ASUS has announced that it will integrate the Linux distribution known as SplashTop with a great portion of its coming motherboards, the first will be the new P5Q series. The technology, also known as Expressgate, is in reality "just" a Linux distribution stored on a flash memory integrated on the motherboard. ASUS mentions advantages such as instant boots and surfing the web in mere seconds after pressing the power button. Furthermore, the operating system requires minimal resources and very safe, since the user has quite limited privileges.
ASUS has been delivering computers with Linux installed from factory through its ultracompact EeePCs. Those distributions have been a lot more advanced though, complete operating systems, while the functions and features of SplashTop are a lot more limited, more of a complement to the regular operating system.
It's not impossible that the idea is a spin-off from Intel's turbo memory technology, which has turned out to offer minimal performance gains, but may very well have opened up the door for solutions like this one.
There are more advantages than those mentioned above, such as:
- Data recovery if your harddrive crashes
- Troubleshooting
- Downloading drivers, essential tools, new BIOS, fixes, patches etc.
You can find the press release here.
ASUS to go all the way with SplashTop
Noctua
