ASUS Motherboard Ships With Embedded Linux, Web Browser

[eric.frederich]

I'm just replying to this so that I can download a video. Apparently having just one post isn't enough.

I can think of a lot of uses for this.

How many times have you had to find out which piece of hardware is bad in a computer?
Is it the OS installation (windows likes to mess up over time), the video card, the memory, the hard drive etc.

When I suspect it is the OS installation I usually wind up booting off of a Knoppix-like live CD and see if the problems are still there.

Another use for this would be to install Linux to a hard drive without burning any CDs.
I use Gentoo. When I install it, I use whatever Live CD I have lying around. All you need is a handful of commands. You need fdisk, wget, tar, an editor, etc.

Another good use for this would be a built in (recovery mode).
How many times has a Windows machine not been able to boot itself but all the data is still there?
You either have to take out the hard drive and put it in another computer and burn stuff to CDs / DVDs before reformating the hard drive or you have to boot into a Live Linux CD and do something similar. With this...its right there.

Now...having said that. I wouldn't want to pay more than the $0.10 it would cost me to burn a CD to have this feature.

[Thetargos]

This needs additional development, obviously, but this is a very interesting capability. Probably not expensive to add, so it might well become a standard feature in motherboards.

Most likely, ASUS offers defaults, which means a blinking and ad tingling Web.

[eric.frederich]

Awesome

I can think of a lot of uses for this.

How many times have you had to find out which piece of hardware is bad in a computer?
Is it the OS installation (windows likes to mess up over time), the video card, the memory, the hard drive etc.

When I suspect it is the OS installation I usually wind up booting off of a Knoppix-like live CD and see if the problems are still there.

Another use for this would be to install Linux to a hard drive without burning any CDs.
I use Gentoo. When I install it, I use whatever Live CD I have lying around. All you need is a handful of commands. You need fdisk, wget, tar, an editor, etc.

Another good use for this would be a built in (recovery mode).
How many times has a Windows machine not been able to boot itself but all the data is still there?
You either have to take out the hard drive and put it in another computer and burn stuff to CDs / DVDs before reformating the hard drive or you have to boot into a Live Linux CD and do something similar. With this...its right there.

Now...having said that. I wouldn't want to pay more than the $0.10 it would cost me to burn a CD to have this feature.

[Michael]

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.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=11188

[Michael]

The real question is, can you install extensions to the included Firefox? There are now two webs, one is what you get with all the ad crap filtered out with Adblock+ and Flashblock. The other web is the one full of blinking junk. So which web does Asus offer?

ASUS offers the web that doesn't steal from publishers.

[amrs]

Firefox extensions?

The real question is, can you install extensions to the included Firefox? There are now two webs, one is what you get with all the ad crap filtered out with Adblock+ and Flashblock. The other web is the one full of blinking junk. So which web does Asus offer?

[Michael]

Once I get clearance from DeviceVM, I will be releasing new details including what type of devices SplashTop will be on next and some hints of the future.

[immudium]

This motherboard sounds amazing. I'd buy this board just for the express gate feature even if the rest of the board sucked (which luckily does not appear to be the case if you can judge a board from it's outward appearance).

Having an updated Express Gate that allows updating of the BIOS through Express Gate out of the box is critical though. There is no way I'm going to buy and install a copy of windows just to update the bios/express gate so I'm glad to hear that's high on their todo list.

Anyway, thanks for the excellent and exciting preview.

[Michael]

See: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...item&px=NjEwNw

[Michael]

I was passed along some confidential slides on how Express Gate/SplashTop works... waiting for permission to post them.