I have known about the openbios
/ linuxbios project for a little while now, but today I discovered a
video demonstrating an early build running on a standard 2Mb flash
EEPROM. Not only does it completely replace the standard Award BIOS but
it boots to a graphical (if lightweight) X11 server in just a few
seconds. Although this project is still fairly new (shown by limited
compatibility) the concept of having a unified, free bios that
allows fast prebooting into a graphical environment is appealing. I
believe Macs do something similar, they boot into a very stripped down
GUI giving graphical boot options. This idea is not new and ASUS
demonstrated a couple of weeks back a motherboard that has an embedded
linux distribution ready to boot before windows. The technology is
called Splashtop and
allows access to email, skype and the web from a stripped down linux
environment.
More and more I am seeing a trend towards 'at-an-arms-length' computing
and I have mixed feelings about it. Whilst linuxbios would allow better
/ more efficient booting into a Linux (or other OS) distribution, having
a stripped down environment where you could then VNC or telnet into
another more powerful system is an interesting idea with lots of
potential applications. Imagine a media center PC that was fast (as in
instant) to boot and silent due to all the processing being done on
another machine on the network, it would be an ideal mediacenter
environment. Similarly there is a low murmuring that has been increasing
in volume for the last few years concerning a complete shake up of the
traditional computing environment. It essentially started with web '2.0'
i.e. applications as a service. The whole idea of being able to log into
a personalised environment in a web browser is an appealing one, be it a
web operating system like eyeOS or just
a social networking environment like Facebook. Not only can you have
access to your personal space/files/environment remotely, but instead of
buying a powerful machine and maintaining its software and hardware,
buying a thin client and computing entirely online. Many people simply
do not have the technical expertise or the time to properly maintain
their home computers. Simple tasks such as regular defragmentations or
temporary file cleanup and data archiving often are not done regularly.
Many computers I see do not even have basic security programs running. A
secure thin client running on a whitelist
basis would not need such constant attention and any security would
be handled remotely by the application provider. Potentially providers
could offer really cheap, low power machines with a monthly payment,
which would serve as a lease for an online operating system and storage
space.
Although there are potentially a lot of benefits, there is something
about relying entirely on a network that is outside your control, (the
Internet) a service provider that could have a dubious privacy policy
(look at AT&T) and a locked down client which does not appeal to me. I
have very much bought into the F/OSS philosophy and the concept of being
locked into a proprietary system does not appeal at all, let alone
relying on a foreign (i.e. outside my home system) network - especially
with my ISP's service record.
