June 14, 2008 -- This week HP announced the Envy 133 and details surfaced surrounding the Dell E and E Slim. These new notebooks from HP and Dell will each ship with an embedded Linux environment, which the manufacturers have dubbed Voodoo IOS and BlackTop, respectively. Both Linux environments appear to be quite similar in concept and similar to the instant-on SplashTop environment for notebooks, PCs, and motherboards, which DeviceVM Inc had pioneered and then ultimately introduced last year. In this article we have more information on HP's Voodoo IOS and Dell's BlackTop and whether they're actually using SplashTop for powering the system or have developed their own proprietary distributions.

April 23, 2008 -- At Phoronix we have looked at a number of Gigabyte products from their motherboards to graphics cards and even wireless adapters. However, today is our first time looking at one of Gigabyte's barebone solutions. The Gigabyte STA Thin Client, specifically the GB-STA-C7V7, is a mini-ITX solution that ships with a VIA C7 1.0GHz processor, UniChrome PRO graphics, is completely fan-free, and it's all packed in a slim yet stylized chassis. However, does the Gigabyte STA Thin Client work with Linux? We'll let you know today.

January 08, 2008 -- DeviceVM's SplashTop, a product we had named as one of the greatest Linux innovations in 2007, is sharing a booth this week at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) with ASUS. At their booth we were allowed to check out a SplashTop demo running on an ASUS notebook! This notebook has yet to be introduced by ASUS, but it's intended for high-end gaming and comes with SplashTop Linux as a complementary operating system. This version of SplashTop is slightly updated and has new features too.

January 07, 2008 -- Last night at Digital Experience for CES 2008, Intel had on display several new Intel-based Ultra Mobile PCs (UMPCs), which of course happen to be Linux friendly. All but one of these UMPCs are ready for market and use Intel's Menlow platform. Lenovo, and Samsung were among the brands with Intel Menlow UMPCs.

October 09, 2007 -- Tomorrow DeviceVM's SplashTop product will be officially unveiled but since posting our original article on this technology and later an ASUS update, we have learned some new details about this instant-on Linux desktop environment. Specifically, yesterday a private briefing was held with David Speiser (DeviceVM's VP of Marketing), Thomas Deng (DeviceVM's CTO), and Andrew Kippen (Stage Two Consulting), where new details were shed on the technical workings of SplashTop and its future.

September 22, 2007 -- Earlier this week Intel threw some great events aside from the Intel Developer Forum itself. On Tuesday night was the PCI Express 2.0 launch party, which was a phenomenal event. The PCI Express 2.0 party took place at Jillians across the street from the Moscone Center and featured a few gifts, casino gaming, raffles, and excellent food accompanied by great drinks all for free. It is certainly a great way to celebrate PCI Express 2.0! On both Tuesday and Wednesday evening, Intel had also hosted a reception during their IDF Technology Showcase, which consisted of free food, beer, and wine while browsing the different vendor booths. Thursday marked the end of the Intel Developer Forum with a drop in attendance for IDF on the last day, but we ended it with a bang thanks to a mini Phoronix bash. During that, innovative ways for opening beer bottles were demonstrated. Interested in finding out how you can open a beer bottle (or most any glass bottle for that matter) using a range of computer parts from a motherboard to RAM and even a USB mouse? We documented these steps with plenty of pictures as well as sharing which hardware doesn't convert into a bottle opener so easily.

October 03, 2006 -- While retail machines are not our main focus at Phoronix for review, after learning of a new contender in the Linux HTPC arena we decided to give LIX Systems another look. Today we are looking at a moderately priced Home Theater PC that has everything pre-configured to hopefully begin a smooth Linux media experience.

January 15, 2006 -- The world's smallest Linux server has entered our labs, and consisting of the package are a mini biometric reader, MMC slot, and USB interface. Powering the system is a 400MHz PowerPC processor, 64MB of RAM, and 256/512MB of flash memory while running up the software side of things is Debian Linux with the 2.6.10 kernel. The server chewing its way into our labs is the BlackDog, which was developed by Realm Systems.