this. I won't use services that require me to have this. Built it yourself from source, maybe modified/customized it? Then you can't use it. Could you get more locked in? I'm not going to just walk into this cage, or even go near it. I won't give up my freedoms so easily.

Re:Hrm

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, having worked in environments where a remote systems administrator picked the list of what I could and couldn't install, I have to say it sucked. Hard.

I'm sure this doesn't apply to you but it was a hateful to work at a place where I had to explain what Vim was (and no they didn't know what the other editor was either).

From a sysadmin point of view it might be a good idea but overall I think that will only lead to the Microsoft only attitude which in turn leads to the things like IE6 only web sites. ...and no one wants that again, surely?

Re:Hrm

[Anonymous Coward]

http://xkcd.com/538/

Re:Hrm

[gbutler69]

Did you even read what he said?

What does a legitimate use for the feature when it isn't your computer have to do with the lack of an ability to turn it off when it is?

Epic-Fail on Logic.

Re:Hrm

[Anonymous Coward]

Another user would be in the corporate world where they like to limit what you can run on your computers due to licensing, or company policy. But as an IT admin, that would just plain suck.

Re:Hrm

[jhol13]

Can you reload them in a different machine?
How about on a different motherboard?

Re:Hrm

[ckaminski]

Then don't be surprised when Time Warner says "Fuck you back, you can't have our content."

THAT'S what TPM media attestation is all about. Balancing the equation. Yes, it fucks open source to a degree, in the short term, but too bad.

Re:Hrm

[ckaminski]

No, it's about vendors Trusting that your machine is who it says it is. It has nothing to do about control, except over their own content.

FUD.

Re:Hrm

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you might consider a slightly bigger world than your basement and uses for computers besides downloading porn

That is pure crazy talk, man!

Re:Hrm

[644bd346996]

I've booted off of Symantec anti-virus installation disks dating back at least to 2002. They use something based off WinPE.

As for the BIOS issue, one of my motherboards has two BIOS chips, and which one is active is controlled by a jumper.

Re:Hrm

[Maavin]

The Cobalt Qube on my shelf says: "So what?" :)

Re:Hrm

[EvilBudMan]

--Remote attestation is controversial, but you don't have to turn it on in BIOS. Same with Intel's vPro stuff.--

But their might be a back way in. How would you know? The potential for abuse is high but the potential for good is too, kinda reminds me of nuclear power or something.

As you say you might have to have a high tech chip fab to know. Back in them good ole days of the TRS80, Apple II, and Atari, etc. you could get all of the documentation on the OS's that were on those machines chips or I remember doing that with Atari. You had to pay extra but it all fit on a spiral bound notebook.

Couldn't they just give that away without compromising the encryption? I know it would be vastly larger but even millions of lines of code could fit in a few text files. I dunno I just don't trust them for some reason an think they are doing this purely for DRM. I just don't trust Trusted Computing.

But still for a workplace (small business) this sounds good. Microsoft might get some people to move away from XP with BitLocker. It is something a business would want. I think this would also eliminate a cold boot attack with a USB stick too. I will read some more.

Re:Hrm

[EvilBudMan]

Sometimes it is also your job to keep them from doing things that could harm the company as well. After all like you said the machines aren't the admin's either, but he might not like to have the company fail because the job market is not the greatest here right now.

That means disabling them and enabling them too. That is why remote attestation is attractive and disgusting at the same time.

Sometimes people are worth more to you for what they wouldn't than what they would. To keep a user happy all their stuff for the company has to work but then they get pissed off if you take away stuff that they are used too. Personal stuff. The users think the machines are theirs. So I guess you might be right, but some kind of balance must be struck at least where I at now. The higher up users seem to be the worst offenders about bringing USB keys from home or know where with what files. If it were up to me I wouldn't let them through the door.

I would really like to have it but at the same time I don't trust it either.

Re:Hrm

[Anonymous Coward]

Even being able to detect when a machine had unauthorized software on it would be a huge plus.

If you can't do this without TPM, you're a hugely incompetent system administrator. Welcome to Slashdot! :)

Re:Hrm

[Mr2001]

Then don't be surprised when Time Warner says "Fuck you back, you can't have our content."

Good, bring it on! I think we know who'll win that staring contest. There's plenty of other content I can access without ceding control of my PC.

THAT'S what TPM media attestation is all about. Balancing the equation.

Hah. The "equation" is already heavily slanted toward Big Content. TPM slants it even more toward them, and you call that balance?

Re:Hrm

[Mr2001]

So, do you have any actual, real-world example of TPM being used that way? Or just spreading the old recycled FUD around?

I don't think it's FUD. The technology clearly could be used that way, and it's hard to believe that wasn't the intent.

You don't really need the cryptographic assurance of TPM's remote attestation unless you're in an antagonistic relationship with someone beyond your reach, like media companies vs. consumers. Sure, it makes IT admins' lives a little easier, but IT admins have always been able to enforce software configurations through things like network booting and their physical/social presence anyway.

As for why we haven't seen the TPM dystopia in action yet: I suspect it's mainly because TPM isn't deployed widely enough. The "BitLocker" feature in Windows Vista uses TPM, and Vista has been out for over two years, but BitLocker still isn't supported on a lot of new machines. It'll still be a while before media companies can assume that everyone who wants to view their stream has a TPM installed.

People have to be aware of the potential abuses of TPM. If someone manages to come up with an application more exciting than BitLocker, we've got to be ready to say "sure, I'll install a TPM for that, but only if you let me forge attestations when I need to". Because if TPM becomes ubiquitous in its current form, public opinion will be the only thing stopping media companies from trying to control our PCs... and you've seen how little they care about public opinion.

Re:Hrm

[MrKaos]

So, do you have any actual, real-world example of TPM being used that way? Or just spreading the old recycled FUD around?

That's like saying a firearm won't be used for armed robbery. The fact is the functionality exists and you don't know how it will be used. It can only be called FUD after it hasn't been used once wide spread deployment is complete.

Power is only used once fully deployed.

Re:Hrm

[MrKaos]

No, it's about vendors Trusting that your machine is who it says it is. It has nothing to do about control, except over their own content.

FUD.

I have a real problem with scope creep of that statement. So if I have a web cam should the TPM detect if there is more than one viewer and say the content is licenced for one viewer? There are plenty of other methods that vendors can use to track "their content", more accurately you mean 'the content they licensed to me'. So what if I want to view 'the content I licensed' on someone else's machine?

That flawed model of trust does not take into account 'I am who I say I am' because digital identities have not been validated under the law. I am not my machine, it did not licence the content, I did. Since content providers have not embraced a digital model for distribution, TPM is like using a stick of dynamite where a sledge hammer will do. I bet the RIAA/MPAA will applaud it's widespread deployment, they have demonstrated they will use *any* technology to pursue their agenda.

Re:Hrm

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems to me that in your cases, you can control the TPM. This is fine with me. The existance of TPM isn't the problem. The problem is when a user* of the machine is subject to some foreign entity WRT the TPM.

* the computer operator is not necessarily the user.

Re:Hrm

[Tuoqui]

If they removed remote attestation from the TPM spec, or simply put a switch on the side of the computer so the owner could forge attestations whenever he felt like it, it wouldn't be evil. So the question is, if Trusted Computing is such a boon for users, why does it still have features that only serve to undermine those very users?

While I can see why this would be a good thing to implement on the user end. TPM is about the other side trusting you as much as you trust the other side. If you could forge this "Remote Attestation" then what good would it be? Clearly if you could forge it then so could someone who has hacked your system.

As with all things they can be used for good or evil. However, TPM the evil far outnumbers the good.

Re:Hrm

[fru1tcake]

Yes, I agree an admin's role requires them to enable workers to do their jobs, but it is also to keep them from abusing (intentionally or otherwise) the tools they are given to work with, just as a factory administrator will help facilitate keeping the production line moving but also call people into line (or fire them) if they are slacking off, doing a poor quality job, or damaging equipment.

There is a difference between enabling someone to do their job and enabling someone to do whatever they like. If an everyday-user on your securely-administered company wants to install SafeComputerFastSpywareScannerz because they think it will enable them to do their job better, should they be allowed to do so (and subject your network to trojans) or should your role as admin allow you to idiot-proof and mitigate against such things?

Re:Hrm

[Mr2001]

While I can see why this would be a good thing to implement on the user end. TPM is about the other side trusting you as much as you trust the other side. If you could forge this "Remote Attestation" then what good would it be?

That's kinda the point. What good is it anyway, for home users?

I don't want third parties to be able to trust that I'm running their preferred software, because that gives them leverage to force me to run it. I want my computer to be a black box from their perspective. If they know that my attestation could be false, then they won't enter into schemes that require me to prove I'm running software I don't want.

Clearly if you could forge it then so could someone who has hacked your system.

No, not if the forgery option is controlled by a physical switch.

Re:Hrm

[hitmark]

Heh, and then one go and download it of some p2p system, with better quality and no limitations or unskippable ads for other "products".

Re:Hrm

[Anonymous Coward]

If all the clients are Windows XP or later, you might be able to use Software Restriction Policies.

Re:Hrm

[elnyka]

>> I'm assuming here that you're some sort of >> administrator or something. Based on that >> assumption I offer this perspective: Your job only >>exists to enable them to do theirs. Uhmmm, no. An admin job's is to protect company assets first, and enable users to do their job within organizational constrains second. Users get enabled to do their job and nothing else within those constrains.

In essence, a network is an admin's responsibility. He owns it (and it is his ass), and is in charge of having it operational according to a predefined IT governance. With that, he is in charge of enabling users to do work, in his network, the one he's paid to own, manage, control, monitor and report to the guy above.

Wait

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't the plural bii or bioxen?

Re:Wait

[russlar]

Bioii

yesterdays news

[Anonymous Coward]

Take away the hot switching and its the same thing ASUS has been doing for over a year now on their mobos.

American tech, lol, just take something and slap a clock on it.

Re:yesterdays news

[MrEricSir]

But if you look at the back of the clock, it always says "MADE IN CHINA."

Hardware

[kensai]

I wonder how this virtualized BIOS will handle native hardware access when multiple "native" OSes try access it at the same time.

Re:Hardware

[Brian Gordon]

Virtually? It's called a hypervisor. How do you think any VM works?

Re:Hardware

[DrPeper]

Actually VM's didn't start off with Hypervisors, it is a relatively new addition to the tech.

Re:Hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually VM's didn't start off with Hypervisors, it is a relatively new addition to the tech.

Dunno about you, but the late 1960s doesn't seem all that new too me.

Re:Hardware

[Zero__Kelvin]

There is no time

SplashTop

[OrangeTide]

So is this fundamentally different from Asus putting SplashTop on some of their netbooks and motherboards?

Re:SplashTop

[DrPeper]

Well the two are similar. It sounds like HyperSpace has some catching up to do with Splashtop...

" and in June, the company plans a major update, which will add e-mail capabilities and instant messaging."

Which Splashtop already has.

Both are instant on (or at least more instant on than Window$ is currently, but M$ is working on that) OS's. With boot times in the under 5 seconds range.

But HyperSpace is a bit ahead of the game with the inclusion of a Hypervisor. So SplashTop will need to scramble to include one before June. Otherwise HyperSpace will essentially be SplashTop (which made it to market first) on Steroids. Which should make it much more appealing to geeks and non-geeks alike.

If I understand it correctly HyperSpace would have the added nicety of being able to switch somewhat instantaneously between two OS's. I don't remember reading anything on the Splashtop site that it was able to do that.

Re:SplashTop

[jmorris42]

> So is this fundamentally different from Asus putting SplashTop on some of their netbooks and motherboards?

Very different. What Phoenix is doing is pushing Windows into a VM, permanently. The machine boots Linux from the BIOS and loads Windows into a VM container in the background while you have a basic Linux desktop to browse the web, read email, etc. You can flip between Windows and Linux with a hotkey. But Windows stays in the VM. This offers a hope of eventually containing the menace from Redmond. The question is whether Phoenix will want to go there.

Imagine a real firewall dropped between the virtual NIC in Windows and the real one. Even better, just forget the network in Windows for most uses, use the Firefox on the 'other' more safe system that is a hotkey away. Push this tech a bit more and have seamless Windows(tm) windows running rootless on the X side. Now we don't even need to worry about two different displays. Basically, this tech offers the potential to blur the line between Windows and a real Internet ready system in ways impossible to predict. This could erase enough of Windows' defects to keep it viable or it could remove enough of the reasons to run Windows it hurts it. But Pandora's box is open and it will be interesting.

Re:SplashTop

[Anonymous Coward]

While I under$tand your di$like of Micro$oft, you $ound like a dumba$$ when you replace s with $.

Re:SplashTop

[vesuvana]

It's a solution without a problem. They tried similar tacts on the Mac twice, the latest being Parallels (god save us from Bootcamp) and VMware still has no real user base, especially given knoppix and linux live. It just seems like a non-issue. Corporations won't support it and individuals will make the decision to run one OS or the other based on how much they hate microstiff or the apps they have to run.

Re:SplashTop

[fm6]

What Phoenix is doing is pushing Windows into a VM, permanently.

Depending on what you mean by "permanently", you can do this now: run Windows from a VM under an ordinary Linux distro. The only difference here is that Linux is running out of the BIOS ROM.

What's the point of running Linux this way? Besides making it harder to update.

Re:SplashTop

[catmistake]

Once Windows is virtualized, it loses nearly all the security gripes I have against it. When you don't need to run antivirus on it, or any of the security updates, it boots and runs quickly. Here's how I imgaine it:
All user docs are kept outside the VM.
The VM is destroyed and replaced periodically with a standard image (every day, every hour, or at the whim of the user).

Re:SplashTop

[Zero__Kelvin]

"It's WaS a solution without a problem. "

There. I fixed that for you.

Re:SplashTop

[jmorris42]

> What's the point of running Linux this way?

You are asking the wrong question. Try "What is the point of running Windows this way?" Phoenix isn't trying to push "The Year of Linux on the Desktop" here.

> you can do this now: run Windows from a VM under an ordinary Linux distro.

In theory at least. What they hope is different is that is Phoenix doing it. They think they have the power to establish a standard here. If they succeed in pushing Windows on a large percentage of desktops into a secure sandbox it changes the game. You or me running Windows in VMWare doesn't.

For them to pull it off they are going to have to provide a seamless experience. That means no noticable performance hit, full DX10 support by somehow virtualizing the video such that whichever OS is visible gets almost full hardware access, yet can somehow be flipped to a virtual device when the other OS gets activated. WHen an average user flips to Windows they can't realize it is a VM. All of their games, video stuff, USB devices, etc. have to work normally. I'm guessing a buttload of custom Windows drivers are going to be needed. And I'd also guess you won't be able to put any ol video card in and have it work, especially the first year or two.

Re:SplashTop

[ae1294]

Anyone wanna place a wager than Microsoft will find ways to break things in their "security updates" just to keep people away from all of this?

ae

Re:SplashTop

[fucket]

I destroy and replace the VM that I'm using every twelve seco

Re:SplashTop

[lwsimon]

If you keep the documents outside the VM, you have a persistent means of re-infection of your VM...

Re:SplashTop

[644bd346996]

Under this scheme, people would just end up complaining that their firefox works, but none of their other apps will start. Under the hood, the Linux system will be fine (since Windows can't touch it) but Windows will be crashing in the background when it doesn't like the environment it's told to boot in.

By ensuring that the first thing the user sees is a running Linux desktop, before Windows starts to boot, people won't blame Linux, because as far as they're concerned, it's just built in to their machine, and it's Windows that broke.

Re:SplashTop

[Anonymous Coward]

It is very interesting. I would like to buy this Pandora's box from Dell or HP.

Re:SplashTop

[ae1294]

You have a point there.. bu remember most people aren't very bright and Microsoft has lots of money for TV ad's....

I'd never underestimate Microsoft's abilities at breaking things that shouldn't be able to be broke....

Time will tell,
ae

Re:SplashTop

[Anonymous Coward]

On VirtualPC, I have a Windows VM configured to drop all changed when closed on the primary virtual disk, then I save the documents onto a secondary drive and only have it mounted when needed. So far this has worked, because any infections will be dropped completely the second the VM is closed.

Of course, there is the tiny chance malware can get out of the VM, get from the user context level (VirtualPC runs as a user for the most part) to administrative/LocalSystem rights, and do this all without being detected by security software, but as of now, the chance of that is low enough to be worth the risk. If malware becomes common that can crack its way out of a VirtualPC VM, I'll consider other solutions.

Re:SplashTop

[ZosX]

Not only the issue with potentially infected user documents but you have the issue of installed software and system updates. While it is nice to have a good solid state to go back to, you may over time want to install new applications and somehow system updates need to be worked into your plan because that static image is going to become far more insecure with each passing day. I really don't see why a virus scanner is such a bad thing. I mean, ideally a well designed, secure OS shouldn't allow escalated privileges to user processes, but nothing is totally secure. Even if something is nailed down tight you can always pry up the nails. The anti malware stuff is getting pretty bloated though and is becoming more intrusive than the malware itself. I like the idea of just having everything in a hardware controlled virtual machine (it would solve some issues for sure), but if all you want is a non changing bootable environment why not look at Ubuntu or Windows on a thumb drive with write blocking or, you know, run a virtual machine on a linux host or something.... I mean wtf? Seriously. There are like a million options out there for what you describe. The only thing this bios basically doing is taking the hypervisor and moving it to the hardware. If they manage to give the guest operating system full unrestricted hardware access, then kudos to them because that is one of the real downsides of running a virtual OS....

Re:SplashTop

[Dragonslicer]

Maybe it's just because it's late and I'm getting sick, but how exactly does running Windows in a VM prevent it from becoming a zombie?

Re:SplashTop

[Anonymous Coward]

Let it be a zombie, because its only going to live a short time. Restoring a vm from a pristine backup is fast. Its like rebooting. And if boots take 11 seconds, or some short time, then its a valid security strategy, assuming user docs, presumably centralized, are virus scanned, backed up offline etc. Virtualization adds an interesting layer to security... adds a reset button. Giving that reset button a frequency might have the same returns as traditional strategies.

Re:SplashTop

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how much Microsoft (and/or other nefarious agencies. RIAA I'm looking at you) spends on shilling forums like slashdot?

Consider it targeted advertising, trying to influence the hearts and minds of people opposed to you (or silence the loudest). I have seen quite a bit of snide but clever comeback messages of late and have been downmodded (or down-metamodded) so much that I no longer get mod points (though my karma is still good). Its not that difficult to become a recogniseable username on slashdot (vastly more readers than posters) and I wonder how large a group of professional posters (with several aliases each) permanently on the job it would take to make a difference..

Or perhaps I'm just paranoid?

Re:SplashTop

[Anonymous Coward]

In addition to this you will be able to load vista into a vm inside a different linux distro. letting you use linux + windows for windows apps. (avoid wine issues)

Re:SplashTop

[Alex Belits]

Pro-Microsoft messages are pretty consistent here -- mentioned the same "problems" that are now long gone or never existed in the first place, pretend to be Linux users while obviously having no experience with the system, avoid mentioning Ubuntu like plague, make attacks on "M$" spelling as if it's some kind of important issue, etc.

Even a troll would get bored by repeating the same crap all over again, however for astroturfing purposes this works perfectly -- it creates an impression that those people's supposed opinions are popular.

Re:SplashTop

[rs232]

I wonder how much Microsoft (and/or other nefarious agencies. RIAA I'm looking at you) spends on shilling forums like slashdot?

"Pro-Microsoft messages are pretty consistent here --"

You would both be correct, mention anything that is less than stellar in praise of MS and you get a, I'm a nix users and really like X except it doesn't have Y feeture ... :)

Re:SplashTop

[ckaminski]

All true, yet there's a vast majority of lurkers and modders who will upmod a pro-Microsoft post just as much as a pro-Linux one, if they are both Insightful or Informative. Though the Slashdot moderation system irks me sometimes, and has been abused more often than not, I think it works it's wonder in keeping the bias balanced.

I've not seen another site anywhere on the 'Net where Linux, Apple and Microsoft get equal treatment (excluding the editors). The community here will equally trash, bash, and promote all three in similar fashion. It's why I continue to come here year after year.

Re:SplashTop

[DoctorFrog]

"It's WaS a solution without a problem. "

There. I fixed that for you.

You fixed what, the grammatical and typographical correctness of the sentence? I don't believe I agree with vesuvana, but at least I understood him/her/it.

Re:SplashTop

[fm6]

OK, you make a good point. I made the usual slashdotter mistake of only looking at things from my own POV.

193 Freaks? I'm jealous!

Re:SplashTop

[catmistake]

Not only the issue with potentially infected user documents

User docs can be kept remotely and centrally, virus scanned on the server (single machine scanning), instead of all user machines being continuously scanned

but you have the issue of installed software and system updates.

no, no issue. Ignore them, unless some functionality is added and needed. And if you need/want to install them, go ahead, make a new machine. VM's are just files. Once the file is how you want it, you can duplicate it effortlessly and quickly. A large firm wouldn't need to have hundreds of updates applied to hundreds of installations, just a single update on a single installation (which subsequently is duplicated as many times as needed).

While it is nice to have a good solid state to go back to, you may over time want to install new applications and somehow system updates need to be worked into your plan because that static image is going to become far more insecure with each passing day.

Go ahead and keep your static image updated if you feel the need. It still saves oodles of time and processing cycles to keep a single VM as the 'master,' and have it duplicated rather than applying updates to individual machines and keeping track of multiple states on multiple machines.

I really don't see why a virus scanner is such a bad thing.

You really will if you set a non-virus scanner laden machine next to one that has it installed. Virus scanning software, from what I can tell, quadruples boot time. Bajillions of proc cycles are wasted every day every where on virus scanning. Man-decades of time wasted on, effectively, bullshit. I'm not saying viruses aren't a concern, just that it would be wonderful if we could somehow rise above it. I believe virtual computing offers a way to be as secure without ever worrying about virus scanning and definitions and the latest scary worm. Go ahead and infect my machine, because you won't have access to my documents (kept remotely and secure), and my machine will no longer exist in x minutes.

I mean, ideally a well designed, secure OS shouldn't allow escalated privileges to user processes, but nothing is totally secure. Even if something is nailed down tight you can always pry up the nails. The anti malware stuff is getting pretty bloated though and is becoming more intrusive than the malware itself. I like the idea of just having everything in a hardware controlled virtual machine (it would solve some issues for sure),

I'm saying the frequency at which you replace a vm has a direct relation on how secure the user/documents/work done is, that it can be used as a strategy. If you sandbox the attacks, and can replace the sandbox faster than you can detect or prevent the attacks, then do so. Its a strategy that would serve to swallow the attackers resources, because no matter how many virtual machines an attacker can compromise, at the end of the day (or hour, quarter hour, whatever), the attacker has the same number of compromised machines: none.

but if all you want is a non changing bootable environment why not look at Ubuntu or Windows on a thumb drive with write blocking or, you know,

you're missing the point

run a virtual machine on a linux host or something.... I mean wtf?

getting closer to the point... hopefully my answers above will enlighten the matter more

Seriously. There are like a million options out there for what you describe.

O... K... I think NetBoot has similar benefits regarding this method of security, but trashing a vm and restoring it is a much faster process, not as hard on the physical machine, and yeah, there's a handful of VM vendors out there I guess.

The only thing this bios basically doing is taking the hypervisor and moving it to the hardware. If

Re:SplashTop

[elnyka]

No need to run an antivirus and security updates on the VM? You wish.

Re:SplashTop

[catmistake]

You're just not getting it.
Yes, there's no need. Let the virus come in... let the scriptkiddies at it! Its not a real computer. Merely assuming your VM has been compromised is all that's necessary, because its considerably FASTER to delete a VM and unzip a clean back up of it than it is to scan it for virus or security issues. So... why bother trying to rid your machine of virus, or even protect it from them... when you can nearly instantly create a new machine from a zipped back up?

Wow! They invented CoreBoot/LinuxBIOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine that, a mere 10 years after LinuxBIOS (now CoreBoot) first provided a full linux version on the BIOS (with near-instant booting into the OS of your choice), Phoenix gives us with this remarkable invention (complete with the standard idiotic fawning by Rob Enderle).

Re:Wow! They invented CoreBoot/LinuxBIOS

[Daengbo]

And 30 years after Radio Shack put the entire OS on the "BIOS."

Boot time?

[Krneki]

Lately BIOS has become the slowest process of booting.

I hope they won't increase bloat inside BIOS.

Re:Boot time?

[Mojo66]

It seems that those powers that prevent Linux being delivered pre-installed on disk, have forgotten to put their hand-cuffs on the BIOS. If it needs bloated BIOSES to finally bring Linux to the desktop, that would be OK with me.

Re:Boot time?

[Anonymous Coward]

IME, most of the BIOS slowness is for the pauses waiting for user input in case they want to go into setup or change the boot order or what have you. Aside from that is device initialization, which is a hardware delay (usually), looking for bootable devices and partitions.

If you automatically load an OS from the firmware, then BOTH OF THOSE can be done away with. It can probe for devices while it's loading linux (I assume), and the built-in linux functionality should be able to configure any CMOS settings you need to fiddle with. You'll either need to make the linux environment read-only, or I guess you could have some contacts on the board that you can short to force a CD-ROM boot to restore it, or something like that.

Please, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I see no reason why this should be any slower than a normal boot. I suspect the largest possible hole in my argument is in the assumption that you can start loading linux before your slow devices are properly spun up.

The Achilles heel of this...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the driver problem. I can't get printers, scanners, etc. to work with linux in a consistent manner. I think such issues will shoot this down.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[Brian Gordon]

Or this will shoot such issues down.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[erroneus]

I'll forgive your lack of experience on this matter but I have to answer your implication that driver absence is a Linux problem.

There is a problem with manufacturers who decide to keep their hardware specs secret and so make it difficult to have device driver support under Linux. It is true. It is a lot less common, but still true.

But this is not a problem that is exclusive to Linux. There are many devices that are older and will never have support for WindowsXP or Vista or Windows 7. The devices are considered old and outdated by these same manufacturers and do not want people using them any longer and so they don't pay to have people write drivers for more current versions of Windows. It happens. This problem also happens with Mac OS X. Recently, I upgraded my wife's machine to OS X 10.5.x and her Canon scanner does not and will not have drivers for 10.5.x even though 10.4.x and prior are still supported. All I could get were weak apologies from support but there is no intention to change from their position. They recommended that I buy some software from a 3rd party that costs twice what the scanner costs today in stores. (It is pretty weak that they actually display the MacOSX compatible logo on the package and it is no longer completely true...)

My point is that when drivers are not open sourced and/or the hardware specs are not openly available, your hardware is limited by the willingness of the hardware maker to support it. This is true of Windows, Mac OSX and Linux alike. This is NOT a Linux problem. It is a Manufacturer-with-their-heads-up-their-asses problem.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[Zero__Kelvin]

We call that an IO error (Idiot Operator). Seriously.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[bluefoxlucid]

So pass the raw devices through to the OS.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[Rycross]

A driver missing on an OS isn't the OS developers' fault, but it is their problem. There is a difference. They're not responsible for making the drivers, so its not their fault. Users still don't want to use an OS where they can't use their electronics, though, so it is a problem for the OS developers.

The solution to that problem may be intractable in some cases (a manufacturer refuses to divulge drivers under any circumstances, and no-one is willing to put in the effort to reverse engineer). However, Linux has done remarkably well, and things are only getting better driver-side.

But you're right its not a Linux-exclusive problem. My current printer doesn't work with my Mac, and older equipment may not work with newer versions of Windows.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[PixetaledPikachu]

I have Jaunty on my BenQ 5200 and all of my peripherals work great

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[socceroos]

Parent should be modded 'informative' not 'funny'. What he says is true.

I have yet to discover a device in my house that just works when I plug it into my Microsoft Windows Vista computer (exceptions being USB mass storage devices).

This is in stark contrast to the fact that all devices in my house (scanners, printers, phones, cameras, etc) work straight away when plugged into my Linux machines (Ubuntu 9.04 and Suse 11.1).

It isn't coincidence, Linux has had better 'out-of-the-box' support for devices than Windows for quite a while now.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[jhol13]

How many FOSS drivers must I mention before you admit Linux does have a problem?

More specifically: how many FOSS drivers *which are not maintained in the kernel tree* must I list?

1. MTP008 temperature sensor was removed from 2.6 (was in 2.4).
2. Peracomm USB ethernet (stopped working while in kernel tree)
3. DIB0700 (and many, many other) based DVB cards - the manufacturer helped making the driver but it still (after over 3 years, in 8.10) is not up-to-date/maintained in the kernel tree.
4. Numerous Wifi cards some of which partially work and some not.
5. Webcams (gspca).

Need I go on?

6. EeePCs ... most came with Linux, most drivers still do not work even in 8.10.

Nobody claims this is exclusive to Linux, it is just a lot more pronounced in Linux.

My point is that even when drivers are FOSS and the manufacturer has willingness Linux *users* can and do have problems.

I leave it as an exercise to the reader to find out why and who is to blame.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[westlake]

There are many devices that are older and will never have support for Windows XP or Vista or Windows 7. The devices are considered old and outdated...

In almost every case - they are old and outdated -
at least those devices produced for the home and SOHO markets.

I replaced a old HP printer with a wireless multifunction HP printer-scanner-fax with Vista drivers -
and by old I mean that only the parallel port worked with XP.

The new - refurbished - ink jet cost $99 with a one year HP warranty. It lacks only the color LCD for instant photo printing.

This is NOT a Linux problem. It is a Manufacturer-with-their-heads-up-their-asses problem.

There comes a time when the geek needs to let go. To pull the plug.

Open Source is not a panacea.

Someone still has to sit down and make the decision to write and test a new driver for a fast-fading piece of legacy hardware -

and if he says the hell with it, there is not much you can do.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[shaitand]

I don't think its much of a problem at all here. It's a bios, the motherboard manufacturers will make sure it is able to support all the hardware they use on their boards and that is all it needs. Everything else will connect through the motherboards interfaces and as long as the OS fully supports that hardware it can allow the guest OS to access it and hand off directives from that OS to said hardware. So it is the guest OS, be it windows, linux or whatever that needs to have drivers for printers, scanners, etc not the distro on a chip that phoenix is providing.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[shaitand]

If the manufacturers will release the damn specs the geeks write the drivers for them and those drivers get included with every distribution by default.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[PitaBred]

My flatbed scanner still does great scans, and will do 2600x1200dpi. It's USB... why in the hell should I spend money to upgrade to a new one for Windows? Linux works fine with it.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[BrokenHalo]

I have a mac and my peripherals all work great.

I also have a Mac, but it doesn't have any peripherals. Those are all attached to my Linux desktop machine. Which brings me to addressing the concern of the parent with his Canon scanner woes:

Why not try installing Sane (and xsane) to interface with the scanner?

Sane supports most of the more common brands of scanner, provided they don't rely on funky things like parallel ports.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[BrokenHalo]

Someone still has to sit down and make the decision to write and test a new driver for a fast-fading piece of legacy hardware

Not necessarily. That depends on whether or not it's a good use of his time.

Developer time is probably better spent supporting current devices with decent specifications, which are more likely to be useful for a long time.

The only times I've had driver issues with Linux were back in the mid-'90s on a no-name-brand motherboard (SiS chipset), and with a parallel-port Umax scanner. No-name hardware is probably always going to be problematic, but I don't think it's really the Linux developers' job to compensate for people being too mean to buy proper hardware, however often they get lucky.

This aside, I am continually amazed at how well most distributions support all kinds of devices out of the box, with no user intervention required at all. I can't say that for any Windows version I have tried.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[porl]

even mass storage devices can be a pain these days in windows (u3 tools anyone?) and xp doesn't like multiple partitions on a usb stick (had to hack the drivers to make windows think it was a hard drive to be able to access the second partition, even though both partitions were fat32).

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish there was a +1,naÃve

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[grimsweep]

If the manufacturers will release the damn specs the geeks write the drivers for them and those drivers get included with every distribution by default.

While that is an interesting argument, there are a few fundamental problems that bother me:

a) The incentive of manufacturers to release said specifications is low. Regardless of money made on the acquisition of a wider user base (often through more hardware sales), such specifications create issues for intellectual property and often serve as an opportunity for any competing manufacturers to digest a well-prepared buffet of the inner workings of hardware and the software that supports it.

b) The incentive of said 'geek' to actually sit down and not only write but actively maintain said drivers is based on demand and free time. This leads to the parent post "now you see it, now you don't" support syndrome.

c) The incentive of a manufacturer to release quality specifications is next to non-existent. In many cases, only the most determined OSS master-mind is capable of both understanding what are often meant as 'internal use only' documents and actually creating a driver. While I have little doubt such people exist, there is only so much time, sweat, blood, and tears that many people are willing to give for results.

Note that I actively contribute to the open source community and use Linux on a regular basis. That said, I don't believe manufacturers are (entirely) to blame.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[kdemetter]

Well , for one of them (gspca) , i know there are drivers available , because i used them in a linux robotics project.

Just a matter of adding a kernel module , and using video4linux.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[kdemetter]

and if he says the hell with it, there is not much you can do.

Well , you can write it yourself.
Or better , find other people , who want the same driver , and cooperate to make the driver. This is how most of the drivers are made and improved.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[Tigersmind]

The "Apple Tax" is more than worth it. OS X is virtually 100% secure, and its worth paying the cost difference to ensure my stuff is on my Mac and Time Machine drive, rather than being sold off to the highest bidder off a server in Tehran.

Bwahahaha

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[Daengbo]

I had most of this in the 70s. It was called the Tandy Model I, and the entire OS was on a chip. There were never any driver problems because you couldn't install drivers. It was instant on (and by instant I mean faster than the CRT/TV it was connected to).

We've come so far .... :P

Oh, and 4K of RAM ought to be enough for anybody. ;)

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[JAlexoi]

OSS is a panacea for people that actually own the device and are geeks.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[Toonol]

Typically they're old and outdated BECAUSE drivers aren't released, not the other way around. Webcams don't stop working; they just get forced into obsolescence.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[Anonymous Coward]

How many FOSS drivers must I mention before you admit Linux does have a problem?

More specifically: how many FOSS drivers *which are not maintained in the kernel tree* must I list?

1. MTP008 temperature sensor was removed from 2.6 (was in 2.4).
2. Peracomm USB ethernet (stopped working while in kernel tree)
3. DIB0700 (and many, many other) based DVB cards - the manufacturer helped making the driver but it still (after over 3 years, in 8.10) is not up-to-date/maintained in the kernel tree.
4. Numerous Wifi cards some of which partially work and some not.
5. Webcams (gspca).

Need I go on?

6. EeePCs ... most came with Linux, most drivers still do not work even in 8.10.

Nobody claims this is exclusive to Linux, it is just a lot more pronounced in Linux.

My point is that even when drivers are FOSS and the manufacturer has willingness Linux *users* can and do have problems.

I leave it as an exercise to the reader to find out why and who is to blame.

will you please stop referring to linux version as 8.10? ubuntu isn't the only linux distro and it sounds stupid when you use the 8.10 reference..

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[noundi]

The Achilles heel of this? Your example is from the 70's. How is it even remotely related to this? Whatever method you used back then is long gone and the problems you faced should be very different today. Flash disc technology alone changes your situation immensely. Nice anecdote though, but not related enough.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[lukas84]

As a Windows admin, i can't get most SOHO equipment to work reliable either. For example, 100$ HP AiO devices just don't work well.

2000$ HP MFP Devices that scan to a network share using SMB or NFS and print proper PCL and PS work very well on Windows - just as they probably do on Linux.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[noundi]

What you don't know won't hurt you. 100% secure, let me know how that turns out for you.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[rdnetto]

If they're going to declare it obsolete, the least they could do is give us the source for the drivers...

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[Shamenaught]

How on earth is suggesting Linux might have problems with getting consistent drivers Trolling? Seems someone's tried to find -1 disagree and settled for -1 troll.

As it happens, I don't agree with this post either. It's possible to run Linux without all of the drivers your machine would normally use. Sure, you don't have full functionality, but if you need it then you can boot into windows or whatever other OS you run.

Secondly, this strikes me as a useful BIOS for putting on laptops. If the hardware won't change then it's a lot easier to tailor things so the drivers work predictably. The current distros are good at auto-configuring, which at-least means you don't need to hand-configure every driver like you used to, but it's not gonna compare to hand-tweaking for a fixed platform.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[Anonymous Coward]

A driver missing on an OS isn't the OS developers' fault, but it is their problem. There is a difference. They're not responsible for making the drivers, so its not their fault. Users still don't want to use an OS where they can't use their electronics, though, so it is a problem for the OS developers.

A driver missing on an OS isn't the OS developers' problem, even if some people think it is. They're not responsible for making the drivers, so it isn't their fault. Nor are they using closed down hardware, so it isn't their problem.

Like you said, users "don't want" to use an OS where they can't use their electronics, which should make pretty clear exactly whose problem it is.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[hattig]

No mum, you need to rebuild your kernel, yes, yes, you do need to install GCC, now to do this we'll do it on the command line, it's quite simple! It'll only take an hour of watching cryptic arcane messages scroll by.

*four painful hours on the phone later*

So is the webcam working now? Let's try Skype. Oh, your microphone isn't working?

*one hour later*

What do you mean you installed Windows?

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[Bert64]

I had the same issue with an HP all in one printer/scanner...
No support for the scanner part on OSX 10.5 PPC (or OSX on x86 at all) or Vista, where HP use binary only drivers.
On the other hand, HP publish open source drivers for Linux, so this device works perfectly out of the box on the latest Ubuntu... It might be possible to port the Linux drivers to OSX...

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[somersault]

No no, he said it's "virtually 100% secure", in the same way that I'm virtually a demi-god dwarf thief who destroys his foes by injecting flaming marshmallows up their ass.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[mspohr]

My experience over the past 5 years has been that Linux has much better driver support than Windows. Most of the time when I plug something into Linux, it just works. When I plug something into Windows, it will work if I have the driver disk but fail otherwise.

Latest example is a webcam that I pulled out of my spare parts box for a project. Windows demanded the driver disk (which I didn't have) and couldn't find anything when I told it to go searching on the web. Ubuntu recognized it immediately and the driver was already on the system... instant joy. Gave up on Windows... another reason to delete Windows on my last remaining Windows computer.

I also hear lots of stories about WiFi not working but I have installed Linux on about 15 laptops (internal and external WiFi adapters) over the past few years and WiFi has "just worked" on all of them.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[mspohr]

Our office just bought a bunch of really nice Xerox Workcentre printers... high end print, scan, staple, punch, fax, etc.

The Windows drivers are flaky and often my print jobs don't come out right. OTOH, the Xerox provided Linux drivers are solid and give me better control of my print jobs.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[jabjoe]

If an open source driver doesn't work it's because not enough people care about it for it to be fixed. A fraction of the users are programmers, a fraction of those care enough to fix it, and a fraction of them have the time and skill. So the pool of users has to be a certain size for it to be maintained. If your lucky in a small pool, there is one, and they care enough to keep the driver running. This is a better model then closed source, because with closed source a device can be forced into obscelecence regardless of the size of pool of current users. Which is why Linux supports more devices then any other operating system. I've run kit under Linux just fine where there isn't any drivers for the current version of Windows anymore.

On top of that, because many are looking at drivers, the driver APIs has pressure on them to be simple and there are real world code driver programmers can copy or even reuse. This makes for small, better drivers.

If people can be paid to care and find time to maintain drivers, you have the best of both worlds, which happens right now with some open drivers.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[vtcodger]

You think that the past has nothing to teach us? I suspect, my friend, that your life is going to be one bumpy ride.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[vtcodger]

***Sane supports most of the more common brands of scanner, provided they don't rely on funky things like parallel ports.*** No, unfortunately, it doesn't. It supports some devices well, many after a fashion, and many not at all. The list of supported devices is here: http://www3.sane-project.org/sane-supported-devices.html I use Linux almost exclusively because a decade of supporting Windows PCs left me with a deep and abiding disgust with that once promising OS gone sour. In my experience, most peripherals are fairly well supported under Linux although it takes the miracle of ndiswrapper (a wrapper around the Windows drivers) to use some wireless interfaces. Scanners are an exception I think. If the problems aren't too bad, being able to run in Linux and switch painlessly to Windows for rarely used peripherals and jobs like US income tax preparation that are iffy under Wine, could be a viable alternative for many of us.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[noundi]

Say what? I think I made myself pretty clear when I took history into regards and concluded that the methods were very different from today. With such assumptions I suspect, my friend, that your life is going to be one bumpy ride.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[Vanders]

You rebuild your kernel to build a kernel module? You're doing something very wrong.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[Vanders]

Someone still has to sit down and make the decision to write and test a new driver for a fast-fading piece of legacy hardware - and if he says the hell with it, there is not much you can do.

You can do it yourself, or find someone to do it for you. Because you have the source. Which is sort of the point here.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[noundi]

All your points touch the same subject: incentives. Thus there's only one problem: money. Not the loss of it, but the absence of profit. Truth is business is about relations, and hugging papa Microsoft tightly tends to help vendors getting their products out on the market. Microsoft has no interest in helping vendors that explicitly support their rivals. Call it FUD or whatever bullshit-internet-forum-made-up word you want but the bottom line is that MS, and its affiliates, have great impact on the IT world and if papa says no, then no it is.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[lukas84]

Use a Windows Inbox-Driver.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[noundi]

even mass storage devices can be a pain these days in windows (u3 tools anyone?) and xp doesn't like multiple partitions on a usb stick (had to hack the drivers to make windows think it was a hard drive to be able to access the second partition, even though both partitions were fat32).

Hahahaha sorry, but what!? The things you stop hearing about when you leave the reich of MS.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[Thing 1]

All I could get were weak apologies from support but there is no intention to change from their position. They recommended that I buy some software from a 3rd party that costs twice what the scanner costs today in stores. (It is pretty weak that they actually display the MacOSX compatible logo on the package and it is no longer completely true...)

When I find myself in these types of situations, I am glad that I am a member of Pre-Paid Legal.

For $27/month (at least in my state, I think it varies), I can ask an attorney any legal question I have, at any time. And they'll make one phone call or write one letter for free, per issue, to help resolve it without having to go to court.

The times that I've used it have saved me thousands. Granted those were typically not computer-related issues, but the above sounds like a manufacturer asserting something false ("This runs on Mac OS"), which to me seems actionable -- but IMNAL, which is why I pay this "legal insurance" so I can quickly get answers.

This may sound like an ad and if so I apologize; I've had a great experience with them and having saved a lot of money over the years I can highly recommend them. (There are other "legal insurance" plans as well, others of which might be better; I've had PPL for close to a decade and haven't surveyed their competitors in a while; I know of at least one, ARAG.)

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mmmh, marshmallows...

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[taoye]

I don't think he was saying that we can't learn from the past, rather he was suggesting that the past sample provided were irrelevant.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[taoye]

I agree... when something on my Windows machine breaks, I have to either spend ages searching the Interwebs for solutions that probably aren't there, reinstall/reboot and hope it works better next time, or (gods below) call tech support.

When something on my Linux machine breaks, there's usually several relevant communities around where I can search for / post my problem and get help fixing it. Linux has been a much nicer experience for me as far as troubleshooting problems goes.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[!the!bad!fish!]

I've been watching FreeView in the UK for at least the last 5 years. My latest card is a Nova T 500. It worked out of the box, with in the in kernel dvb_usb_dib0700 driver.

What problems are you seeing?

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[jhol13]

Wrong.

1. You need to compile the module.
2. You need to recompile the module on every kernel (security) patch.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[taoye]

...but then you wouldn't be forced to buy their newest product next year!

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[jhol13]

I gave you one particular product line on which the WiFi does not "just work" (EeePC).

I am happy to hear you have had no problems. I would be much, much more happier if I did not have any problems either.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[jhol13]

The adapter (Artec T14BR) is not recognised.

Compiling the driver from the latest sources makes it working - for a while. Then comes one of the numerous kernel security patches and boom!

I do not consider this as "working solution" for average user.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[mspohr]

I don't know what your problem is with the eeePC and WiFi but I have lots of friends with them running both the native Linux distro and Ubuntu and WiFi 'just works'... (I do know that the native Linux version had problems when the first model 701 was new but this was fixed promptly.)

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[jhol13]

"If an open source driver doesn't work it's because not enough people care about it for it to be fixed."

So you do admit there is a problem with Linux. Good. Next step is to think a solution for the problem.

Note: I do *NOT* advocate closed source, quite the contrary. All my examples were FOSS.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[jhol13]

I believe you (it works for me too, after several days of fixing), but they are not using *vanilla* Ubuntu (8.04LTS/8.10) so it does not work out-of-the-box.

8.04 cannot handle WPA2 properly (loses the key constantly). For both 701 and 900 you need either to compile the driver or use array.org.

Both are, IMHO, unacceptable solution for an average user and huge PITA even for experienced user (like me).

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[Muad'Dave]

You know what torqued me? Support for the Asus P4PE motherboard sensors was removed 'accidentally' because some other Asus laptop might've overheated or some such. Talk about collateral damage.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[Anonymous Coward]

My Cannon 620 (?) USB scanner has no drivers for Vista and above. Works just fine in Linux.

Windows does better for the newest hardware, the most obscure, and certain crappy 'win' devices (like winmodems) where things that would normally be done in a device's firmware are done in the driver (although these devices will often be useless after a windows upgrade).

Linux does better for older hardware where Windows has dropped support (where sometimes 'older' can be as little as 2-3 years if the particular hardware model is no longer produced and a new version of Windows has appeared).
So far I've used a variety of Linux distros on two desktops and a netbook, and I've never had any hardware unsupported or even had to search for a driver. The only thing I have to do is tick an 'enable binary Nvidia driver' to get desktop effects/3d acceleration.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[stompertje]

Why do you say that? If my webcam worked under Windows 95 ten years ago, it will still work under Windows 95 today. The software doesn't stop working anymore than the hardware does. On the other hand, if you choose to upgrade your OS...

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[dave420]

It is a Manufacturer-with-their-heads-up-their-asses problem that is far more apparent on Linux than Windows

There we go.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[Anonymous Coward]

dkms FTW...

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[Skye16]

If I can't get a recipe to make something for dinner that someone wants, because some individuals decided to keep said recipe to themselves, it may be a problem with them in that they're not sharing knowledge, but it's still my fucking problem that I don't fucking have it.

You can blame the vendors all you want, but when it comes to my OS, if the drivers for it don't exist, it IS the OS's problem if I can get them for another OS. Is that entirely fair? No. But life isn't fucking fair.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[b0bby]

Try the Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix - I put it on an SD card & it boots right up & the wifi works fine on my eee 901 (HD & XP). I haven't tried out the camera yet, but it's cool to have available.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[sepelester]

But they won't sell their replacement model.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[Zock]

In a perfect world, all drivers would be open source, but sadly, this world is far from perfect.

It would be nice however if the hardware vendors for older/outdated devices would just open source the drivers once the product has reached its end of life.

Additionally, if a company goes out of business, the software produced by that company should automatically fall into the public domain. Of course this would require the company to give a rats ass at that point, and actually release the source.

Just my opinion.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[Rycross]

That point of view is all well and good if you don't aim to improve marketshare of your OS. If you want people to actually use your OS, then yes, it becomes your problem. You simply can't expect users to jump through hoops in order to be able to use your OS.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[sgtrock]

I have an EEE 901 that has been running 8.10 since the week it was delivered (I got bored with the included Xandros pretty quickly). Wireless has worked flawlessly the entire time.

Please don't make such sweeping generalizations based upon your anecdotal evidence.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[sgtrock]

I have an EEE 901 that has been running 8.10 since the week it was delivered (I got bored with the included Xandros pretty quickly). Everything, including wireless, has worked flawlessly the entire time.

Please don't make such sweeping generalizations based upon your anecdotal evidence.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[dontgetshocked]

I'll forgive your lack of experience on this matter but I have to answer your implication that driver absence is a Linux problem.

There is a problem with manufacturers who decide to keep their hardware specs secret and so make it difficult to have device driver support under Linux. It is true. It is a lot less common, but still true.

But this is not a problem that is exclusive to Linux. There are many devices that are older and will never have support for WindowsXP or Vista or Windows 7. The devices are considered old and outdated by these same manufacturers and do not want people using them any longer and so they don't pay to have people write drivers for more current versions of Windows. It happens. This problem also happens with Mac OS X. Recently, I upgraded my wife's machine to OS X 10.5.x and her Canon scanner does not and will not have drivers for 10.5.x even though 10.4.x and prior are still supported. All I could get were weak apologies from support but there is no intention to change from their position. They recommended that I buy some software from a 3rd party that costs twice what the scanner costs today in stores. (It is pretty weak that they actually display the MacOSX compatible logo on the package and it is no longer completely true...)

My point is that when drivers are not open sourced and/or the hardware specs are not openly available, your hardware is limited by the willingness of the hardware maker to support it. This is true of Windows, Mac OSX and Linux alike. This is NOT a Linux problem. It is a Manufacturer-with-their-heads-up-their-asses problem.

Can I get a Amen? Yes brother,yes!

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[peppepz]

More specifically: how many FOSS drivers *which are not maintained in the kernel tree* must I list?

5. Webcams (gspca).

gspca was merged into mainline kernel 2.6.27.

My point is that even when drivers are FOSS and the manufacturer has willingness Linux *users* can and do have problems.

I leave it as an exercise to the reader to find out why and who is to blame.

At least for gspca, most manufacturers had no willingness at all, as the drivers are mostly reverse engineered. I guess they are the ones to blame for the resulting bad quality of the code.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[dtzWill]

It's the driver problem. I can't get printers, scanners, etc. to work with linux in a consistent manner. I think such issues will shoot this down.

Maybe, maybe not.

The linux portion running as the hypervisor will work just as well as linux normally does, with respect to drivers and whatnot. You're right that this doesn't magically make that situation better, and this may be a problem.

However, the guest OS which is probably the primary OS you are running (depending on which of the many use cases suggested in the posts here, hypervisor being a backup/quick boot type thing) will be able to access devices the host doesn't have drivers for. More clearly said there's no reason you can't pass through pci/usb/etc devices straight to the guest OS and let their drivers make use of them (this exists in current VM technology: VMware, KVM, Xen). The key point here is that while the Linux drivers will be as good/bad/same as ever in the slim hypervisor (and may limit that functionality somewhat)--the overall functionality of the system with regards to the guest OS vs the guest OS running in a VM will be less effected by this than you might think.

It's the difference between your ipod not working and your ipod not working just in the hypervisor.

And throw on Intel-VT or AMD-V (as it looks like they have) and this should be pretty exciting.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[shaitand]

a) A is a bogus concept. A specification amounts to an interface and really doesn't reveal much of anything about the internal workings of the hardware. With or without a specification you can bet a competitor with a multi-million dollar interest in how your hardware works will acquire that information anyway. So while selling hardware to the technically elite crowd that makes the major hardware purchase recommendations on big ticket accounts might not be a significant incentive to hardware manufacturers there really is no downside.

b) You could make that arguement except that there are no shortage of manufacturers that DO make their specs available and the result is that Linux has dramatically superior driver support for that hardware than any other operating system. Take a system with 10 year old hardware and load up ubuntu on it, everything will work out of the box. The popularity issue is self solving, if something isn't popular its because not many people use it or need it. If it was once popular but is no longer popular then the driver will have stabilized while it was.

c) I fail to see the motivation NOT to release quality specifications. Again specifications are how to communicate with the hardware, not how the hardware actually works. The only reason to misrepresent a spec is because the company is doing something shady like maladjusting drivers to give gains on gaming benchmarks at the expense of overall performance and so forth. If they really want to do this they can just release specs that say those maladjusted configurations are the optimal settings for the hardware. Problem solved. Otherwise, why wouldn't you want your hardware to perform as well as it could on a given system.

Actually since linux remains a tech heavy system, it seems to me that even hardware that is being under driven in software, perhaps to enable the sale of the same hardware at different price points would be best run at full unlocked specs in the linux driver anyway. This will give linux users a very favorable view of the hardware. While linux users may be a small percentage of the market, they are the geeks that make recommendations listened to by purchasing managers and by the early adopters who spend the real bucks.

If say, nvidia graphics cards give screaming performance on my linux box and ati cards suck and both have drivers... guess which cards I'm going to have a high opinion of and recommend to my clients?

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[shaitand]

That's a tough one to argue against. But the market they are discriminating against, is the same market that decided Vista sucked and had the influence to convince the rest of the world it sucked. Even a company like Microsoft can be bitch slapped by collective geek outrage and if geeks have enough influence to cost a company billions in sales... how much difficult to quantify purchasing power does their influence ultimately command?

The effectiveness of television advertising can't really be quantified either but its effects are real and companies spend hundreds of millions there.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[jhol13]

Oh fuck.

I have proved, with my anecdotal evidence, that there are problems. BTW, the problems exist with both 701 and 900.

I have never ever even tried to insinuate anything more, just that there are, provably, problems with FOSS drivers.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[CAIMLAS]

I think a large part of the problem with open source is that drivers which work in one version do not work in the next - frequently. I'm not saying "the drivers aren't there", I'm saying they don't work. And it's not just "old" hardware that's the problem, it's (frequently) new hardware.

This seems to becoming more of a problem, too. It used to be (5+ years ago) that in Linux, hardware only became supported, not unsupported (in my experience). Until the 2.6 kernel, I never had a situation where hardware I had became "unsupported", whether through an included-but-broken driver or a driver getting phased out.

For instance, I've got a thinkpad x30 with an integrated ricoh based IR/firewire/CF/PCMCIA controller. It stopped working* when I upgraded from Ubuntu Debian Etch (4.0) to Ubuntu 8.10 - it's a kernel change, not a distro change. The drivers are all still there, they just shipped (intentionally) broken. I can only use the CF and PCMCIA slots when I boot with a device in said slot, and not use them both. But in either case, I'm unable to use the miniPCI wifi card at the same time (didn't look into it too much, might be IRQ related). I was able to hunt down the reason: they developers broke support due to a refactoring of the code for PCMCIA, to make it more 'modern' - claiming they might fix it later down the line. (Very doubtful; it's been about a year, and no change yet.)

Also, I've got a brand new USB based "multiport" device for my new computer. It's literally 2 weeks old. It doesn't work. It supposedly worked in Ubuntu 8.10, but does not in 9.04.

Linux, as a kernel, really needs to change how it does development if we're going to keep seeing all these functional regressions. It's not just this, either: seemingly, ext3 performance has degraded (in practice) for desktops. CFQ is/was a nightmare. But the developers don't really care, because they don't use those: they use the cutting edge stuff in the kernel that's still only in git, and they run the latest, greatest hardware. Us lowly peons who don't do git checkouts or run older hardware are SOL.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[CAIMLAS]

No. Unlike hardware (peripherals), software does become outdated. It ceases to work as it did when it was new (because nobody else is using it or targeting it, so it becomes incompatible: office, IE, Netscape Navigator, etc.) and it becomes insecure to the point where you can not safely use it to connect elsewhere.

The hardware, on the other hand (such as a webcam) is fundamentally unchanged. It does low-quality image capture and audio capture. It's no different than a newer device in function - except the newer device has drivers targeted at it.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[speedtux]

I have a mac and my peripherals all work great.

Well, then you should be really happy with Linux, because Linux supports a lot more peripherals than OS X.

See, manufacturers rarely write new drivers for OS X, they just declare those devices that they sell that happen to use standard interfaces and protocols (e.g., USB storage, USB camera, etc.) to be "Mac compatible".

In fact, usually, when looking for Linux hardware and I can't find anything that is explicitly Linux compatible, I just look for Mac hardware: it usually just works on Linux as well.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you expect. If you check the system requirements for that device you'll see it needs "Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/MCE/Vista".

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[stompertje]

Nonsense. Software does not cease to function as it did by itself. As you say, it can become outdate and incompatible because people stop targeting it just as with peripherals. You really don't have a convincing argument to back up the statement that hardware remains fully functional when software does not.

Re:The Achilles heel of this...

[Fri13]

There is a problem with manufacturers who decide to keep their hardware specs secret and so make it difficult to have device driver support under Linux. It is true. It is a lot less common, but still true.

That ain't problem if they accept Linux OS developers to write GPL'd drivers by signing NDA.

Many companies has done that now. Linux OS developers sign NDA, they get specs and they write driver what they then include to Linux OS and licensed as GPL. Linux community gets working driver what to maintain but does not get specs of the hardware, either does any competitor.

http://www.linuxdriverproject.org/twiki/bin/view

We are a group of Linux kernel developers (over 200 strong) and project managers (over 10) that develop and maintain Linux kernel drivers. We work with the manufacturers of the specific device to specify, develop, submit to the main kernel, and maintain the kernel drivers. We are willing and able to sign NDAs with companies if they wish to keep their specifications closed, as long as we are able to create a proper GPLv2 Linux kernel driver as an end result.

Cue jokes about chairs in 3..2..1....

[whoever57]

Cue jokes about chairs in 3..2..1....

Re:Cue jokes about chairs in 3..2..1....

[noidentity]

Cue jokes about chairs in 3..2..1....

Is the above itself a joke about chairs? Hmmm...

How is this different...

[Anonymous Coward]

How's this different from the Built In Operating System on my motorcycle?

-Hiro P

The real issue = what does Steve Balmer think

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it is a pointless idea unless Phoenix Tech is hoping Steve Balmer shows up at their door soon with garbage bags stuffed with cash.

Re:The real issue = what does Steve Balmer think

[Anonymous Coward]

I will show up and suck their cocks every day until Linux replaces Windows. That should counter MS garbage cash.

-Hiro P

Re:The real issue = what does Steve Balmer think

[taoye]

...and knowing Steve Ballmer, this is very possible. I can picture it now...

I still don't understand why not flash?

[iamacat]

If you got a web browser in your BIOS you will probably want to update it one day. Like, when there is a critical security fix to prevent site A from grabbing your private data from site B - something that will not be addressed by not mounting your hard drive. A flash drive, with a physically adjustable write-protect knob, would do nicely. Else you would just have to stop using this feature after a couple of years or the first hardware upgrade and set up your own dual boot.

Re:I still don't understand why not flash?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the BIOS is usually flashable. Hence "BIOS updates".

built-in virtualization

[Eil]

Now they should put parted and KVM in there and we can finally be done with the whole concept of dual-booting.

Re:built-in virtualization

[Eil]

Oh, never mind. Apparently they did. I should really RTFA before commenting.

Re:built-in virtualization

[elronxenu]

There's another you in an alternate universe who did, in fact, RTFA.

Oh how I wish I was there.

Re:built-in virtualization

[Anonymous Coward]

Like http://www.coreboot.org/AVATT?

That's called a hypervisor

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have a board which is supported by Coreboot (formerly known as LinuxBIOS), you can put your own Linux kernel and initial ram disk into the flash, or a variety of boot loaders. The possibility of a hypervisor in the flash chip and lots of technical details are mentioned in this presentation by Peter Stuge at 25c3 (25th Chaos Communication Congress). Includes a demo of booting from power on to a shell in 5 seconds:

http://ftp.ccc.de/congress/25c3/video_h264_720x576/25c3-2970-en-coreboot_beyond_the_final_frontier.mp4

Non-unique?

[MrCrassic]

Wasn't there a similar innovation made by Phoenix or ASUS last year? I can't remember the name of it, but Slashdot covered it.

A button for switching main boot hard disk...

[blahplusplus]

... would be much better, and a lot safer. I would prefer it of BIOS writers just leave the BIOS as is but allow users to simply choose which drive to boot from so no dual booting is required.

So you are able to disconnect/switch the other disc electronically via some solid state mechanism, rather then having to go into the bios, using jumpers and dinking around with settings, you should just be able to change the channels, and choose which drive to boot from externally, no virtualization software, no dinking with bios settings or master slave issues, no bullshit, no hassle.

Re:A button for switching main boot hard disk...

[Vectronic]

How is that different from a normal Dual Boot?

Select OS:
Linux _____
Windows __

Is that *really* so painful? It's basically pressing one button, your way, is basically pressing one button... if it's more problematic then that, I think you are either doing it wrong, or running hardware from 1988...

Besides, this allows you to swap back and forth between the BIOS/OS, and the HD/OS without restarting, with the added benefit of having the BIOS/OS being able to keep the HD/OS from fucking shit up.

Re:A button for switching main boot hard disk...

[mlts]

I'd like to see a TPM and BitLocker like functionality handled in the hypervisor, where the operating systems don't care or don't see any hard disk encryption, but if someone jacks a hard drive, the contents would be useless. Add a PIN to the TPM, and this would be excellent security for a laptop.

This functionality would be great for servers too, so if someone steals the database server running RedHat, the contents would be protected, without requiring someone physically onsite to enter a passphrase, or additional infrastructure to allow for hardware remote consoles.

Re:A button for switching main boot hard disk...

[Rockoon]

I have 3 HD's and 3 different operating system.

I, like many people who share Linux with Windows, am using GRUB as a boot loader...

Are these drives independent?

NO THEY ARENT and THAT is INSANE.

The only reason these drives arent independent is because bios makers are, and continue to be, fucking assholes. The fact that boot managers even exist is INSANE. There is obsolutely no reason for operating systems to SHARE a boot sector. Its FUCKING STUPID.

Re:A button for switching main boot hard disk...

[tweak13]

While I don't fundamentally disagree with anything you just said, it's really not as big an issue as you're making it out to be.

You want to just take a drive out, throw it in a system and have it work? You can install the bootloader on multiple drives pretty easily. Whatever drive is the first boot device in BIOS is the one that gets used. Worried about getting the wrong /dev/sda,b,c,d.. etc? This problem has been solved for years, and I'm surprised by how often it still comes up. Just identify partitions by UUID, and never have device names screw up a boot again.

Is it an optimal situation? Hell no. It's probably what we're stuck with for the foreseeable future though, and it isn't terribly hard to work around the specific issue that you're complaining about.

Re:A button for switching main boot hard disk...

[blahplusplus]

"How is that different from a normal Dual Boot?"

Dual booting increases the risk of problems and complications as dual boot must boot from a particular drive, as well as causing a dependence on the main drive. Not to mention it's OVERLY complicated. If you had a switch that that could electronically select which drive to boot from and isolate it from other drives it would keep each drive seperate running an independent OS with it's own boot sector.

I've had dual boot installs flake out when doing hardware changes (motherboard replacement) and it is NOT fun, I'd rather prefer a much simpler method and get rid of boot loaders all together and just have the bios/button at the front of the computer to select which channel (drive) to boot from.

It would like virtually taking out one hard disk and popping in another, but why go through all the trouble of doing that? You could just make a controller that enabled the user to switch between drives electronically from which to boot. It makes MUCH more sense, and also it get's rid of a 100 per cent of dual boot headaches, like partitioning and all that jazz, hard drive's are so cheap it should be a feature now.

IBM did this already, right?

[Lord Byron II]

I hope that someone who is more familiar with this will fill in the details, but as I recall one of IBM's mainframe did this back in the 1970's. Basically, every user who logged onto the system got their own virtualized private OS.

Re:IBM did this already, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, IBM used a similar, but more comprehensive approach in the System/38 - AS/400 - iSeries. Strictly speaking, the SLIC encompased this and loaded a "virtual machine" (similar to the JVM in Java) which provided the instruction set and support for the higher-level operating system.

Re:IBM did this already, right?

[Nutria]

I hope that someone who is more familiar with this will fill in the details, but as I recall one of IBM's mainframe did this back in the 1970's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VM_(operating_system)

When mainframes were Really Really Expensive, it was the only way for small shops to have a development "machine".

Basically, every user who logged onto the system got their own virtualized private OS.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversational_Monitor_System

Re:IBM did this already, right?

[Mostly a lurker]

If you have the cash, IBM has always been (and still is) the virtualization king. This started with CP-67 (originally for development) and gradually evolved via VM/370, VM/SP and VM/ESA into a platform for running multiple production OS in parallel. IBM, along the way, added a hardware level partitioning capability called LPAR. IBM mainframes today have LPAR to allow partitioning of the real machine into (for all practical purposes) multiple completely independent computers. One or more of those can be running z/VM (a very powerful and mature hypervisor in its own right). On a big zSeries, it is entirely reasonable to run a few thousand separate Linux instances with good stability and efficiency.

It's called DOS, and it was done a long time ago..

[gillbates]

DOS was a BIOS based OS. It passed a large number of its calls directly to the BIOS. We all know how well that worked out.

That said, I would rather have a read-only, default, fallback, usable OS in the system firmware. You know, something that could be used for:

1. OS installation.
2. Basic networking.
3. Backup and recovery operations.
4. Performing basic system utilities.

The PC is one of the few platforms where the hardware is actually useless to the end user without an installed operating system. Reflashable BIOSes further compound the problem by allowing a software command to render the hardware unbootable and unrecoverable (that is, unless you happen to have a FLASH programmer and another computer lying around...). The PC has perhaps the worst architure and implementation of any major platform, and it's about time they did something to fix that.

In fact, with the falling prices of flash, why not just flash a Linux kernel into the BIOS?

1. A bootable, usable Linux system with BusyBox can fit into 4 MB of flash.
2. A 64MB flash (possibly much less) could support the above, plus MicroWindows or similar.
3. Why bother having a separate OS when the kernel could fit on the firmware?
4. Let the rest of the system - libraries, apps, configuration, etc... reside on the disk, but keep the hardware related parts (i.e. drivers, etc...) on the firmware itself.
5. With kernel drivers *in the hardware itself*, one would never have to worry about getting the correct driver, etc...

Dont forget the cost!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hyperspace is also subscription-based software. Screw paying yearly to use this! I'd rather kill a few bios chips or get an Asus board (*shudder* so many bad ones) than be paying yearly

Re:Dont forget the cost!

[spiralofhope]

Yeah, I saw the subscription nonsense. There's no way I'll go near this.. I don't care how awesome it is, I'm not getting locked into renting my own computer. http://www.hyperspace.com/Product-Editions.aspx

Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

I predict that this marks a turning point for the last decade's massive success of the Intel architecture. The concept of a "closed and secret" BIOS has been a mess for a long time. It has worked because of a symbiotic relationship between Microsoft, BIOS vendors and Intel (AMD just hooked on). When BIOS vendors start things like this, Microsoft will no longer work with the BIOS vendors (which is dominated by Phoenix/AMI, Insyde and some smaller guys) We'll see what happens with EFI, but my prediction is that this will open up for ARM and possibly some competition from other architectures on heavier hardware. Interesting... It's definitely a win for Linux in more than just the obvious "Linux in the BIOS" way (which isn't really something I would want anyway).

...only if the BIOS chip is replaceable.

[reporter]

This idea of putting Linux itself into the BIOS is okay if and only if the chip containing the BIOS is replaceable. In other words, the chip should not be soldered to the board.

Linux is significantly more complex than a normal BIOS and surely contains bugs. Patches will be needed on a regular basis, and the BIOS chip will need to be replaced several times per year.

Still, this ability to switch rapidly between operating systems may obsolete the need for a virtual Windows XP within Windows 7. Just install Windows 7 in parallel with Windows XP and let the BIOS switch back and forth as often as you need to do so.

Re:...only if the BIOS chip is replaceable.

[Nutria]

This idea of putting Linux itself into the BIOS is okay if and only if the chip containing the BIOS is replaceable. In other words, the chip should not be soldered to the board.

You're joking, right? Right????

Because if not, read this then flagellate yourself 20 times with an RS232 cable.

Re:...only if the BIOS chip is replaceable.

[Inner_Child]

Yes, because no one would ever think to update by flashing. Why would it have to be replaced, again?

Re:...only if the BIOS chip is replaceable.

[VisualD]

You dont think it'll be possible to, you know, flash the bios?

Re:...only if the BIOS chip is replaceable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Patches will be needed on a regular basis, and the BIOS chip will need to be replaced several times per year.

Or you could just, I dunno... flash it?

Re:...only if the BIOS chip is replaceable.

[NicknamesAreStupid]

Not without getting arrested, this is a PC world, ya know.

Re:...only if the BIOS chip is replaceable.

[tepples]

Why would it have to be replaced, again?

Power loss while flashing, for one.

Re:...only if the BIOS chip is replaceable.

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Linux is significantly more complex than a normal BIOS and surely contains bugs.

Res ipsa loquitur

Re:...only if the BIOS chip is replaceable.

[ae1294]

If you do not have a 30 buck UPS by now then you really NEED to LEAVE...

Re:...only if the BIOS chip is replaceable.

[tepples]

OK, someone trips over the power cord while flashing, or it crashes while flashing, or malware flashes it with software you don't want.

Re:...only if the BIOS chip is replaceable.

[ae1294]

Umm ok then, fry everything on the motherboard, rma, rinse, & repeat....

But anyhow, I would hope the BIOS section of the chip would not have to be updated if you wished to just update the Linux section. Lots of BIOS's over the years didn't bother to update parts that had not changed.

If it really makes you afraid gigabyte motherboards have dual BIOS's for backup or you could just hot swap a bad chip, Or, I guess that would still work.... ummm... yeah I'd think so... drop to single user mode in linux and hot swap, then flash the broke chippy... Requires a backup chip but with motherboards so cheap buy two and make your grandpa update his system so you know you have a spare if you hose your chippy.

I've flashed hundreds of mobo's and have only ever had a problem a few times back in the day when you had to use a floppy and no one bothered to crc check the bios before trying to load it. I think that was on some pc-chips mobo or something crappy like that..

ae

Re:...only if the BIOS chip is replaceable.

[jhol13]

One way to flash is to have two "banks". You overwrite the other while running in other.

Another is to have minimal "boot & flash" area which is never overwritten.

This problem has been solved nicely.

I do admit that having huge kernel (like Linux is) in bios is a bit adventurous due to trojans, viruses, etc. But maybe the manufacturer has made the job of keeping up-to-date easy.

Re:...only if the BIOS chip is replaceable.

[Zordak]

Thanks. I've spent the last couple of years conscientiously trying to forget everything I know about torts. Now you have to go and remind me of something I had completely, totally erased from my memory.

Re:...only if the BIOS chip is replaceable.

[iamnothere900]

Hey! Macs have updateable firmware, too.

Re:...only if the BIOS chip is replaceable.

[Anonymous Coward]

I keep wondering about the concept of a hardware routine whose job it is to copy securely a flash update. In Windows, a flash utility copies a flash BIOS candidate into a staging area, then on next bootup, the user can enter the BIOS and explicitly have the flash copied and applied.

Of course, the update can check a cryptographic signature on the flash image, and ask a user to continue the install if the flash update isn't signed (to allow users to still install custom flash). Of course, large enterprises can use functionality of copying the image to a staging area, rebooting from remote, and having the machine flashed from remote.

This way, malicious software trying to flash will fail because it can't get direct access to the BIOS (its written through the staging utility run from BIOS setup).

Re:...only if the BIOS chip is replaceable.

[Anonymous Coward]

you guys, it is installed on the hard drive and it
takes a couple of hundreds of MB

Re:...only if the BIOS chip is replaceable.

[shoor]

Isn't it a security risk for a program to able to reflash the BIOS?

Re:...only if the BIOS chip is replaceable.

[Anonymous Coward]

...the chip should not be soldered to the board...

Maybe he's talking about a Mac.. :D

Re:...only if the BIOS chip is replaceable.

[daveime]

Best suggestion I've ever heard.

Two BIOS chips, with a DIP switch to select which one is active, and only allow the flashing to be done on the deactivated one.

Hell, you could even use it as a dual booter with a differnt BIOSOS on each.

Re:...only if the BIOS chip is replaceable.

[daveime]

Yup, Steve tells you to buy a new one, and you say "yes Sir".

Chances are, you're behind a firewall or proxy, or clicked the Back button to accidentally reuse a form

No, chances are, I can have more than one thought per minute.

Re:...only if the BIOS chip is replaceable.

[JAlexoi]

FYI there are always 2 versions of BIOS!
One is a failsafe - that will kick in if your original has failed
The other one is the original one - the one that you can actually overwrite.

Re:...only if the BIOS chip is replaceable.

[mlts]

Elaborating on this concept, why not three?

The first bank has a "1.0" flash. This is what ships on the motherboard originally, and is put into an unwritable ROM. (Yes, this sounds redundant, but I'm meaning burned on chip and completely unwritable outside of a chip fab as opposed to an EEPROM.)

The second and third banks are ready to go for whatever updates.

This way, should some malware erase the primary flash BIOS and the secondary, the machine is still usable by pointing it somehow to the original "1.0" ROM, then when the user can fix it, re-flash the BIOS with an updated version.

Re:...only if the BIOS chip is replaceable.

[rs232]

"Yes, because no one would ever think to update by flashing. Why would it have to be replaced, again?"

Quite, now you-know-who are going to put DRM into the BIOS and you'll have to buy a bios-flash-upgrade license :)

Re:...only if the BIOS chip is replaceable.

[Nutria]

FYI there are always 2 versions of BIOS!

That definitely was not always true. Only when (a) companies realized that people "bricked" their mobos on a regular basis, and (b) EEPROM prices dropped while capacity increased, did manufactures start putting in dual BIOSs.

Re:...only if the BIOS chip is replaceable.

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe PLCC
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_leaded_chip_carrier
  so you can replace it without soldering iron, just in case it burns out, or you wish to
  put a newer or bigger or offload burned chip.

Re:...only if the BIOS chip is replaceable.

[b0bby]

Why would it have to be replaced, again?

Power loss while flashing, for one.

That's why manufacturers have been putting dual bios chips on boards for some time now.

Re:...only if the BIOS chip is replaceable.

[GooberToo]

Yes, because no one would ever think to update by flashing.

Why would stripping and running around buck naked update your computer? Not to mention its illegal in any public place.

I'd rather not update my system - ever - if it means keeping clothes on the /. population!

GPL'd code available only by request?

[1729]

So, after searching around for the GPL'd components, I finally found a link in the FAQ to this page:

http://www.hyperspace.com/HyperSpace/OpenSourceRequest.aspx

Re:GPL'd code available only by request?

[Anonymous Coward]

which complies with the GPL. they could also charge you for the physical source distribution.

yea, GPL, not so well-thought-out

Re:GPL'd code available only by request?

[QuantumG]

Yup, that's all the GPL says they have to do.

In fact, providing a web form is being generous.. they could accept requests only by dead tree.

Re:GPL'd code available only by request?

[1729]

Yup, that's all the GPL says they have to do.

In fact, providing a web form is being generous.. they could accept requests only by dead tree.

Considering that the files are already on their site to download (but you have to jump through hoops to get to them), it seems like they are just trying to make it more difficult to get to the source code. That's lame.

Re:GPL'd code available only by request?

[argent]

Downloading it now. Big old tarball. Going to take some study to figure what bits are theirs and what bits are everyone else's.

Re:GPL'd code available only by request?

[Anonymous Coward]

Link?

Re:GPL'd code available only by request?

[1729]

Link?

No direct link for the tarball. Filling out their form will get you an email with a URL containing a dynamically generated key:

http://www.hyperspace.com/Knowledgebase/OpenSource/OpenSourceDownload.aspx?id=acf8c253-9afc-4c2a-9088-7cde68ed7315

Re:GPL'd code available only by request?

[644bd346996]

It's not like it matters how easy they make it to access the source. Since it's under the GPL, there will be easy-to-use and easy-to-install community projects spun off from this, just like for wireless routers. Only people wanting to sync the project they manage with the manufacturer's source will need to try to acquire the manufacturer's code. Everybody else will get it in the form of a third-party improved distribution.

Re:GPL'd code available only by request?

[QuantumG]

Oh, I don't disagree.. but if they said "write to [address] and we'll mail you a CD" that would be sufficient for the GPL.

Re:GPL'd code available only by request?

[Qubit]

Nifty!

Has anyone done a diff on the code to see what changes they've applied to the standard libraries?

Actual annotated commits to version control would be much nicer, but if they aren't going to distribute that then I guess we could just look at their diff on the code.

Re:GPL'd code available only by request?

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the required fields on that form is "* If you intend to develop applications for HyperSpace, kindly provide details"

Is that requirement also GPL-Good?

Re:GPL'd code available only by request?

[sadler121]

If you make a change to their code that is under the GPL, you are required to make those changes available under the GPL. Perhaps that is what that sentence is inferring...

Re:GPL'd code available only by request?

[jd34]

Sigh... you are only required to make changes available under the GPL if you redistribute the compiled binary, and you are not required to notify the original source of your changes.

Re:GPL'd code available only by request?

[RAMMS EIN]

``they could also charge you for the physical source distribution.

yea, GPL, not so well-thought-out''

What, because it allows you to charge for the source code? Many licenses don't even require you to make source code available at all, let alone for free.

Also, I can understand if there are things in the GPL that you don't like, but saying it is not well thought out seems just plain wrong to me.

Re:GPL'd code available only by request?

[ensignyu]

Per the GPL though, only one person would have to go through the trouble of requesting a copy -- you could then upload it to a public FTP repository. It could be inconvenient if they released updates often, but that's usually not the case for a BIOS.

Flash memory has a limited number of writes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Flash memory has a limited number of writes.

Re:Flash memory has a limited number of writes.

[nabsltd]

Even the absolute worst flash memory can be written hundreds of times without any issues.

At a reasonable update schedule of once a month, that would be no less than 10 years. You would almoste certainly be able to update once a week for 3-4 years. And this is worst case...I would be surprised if you would really even want to use the computer anymore (due to performance issues) by the time the flash wore out 15-20 years down the road.

Re:Flash memory has a limited number of writes.

[Mad Merlin]

Flash memory has a limited number of writes.

The universe has a limited number of atoms.

Re:Flash memory has a limited number of writes.

[Zero__Kelvin]

"The universe has a limited number of atoms."

... but an unlimited number of morons !!!

Re:Flash memory has a limited number of writes.

[SlashWombat]

It's not flash. EEPROMs can be rewritten millions of times, so it would take decades of continuously flashing your BIOS before you hit the limit.

What do you think flash is? Like someone said earlier

"The universe has a limited number of atoms." ... but an unlimited number of morons !!!

It has been a long time since I saw an EEPROM/Flash like memory that had a re-write life of less than 1000X.

Re:Flash memory has a limited number of writes.

[BrokenHalo]

In any case, how often do you really need to rebuild your kernel? I pretty much only do mine when it occurs to me these days (say every 3 months or so) unless I have a new device or I want to try a different filesystem.

It's not as if it really contains so many absolute howlers of bugs that we need to keep up with every patch for security.

Re:Flash memory has a limited number of writes.

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG, this would make the most awesome fortune cookie.

Just work on coreboot damnit!

[A beautiful mind]

Why don't they just start to work on coreboot? The piece of code shipped currently as BIOS could be so much better. There is an excellent Google Talk about coreboot's improvements.

It's high time the old unflexible piece of crap BIOS died.

Re:Just work on coreboot damnit!

[Qubit]

There are a number of boards and chipsets that work with coreboot, but there are many more that do not.

My guess is that Phoenix is trying to jump on the it-runs-linux bandwagon, leverage a bit of the benefits of the kernel to make a shiny app, and not really contribute back to the FOSS community any more than they have to. I could be wrong here, and I'd be more than happy to have someone from Phoenix correct me, but that's what these new quick-to-boot environments sound like.

One possible benefit from this work is that Phoenix will probably need to release the underlying kernel code that they use to talk to all of the hardware. Even if they don't want to make all of their toys Free Software, if we can at least get enough information from the Phoenix kernel improvements to make coreboot talk to the hardware, then we're in pretty handy shape.

So the order of the phoenix is ready

[anonymousNR]

to take over the lord vistamort

Re:It's called DOS, and it was done a long time ag

[Max Littlemore]

I have wanted that for years, but not just for basic tasks, I want everything from /boot /bin and /sbin at the least, and possibly /etc, /usr/lib, /usr/bin or paths under those. Give it a physical lock to switch between read only and read/write.

I have fond memories of the acorn archemides machines at school that booted in seconds and ran some pretty cool full 3D graphics stuff in 1991. Even todays latest greatest PCs seem like a step backwards in some ways. They take longer to get to a state that's usable and use a crap load more power to do the same tasks.

They are also vulnerable to exploits that require minimal user involvement, whereas having to physically replace or flash a chip or flick a switch makes the purely technical exploit nearly impossible. With that kind of setup, pretty much all exploits become social.

Some of the design choices of the eighties, born from technical limitations, far outdo anything we use toady. I say bring it back.

Also nice to

[rolfwind]

switch between Linux (a full featured distro), Windows, and OS X, but with minimal (almost no) speed penalty, if I'm reading this correctly.

Department of Redundancy

[Tubal-Cain]

remain outside of Windows.

Yes, you said that already:

'trying to create a new market using the ideas of a fast-booting, safe platform that people can work in

MacGyver didn't need no stinkin' BIOS (obligatory)

[catmistake]

He could boot your OS with a Swiss Army Knife, some duct tape and and old pop top, drawing the electricity needed from a box of old compasses. I guess he's retired from Phoenix by now, though...

Re:Coreboot can't run both at the same time

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think Coreboot supports using the onboard Linux OS even after you boot Windows or another OS while this does.

BIOSOS

[Tweenk]

Basic Input Output System Operating System...

that's like Personal Identification Number number.

Re:BIOSOS

[blueg3]

Repetitively redundant?

Atari TOS

[tepples]

What you describe was implemented in the Atari ST.

Let the rest of the system - libraries, apps, configuration, etc... reside on the disk, but keep the hardware related parts (i.e. drivers, etc...) on the firmware itself.

That would work for drivers for the chipset, integrated peripherals, and devices that have a class driver (e.g. USB HID, USB storage, SATA storage, SATAPI optical storage). But where would drivers for plug-in PCIe and USB devices go?

Re:Atari TOS

[Saffaya]

Mod parent up !

The Atari ST was usable within 3 seconds of pushing the reset button or the power switch.
It only needed the time to check if the floppy boot sector was executable (it would then run the floppy) before giving you access to the full fledged GUI OS that was the combo TOS/GEM.

Did they publish the source?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Does this include Linux code in the BIOS itself, or only load it off disk and use it. If the former, did they publish the source?

Re:Did they publish the source?

[77Punker]

Either way, they'd need to publish the source code since they'd be providing a binary.

Re:Did they publish the source?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Yes. But if they stored it in the same ROM with the rest of the BIOS they may have "linked" it with the BIOS for the purposes of the GPL. I'm not sure how that goes, leagalese-wise, but it might require them to publish the source to the BIOS as well.

I think it would make good sense to consider a ROM with a BIOS and a disk image to be treated the same as a ROM with a BIOS and a separate disk or flash with a disk image. To do otherwise would have a chilling effect on the likes of this very useful product. But what matters is what the documents say, not what I think would be a good idea.

(And the people who wrote the documents would no doubt want people who buy machines with the BIOS to have the source to the BIOS...)

Re:Did they publish the source?

[Anonymous Coward]

they allocate 3GB of HDD space and use that for the linux distro.
they only give the modified source of bits of the kernel and vanilla for the rest. you cant compile it.
also its not sold on anything other than an annual subscription. you can never own it. and it only supports a few obsolete laptops.

Re:Did they publish the source?

[EvilIdler]

You have to write them to get the open source components. Even worse, the system itself is only subscription-based. I might be interested in trying it if there is just a once-off payment, but I don't accept subscriptions to be able to use my computer.

Re:Did they publish the source?

[SilentSandman]

Source is available as per the GPL requirements: http://www.hyperspace.com/HyperSpace/OpenSourceRequest.aspx

Re:Did they publish the source?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

They also harvest your name and physical address as required fields in the request that it be delivered by email.

I'd like to see what the EFF has to say about this.

You can hardly blame them for trying to test the limits. But it looks to me like they went far beyond them. (Unless they include the source in the distribution package, in which case {if I understand it correctly} the online download is "being nice guys" rather than required.)

Here's what the giant in Redmond should do

[bogaboga]

Change the license to stem or prevent this "bad behavior" from Phoenix from becoming a thorn in the you-know-what.

The license should be targeted to all potential "misconduct" by companies like Phoenix. This reminds me of GPL v3.

Re:Here's what the giant in Redmond should do

[Darkness404]

...Change the license to what? Which license by the way? Make Windows unbootable on Phoenix BIOSes? Well then MS just screwed themselves out of over 25% of their potential marketshare, require more BIOS checks? Then MS is screwing themselves out of the (quite profitable) Mac with its Open Firmware BIOS replacement more than likely.

MS is powerless to stop this.

Microkernel in BIOS

[w0mprat]

Get rid of the BIOS all together please, on my ASUS based machine it now takes longer for the BIOS to hand over to the bootloader than it does for Windows 7 to start!

Have you Hurd the one about the Microkernel in firmware?

I just realized...

[Anonymous Coward]

... that if you had two of these, it'd be a BIBIOSOS

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

not new

[asdfndsagse]

this has been around for a while

sad they don't put any technical details, like weather they are using coreboot

That's pretty awesome

[elronxenu]

People will be able to distinguish between "my computer has crashed" and "Windows has crashed" because, when Windows dies, they will be able to hot-key to the still-running BIOS OS.

That's a very nice innovation. I look forward to buying a mobo which can do this.

Re:That's pretty awesome

[atraintocry]

If Windows still crashes on you then you are doing something wrong.

Re:That's pretty awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

If Windows still crashes on you then you are doing something wrong.

Yes. Running Windows.

Re:That's pretty awesome

[atraintocry]

:)

Here you go...

[bogaboga]

Change specific portions of the Windows license and insert text that specifically forbids usage of Windows in any way similar to what Phoenix has demoed.

Usage of Windows in a way the preserves the status-quo would still be allowed.

Look, Microsoft cannot just look on and hope for the best. Something has to be done.

Re:Here you go...

[Darkness404]

But that would lose MS even more marketshare, something they can not afford to do. Lets say this gets put on a netbook, and lets say they make this thing seamless, it loads part of the system from the BIOS and part from the SSD, you have an insanely fast booting Linux distro. Because Windows can't be legally put on there, hardware vendors can still sell it because of its incredibly quick boot time, good battery life, etc. And Windows can't be put on there. It seems like an epic fail for MS in an area it has historically done poorly in.

Re:Here you go...

[iluvcapra]

But that would lose MS even more marketshare, something they can not afford to do

All things being equal, you'd be right, but in this crazy world we live in, people buy computers based on how well they support Windows; hardly anyone buys the hardware and then select the OS that supports the hardware's featureset best. Well, people who buy Macs do, but then again I did say "hardly anyone."

For instance, Windows forbids users from electronically circumventing Protected Media Path. This doesn't cause hardly anyone to stop using Windows, because Windows is pretty much the only game in town.

On the other hand, if MS were to forbid on-chip hypervisors, this might be considered an abuse of their monopoly power, particularly if you could make the argument that MS materially benefited from hypervisors not being present on computers (questionable) and hypervisors had failed to take hold in the market because of MS's anti-phoenix ukase (hasn't happened yet).

Re:It's called DOS, and it was done a long time ag

[bluefoxlucid]

You know nothing about computers or DOS. DOS didn't have virtual memory. DOS was not a BIOS-based OS; it passed a lot of calls to BIOS, but that can be done just fine, it's a little slower than direct access. Windows did the same, hence why it couldn't access more than 8 gigs of HDD on an old BIOS but when LBA32 showed up it magically could (i.e. Windows 98 first edition, on a non-LBA32 BIOS vs. LBA32 BIOS).

Old news: announced more than a year ago

[Anonymous Coward]

Phoenix announced HyperSpace more than a year ago. Here is the press release from November 2007: http://investor.phoenix.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=273099 By most accounts it doesn't work. Check out their forums for all of the complaints. It's pretty brutal: http://www.hyperspace.com/support/forums/t/259.aspx Further, Phoenix as a company is close to going out of business. They have less than $23M in cash left and lost $64M in the six months ended March 31: http://investor.phoenix.com/financials.cfm I wouldn't be surprised if part of the problem is they have been doing PR about things like HyperSpace that are great ideas but don't work.

Re:It's called DOS, and it was done a long time ag

[The Famous Brett Wat]

DOS was a BIOS based OS. It passed a large number of its calls directly to the BIOS. We all know how well that worked out.

Let's just call this a gross oversimplification and be done with it, shall we?

Why bother having a separate OS when the kernel could fit on the firmware?

For security reasons. Your firmware OS might have exploitable privilege escalation bugs, so you don't want to run untrusted software under it directly, only in a protected virtual machine environment. That virtual machine environment must have its own OS, and that would be a disk-based OS which is easier (and safer) to update in the event that security holes are found. It's preferable if the whole boot environment is as near to possible as read-only, just to reduce the possibility of malicious exploit. It shouldn't even be possible to re-flash the system without physical intervention (such as changing a jumper).

With kernel drivers *in the hardware itself*, one would never have to worry about getting the correct driver, etc...

This is true for the flash-based OS and the built-in hardware, which is why you can boot into a usable system so long as enough of the hardware is integrated on the motherboard. Don't forget plug-in cards and external peripherals, though. There's no avoiding the need for those drivers, in general.

Stupid

[wasabii]

I think this stuff is absolutely stupid. If the BIOS were to just get out of the way in 0 seconds and begin booting the OS I'd have a desktop in 4 seconds. My Linux loads that quickly. If they can make Linux in the BIOS load that quickly, they can make Linux from a SSD load that quickly. The problem is the huge post steps. Long pauses. Scanning CD drives when there are no CDs.

Re:Stupid

[Hucko]

You can turn some of that off y'know.

That said, I agree. There should be an upload boot configuration to bios/efi/openbios and let the OS take care of the variables.

Does it have anything to do with BIOS?

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I can parse it's just an embedded Linux distro with a VT based hypervisor. How can it have anything to do with the BIOS if you can just download it for any hardware with VT support? Anybody that has been hit by the clue bat knows that BIOS is very hardware specific to the point of being unique to a specific motherboard, or a family of motherboards (nvidia has had a few reference motherboards that would fit in the latter case).

The app store idea is just such a looser idea, they already want a subscription fee and then you have to pay extra to get extra functionality of your host OS, uhh no thanks! The Microsoft tax is sounding better and better!

I wonder how much of a hit 3D performance will take running a game in this VM? VMs are incredibly useful in network computing environments but as a workstation with heavy graphical loads it's not very good so far, at least that I have seen.

How useful is this idea anyways? Ohh you can boot fast and check your email but if your using POP are you going to have to mount your filesystem that your email resides on and then what if you don't use a MUA that runs on linux do you have to build some klugey interface layer to translate on disk formats? Same goes for favorites/bookmarks. Unless you live in the cloud it doesn't sound very useful to me. Making the OS you want to use boot faster seams like an infinitely better solution.

Might be for some, but not for me...

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a very similar idea to this a long time ago as an OS. Not as BIOSOS though. More or less a basic linux environment running QEMU with a few preinstall oses like netbsd and slax and freedos. I personally don't like the idea of a BIOSOS because it wouldn't be easy to remove or change for the average user. Unless they put out a tool for that, which I for some reason doubt they would (atleast doubt they'd do it outside of windows). But thats just me, some people might enjoy that. I could see it being useful if they had it (atleast as an option) boot into a basic shell first, with enough features to connect to the Internet and simple file management. Problems arise there as well though. So for me, give me a basic bios, and let me install what i want on top of that. On the other hand my interest in my previous idea has slightly been rekindled. I'm interestedd to see where this goes though.

Re:It's called DOS, and it was done a long time ag

[jhol13]

3. How do I update the OS? I hate security holes.
5. Explain that idea in the kernel developers list, you will be hammered to death.

Other than that, interesting idea. I think OpenBoot might be better ... or maybe not, don't know enough.

no, it's more like Amiga

[MoFoQ]

no, it's not like DOS (MS, PC, DR, etc.) but rather more like Amiga.

I wonder if the current company that owns the Amiga IP will become a patent troll and sue.

Re:It's called DOS, and it was done a long time ag

[mlts]

I remember some SCSI drives having exactly this functionality. Ages ago, I had /, /usr, /usr/bin, /lib, and the other nonchanging critical filesystems on a switchable read-only drive, while the rest were read-write. I also stored a MD5 hash of the stuff on the read-write side on the read-only filesystem, so I could check for changes in file contents. This, plus a couple good finds to find bad permissions made for extremely solid security.

Same with a FTP server I had with critical files on it. The files were stored on a read-only drive, and even if the box got hacked, someone couldn't tamper with the files, although these days, someone would just modify the ftpd to change the files in transit to tampered versions.

The more things change...

[Anonymous Coward]

...the more they stay the same. My first computer had Z80 Basic (which, as in many 8-bitters, was the OS) in ROM, along with a debugger and a word processor. This was in 1983. My second computer (circa 1986) had this plus a semi-graphical UI for navigating between things and booting those new-fangled floppy disk things.

And let's not forget what the BIOS was actually *intended* for: namely to provide an standard abstraction layer between the hardware and the software. If anything this Pheonix just seem to be getting back to implementing what should have been long ago.

Re:It's called DOS, and it was done a long time ag

[Anonymous Coward]

DOS was not a BIOS based operating system for any sensible definition of the term.

SysRq Key

[Nom du Keyboard]

Would this mean that there's finally a use for the SysRq key?

Games in the Windows VM?

[Fian]

If the Windows OS is running in a VM does it get low level access to the video card for gaming? If not then they have lost the gaming market...

Re:Games in the Windows VM?

[shentino]

Who runs a realtime game inside a VM anyway?

Re:Games in the Windows VM?

[Fian]

ummm that was my point.

Traditionally there is a BIOS which provides low level hardware access to a host OS which can then run a guest VM.

With Hyperspace the line between the BIOS and the host OS are blurred...

Does the guest Windows VM (it's running on a hypervisor) get low level access to the hardware?

If it does then gaming should work fine but it would be unlikely that multiple guests could be run simultaneously.

More than one Guest OS?

[wilsoniya]

I didn't really RTFA that well. Is it possible to run more than one 'Guest' OS simultaneously? I would love to be able to run many different OSs on top of a very minimalistic hypervisor and hop between them with a hotkey.

Dance Dance Rabbitlution

[tepples]

This way, malicious software trying to flash will fail because it can't get direct access to the BIOS (its written through the staging utility run from BIOS setup).

Unless the malicious software successfully social engineers the user into copying from the staging area, so that the user can see the dancing bunnies.

Lasers

[camperdave]

It's a solution without a problem.

Lasers were once described as a solution without a problem. However, today where would we be without them?

Re:Lasers

[Anonymous Coward]

Lasers were once described as a solution without a problem. However, today where would we be without them?

Fewer jokes about sharks?

Re:Lasers

[vesuvana]

There's a fundamental difference between a brand new technology and yet one more way to get around Windows' inadequacies. We know that Windows sucks yet has the world's majority of software written for it. This is not going to be a Windows killer. Great if some people buy this, but I don't think it's going to make Phoenix much money or make Microcrap quake in their mink-lined boots.

Where is the source code?

[cyberjessy]

Where can I download the source code from? Or, am I missing something here?

Re:Where is the source code?

[SilentSandman]

http://www.hyperspace.com/HyperSpace/OpenSourceRequest.aspx

You're dating yourself

[Voyager529]

It is currently accepted as obligatory to make references to Tony Stark being able to "boot your OS with a Swiss Army Knife..." in a cave. Tell MacGyver to get off your lawn.

Re:You're dating yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

the reference was that MacGyver worked for the Phoenix Foundation

Re:It's called DOS, and it was done a long time ag

[Bat Country]

Actually, it worked out just fine.

So well, in fact, that some people didn't switch to windows at all until 2k.

Umm....did anyone check out cost before posting?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not saying Phoenix should not make money. I am not saying that a product like this wouldn't be nice. Buyer Beware! there is something rotten about how they are planning to offer this.
An operating system that requires a yearly subscription and requires you to have it always connected to the internet? I think I like Microsoft's business model for providing OSes over this.....

and if this is linux based.... where's the source? If it is truely linux based, doesn't that make it fall under GNU General Public License (GPL) ?

http://www.hyperspace.com/Product-Editions.aspx:
HyperSpace Dual: annual subscription: $39.95 3-year: $99.95
HyperSpace Hybrid: annual subscription: $59.95 3-year: $149.95

http://www.hyperspace.com/kb/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=30:
Your e-mail address is required to register your HyperSpace product with Phoenix Technologies. If you purchase HyperSpace, your e-mail address will be used to send receipt of purchase and other product subscription information.

http://www.hyperspace.com/docs/eula/HyperSpace%20EULA%20v.1.doc:
If at the end of the Trial Period you elect not to subscribe for the Software, the Software will be rendered inoperable on your computer and shall remain inoperable until you purchase a subscription.
SUBSCRIPTIONS AND RENEWALS. At the end of the Term, you will be required to renew your subscription for the Software in order to continue using the Software. You acknowledge and agree that failure to renew your subscription will result in the Software no longer being accessible or usable on your computer.
USER OBLIGATIONS. In using the Software, you agree to:
(a) Back up the important Files that reside on your computer on a regular basis;
(b) Keep your password and any pertinent account information private and not, for example, within the same physical location as your computer;
(c) Install the Updates provided by Phoenix to ensure up-to-date Software;
(d) Permit regular and uninterrupted communication with the Internet to enable Updates and certain features and functions of the Software;
(e) Un-install the Software from your computer in the event that you transfer ownership of your computer to another person or entity;
(f) Comply with all applicable laws, including without limitation, all applicable local, state, national and foreign laws, treaties, regulations, ordinances and directives;
(g) Take all reasonable steps to protect the Software from unauthorized reproduction, publication, disclosure, or distribution;
(h) If applicable, ensure your employees and all persons who have the authorized right to use the Software have had the terms of this Agreement made known to them; and
(i) Install and use the Software on only a computer that you own and only for non-commercial purposes

http://www.phoenix.com/en/Privacy+Policy/HyperSpace/default.htm
Opt-Out. If you have a HyperSpace subscription and you do not want Phoenix to collect your User Statistics, the HyperSpace software will provide you with the option to opt out of such data collection.

yay OBP for x86

[chef_raekwon]

woot!! cept maybe this might give me multi OS capabillity too.

honestly, its about time i can get OBP functionality (or newly improved version of it) from an x86_64 pc. all this time .. we've been deprived this privilege ..

penguin labia BIOS

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a stuffed penguin with a fat labia which squeeks when I rub it

What the heck

[TiggertheMad]

There comes a time when the geek needs to let go. To pull the plug.

Which is why our landfills are filling up with e-waste faster than they should be. Great example of attitudes in a disposable society.

I'm all for progress and new technology, but why discard something because it just needs a new set of drivers? The reason why manufacturers can get away with this crap is because people don't get pissed off enough and light up their call enters with complaints.

Re:What the heck

[westlake]

I'm all for progress and new technology, but why discard something because it just needs a new set of drivers?

It is never just the driver.

I am retiring a parallel port printer.
The quad core 64 bit system I have on order doesn't have a parallel port.

The new printer supports photo quality inks and papers. It has a page feeder. It prints both sides in one pass.

It scans. It faxes. It has integrated WiFi....

Etc. Etc. Etc.
 

Re:What the heck

[mrraven]

Agree. Properly maintained electronic equipment ought to be good for a 20 year lifespan, yes CPUs change but printers and scanners have NOT improved much in a decade.

Some of my best sounding audio equipment is 40+ years old and was built to last, would that we made peripherals with the same attitude we could do a lot to save money and the environment.

Where is the Marantz of computer equipment and who would support it with drivers if it were made?

Re:It's called DOS, and it was done a long time ag

[Anonymous Coward]

Happy times with security patches.

Hah!

[Weaselmancer]

Drivers not working in a consistent manner with your OS is a show stopper? Well, it certainly hasn't shot down Windows yet. Go read the nVidia forums sometime, then come back here and tell me how drivers are more consistent and bug-free on Windows.

Third party drivers, patches, bugfixes and glitches are pretty standard when it comes to your driver set. That's normal, and you're going to see it pretty much on any current OS.

Re:Coreboot can't run both at the same time

[XanC]

It could, if you coreboot into a Linux installation that has a VM hypervisor installed. Which is what this is.

Great Idea ... M$ will kill it

[HW_Hack]

Or at least pee on it and create a wall of FUD. Their mighty and perfect OS usurped by lowly BIOS - and a BIOS running Linux. How totally non-elegant !

Its a great idea and I would actually have a reason - a real reason - to upgrade my hardware. But I can see M$ telling Dell - HP - etc. if you want to put Windows a BIOSOS system ... no OS discount for you !

However I would love to see the industry find a way to shove this down Balmers throat.

Re:Great Idea ... M$ will kill it

[rdnetto]

But I can see M$ telling Dell - HP - etc. if you want to put Windows a BIOSOS system ... no OS discount for you!

More like a non MS BIOSOS...

Re:Great Idea ... M$ will kill it

[jabjoe]

Is that the kind of anti-competitive behaviour that just got Intel into trouble with the EU? After the size of the fine, I doubt MS would dare try that, at least in Europe.

Is it trully linux on bios chip?

[dvh.tosomja]

Last time I tryied "Linux on bios chip", it was actually somehow obfuscated on the hard drive.

looks promising

[GarretSidzaka]

wow this sounds truly wonderful. i have been hoping for some way to make swapping instances of windows without only virtulization or reboot

Obligatory

[rdnetto]

http://xkcd.com/149/

Phoenix

[Alex Belits]

Oh, Phoenix...

(rolls eyes)

(rolls eyes continuously for a minute)

(rolls eyes at 7200rpm)

(attaches a generator to the still-rolling eyes and powers his computers with it)

Re:It's called DOS, and it was done a long time ag

[funkboy]

The PC has perhaps the worst architure and implementation of any major platform, and it's about time they did something to fix that.

That's what EFI is, but only Apple has implemented it at scale because they're not scared to death of not being able to install a retail copy of windows on their hardware due to Redmond not playing nice (and they fixed that with Boot Camp quickly enough anyway).

Better use for flash: hibernation

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got an even better use for flash memory: the hibernation file. Just imagine hiberfil.sys was located on a flash drive - your computer would boot in seconds in the exact same state that it shut down in!

Dell MediaDirect

[Joe_NoOne]

Sounds similar to Dell's MediaDirect...

BIO SOS

[TheCybernator]

BIOS-based OS for computers

oh! OK. I thought you goofed up again and now sending a BIO SOS signal.

Is this the ideal thin client?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if this Hyperspace can run disk free - would make a great thin client.

Torrent it.

[DrYak]

which complies with the GPL. they could also charge you for the physical source distribution.

On the other hand, nothing in the GPL prevents you from getting one paid copy and then distribute it for free to the whole internet in a torrent. In fact, that's the whole point of the GPL.

The whole GPL is about passing the freedom to the next one in the chain, and once you get the code you're free to do whatever you want with it (under the sole condition that you too transmit the freedoms to the next in line).

So even if a company chooses to only provide source code on media and ask a reasonable fee for the service, some buyers will probably setup an internet-channel to distribute the source for free.

Where Open Source Works and where it doesn't

[AB3A]

This brings up an important point. There is plenty of incentive for someone to write a web server, a database manager, an OS kernel or thousands of other generic bits of software. There is almost NO incentive for someone to write a driver for an obsolete device. The former can be a source of consulting and employment. The latter can actually work against you.

I mean, if a hardware manufacturer finds out you like to write device drivers for obsolete hardware, they're not going to be pleased. All those people keeping their old printers will prevent the manufacturer from profiting by making new ones. And if you really get creative by making the hardware do all sorts of new tricks it never did before, they're probably going to look for some excuse to get rid of you.

They want to sell new product, not keep the old stuff going. I know it's wrong to say this, but that's how the world's economy is configured right now.

Re:Where Open Source Works and where it doesn't

[shaitand]

But that problem is solved by the same reason many manufacturers have ignored Linux up till now. The size of the market. The Linux market by itself just really isn't all that significant, so let them keep their old stuff. Let them hack away at the hardware and if they come up with something so fantastic that someone will switch to linux to do it then all the better because they will need to buy your product to do the hack.

The linux market is not important for sales in the linxu market, its important because everyone outside the linux market is listening to the geeks who make up that market for their purchasing decisions. Even if they call up their local linux geek directly, the information and recommendations filter down from there.

Don't believe me? Find that to be difficult to track and so disregard it? Fine but look at what happened to Vista when the geeks decided it wasn't any good. The windows techs defended it and your average idiot on the street wouldn't know a slow or lousy system if you beat him to death with it. It was the linux/bsd/oss geeks here on slashdot who have to work with windows on the job all day who determined that system was garbage and a company with tens of billions of dollars in the bank and a monopoly to back them was stopped in their tracks.

That is serious influence and buying power my friend billions of dollars worth, even if they aren't the ones actually spending the money. Another example is AMD, AMD was nobody until they 'dispelled the gigahertz myth' and in so doing pleased the geeks. The t-birds they came out with thereafter were good chips but the athlon XP's that came after that were garbage. Intel had to pull ahead for a significant time period to geeks paying attention to them again. The rest of the world? They didn't know a damn thing either way. They asked their local mcse, who takes his advice from internet tech forums, whose chief gurus take command of internet havens based on merit, and who wins when credentials don't count and only merit in techs?

The old school geeks running oss.

Talk about turning the tables

[Lorien_the_first_one]

Kinda like DR-DOS in reverse.

inject blog fud ..

[rs232]

Check out their forums for all of the complaints. It's pretty brutal:

It's curious that the user with the 'no track pad support' problems never got back to the forum with the model name. From the screenshots it does seem to do what it says on the tin :) And according to the article HyperSpace taxes the processor and memory far less than does Windows, so why would that particular Acer be running hot ??

booting a small OS from ROM is old news...

[lynchaj]

Everything old is new again... 8 bit microcomputers have been doing things like this for years. It is exactly how the N8VEM home brew computer boots its OS. The Z80 boots CP/M from a 1 MB "ROM drive" and uses the SRAM for its temporary storage. There are many other examples of similar implementations.

http://groups.google.com/group/n8vem

http://n8vem-sbc.pbwiki.com/

Tip for U3 Drive Owners

[Prototerm]

This is because the extra U3 partition identified itself to Windows as a CD, which Windows automounts, unless you've deliberately turned that feature off. U3 has a Windows program that will remove the bogus CD partition, and render the thing an ordinary USB drive.

Of course, if you have Linux handy, I believe GParted will remove the partition as well.

The U3 technology needs to curl up into a ball and die!

Re:Tip for U3 Drive Owners

[porl]

i was never successful (didn't try that much though) in using linux to get rid of it - it reported itself as a cd device as opposed to a partition, and i couldn't figure out how to change the low level settings necessary to kill it off. gparted etc just showed the remaining space and i couldn't modify anything to do with the 'cd' part.

Re:Tip for U3 Drive Owners

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, if you have Linux handy, I believe GParted will remove the partition as well.

I've never had a U3 device but I've seen forum posts complaining you can't remove this partition with Gparted (or other partition tools) because it's not a 'normal' partition, but instead you have to write the value '1' to an obscure Linux 'file' (i.e. not really a file but an interface to the device). Seems pretty weird to me.

XEN?

[PhotoGuy]

When I first checked out Xen, I was kind of hopeful that it could achieve that sort of thing already. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have a "fast direct console" for letting a windows Virtual Machine perform at full speed for interactive purposes. Accessing a Windows VM via VNC or RDC doesn't exactly allow one to play the latest games (or even do more mundant work interactively for regular use).

Is anybody working on this? It seems like it would be a great addition. I'd love to have my required Windows machine (for kids games, PVR, etc.) actually virtualized with a Linux wrapper outside of it.

As it stands, I run my Asterisk system under CoLinux on Windows; I'd love to turn that inside out, having Linux be in control, with windows Virtualized; but the fast access to the video is required by my Windows needs, and not my Linux needs, so Windows as the supervising OS is my only option, ugh.

Re:It's called DOS, and it was done a long time ag

[Lecard]

5. With kernel drivers *in the hardware itself*, one would never have to worry about getting the correct driver, etc...

You mean I'd never have to worry about getting the LATEST driver, with the LATEST performance improvements or the LATEST bug fixes? Hummmmmm... fascinating!

Everything old . . .

[wrencherd]

Daengbo mentioned above (vis a vis Tandy PC's from the '70's) that this is the way personal computers used to work.

Weren't the Macs and Ataris from the 1980's similar, utilizing a dedicated chip for the gui ("Apple toolbox")?

Perhaps I'm mistaken, but it does seem like everything old is "newer" again.

This is actually great...

[jopsen]

What Phoenix is doing is pushing Windows into a VM, permanently.

And that's were it belongs :)

If this hits mainstream it won't be long till users have forgotten about windows, because they were using the browser while windows was starting...

device drivers?

[Anonymous Coward]

so if I understand it correctly, it will be running a small linux version in the background also, using the hypervisor.

What will this do to the devices ? i mean, we all know windows has better support for video drivers with working hardware H264 decoding and such, will this host linux bios give a windows guest os control of the videocard on such a low level that the normal videodriver can be used ?

Re:It's called DOS, and it was done a long time ag

[I'm not really here]

If every manufacturer of peripherals included a small flash drive in the architecture, they could include the base minimum drivers for multiple OSes to be interfaced out of the box. When looking for drivers, if the OS doesn't find its own copy, then it should look to the hardware for the core basic driver, and if that is not found, then inform the user of needed updates for their particular OS.

Include a way to update the flash drive with newer drivers, and you can recover from a harddrive crash a whole lot faster.

Think of it as a built in backup.

This, combined with a BIOS based operating system, would make a computer that literally requires nothing more than physical assembly and then booting. The entire OS and all drivers required are embedded into the architecture. This way, no matter what happens to your preferred installed OS, you have a functional PC and can recover (assuming you don't have hardware issues, but that's a whole other ball of wax).

Don't Need TPM to know what software is running

[fast turtle]

I administer a large number of workstations, and would love the capacity to know what's running on them,

I administer >10 workstations and know exactly what software is running on them w/o TPM modules and the way I did it is simple. I used the Linux netboot capabilities and remote mounting of /usr /var/home on diskless workstations. The only caveat is to make damn sure that all of them have identical hardware such as motherboards and video cards. You don't need to ensure duplication of CPU's, so long as you use the same series of CPU's or configure you software to use i586 settings. Sure it might be a bit slower and not as optimized as going with cflags="-march=nocona -O3 -pipe" (yes I'm a gentoo user).

In a sense...

[Junta]

Yes, a lot of administrators do overextend the view of their role.

That being said, the job is to make sure the systems work without required too large an overhead. If an administrator is tied up supporting 5 users out of 200 95% of the time, their job becomes to reign in those 5 and give the other 195 users the support they need.

To another extent, a role is enforcing the business dictated access controls and auditing. If a janitor can somehow access all the data a corporation has, again an administrator is not doing their job.

A third aspect is helping to manage liability. Much of the popular 'freeware' people want to put on workstations have explicit license terms about not being used in commercial contexts without compensation. Again, an administrator has the responsibility of protecting the workplace from that exposure as well.

So yes, detection of unknown/uncharacterised software can be an important aspect of an administrators job. Finding a balance between that and allowing the users to do their jobs is a thin line to walk.

Re:It's called DOS, and it was done a long time ag

[Hucko]

3. Use less code. Not useless code. Like most things in life, think about how you are going land before you take off.
5. Part and parcel with promoting a new idea anywhere. Be persuasive and reasonably logical.

Coreboot is one implementation of this, or more correctly OpenBoot(Openfirmware) type ideas enable Coreboot or HyperSpace to be possible.

now I'll go read gpp.

Yeah, I have no idea where gpp was going with 5. or 4. or 3. the other two are this article.

5. Hardware is only as good as the drivers for it... if they are terrible it doesn't matter where they are. If they are waiting for users input it doesn't matter where they are. EEPROM doesn't rectify drivers or make users choose faster. Otherwise this is kinda the point too. VMs make for a unified popular system; less unknowns. They are essentially another abstraction. That there can be multiples is a bonus.

In fact I'm not sure they have even a vague idea of how a computer works. The main point of these systems (including Coreboot & OpenBoot) is they allow you have a usable system faster. Hence 4 is not so good unless 3. is very capable.

3. The kernel is part of an operating system. It depends on what it is programmed to do on how useful it is. It would probably be somewhat larger than most kernels to be useful to the venerable Joe Blogs this will be marketed to. Hence they have a linux distro not just the kernel...

Okay...

Meh?

Re:It's called DOS, and it was done a long time ag

[Anonymous Coward]

,i.The PC is one of the few platforms where the hardware is actually useless to the end user without an installed operating system.

Ever heard of a Live CD or Live USB key? These are not *installed* operating systems. These are what you use when your system's hosed (or possibly to install an OS in the first place).

Live CDs can be very slow but Live USB keys can give decent performance and will typically support items 1-4 you mention plus lots more.

Shoot yourself in the foot

[hesaigo999ca]

How many of the apps running directly on the processor, might have vulnerabilities, does that mean you can "update" them, if so, then they are susceptible to being changed, and eventually modified to be some other app...which will then have logged all your info...hence back to square 1.

If the installed system could not be changed or use the same type of stack and heap system as regular OS, then it would be ok....however, I thought the whole intent on using a level of visualization was to avoid having direct contact with something that could give you the virus... (the internet)...having a web-browser that can use a cross scripting web page and then download something unto the hardware might be worse then having it at the software level, no?

I was wondering when this would happen...

[Anonymous Coward]

I just purchased an ASUS board for the Phenom II quad-core. The BIOS (Award I think? I forget now) has a feature that boots a "OS" built into the BIOS that allows you to listen to music, watch videos, and even get on line with programs such as AIM, MSN, etc. I checked the website, the update for this built in "OS" was around 118M. That got me thinking, "how long until someone turns this into something more useful?". IIRC, it's also based on Linux and the source is located on ASUS's website.

MS seems to have already done it..

[Junta]

Asus has their own quickboot linux feature. However, when brought to market, they require windows to 'install' it. I suspect MS had no small role in that (you can have your rapid-boot device, but you must have MS to enable that)

Re:MS seems to have already done it..

[HW_Hack]

I'm not aware of the issue around Asus quickboot - but if true it would be the "M$ way". They own over 80% of the OS market and aim to keep it that way. By nature they are anti-competitive which also means anti-innovative.

Which allows them to go over 5yrs between OS releases and then churn out crap like Vista and still survive. Who else could do that but a company that is a monopoly operating in a country where they can buy-off legislators to stop them from breaking up the company (I'm a US citizen).

Its a sad story - while Intel could also be called a monopoly company - AMD has kicked them in the ass several times forcing innovation via competition. Microsoft pretty much operates in a vacuum. Linux is bringing some pressure on M$ but its minimal in the real world office place.

It's almost as good as the free version

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, this is a great idea. It's almost as good as this: http://www.coreboot.org/Avatt

Of course, we only did this a year ago for GSOC, and are doing second phase this summer, for GSOC. And, of course, ours is free. The Phoenix version seems much better: proprietary and mysterious. What's not to like?

Ron (who forgot his password again)

It took them long enough to come up with this

[Khyber]

I've been saying for the past decade "How nice it would be to have a BIOS that could just let you run two Operating Systems at the same time and let you switch between them seamlessly, an OS KVM SWITCH! Hey with this multi-core DEC Alpha I bet it could be done! I could run NT 4.0 and Slackware at the same time!"

Can we say 'Late to the game?"

Reframed.

[bored]

Most of these comments make me want to puke. I've worked on everything from OS and drive code to firmware/bios code. The one thing I've learned is that you _DONT_ want a heavyweight BIOS/firmware. There is a certain appeal to having a system which ships with a hypervisor, and a heavyweight BIOS that can do everything from configure your memory subsystem to allow remote web based console visualization. On the other hand, you have massively complicated and restricted your system. Everyone thinks that putting all this functionality on the motherboard is a good idea because you only have to flash your BIOS once in a while.

If you want an example of where a heavyweight BIOS leads to, you only have to look at the EFI or OpenFirmware specification. They are so full of technical holes and complexity that nothing works right, and in the case of EFI you have to update the drivers in the BIOS as often as you have to update them in your OS. So, instead of one driver you have two.. Plus flashing cards, or upgrading firmware drivers is _NEVER_ as easy as installing a new OS driver. There is always some technical or human factor that kicks you in the rear.

I've had this discussion with other people in the field, and basically aside from the zealots a lot of other people agree. The core concept of the PC BIOS is really close to the ultimate design. Of course its 25 years old, so its gained a lot of cruft and bugs, but if you were to start over the goal should be a modern version of the BIOS rather than some embedded OS, hypervisor, etc.

What you want is fairly lightweight bootstrap and POST utility to get the machine far enough along that you can fetch the hypervisor, or OS from the disk. This means you have to standardize the API for functions like read sector, print text on screen, read data from keyboard etc. You also have to provide the ability to extend or override those functions from a firmware blob sitting on a SAS adapter, or video card.

This is not an argument against service processors (an entirely separate topic, that people often get confused about), but rather an argument that I don't want my motherboard to try to standardize a hypervisor or OS. I want that decision left up to me. Generally the poor dumb customer doesn't want it either, they just want a machine that runs windows, linux, OSX or whatever, if they are even that detailed. The OS in the firmware people forget that firefox has been sending me weekly (daily?) patches lately, and its likely that over a few years timeframe the later versions of FF won't even run on some older firmware restricted OS without the original vendor providing upgrades. This puts the motherboard vendor in the position of being the support infrastructure for the _WHOLE_ computer. Something i'm sure the majority of them are unable to provide, even though they may have a couple people who can port corebios/linux/etc to run on their hardware.

osx and scanners - sane

[Anonymous Coward]

fwiw, i've got a few scanners that don't have 'official' support to work very well under OSX by using stuff from the open source project SANE http://www.sane-project.org/

sometimes you also need to grab some firmware from inside the windows driver pack, but i've never found it too tricky.

bonus - SANE doesn't install all those badly written 3rd party tools that some of the scanner manufacturers insist you install to get their kit up and running.

ymmv - but worth a look.

hope that helps,

(- sorry, i'm not logged in)

That only became commonplace in the last 6 years

[CAIMLAS]

nt

YOU are to blame

[fibrewire]

The cool part of FOSS is that YOU ultimately have the responsibility to do something about the problem. FOSS was engineered so that "if I have a problem, I can do something about it" instead of "if I have a problem, I'll blame it on the company because they don't want to do something about it." You realise and identified the problems with:

1. MTP008 temperature sensor was removed from 2.6 (was in 2.4).
2. Peracomm USB ethernet (stopped working while in kernel tree)
3. DIB0700 (and many, many other) based DVB cards - the manufacturer helped making the driver but it still (after over 3 years, in 8.10) is not up-to-date/maintained in the kernel tree.
4. Numerous Wifi cards some of which partially work and some not.
5. Webcams (gspca).

The source code for this hardware is available.
Compilers and free C and C++ tutorials are available.
You have time to complain.
If writing code is not a skill you possess or want to possess, then organize a group so that said drivers are revised.
Try to ask the original code writers to support the old hardware by paying them.
If it's not valuable to you that this stuff works then stop wasting the world's time with your whining.
If you can't help your whining the i suggest http://www.positivediscipline.com/articles/Whinning.html

If Windows crashes on you

[stefanlasiewski]

If Windows crashes on you then you are doing something.

Fill up landfills great idea, oh wait...

[mrraven]

So in essence westlake you are saying we should replace perfectly good working printers, scanners, etc, every couple of years??? What a waste the ONLY reason I'd ever use Linux on the the desktop is vaguely lefty guilt about not supporting OSS. OTOTH if OSS is going to mean filling up landfills with perfectly good working peripherals due to lack of driver support in OS updates that is a FAR worse offense against my lefty sensibilities than not not supporting GNU. Thanks for killing my one reason to support Linux. :(

Linux on the server FTW of course...

How exactly is this still a bios?

[Tordre]

I gave this a quick run on my net book to see what it was like, the first thing i have to say is "How is this still a BIOS?" Firstly I see the bios run, then i see the windows boot loader give me the option to choose from windows or the Hyper-visor.

Installation required 2 gb of space on the hard disk and makes no flashes to the bios of the computer.

As for running it ran like any other severely limited Linux environment. You know hardware not working and the GUI providing no methods to fix it your self. My processor did not support the hot swap OS function so i did not look at that but i still fail to see how even then it would be a bios.

The point i am trying to make is that really they are throwing out geeky words to make us on \. swoon while providing absolutely nothing of use or value.

Extra point, this is kinda like the Moblin 2.0 you had on yesterday only worse GUI(stylistically and by having glitches) and not compiled for a certain processor type.