Linux Format forums

Re: Isn't IBM's 'SoulPad' same as booting to external Knoppi

Flea — Mon Aug 22, 2005 2:03 am

Author: Flea

Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 2:03 am

serene wrote:

Regarding IBM's 'SoulPad' ...
http://www.primidi.com/2005/08/11.html

Isn't this the same as installing Knoppix on to a partition on an external USB Hard drive, and then booting to it?

Hasn't this capability been around for some time?.

Thank you.
Serene

Shhh, For goodness sake be quiet! You will ruin perfectly good sales for poor ol' IBM!

RE: re: IBM SoulPad

nelz — Sun Aug 21, 2005 9:44 am

Author: nelz

Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2005 9:44 am

VMWare 5 has run everything I've thrown at it. Win98, WinXP and over a dozen Linux distros. The suspend feature of VMWare is nice, rather like the sleep function of a laptop. The only real reason I can see for this (apart from being a good way to sell lots of USB drives at outrageous prices ) is hat using VMWare also gives you a mobile Windows platform.

I would guess they have set it up so that Knoppix runs VMWare automatically, and resumes the last session in fullscreen mode, so you never see the underlying OS. This is how the Amiga Forever CDs work, running a cut down Knoppix, which you never see, that launches USE i fullscreen mode.

re: IBM SoulPad

serene — Sun Aug 21, 2005 5:14 am

Author: serene

Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2005 5:14 am

For Nelz: Thanks for the insight.

It's difficult for me to understand what the need for this is, as VMware is very restricted to 'only' their approved Distro and version of linux and they don't update this frequently.

If one boots from an external USB drive with Knoppix installed... then shut down normally, all my work would be saved anyway so what would be the need to 'suspend' ?

This article got my attention from their headline "Will a SoulPad Replace your Laptop?"... I don't see how.

Serene

RE: Isn

nelz — Sat Aug 20, 2005 10:23 am

Author: nelz

Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2005 10:23 am

The difference appears to be that instead of running applications directly on Knoppix, they have added a VMWare virtual machine to Knoppix and run the apps on that. I know you can suspend the VM to save on shutdown/startup time, but wouldn't you still have to shutdown/startup Knoppix? You may save a little time because Knoppix could be cut down to only what VMWare needs to run.

I guess the significant difference is that you can run any OS you want on VMWare, so this would give a portable Windows system. I take it that this is an admission that even IBM can't build a Windows live disc...

Isn't IBM's 'SoulPad' same as booting to external Knoppix?

serene — Sat Aug 20, 2005 9:22 am

Author: serene

Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2005 9:22 am

Regarding IBM's 'SoulPad' ...
http://www.primidi.com/2005/08/11.html

Isn't this the same as installing Knoppix on to a partition on an external USB Hard drive, and then booting to it?

Hasn't this capability been around for some time?.

Thank you.
Serene