SplashTop is an instant-on Linux environment created by DeviceVM. SplashTop does not intend to provide a full computing environment, but it satisfies a home user’s basic needs such as email, VOIP, IM, etc. Asus is the primary partner of DeviceVM and SplashTop started to get bundled with Asus motherboards and Asus notebooks. Now the good folks over at the Phoronix Forums have hacked SplashTop to run from a USB stick on non-Asus motherboards, run custom applications and launch a terminal inside the Linux environment.
it was only a matter of time. I really like the splashtop environment. I hope it gains more popularity.
i think dell have made noise about including something like that one their future laptops. it will be based of the linux distro used in the dell netbook iirc…
I like fast boot as anyone else, but I don’t understand what’s the deal with splashtop? Could you explain to me why is-it interesting?
The only activity where I can think that it could be very useful is for repairing filesystem/partition, checking memory, providing a network access to help recover your PC, etc.
Somewhat misleading title imo.
Yeah, I was expecting to read about an exploit in some service that gets started.
Also, is this really a big deal? How is this different than running a Live CD or any other “live” distro from a USB stick?
Sabayon has a mini edition that can actually save files on the drive between boots.
If it is still instant-on (boots in 5 secs), then that’s a big deal.
I think the Linux.com article says it boots up in about 9secs.
It boots up in 5 seconds from the boot ROM, but if you change it to boot from a flash drive, you pretty remove what made it unique to begin with, no?
[quote]If it is still instant-on (boots in 5 secs), then that’s a big deal.[/quote]
Is it even possible to update this thing somehow, or is there a way to save anything, such that I could install extensions (like Adblock Plus) for Firefox?
If not, the usefulness of this is somewhat limited, as most people leave their PC on 24/7 anyway. Plus, the applications (esp the browser) are going to become very outdated over time. For example, when I first got the PC I’m currently using, Firefox didn’t even exist
Edited 2008-07-30 16:06 UTC
I was about to go “wow, that must be old”. but then I looked it up and firefox was released in 2004… I swear it was older than that…
Most of my computers are much older than 2004
Edited 2008-07-30 17:58 UTC
Those people should be shamed unmercifully. (For their own good. Most of us do not realize the damage we are doing.) There is no reason to leave a 150 watt PC on 24/7. I used to do it… until I realized that I was wasting over 1300 kilowatt hours per year by leaving the thing on for only 8 extra hours per day. (By comparison, the average modern fridge uses about 500 KWH per year.) Now I set it to power off the flat panel in six minutes and suspend the mid-tower in 20.
Do the math. See how much electricity you are actually wasting.
Edited 2008-07-31 01:11 UTC
Trust me, I’m not wasting much electricity. My PC is usually doing something, even when I’m not using it
You didn’t tell me you used Gentoo. 😉
Well, for most people who pay 10 cents/kWh this just means 130 $/year, so no big deal.
By the way, I got myself a fanless VIA mini-ITX board, plugged a flash “hard drive” into the IDE interface and installed a standard Debian distro on it.
It consumes 22 W, that results into 192 kWh/year, as I am paying a company which produces electricity from 100% renewable sources I pay 0.22 EUR/kWh, so this costs me 42 EUR per year. Something which is worth the comfort of having a router I can control by 100%, even the software on it. And who knows, I might some day start using it as internet radio reciever.
My next computer will be a laptop, so the power consumption will be a lot lower anyway than with my 5 year old 170 W Athlon setup (which does not run 24/7 of course). I even think about buying another fanless ITX board for office stuff and playing Wesnoth, which makes up most of my computer use anyway.
And dont know who you know but most people I know do not leave it on when they’re not using it. They have better things to do with their hard-earned cash than burn it on electricity.
the osnews title use the original definition of hack.
sadly, popular media have made it synonymous with crack or exploit…
great another distro
reminds me of the tandy 1000sl with dos and deskmate booting from rom. seriously there’s no reason why splashtop should be locked down. keeping the os in rom and running programs you want from any other media you chose.
Is someone aware of any link pointing to some download material? I would be delighted to test it under VMWare/qemu or whatever virtual environment is supported.