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Pheonix jumps into HyperSpace
Author: Richard SwinburnePublished: 6th November 2007
What HyperSpace might look like on your next company notebook or PC.
We've already seen the same technology from Splashtop and Asus with its embedded Linux on the Asus P5E3 Deluxe WiFi AP@n that gives users Firefox and Skype without booting an OS. Phoenix promises this to be more open though, allowing OEMs and ODMs more customisation. Depending on what type of PC is being sold, different sets of programs could be loaded for students, home users, workstations, business PCs, etc.
It won't replace your Windows installation and there's essentially meant to be a host and guest OS in a virtual environment - finally all those virtual management performance updates from the latest batches of CPUs will become useful!
The intent is for a user to be able to run a limited number of programs that benefit from being in a Linux environment - like anti virus, for example. You'd be able to scan your hard drive before even getting into Windows, and keeping it outside of Windows means that malware can't attack the virus scanner itself (as so many like to do).
However, those looking to customise it at home will probably be out of luck, as Phoenix plans on keeping the updates to HyperSpace close to home on secure servers rather than have people play around with it. This is a shame, as we could have seen a potentially fantastic home theatre PC for example - quick booting, remote-supporting media player that isn't limited by codecs and painful DRM.
The other limitation is whether us enthusiasts will be able to get it when just buying a motherboard, as all the current internet discussion is focusing on pre-built desktops and notebooks.
Wired has quote Microsoft as "outside (its) sphere of influence, and is not too happy with Phoenix's offering, which adds yet another voice to the already loud chorus of voices complaining about operating-system bloat." Bloated OS' = larger boot times? A statement of the obvious, I feel. Even technologies like ReadyBoost and SuperFetch don't seem to help Vista's performance nearly a year after it was released.
Is HyperSpace the way of the future, getting more people into Linux and having PCs that (finally) boot in seconds? Or it is just another idea that's good in theory but you'll never actually use it? After all, we already have the desktop and programs with the settings we like in one OS, so why do we have to use both? Are we that impatient? Tell us your thoughts on HyperSpace in our forums.
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Comments (13)Stats: 0.031 seconds
Anyways, boot times mean a lot less to me than they used to, alongside raw clock speed and synthetic benchmark results. Perhaps I've lost touch with my enthusiast ways, but I'd rather have something that's stable and reliable than tweaking out every last ounce of performance only to find out that my stability test wasn't quite as comprehensive as I'd thought during the middle of some important work. How often do I reboot, anyways? Once a month, maybe, and I can always find something to do for that minute or so while it's doing its thing. If that doubled boot time means that everything else runs smoother and more reliably in the area where I spend 99.999% of my computing time, fine by me.
But last night I discovered the joys of 'Hibernate' mode (oh, and PSShutdown to help make a desktop shortcut for it). Now I can send my pc into a coma almost instantly with Ctrl-Alt-H, but re-awaken it at the touch of the power button - I'm back to a working desktop in 10 seconds (assuming I didn't have many apps active when I sent it to sleep). And the power draw is low enough (allegedly) that I can happily leave it in this mode for days. That job's a good 'un!
Unless I come across major problems with Hibernate, it rather supplants the need for anything like HyperSpace, good idea though it is.
Awesome. I was going to ask if HyperSpace had this feature. I'm surprised Bindi didn't mention it.
Hopefully, although Vista still currently doesn't support it.
> Windows means that malware can't attack the virus scanner itself (as so many like to do).
But there's no reliable NTFS write driver for any OS other than Windows.
> However, those looking to customise it at home will probably be out of luck, as Phoenix plans on
> keeping the updates to HyperSpace close to home on secure servers rather than have people play
> around with it.
Not if it actually is Linux, they can't - large bits of it will be opensource. Not, as always, that this is actually much use to the vast majority.
Phil
However even if it is Linux and open - getting to it could be an issue if Phoenix only allows updating via a secure server? I'd still like there to be a big development community behind it :o
Ubuntu currently implements it, and IIRC you can even install ubuntu itself over a NTFS partition.
Cheers!