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ASUS bring out motherboard with built in Linux and Firefox - 15s boot time!

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Edvard:
I don't think they are trying to deliver a full computing solution here. I think what they're trying to do is help you help yourself.
As in, if you bork your OS you can still get on the internet and do a little searching around for solutions, not necessarily so you can test drive the newest FF eye-candy.

Carol Haynes:
That's right - there are no security issues at all with Firefox in context (and which browsers don't have security issues anyway).

There are no security issues simply because the whole thing is confined to RAM - there is no access to hard discs at all from the BIOS Linux.

I'd guess Firefox is the browser of choice because it is open source, easy to recompile in a suitable version for this version of Linux as it has no GUI dependencies and everyone has heard of Firefox now so it is easier to sell to the public.

iphigenie:
I guess it makes kind of sense - say your machine is messed up and you cannot boot to your installed OSes, you have this rescue option to start a browser and go find help online, provided the right tools are installed. Although as a "rescue" option I can think of some better ones they could put than access to a browser - after all it takes about 10 minutes once to get a nice bootable CD for such a scenario.

I tend to favor asus for many of my components, but this one won't make me shell extra for a particular mobo - on the other hand I can see how it could work in an office environment...
visitor: "can I  use one of your PCs to go online?"
IT: "sure, go ahead"

Ralf Maximus:
on the other hand I can see how it could work in an office environment...
visitor: "can I  use one of your PCs to go online?"
IT: "sure, go ahead"
-iphigenie (October 17, 2007, 11:38 AM)
--- End quote ---

Bingo.  In addition to a "regular" workstation with full blown Linux or Windows installed on the harddrive, it can double as a network appliance.  Larry Ellison was right; just a decade too early.

steeladept:
To me this looks to be a specialized board made for one purpose: Kiosk computing.  Provide a board with an OS and a browser to allow the user to browse the (probably limited) internet that the owner wants to let the user access.  No way for the user to screw with it and no way to hijack it.  Heck, if you don't use the wireless, you can probably completely defeat any keyloggers (maybe not hardware based, but certainly software based) and screen capture attacks.  About the only software based attacks that MIGHT work are DoS attacks, and they gain a net benefit of nil for most kiosk targets.  Hell, depending on how it is locked down, it may even be useful for users to have a portable apps USB stick to run their applications from in relative safety at a kiosk as well.  I see this as a good thing for ASUS and the Kiosk niche market.

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