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    Splashtop instant OS on M1330?

    Discussion in 'Dell XPS and Studio XPS' started by kwijbo, Jun 28, 2008.

  1. kwijbo

    kwijbo Notebook Guru

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    I just ordered an M1330 and Im starting to prepare my list of things to do once I receive it. Ive been reading about the MediaDirect button fiasco after reformatting, and it got me thinking - would it be possible to install Splashtop on a partition and map it to that button?

    Splashtop - http://www.splashtop.com/splashtop_overview.php

    It seems that Splashtop is embedded in flash memory on the motherboard, which probably factors into its speed, but would an SSD be fast enough?

    Also, does anyone know if any Splashtop enabled notebooks are on the market yet?

    If not Splashtop, does anyone know of any lightweight, (almost)instantly starting versions of Linux with the same functionality as Splashtop?
     
    kwijbo, Jun 28, 2008
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  2. f4ding

    f4ding Laptop Owner

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    You're missing the point, Splashtop has to be bundled by Dell for it to work. Which Dell isn't doing. It is installed on a flash on the motherboard, and the BIOS has to be modified to include Splashtop.

    If you look on the website, the only maufacturer to support it right now is ASUS. More specifically, M70T, M51Vr, M50V, F8Vr, and F8Va series notebooks are the only ones with Splashtop support.

    So to answer your question, no, you cannot install Splashtop on your new machine.
     
    f4ding, Jun 28, 2008
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  3. kwijbo

    kwijbo Notebook Guru

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    I realize it can't work on the M1330 exactly as it does on the ASUS notebooks because of the flash provision on the motherboard.

    My question is, would it be possible to install it (or a similar Linux variant) on a partition on my SSD and boot into that OS with similar speed and functionality?
     
    kwijbo, Jun 28, 2008
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  4. f4ding

    f4ding Laptop Owner

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    There is no information about this what so ever on their website, so I cannot say anything about it. But I am guessing no, since you can't even download the installation file to do this.

    On the other hand, there might be a small enough Linux variant that might be able to do this, that I don't know of. However, note that it will not be as fast as Splashtop since the system has to access your hard disk even if it is an SSD. It will be just like any other Linux system, optimized to start really fast. For example, if you google around, some people have claimed to customized their Gentoo or Arch Linux system to start their machine in 5 seconds. I'm not sure how true that is, but that is what some of them are claiming in various bulletin board like this.

    Maybe some of the Linux people will know more. Try the Linux forums.
     
    f4ding, Jun 28, 2008
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  5. kwijbo

    kwijbo Notebook Guru

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    Under 5 seconds??? Very intersting...

    Thanks for the help, Ill have to check that out.
     
    kwijbo, Jun 28, 2008
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