Slashdot has an article about how ASUSTek has introduced the P5E3 Deluxe motherboard, which in addition to using Intel's new X38 Chipset. http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/07/0614246
The ASUS website spec only mentions ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3 as the BIOS. http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=11&l3=572&l4=0&mod...
What BIOS is this?
Surf the Internet in 5-second-boot time without entering Windows. With a fast bootup speed of only 5 seconds, the ASUS Express Gate offers an optional Linux OS bootup that allows you to enjoy instant access to commonly used functions like accessing the Internet, VoIP, and Web emailing without entering the OS.
-Bari
It's interesting as it is an Intel chipset.
Folks have known how to make Linux into an EFI-replacement for several years. I have heard that Linux can easily replace EFI, and is loaded after PEI. PEI has most of the really secret sauce anyway. I wonder if this is what asus is doing?
I guess there is demand for this, I bet there could be way more demand for Linux in FLASH than for EFI, if more people knew that companies can put Linux in FLASH in place of EFI.
Open source continues to push proprietary, closed solutions out of its way.
ron
At $360 USD ea. I thought maybe M$ got into the BIOS business.
On 07.10.2007 19:46, bari wrote:
At $360 USD ea. I thought maybe M$ got into the BIOS business.
The interesting question is whether we want to get that payload running under LB and with any board we support.
Suggested slogan: "Sick of having to pay $360 just for a 5-second boot into a Linux distribution you can't even reflash from Linux? With LinuxBIOS, you decide which distribution to boot, from which medium to boot, which mainboard to use, and it all starts at 0.5 seconds after power on."
Carl-Daniel
On Sun, Oct 07, 2007 at 09:38:12AM -0700, ron minnich wrote:
It's interesting as it is an Intel chipset.
Folks have known how to make Linux into an EFI-replacement for several years. I have heard that Linux can easily replace EFI, and is loaded after PEI. PEI has most of the really secret sauce anyway. I wonder if this is what asus is doing?
I guess there is demand for this, I bet there could be way more demand for Linux in FLASH than for EFI, if more people knew that companies can put Linux in FLASH in place of EFI.
Open source continues to push proprietary, closed solutions out of its way.
Nice.
Do you have any prediction on when EFI is going to (attempt to) hit the consumer market? I assume it will be when the Vista transition has finished, and either after or simultaneously with the win64 transition [1].
[1] which I have my doubts wether it'll happen at all: http://catb.org/~esr/writings/world-domination/world-domination-201.html
On 10/11/07, Robert Millan rmh@aybabtu.com wrote:
Do you have any prediction on when EFI is going to (attempt to) hit the consumer market? I assume it will be when the Vista transition has finished, and either after or simultaneously with the win64 transition [1].
it's already hit. It's in all the x86 macs.
I suppose it is easy to miss, since Apple seems to have worked hard to bury its presence.
ron
On Thu, Oct 11, 2007 at 03:05:45PM -0700, ron minnich wrote:
On 10/11/07, Robert Millan rmh@aybabtu.com wrote:
Do you have any prediction on when EFI is going to (attempt to) hit the consumer market? I assume it will be when the Vista transition has finished, and either after or simultaneously with the win64 transition [1].
it's already hit. It's in all the x86 macs.
I suppose it is easy to miss, since Apple seems to have worked hard to bury its presence.
Ah, right. I was thinking more about the mainstream market though (i.e. Microsoft).
Here's more info on the "Splashtop" by DeviceVM.
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS4383814601.html
http://blog.wired.com/business/2007/10/devicevm-launch.html
http://www.splashtop.com/index.php
"will let users browse the Internet using Firefox within 20 seconds of pushing the power button,"
"DeviceVM positions itself as a virtualization company. This suggests that its media- and Internet browsing-oriented environment will be capable of running at the same time as Windows or another host OS. Users could potentially browse the Internet under Linux, while keeping a separate instance of Windows running offline for much-improved security.
The Wired post suggests that the Linux environment will not have access to the device's hard drive. Presumably, though, users could insert a usb storage key when wishing to transfer files between the two environments."
We'll have to watch and see what they use for BIOS.
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bari -
Carl-Daniel Hailfinger -
Robert Millan -
ron minnich