Instant-On is an attractive to have for any system, but most commercial OSs haven’t been able to accomplish this. Users are generally left waiting the few minutes to boot, and for some people in a hurry, that’s simply not good enough. The aptly named program known as Presto is available for $19.95, and is installable on most any Windows computers. It installs a Xandros-based partition and boots up quite instantly. “Presto allows on-the-fly computing to check email, browse the web, chat with friends, make Skype calls, create documents, download media, apps and games, or enjoy music, videos, and movies stored in a user’s Windows folders.” I’d say that’s worth $20, and they’re also offering to work with OEMs to get it on new computers on a mass scale.
Sounds cool. I’m gonna try it on my older laptop that runs Windows- hope it has wireless drivers. I’m a little disappointed that it is only distributed as a Windows executable. Does anyone know if they have any plans to create a means of installing this on a system that only has Linux, or some other alternative operating system on it? Or even for that matter, to install it as the only operating system on an otherwise empty machine.
I don’t understand the obsession with this stuff. Bringing a system out of sleep takes ~2 seconds—and coming out of hibernation takes ~15 seconds. If you are still performing complete startups and shutdowns of your systems regularly you need to get your head checked.
Edited 2009-04-22 03:22 UTC
I agree. When my PC laptop or MacBook boot up, I refill my coffee. What’s the big deal?
Or they can just suspend the system with their browser already opened and voila.
PC, yes. But Macbook, no.
I purchased my Macbook in December, and haven’t turned it off once since. Just close the lid, it conusmes little power, snap it open and work immediately.
Why not with PCs? You can put most PCs to sleep and wake them up just as fast as a Macbook.
Now, if you’re speaking specifically of Windows… that can be another matter entirely, especially if you have a buggy ACPI bios and/or a driver that doesn’t get along with standby. This could be particularly nasty in XP, but seems to be pretty much cleared up in Win 7 and even Vista pretty much got this part right. Wow, I think that’s the first time I’ve ever actually found something that Vista did better than XP, from an end-user’s standpoint at least.
I must say, this is one area in which the new Ubuntu seriously impresses me. I’ve got it installed on my Macbook here. It sleeps as fast as OS X and wakes up just as fast. First time I’ve ever seen suspend/resume and hibernate work reliably out of the box with any Linux distro I’ve ever tried. Gonna be really nice on my new Asus eee 1000HE I’ll be receiving in a week or so.
Anyway… I’m rambling. My point was that OS X isn’t the only system capable of instant suspend and resume, as most PCs are also capable of this. Even Win95 could do it, though you had to get very lucky in your hardware configuration for that to work.
Hehe …
I had to be lucky in Win95 to get to a decent shutdown. Most of the time the system tanked and I just took the opportunity an did not reboot it.
Agreed, 100%. The only time I ever end up restarting my computers anymore is to apply a system update that requires it, or if the system actually locks up (quite rare these days), especially with Ubuntu and OS X.
Perhaps all OEMs should simply configure the power button to sleep or hibernate by default? How much you want to bet the end users would think that was a brand new technology if they did, instead of something simple that has been there for years?
Putting your computer in sleep mode consumes far more energy than switching it off as it has to keep memory state.
I never understood what the problem is with getting a coffee when you boot. It does not make sense to always leave your computer on to save 15 seconds.
Money savings are considerable for a medium to large office over a year…
Hibernate stands in RAM. I have 8 G of RAM on my workstation, and dumping it using a WD Raptor which kinda sustain 100M/s means that the hibernate can take at least 80 seconds.
But Vista boots in 40 seconds. On the same machine Ubuntu 9.04 RC boots in around 20 seconds.
Using a Samsung NC10 and because of Ubuntu 9.04 have rewrite so much the Intel Video drivers to not make Compiz to work I had put a Fedora 10 install. Boot time with full GNOME + Mono Desktop (mono startup adds to start time). Is 1 minute and 10 seconds! To hibernate 1 G of RAM it take around 30 seconds. Windows XP with regular programs it goes to around 1 minute and 30 seconds. But it has a lot of programs that make any boot up sluggish.
It is such a big deal? How much can you do in 1-2 mintutes? If I want a really instant book (without dual boot) I can use standby/suspend to RAM.
The matter of fact is that it took to me more to connect to internet than to boot. At least from the moment my Wifi card gets the DHCP till can use the net it pass more than 30 seconds. What will mean 1 second boot? (considering is not standby…) It will mean 31 seconds to go to net…
Completly agree .
On Linux I currently can’t enjoy working “resume from disk” .On a modern multicore PC with GBs of RAM and Windows installed ,it should surely work by now .
The functionality has certainly been there for long enough .
To me it seems as if users still simply aren’t used to the idea of suspending .
Well ,maybe Windows 7 will improve the situation
Hmm, after seeing their os on the eee pc…
I don’t think so, thank you very much.
Ditto. I immediately thought “Xandros? No thanks”. Buggy, insecure crap and probably ships with Firefox 2.0, never to be updated.
lets try it THEN judge it shall we?
In the past I have not been a xandros fan but thats not to say this release wont change my mind. After all I used to be a mandrake (then mandrivia) fan but that opinion changed long ago. I still try each new mandrake release in the hope it will renew my love of the distro, no luck yet
Well, I wouldn’t be able to try it even if I wanted to, at least not so long as it’s only provided as a Windows executable. I’m not installing Windows to try out a Linux distro… wow that is a weird thought. I can’t help but feel there’s something very weird about that, you need to install or already have installed Windows just to be able to install an alternative, much more limited, Linux distro? I’m sure MS would love that, but to me that just seems very wrong, somehow.
Guys, this isn’t *for* you and me. It’s for Windows victims. And it could potentially make Linux ubiquitous in that quiet sort of way where the people don’t even realize they are Linux users.
I’ll likely never run it myself. But this is one of the more exciting developments I’ve seen in a while.
Windows folks *love* plunking down $19.95 for stuff that makes their PC faster/better/safer in some way. And if it comes pre-installed, that’s all the better.
Hadn’t thought of it that way, but you have a good point. If this does get big, there will be a lot of people clammering for device x to work with it, which would mean that device x would need a Linux driver, which would be good for the rest of us… provided, of course, they don’t find a way to tie it to Xandros or keep the driver private.
Because if they can’t maintain their existing crap, then why should I trust their new stuff?
I totally agree. The operating system they provided on the EEE was a total joke. It kinda worked, but was hardly ever updated at all.
Does everybody but me drink coffee around here??
I hardly drink anything else
(ok that’s not true, lots of alcohol as well)
Kidding aside, I often (!) feel the need to _really quickly_ consult the internet for a question that pops into my head, and in those moments that an instant-on OS would come in very handy.
Now my current Lenovo Thinkpad has the first reliable case of laptop standby/resume (under XP, even!) I’ve ever seen (though it never was a problem in any of my self-built desktops). Still, it takes like 6 seconds to resume from standby (including, of course, the login screen & reading my finger print).
Nope, I’ve never liked coffee and sure as hell never will! Ugh. Milk or Mountain Dew suffices for me :]
As for topic though..I do understand the wish to have a system that boots up fast, but waiting 1 minute (or usually less) for the system to boot up isn’t really that horrible. I put my PC on standby if I am not using it for an hour or two, otherwise I’ll just turn it off altogether.
I’m a tea person.
Never tried coffee myself. Apple Beer (100% alcohol free) is where it’s at, though if it’s morning, orange juice or apple juice are better. Mm, off topic, but I was happy to find another around these parts who didn’t drink coffee. PS, how could I forget my favorite? Vitamin Water.
Edited 2009-04-23 02:11 UTC
I too drink coffee. I think I’m going to make some in a minute. I actually like coffee so much that I was wondering why somebody hasn’t come out with a coffee-flavored breakfast cereal! It could turn your milk into a frappucino!
As for the Xandros Presto…sounds pretty cool. I guess it would be using some kind of linux partition, but which one, ext4, reiser, etc..?
Mmmmmm… Frappucino!
You’re Greek, right? 🙂 I think we hold the record on non-work related coffee consumption. Maybe it’s the climate.
Edited 2009-04-24 08:56 UTC
Nope, born in the U.S and my ancestry is half German and half Dutch.
Yes, I love beer too!
I beta tested Presto a while ago. The boot times were impressive. The rest was just OK. It’s kind of like Xfce4 minus the configurability. App installation is a little easier than, say, Ubuntu. It should be pretty good for netbooks, but I’d *much* prefer a regular Xfce4 desktop, like Xubuntu.
Wtf is a “Xandros-based partition”? Another way to misuse the “based” suffix?
Edited 2009-04-22 14:29 UTC