Technology: Working While Windows Boots II

Last September I blogged about Splashtop which Asus was embedding on its motherboards, so when you turned the machine on it would boot Linux almost instantaneously, and you could do email, internet and other routine tasks, while you are waiting for Windows to boot up and do all its security checks.  Splashtop Linux runs on the Intel processors on the Asus motherboards.

According to EETimes, Dell has taken this one step further with something called Latitude On .  Latitude On is a fully dedicated subsystem with its own low voltage processor, WiFi and WAN, operating system, and essential applications like email (Exchange and POP), view attachments, and internet.  It is believed that the processor is ARM and Dell says the OS is an embedded Linux (not Splashtop).  Dell laptop computers with Latitude On run Linux within seconds of pushing the dedicated Latitude On button. If you just use the ARM/Linux subsystem, Dell says you can expect days of battery life, not just hours which is what you can expect if you boot Intel/Windows.  Of course if you need to do some serious work or play games, you can always boot Windows which will run using an Intel dual core processor.