ASUS Motherboard Ships With Embedded Linux 216
Michael writes "ASUSTek has introduced the P5E3 Deluxe motherboard, which in addition to using Intel's new X38 Chipset also features a soon-to-be-announced technology by DeviceVM. SplashTop is an instant-on Linux desktop environment that is embedded onto this motherboard. Within seconds of turning on the P5E3 Deluxe motherboard, you can boot into this Linux environment that currently features a Mozilla-based web browser and the Skype VoIP client. Browser and VoIP settings can be saved and there are plans for the device to provide new features and support via updates. At Phoronix is a review of this $360 motherboard embedded with Linux and a web browser."
And before you ask... (Score:5, Funny)
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/ Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these...
Re:And before you ask... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Slashdotted or vaporware?
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Retard - we all know one [marcofolio.net]
One more piece is needed ... (Score:5, Interesting)
I think I speak for all of us when I say.... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Use? (Score:3, Insightful)
To me it would be much more logical for a user just to have Linux installed on their hard drive with full functionality. Where's the use in a crippled OS on a motherboard?
Re:Use? (Score:4, Interesting)
even more ideal is instant boot TO linux.
ultimate: being able to mount samba shares and playback HD content (normal
I will look at all solutions that offer a way to avoid a spinning disk drive. for a bedroom or quiet room HTPC, yup, I sure will.
Re:Use? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm waiting for better LinuxBIOS and kexec support.
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When I was still using a CRT, the first thing I saw after turning the pc on was grub, halfway through the 10s countdown. Even with my new 22" TFT it's rare for me to even catch a glimpse of the motherboard's POST (or the splash screen covering it anyway). I can be in Windows or Ubuntu within 30s of pressing the power button.
This is much better than a few years ago when my win2k install broke and started taking half an hour to load.
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I think the ideal motherboard for a front-end would have:
- 2D Onboard graphics good enough for HD playback on Linux (Intel G35 chipset might do, with HDCP)
- wireless (although, now that 'n' seems further and further away I'm unsure...) and gigabit eth.
- optical out for sound to an external amp.
- firewire, USB2.0 and if at all possible bluetooth on b
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Damn Small Linux can be installed to CF in a USB cardholder using the install to USB option and then all ya do is toss the card into the the IDE header adapter.(Worked nicely on my PII266 Portege) SATA adapters are available.
Example: http://www [newegg.com]
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Slap mythtv on a server and net-boot minimyth to the ITX box and you are onto a winner. I run that here and love it.
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There are available solid state disks and standard memory drives at 1.8", 2.5", 3.5", and 5.25" sizes, as well as detachable ones (eg ExpressCard) and SSDs on PCI and PCIe cards.
Smart server admins use em to speed up their databases.
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The same result could be achieved with a bootable Disk on Chip though.
Re:Use? (Score:5, Interesting)
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That's easy to do with a "poor man's install" of Knoppix or other live CD/DVD image.
Only use "persistent home" if you want to, or choose not to set one up.
http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Poor_Mans_Install [knoppix.net]
SATA/CF adapters as well as the more common IDE/CF adapters let you use a CF card instead of a hard disk. This has been around for a while and there is plenty of info for the Googling.
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Re:Use? (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, that's completely useless.
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It's amazing what $5 of flash memory can do.
If this becomes a trend then Microsoft should be very scared.
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You can already do that with a boot CD.... (Score:3, Informative)
The only advantage of having Linux in flash is that it boots in five seconds.
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then it can do a bit more.
Think
Think two 8 gb USB keys.
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FWIW, I run linux on my linksys router using USB for storage, it does plenty of useful tasks without ide/scsi/traditional external storage.
I also have
I can't believe that people don't get it (Score:3, Informative)
This is obviously intended to allow you to quickly make a phone call or look something up on the net. It is not supposed to be a replacement for your entire operating system. If you want to save files, watch DVDs or run your business software then boot your hard drive!
I couldn't count how many times I have booted up my computer just to look up a bus timetable, or the TV guide or just check my mail. And how handy would it be to be able to quickly look at the slashdot headlines while your wife goes back to
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This is one of them '38 Mobos. Top-of-the-line. It has all kinds of other fancy bits that can't be used yet either. But think of it:
A $360 motherboard targets two groups: 1. the price-insensitive freaks who think they'll be getting the best of everything if they shell out a ton of cash, and 2. serious overclockers/hardware hackers/tech geeks.
Most people in both groups will find it completely useless, right up there with the fourth SATA channel. But some of group (1) will show it off as part of
Re:Use? (Score:5, Insightful)
Motherboard A: Out-of-the box -> A splash screen and a message saying: "No Boot Device Found"
Motherboard B: Out-of-the box -> Browse the web for SPECS, pin-outs, etc or connect to your IS for support.
Now you get it? It makes more functional. It is not replacing your OS.
Re:Use? (Score:4, Insightful)
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What I'd really like though is to have ClamAV installed on this, with the ability to download the latest database to a USB stick. That would be wicked useful.
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int 18h (Score:2, Insightful)
Modern hard drives just take a second to read 4GB, a reasonable size for a quckstart Linux partition. And a PC builder can easily include an internal flash drive with hardware write protect
Re:int 18h (Score:5, Insightful)
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Flash ROM? Lol. When I was a kid I used to think that ROM meant "Read Only Memory". But does ROM still apply if you can write to it? Flash ROM is an oxymoron if I ever saw one.
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my raptor only does 84MB/s theoretically (Score:2)
Look here [wdc.com]: My Raptor 10kRPM SATA drive has a buffer-to-disk sustained theoretical transfer rate of 84 MB/s. Furthermore, this embedded OS is not in true ROM, it's flashable.
Virtual Machine Host? (Score:4, Interesting)
X.
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I'd like to see something like NetTop (see above URL) implemented in the hardware. Imagine if you could have a Windows session running under VMWare (or similar) and when (not if) it gets rooted use Linux to recover it. NetTop allows doing this now (at moderate expense and some difficulty), if there was a cheap version of the same thing implemented in flash on the motherboard (so it didn't even add to the boot time) then it would significantly increase the security of the
Gotcha (Score:5, Informative)
Updating the system (Score:5, Informative)
I think this is a shame (to put it mildly). Hopefully the specifications for the update process will be published so that a Linux solution can be produced.
Re:Updating the system (Score:4, Funny)
(Hunts around for his Windows "live CD"...)
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Oh the irony (Score:3, Interesting)
Who would want to boot into a crippled Linux where you cannot mount external drives just to browse the internet or make Skype calls?
At least it can be updated, so ASUS might provide more functional versions in the future. However,
from TFA: "To update Express Gate [the embedded linux] though you will need to be running Windows on the hard drive in order to run the ASUS utility."
Now, that's just great...
Re:Oh the irony (Score:5, Informative)
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Well, you're half right.
They need to release any modifications they made to the GPL'd free software, but they most certainly don't have to release an "updater" or anything of the sort. In fact they can easily pull a Tivo and use a signature to prevent you from upgrading the firmware at all.
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Re:How much? (Score:5, Insightful)
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There! Now you've learned a new idea! Chill the fuck out!!
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As for chilling, I think we could all use a little bit.
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This may be an all-in-one board, but it's got something that no other all-in-one board has ever had: Linux on the chip. Geeks everywhere are already trying to figure out how to get one of these so they can tinker with the onboard Linux and build that little dream system they've been contemplating for years. The very fact that people have been posting (on THIS website) their hopes that this would happen is proof enough that price of the first v
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There, I fixed it for you.
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Agreed.
I disagree. WiFi could be very us
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If I were selling (POS) web deployed canned solution, these would make great guts for the terminals to connect to the server, one dies, you replace the MB and re-configure the settings - back in business.
I don't think it may appeal to the power user crowd as a their primary computer but as a disk less or at least a pret
two possibilities (Score:5, Interesting)
If it is the latter, and since the system can be updated from a running OS, it should be possible to put your kernel, servers and window manager in the flash and have most of your operating system boot instantly. And I have no doubt that if that is the case, some very clever person who was given one of these will work out how to do just that. Given that this does use a Linux kernel, it shouldn't be too hard to get source for any hardware specific issues you might find in booting from this.
Otherwise, this is pretty boring. There has been software available to, say, play media without booting into your operating system for ages.
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No driver bootup with instant web access, wish I had that in the past myself... Wonder if the stripped down firefox runs java apps, for web based ssh terminal.
Sounds cool to me, wouldnt use it much, but nice feature when you need it.
LinuxBIOS (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll start:
LinuxBIOS:
- More capabilities, freedom to tinker
- Less expensive hardware
- Usually not supported by vendor, doesn't work with lots of motherboards
Almost there (Score:2)
If the onboard OS could write to the harddrive or at least a USB stick, this would be perfect for downloading latest drivers prior to performing a Windows installation. Especially network drivers which always seem to create a Catch 22 on newer motherboards (you have to have network drivers installed in Windows if you want to download network drivers). A direct link to the drivers for thi
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I would like to see a bunch of Linux disk utilities like parted, fsck, dd, etc., hardware diagnosis programs like memtest86, benchmarking software, security auditing, etc. All the stuff we usually have on a Live-CD Linux system.
I guess the webbrowser is useful, and so is Skype in case you need to make a call to a support hotline.
And finally, why not LinuxBIOS instead of Megatrends?
ASUS are not the first to do this (Score:2)
--
This space for rent.
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It's now 2007 and you'll need a distro put together after late 2005 for this hardware support - that is current versions of all of them.
Re:interesting (Score:5, Funny)
Those were the days.
Re:interesting (Score:5, Informative)
Eventually, it's become more and more obvious that there are people whose sole purpose for BEING on Slashdot is to simply bash Linux even though Slashdot is by its very nature a Linux website. Why they find it enjoyable or interesting or even a worthwhile use of their time is beyond me- I simply don't see why anyone who doesn't use Linux would come to Slashdot, load a Linux article, and mindlessly bash Linux. Why not just play some of Windows games that you like so much, you know?
Re:interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
Judging by the downmods, you are now...
But you're right. Microsoft marketing drones have been gaming tech site comment systems for a while now. Any discussion of Linux, GPL3, ODF or any other topic which threatens their monopoly will be swamped with red herring and troll posts.
It's one of the more disgraceful features of the company. They're willing to undermine anything - ISO standards, US DOJ, open discussion, etc, etc - if there's an advantage to them.
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Re:interesting (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
Yep, it's possible to pick out the talking points that the astro-turfers get handed for a particular topic. A few old chestnuts:
It would be amusing if it weren't such a pain. The worst part, though, is that they used to spend all their time modding their comrades up, but now they've moved on to modding 'inconvenient' posts down.
Re:interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
Some of us are just bored with this whole Linux fanboy idea that Linux is always the best tool for the job. It isn't. Free/Net/OpenBSD, eCos, OpenSolaris and even OS X are often a much better solution for any given problem. Linux has no grown large enough that there are a lot of people who try to fit it into every possible niche, including those for which it is completely unsuited and shouting down anyone who suggests a better option. We moderated down the MCSEs for this kind of attitude with Windows, and we'll mod down the Linux fanboys when they display it with Linux.
Straying back on topic, this is a pretty neat idea. It's a shame Be Inc didn't last a bit longer, because this is exactly the kind of thing BeIA would have been ideal for. That said, it seems more of a gimmick than something useful. Considering how cheaply you can buy a 1GB CF card and CF to IDE adaptor, you could probably create a system like this yourself more cheaply. It's not like this is aimed at Joe Public, because he doesn't buy motherboards, just finished systems.
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Maybe the site is just getting more balanced, and fanboy trolls/shills/astroturfers of any "side" are getting modded down.
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Logical fallacies and other such non-arguments contain no insight by their very nature.
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I wouldn't touch Windows with a shitty stick and yet I have expended many mod points modding down that little fuck over the last few months. He is clearly a troll trying to make anybody who is genuinely (and sanely) pro-Linux look stupid by association. I'm gla
Re:interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
Could it be part of a larger plan? As an old Linux hand, I've noticed the gatekeeping on the Bugzillas for a number of major OS projects has been lately taken over by kids who if they aren't being paid my MS, should be. These punks treat bug reports as if they were attacks on the date-ability of their sisters, marking them "bogus" or otherwise closing them before they've even taken the time to understand what's being reported. Often they're tossing "clever" insults at the reporters at the same time. This is what it now means to be running "peer reviewed" code: you review it, you find real flaws, and some teenager whose worked his way into being a Bugzilla gatekeeper rejects the report because, well, you're not his peer. Obviously.
So how have we ended up with kids whose destiny would have used to be manning the complaint desks at Ma Bell in key positions to cripple the quality of OS projects - often projects which directly compete with MS products? </snark>
My real point: MS doesn't have to hire shills. We're doing it to ourselves. Somehow the values that were so pervasive in OS even a few years ago haven't been passed on to the latest wave of newcomers. That's not just showing up on
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To be honest I am not interested in the software, the question is whether the Motherboard can be reflashed with my own choice of mini-distro.
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