> ...........
> during the busy Christmas season. Some analysts believe that Microsoft's
> own customers have urged the company to slow the pace of its technology
> overhaul, as many corporations are only beginning now to switch over to
> Windows 95. Memphis is expected to add a speedy boot-up technology called
> "OnNow," as well as several changes aimed at making networked computers
> easier to manage. (Wall Street Journal 24 Mar 97)
> ..........
>
> The question I had, was related to a snippet in that article, regarding the
> speedy boot-up technology that the next release of Windows was going to use.
> I'm no computer programmer, but I always wondered if it was possible to get
> linux up to speed (to a login prompt, that is) a bit faster than it is now.
> I don't have any complaints because I have a PPro 200 mhz with SCSI II
> hardware and drives (besides which, I don't really re-boot too often ;-),
> but it would be kinda' neat to go from turning on the computer to a
> graphical screen faster than any other OS. While the system bootup routines
> ran, a simple login shell would become available (with the option of either
> console use, or to start X immediately ala xdm, etc). The other virtual
> screens would not become usable until the whole bootup sequence was
> complete, but at least a person had use of some of the computers functions.
> For those people who reboot to go from Linux to Windows 95, etc (again, I
> don't really have to do this either, because I use the WABI application, and
> can run Winword or Excel, etc from linux) this faster startup routine would
> be nice.
No, no, no. You are falling for Micro$oft's marketing spin. Really this
technology should be called "OffNever". Micro$oft determined that
customers were reluctant to use their computers for some tasks because the
time taken to boot the computer negated any time savings using the
computer could gain. Micro$oft couldn't speed up the booting of their OSs
so their solution (in typical MS style) is to make the computer never
really turn off (MS figures it worked for TVs). Its really just a more
advanced power management scheme where you can power down specific
subsystems of the computer under OS and _application_ control (and things
like a "magic packet" to wake a computer from the network).
If you get a VESA power saving monitor, compile Linux with APM support
and never turn off your computer you are 90% there already.
Take it easy,
Ken Jordan