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Profit helps Mandrake out of bankruptcy protection
March 30, 2004
Peripheral maker LaCie released on Thursday a mobile hard drive loaded with MandrakeSoft's version of the Linux operating system.
The GlobeTrotter device, with Mandrakelinux 10.0, can be plugged into the USB port of any PC to turn it into a Linux desktop, without any modifications to the host PC. GlobeTrotter can store up to 40GB of data, including applications and personal settings. The software includes productivity suite OpenOffice.org and the integrated personal information management suites KDE Kontact and Novell Evolution.
The $219 device comes with 30 days of Web-based support and will begin shipping in late August.
"The existing (market) was lacking a device capable of carrying a full work environment but (that) is not a computer in itself," Francois Bancilhon, CEO of MandrakeSoft, said in a statement. "GlobeTrotter is just that device."
This does seem like a pretty slick device, but I assume it will come with a hardware compatibility list, since it cannot ship with every hardware driver known to man... I also thought that access to the USB ports required the loading of a software driver, suggesting that until the computer has loaded another OS, it would not be possible to read anything over USB. Is this still correct?
</quote>
The Linux Kernel itself should be able to handle all the hardware it can support if it's pre-compiled correctly - most distribution Kernels support a default set of hardware necessary simply to boot and run. It's up to the user to tweak the Kernel afterwards if he or she wishes.
Secondly, I would assume it makes use of the on-board BIOS ability to boot from a USB device or it boots a USB-capable Kernel from a floppy or similar device; provided that the BIOS supports this feature, of course - newer motherboards do that now.
Lastly, it would be exactly like having Linux on your harddrive inside the computer, except you are using USB bandwidth now instead of IDE or SCSI bus bandwidth. You could attempt to do this yourself just buy getting a USB harddrive and installing Linux onto it.
I swear, the innovations of Open Source simply allow the most complete flexibility in computing I've seen yet - affordable and easy-to-learn programming languages (Java's write-once-run-anywhere being a good example) were the beginning - now it's a combination of both hardware AND software ingenuity.
This does seem like a pretty slick device, but I assume it will come with a hardware compatibility list, since it cannot ship with every hardware driver known to man... I also thought that access to the USB ports required the loading of a software driver, suggesting that until the computer has loaded another OS, it would not be possible to read anything over USB. Is this still correct?
</quote>
The Linux Kernel itself should be able to handle all the hardware it can support if it's pre-compiled correctly - most distribution Kernels support a default set of hardware necessary simply to boot and run. It's up to the user to tweak the Kernel afterwards if he or she wishes.
Secondly, I would assume it makes use of the on-board BIOS ability to boot from a USB device or it boots a USB-capable Kernel from a floppy or similar device; provided that the BIOS supports this feature, of course - newer motherboards do that now.
Lastly, it would be exactly like having Linux on your harddrive inside the computer, except you are using USB bandwidth now instead of IDE or SCSI bus bandwidth. You could attempt to do this yourself just buy getting a USB harddrive and installing Linux onto it.
I swear, the innovations of Open Source simply allow the most complete flexibility in computing I've seen yet - affordable and easy-to-learn programming languages (Java's write-once-run-anywhere being a good example) were the beginning - now it's a combination of both hardware AND software ingenuity.
critical step to getting Linux in front of people in
a fashion that requires nothing of them. Hopefully
they sell well. I applaud Mandrake for making this
happen. Im sure Microsoft is quite PO'd that this
is happening, Mandrake needs to widen this out to
EVERY HD manufacturer though to gain enough
market share. I have used Mandrake for years
now, along with every other distro out there. If
they can widen this out to even more HD
companies they really have a chance to shake
things up.
Tnt
critical step to getting Linux in front of people in
a fashion that requires nothing of them. Hopefully
they sell well. I applaud Mandrake for making this
happen. Im sure Microsoft is quite PO'd that this
is happening, Mandrake needs to widen this out to
EVERY HD manufacturer though to gain enough
market share. I have used Mandrake for years
now, along with every other distro out there. If
they can widen this out to even more HD
companies they really have a chance to shake
things up.
Tnt
Flonix USB Edition 1.0 is a new, ultra-compact (117MB), complete Linux desktop operating system running from a USB 2.0 memory stick, including :
- OpenOffice
- Mozilla Firefox
- a media center/HTPC
http://www.flonix.com
Your USB desktop !
- also Flonix USB Edition 1.0
- by August 27, 2004 4:35 PM PDT
- The first USB 2.0 key drives equipped with the new Flonix USB Edition 1.0 system are now availables !
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(8 Comments)Flonix USB Edition 1.0 is a new, ultra-compact (117MB), complete Linux desktop operating system running from a USB 2.0 memory stick, including :
- OpenOffice
- Mozilla Firefox
- a media center/HTPC
http://www.flonix.com
Your USB desktop !