[coreboot] Spashtop??

Carl-Daniel Hailfinger c-d.hailfinger.devel.2006 at gmx.net
Thu May 15 04:00:25 CEST 2008


On 15.05.2008 02:47, ron minnich wrote:
> On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 4:42 PM, bari <bari at onelabs.com> wrote:
>
>   
>>  Linux Desktop to Appear On Every Asus Motherboard
>>
>> http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/14/173220
>>
>>     
>
> On Intel CPUs, I betcha they're using rapidboot, not coreboot. That's
> just a very uninformed guess.
>   

They called it a "very fast BIOS" in some earlier press releases.
Personally, I think coreboot didn't even show up on their radar.

> I have to like this ... it means FOSS is going to  be *most* of what
> used to be the BIOS.
>
> I wonder if they'll offer source for it, since it's mostly GPL'ed
> stuff. If so we could also offer it as a coreboot payload :-) Maybe we
> should talk to them about having buildrom support it. They should like
> that as it is more market penetration.
>   

Ah, the age-old source question. They pack lots of proprietary software
there, so we're going to see only a fraction of the source code if any.

But there's one big benefit people tend to overlook: ROM size / onboard
storage size. LAB is not only for ROM-affluent people anymore.
And there's another reason we benefit as well: We can offer mostly the
same package to any mainboard vendor for much lower development cost.
It's limited to mostly non-Intel boards, though. That benefits AMD and
VIA and SIS and they all are helping coreboot in some way.
Telling a motherboard vendor something like "we can have something
similar to splashtop running on most/all of your recent boards within a
few weeks" could have some very interesting implications.

Bari, didn't you say you'll be at some trade show soon? Start floating
that "alternative splashtop" line and look which vendors will bite.


Regards,
Carl-Daniel




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