Linux Desktop to Appear On Every Asus Motherboard 471
An anonymous reader writes "We first heard about Splashtop back in October, when the instant-on Linux desktop was announced. At the time it was a really exciting concept but Asus only rolled out the technology on high-end motherboards. Splashtop just announced that Asus will be expanding the desktop to the P5Q motherboard family and later on to all Asus motherboards. That's embedded Linux shipping over a million motherboards a month! The release also mentioned that the technology will be appearing on notebooks this year as well."
Out of curiosity... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Out of curiosity... (Score:5, Funny)
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It's 1.18 million.
Re:Out of curiosity... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Out of curiosity... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Out of curiosity... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Out of curiosity... (Score:5, Interesting)
That's not as much as I thought it would be, these motherboards should certainly boost that figure.
I wonder how long before Microsoft start shipping an embedded Windows version....
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I'm wondering if this figure of 3 million includes all of the small IT shops putting out Linux boxes for their clients, or the in-house IT departments picking up some bare hardware and putting Linux on them. Or even the old "obsolete"* MS Windows boxes that are being repurposed as Linux installs.
* Obsolete in this case meaning that it doesn't have the muscle to adequately run Microsoft's latest and greatest, but still has enough oomph to run an OS that isn't a resource hog.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Out of curiosity... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Out of curiosity... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's one thing to have your OS die and you've got to reboot. It's another if your motherboard dies and you've got to buy another.
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Not to mention Minwin, if Microsoft really does pull off a minimalist, modular version of windows, then it's just begging to be stuck on a ROM on a motherboard.
Plus, what better way to lock down a system than to have the OS as part of the hardware itself?
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Re:Out of curiosity... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Out of curiosity... (Score:5, Interesting)
They'd probably push Embedded XP. They've already backflipped on XP availability for the Asus EeePC etc., which does nothing to improve the image of Vista. ("Look, our soon-to-be discontinued 2001 OS can compete with Linux in the 'ultra-low cost' computer market!")
However, I think they've painted themselves into a corner. If they bully Asus into providing an embedded XP version of the motherboards, the customer is bound to ask: "I don't want Vista; why can't I run XP as the OS on the same motherboard?" The more features that can be crammed into the embedded Linux version, the sillier Microsoft's inevitable justifications will seem ("It's not really XP", "you can't do real work in an embedded environment" etc.)
Re:Out of curiosity... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Out of curiosity... (Score:4, Informative)
Set-top box (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Out of curiosity... (Score:5, Funny)
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That said, I'm sure that in the years to come, Linux is going to
Re:Out of curiosity... (Score:5, Insightful)
Huh? Asus reported 350k the last quarter of 2007, and 700k for first quarter 2008. They project 1.2 million for second quarter. However, a majority of that will be the models that come with Windows.
Not even close. Apple sold 1.4 million laptops first quarter. Asus's 700k plus the rest of the Linux laptop vendors don't come anywhere near that.
Re:Out of curiosity... (Score:4, Insightful)
Many people have their user-agent say they're using IE on Windows even if they're using Linux, bacsue dimwits still code their pages to not display if you're not using IE ("please upgrade to a modern browser? It's Opera's latest!") So web site metrics can't be reliable either.
IINM it was Mark Twain (Samuel Clemons) who said "there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and ststistics."
Re:Out of curiosity... (Score:5, Insightful)
But I get fed up.
Then I promptly switch back to whatever OS I feel like installing.
Then I get fed up again.
And I think 'Oh, someone on slashdot said that this is the time to switch to linux! I should try it AGAIN!'...
then I switch to linux.
Until I get fed up...
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In all seriousness I've been there. my best advice is dual boot but set some ground rules on what you permit your self to have in windows(or what ever OS you work best in but want to get off of). Personally I have the "no casual web browsing in windows" rule. Not doing anything that is windows only and want to browse the web? time to reboot. It keeps me in Linux 90% of the time so i (finally!) learned a lot about keeping a Linux s
Re:Out of curiosity... (Score:5, Funny)
I switch to Widnows every month or so.
But I get fed up.
Then I promptly switch back to whatever Linux I feel like installing.
Then I get fed up again.
And I think 'All the marketing says that Windows is better than Linux! I should try it AGAIN!'...
then I switch to Windows.
Until I get fed up...
Re:Out of curiosity... (Score:5, Interesting)
The fact is it still takes a very informed choice to switch to Linux. This type of thing could go a long way towards solving that ("what, an operating system already onboard?!"), but at the same time this is only one manufacturer and its the kind of thing only people building their own PCs are going to see, anyway.
The general market still has so much to learn about other options besides Windows. Mac is gaining popularity because of cool-factor and crossover conversions, none of which Linux has. Honestly, it won't be until you can fool someone into using Linux before they figure out its not Windows that you will see a change in general market trends. Either that or some unforeseen landmark change in the computer landscape is going to have to take place.
In this regard, the comparison between open source solutions and alternative energy options makes sense here, except that the open source industry has had _superior_, WORKING solutions for the past decade, and the alternative energies industry hasn't. Its kind of like people choosing to stick with their internal combustion engine technology and refusing to try out a hydrogen car because "no body else does." But really, its because there's been no mass awakening to it, and unlike the energy crisis, there isn't likely to be unless someone brings it about.
Still, this is the extreme value of Linux to me: it's portability. Not *mobility*--we'll have to wait for Andriod for that--but its ability to fit on almost any system in any way. Scaleability and flexibility also apply here. I'd love to have a trusted operating system living at the hardware level of my comptuter. It seems to make sense in a way, even: the logical extension of CMOS in a way. Honestly, you're telling me motherboard hardware has improved for the past 10-15 years but we still have no better built in soft/firmware?
I'm doing more brainstoming than actual technical analysis here, but these are the kinds of things that get me excited like that: speculating, hypothesizing, dreaming about a more open and inherently good future.
Technorant, out.
Re:Out of curiosity... (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe instead they are informed of what software they wish to use, what OS it operates well with, and thus make a VERY INFORMED decision to not use an OS that would require substantial work to use with their software of choice.
Just because someone doesn't use Linux, doesn't mean they are stupid.
And with this type of prevelant attitude among Linux user's, you can bet that they will remain a very small minority.
The true competition to Windows isn't linux, not on the desktop. It's Apple, and will be becuase Linux lacks quite a few things that everyday people require.
Re:Out of curiosity... (Score:4, Insightful)
preamble:
Very well said. I like to think of myself as well informed, but you can't pay me enough money to run Linux on a games machine I share with my teenage son. It's just too much damn work for a lower framerate.
In fact I would argue that the reason that my game machine is Vista on a quad-core is because I'm very well informed.
However, I could do all my work on a linux box but since I get 100% IT support with no arguments if I keep using whatever came with my corporate laptop why bother since it only makes my life harder and saves no money until the entire organization gives up on Windows?
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Very well said. I like to think of myself as well informed, but you can't pay me enough money to run Linux on a games machine I share with my teenage son. It's just too much damn work for a lower framerate.
Not trying to convince you otherwise, but, oddly enough, two of the three games I've played on my desktop in the past 3 years actually run BETTER in linux.
Oblivion doesn't (or didn't) like Cedega when I tried it. WoW and Guild Wars would blue-screen in Windows, but ran without many problems in linux (other than WoW breaking every 3 weeks because of some weird patch)
Of course, I've ditched WoW and grew bored with the mechanics of Oblivion, so now GW and I live happily in Linux... though I may have to switch
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Huh. (Score:5, Interesting)
So it's not going to change my purchasing, but it's still nice.
Re:Huh. (Score:5, Interesting)
I have to agree. I've made some forays into MSI (a relationship that was abruptly and permanently terminated when I discovered I had to have XP to upgrade the BIOS), EPoX and AOpen.
But after that MSI foray I'll be sticking to ASUS for the foreseeable future; I have yet to purchase an ASUS board that I haven't been perfectly happy with throughout its lifecycle (well, I had one or two die of the bad capacitor issue a few years ago, but that was only 30% of my ASUS boards while 100% of the other branded boards died from it).
Re:Huh. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm assuming it was those specific few years ago when a Taiwanese capacitor company was selling bad caps. These caps had electrolyte in them made with a formula stolen from a Japanese company. Said Japanese company, though, was wise to the industry pirates and slipped them a time bomb.
Those caps made it in *everywhere* -- or so it seemed. And is actually probably why it's so much easier to find Slot 1 and Socket 370 CPUs than it is to find boards to put 'em in.
Oh, look, here's a nice wikipedia article about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague [wikipedia.org]
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Apart from geeks actually tearing the equipment
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Had it supported the method you mention, that would have been perfectly acceptable (I went through the whole read-manual-'Ok, no load from USB disk, well, I'll just use a CD... oh, no CD, I'll write a bootable floppy, uh, where's the download link for the BIOS... uh... there isn't a download link for the
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In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Year of the Linux of Desktop (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Year of the Linux of Desktop (Score:5, Informative)
> for an install mechanism...
By writing this you reveal yourself to be clueless. The kernel would never do anything so complex, that is what userspace is for. But anyway, assuming you really mean a Linux distro....
>
> whole program including notifying and automatically installing
> programs it is dependent upon.
And just where have you been the last five years? Most RH/RPM based distros will do just that. Click on an RPM package and it will ask if you want to install it. But nobody smart does it like that. At most you would use the click to install bit to install a REPO and then just use the same package manager you use to install the distro supplied packages.
Why limit yourself to the old painful way Microsoft and Apple do things when technology is being innovated over here in Linux/UNIX land? What could be more convienent than adding a repository once and then making that 3rd party software collection a seamless part of the system. You get automatic notifications through the update widget, exactly the same as if it were included from the original OS vendor.
Re:Year of the Linux of Desktop (Score:5, Insightful)
Bad example since they all do include Apache, but I get your point. Ok, here is how it works. Lets take Fedora since I was talking about RPM based systems and I don't know nearly as much about Debian based ones.
Fedora is based in the USA and sponsored by Red Hat, Inc. so they can't include certain radioactive bits that almost everyone wants, like mp3 support. So you just hop over to rpm.livna.org and click on the link for your version of Fedora. It serves you up an RPM package for their repository and the browser does the right thing. Up pops a dialog box asking if you want to install the package and if you say yes it prompts for the root (administrator for you Windows folk following along) password. Once that one small package is installed all of the software maintained by Livna (safely outside the USA) is a part of your system.
But nothing much has actually happened yet. Next you launch the same package manager you use to add/remove OS components and you find that a lot of new things have appeared. And when Livna updates a package it appears in the list of packages that need to be updated right along with the ones Fedora updates.
Contrast with the Windows/Mac world. Each 3rd party application, game, utility, etc. has to have it's own mechanism to find out if it has been updated, code to bug you to update, etc.
The best comparison would be to imagine a world where Microsoft made Windows Update an open platform that everyone could use. So that one unlucky morning you booted up and the Windows Update gadget in the toolbar announced you had a critical update to IE, a couple of random Windows bug fixes, bug fixs from Adobe for Photoshop and Flash Player and a new version of your fav utility that displays your hard drive temp was available. Grr. there goes an hour and a couple of reboots.
And it all 'Just Worked.' You don't have an OS and a motley collection of 3rd party apps, you have a seamless System.
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A number of the developer packages (like Apache) aren't available in Add/Remove Applications because there's no way to provide a default install which would satisfy even most users, nor are normal users going to want a local web server. Putting them in here would needlessly clutter up this interface with packages only advanced u
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The Linux kernel manages computer resources (CPU, memory, devices) on behalf of applications. It pretty much stops after loading initrd and executing
Yes, it is possible to implement an entire application at this level (I've built installers that only use this), and I suspect that the Asus effort
Re:Year of the Linux of Desktop (Score:5, Funny)
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This will not happen until the Linux Kernel has native support for an install mechanism where by I can double click on a single file
This will hopefully never be the role of the Linux kernel. Installation mechanisms (such as package managers like aptitude) are in user land (they are ordinary programs doing system calls). Also, the kernel does not manage mouse clicks. It manage only peripherals (like USB mouses) which are sending bytes. Some application (like the X11 server and toolkits) has to understand these as meaningful clicks.
Re:Year of the Linux of Desktop (Score:5, Informative)
I was completely illiterate with regard to command line stuff, but I've figured out a great deal along the way. Even when I first began, installing packages was probably the single easiest thing to do in the OS. Installing a package from Synaptic is ridiculously easy, and it grabs all the dependencies an application needs. Anyone with so little knowledge of how computers work that they can't figure out a package manager is someone who wouldn't be doing anything like installing their own programs in Windows, so that's really not a fair comparison.
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Each distribution of Linux aims to achieve a different goal just as Windows Mobile and Windows Vista are inconsistent and aim to achieve a different goal. You can't install just any Windows Vista package on your Windows Mobile phone can you?
Linux is not inconsistent. Linux distributions are inconsistent, but that's ok. What we really need to do
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You have an OS called Windows XP. You have another OS called Ubuntu. Then another OS called MacOS X. Then another called Fedora. Then another called FreeBSD. And so on and so forth. All of them different O
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that's completely dependent on how you use it.
for example, i just had to add a mime type into IIS. it took about a minute, because i had to remote login through RDP. waiting for that to connect, then waiting for a usable desktop, then clicking through the drill downs, then switching to the right tab, then clicking some buttons took about 99% of that time.
if there was a text config file i could easily open it in notepad from my own desktop (because i would have it's drive mapped), ctrl-f f
Re:Year of the Linux of Desktop (Score:4, Insightful)
apt-cache search marks great app
Before you complain about not knowing the magic incantations, remember you're the one who raised the command line. It's easier to search for packages in the GUI tools that all modern distributions provide.
If a piece of software is overlooked by a distribution and the author wants to package it themselves, they can. They can provide a package and it will be just as easy to install as any other package on the targeted distribution. If they provide a repository, then it will be automatically kept up to date along with the rest of the system.
The reality is that package management on modern Linux distributions is far superior to Windows and Mac OS.
Great timing! (Score:2, Offtopic)
Now I have to research prices. Tha bad news is since I'm not really into PC gaming any more, the lowest of low end boards will do, and iinm asus is pretty high end, isn't it?
Linux on the motherboard will free up disk space as well as booting faster.
I'm intrigued. I guess I better rtfa now!
I RTFA and cursed (Score:5, Informative)
And it ends with "Read the press release" that the submitter should have linked in the first place rather than that incredibly BAD geek.com) "here" [prweb.com].
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Neither one is instant-on. It takes the fridge up to 24 hours to initialize (get cold) before you can store food in it, and coffee takes five to twenty minutes to perk.
The radio is instant on. The light bulb is instant on, unless you get a really cheap CFL.
My generation is weird; befor the transistor nothing was instant-on, after computers were built into everything nothing is instant-on. They shouldn't call us the
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Is it really that exciting? (Score:5, Insightful)
But, in terms of Linux adoption, it's only exciting if people keep linux once they've finished building the computer, and the precedents here are hardly promising.
And, even if you like Linux (which I do), would you want to keep the version supplied with your m/b? On my first EeePC, I tried to get to like Xandros, I really did, but in the end I wiped it and installed Kubuntu. My Dark Side Brother played with Xandros until he broke it, and then installed XP. And it's going to happen even more with the EeePC 900, since the Linux version has a larger SSD than the Windows version (at least in the UK), so you buy the Linux version in order to install Windows.
Re:Is it really that exciting? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Is it really that exciting? (Score:5, Informative)
Also (Score:5, Insightful)
ASUS has great overclocking options in their BIOS too...until OEM's get a hold of them and put their customer BIOS in place that leaves out all the good stuff. This will be the same.
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Noether the FA nor the actual press release they plagarized said if there was a whole distro or just a kernal, but when you have a computer with Linux (say, Xandros) preinstalled and want to change OSes, you can download any other distro of Linux free and legal, buy Windows for (imo) a stupidly high price, or downl
Re:Is it really that exciting? (Score:5, Interesting)
> the version supplied with your m/b?
You would probably keep Splashtop because it is in flash, probably in a larger BIOS chip. It isn't intended to be your primary OS. ASUS fully expects 99% of these motherboards to end up with Vista on a normal hard drive before it is delivered to the end user.
The right question is how many of those end users will try Splashtop and find it handy for quick excursions into the net. If that number is large Splashtop will prosper and begin to add more and more features. Five years from now will be interesting if that happens.
Re:Is it really that exciting? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Still don't see the point of burning it into ROM (Score:5, Insightful)
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True, there's a bit of a security risk, but as you said it's burned to a ROM, meaning you can't install any applications, so what IS the risk, really?
Re:Still don't see the point of burning it into RO (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Still don't see the point of burning it into RO (Score:4, Insightful)
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This is the same problem with MS reversing themselves on XP in the sub-notebook category. They came to Taiwan's OEMs and said OK, now you can still get XP licenses on these li
Re:Still don't see the point of burning it into RO (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Still don't see the point of burning it into RO (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Still don't see the point of burning it into RO (Score:5, Insightful)
Currently if I go to my banking site, I have no idea whether my system is currently owned, and some keystroke logger is busy sending off my bank passcode to somebody who is going to empty my account.
With a RO OS, I can reboot, and I'm much more likely to be able to complete the transaction without it being subverted.
*Fwooosh!* (Score:4, Funny)
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Can you roll your own Splashtop? (Score:5, Interesting)
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VERY useful ! (Score:3, Insightful)
no need. go bios, go linux, fix your hd, and install your os. or even, recover it.
i liked that.
wireless (Score:2, Interesting)
ScreenDUO for linux ? (Score:2)
Neat - but not all that useful (Score:4, Interesting)
For one thing, for all that it's "instant on", it still doesn't load all that much faster than XP. Now maybe it's just because I have a hot processor, or a really lean XP installation, but honestly the difference isn't that noticable. Splashtop does load faster, but it's hardly "instant on"; you still need for the OS to boot.
Then, there's the fact that all my info -passwords, bookmarks, etc.- are on my hard-drive and thus not accessible (at least, not by default) to Splashtop. So I'd have to punch all that info into a second OS (and there's no security on Splashtop, so I'd recommend against leaving any passwords in the browser).
I suppose for laptop users Splashtop may be marginally more useful, although even they may prefer to load up the main OS, since it doesn't take that much longer to run and then they get access to all their information.
I do like having a security blanket of having a way to check the web for help just in case XP hoses itself. Boot to Splashtop, surf the web for an answer, and then use that information to fix Windows. But in the end, Splashtop is more of a toy than a genuinely useful feature.
Can it be replaced? (Score:2)
This is not Linux (Score:5, Informative)
It's just a way that Asus found to leverage something that is free, in order to avoid having to write their own own code for motherboard diagnostics and such. No one is going to "switch to linux" because their motherboard has a linux based diagnostic included.
Maybe Asus will put the work "Linux" in bold letters of the mobo box, but this will not do anything. It will not "bring linux to the masses", because anyone who's actually buying a motherboard (as opposed to buying a pre-built computer), already knows what Linux is and will either run it, or not.
Re:This is not Linux (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This is not Linux (Score:5, Interesting)
Now if ASUS which is a darling of the hardware enthusiast community says that linux is a powerful tool I expect some of those perceptions will be changed.
Bad Precedent (Score:5, Interesting)
Hardware should never be tied to an operating system. I'm a Mac user, and even I believe in that sacred tenet. The consumer needs to be able to choose whatever components they want, and tose components should work together to the best of their ability.
Because it's free, Linux on Asus boards may not impede my consumer choice at the moment. But it sets a precedent which could greatly damage the environment of choice we currently enjoy.
Motherboard Malware! (Score:4, Funny)
I might even be able to steal some myspace passwords with it
Big target. (Score:4, Interesting)
Now we have million motherboards a month shipping with an identical OS - including a network stack and a browser - in the BIOS. Heavily used in this mode by the purchasers. If this is successfully suborned by malware it can romp all over the hard drive, even if the main system install isn't booted.
Seems to me this is a showdown between the Microsoft and FOSS sides' claims. B-)
This is the year... (Score:3, Funny)
I can't find a clear answer on their site. (Score:3, Interesting)
If the system is an open one, it could be quite useful, and great fun to play with, I'd want several. If this is just another tivo, then it is pretty unexciting and disappointing.
Wintop! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Ok this is good... Now I have a couple of quest (Score:4, Insightful)
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Sure, it looks like it's booted to the desktop...but have you tried doing anything?
Windows has been progressively delay-loading more and more, so while the upfront cost is cheaper, and it seems to be quicker, the time until you can actually do something of use hasn't really improved.
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Close. What you've been seeing lately between the failed Yahoo buyout, the attempts at getting all friendly with the Open Source community, and their wrecking ball thrown at the ISO organization is Microsoft grasping at straws, trying to maintain their monopoly.
Microsoft will remain a player, but they are being marginalized more, day by day. A few years ago, ASUS wouldn't have dared done anything like Splashtop.
Go ahead, fanoys
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2) The only big fall is there because you cherry-picked a timeframe that included the last-gasp of the tech bubble, thereby ensuring it'll show a huge drop. Any other tech company's stock price graph will look the exact same way. Bump your graph forward to 2001, and suddenly it looks... pretty steady.
Cherry-picking values to show what you want to see != "roller coaster decline."
Re:Debian "Moles" What Prevents Them? (Score:4, Interesting)
it isn't bundling .. (Score:3, Informative)
Is there ever anyone who posts here who isn't a 'Linux-ite'
"if bundling is wrong for one, how can it be right for another? Just because you don't have the majority of the consumer market, doesn't make the practice any more justifiable"
Because Asus doesn't hold a virtual monopoly on the OS, the Applications and the server protocols. And it isn't as if they are forcing you to use it.
"Within seconds of turning on the P5E3 Deluxe mo
doesn't matter (Score:3, Interesting)