The case for a secondary motherboard OS

“Flash memory prices have tumbled in recent years, which has
been good for MP3 players, cell phones, SSDs, and the
now-ubiquitous USB thumb drive. Falling flash prices have also been
good for motherboards, allowing Asus to cheaply equip some of its
latest models with 512MB memory chips that house an ExpressGate
instant-on operating system that’s–you guessed it–based on
Linux.

“ExpressGate is actually a re-branded version of DeviceVM’s
SplashTop operating system, which packs web browsing, music
playback, photo management, chat, and Skype applications. It’s a
neat idea, and the bundled applications cover what most folks do
with their PCs on a day-to-day basis. However, ExpressGate has
always struck me as a little gimmicky. I find it hard to imagine
that enthusiasts or even mainstream users are going to be willing
to ditch the functionality of their full-blown desktop operating
systems in favor of such a limited collection of instant-on
applications. ExpressGate doesn’t even have a file management
utility, and that’s sort of an important OS component. Still, I
don’t think it would take much to transform ExpressGate into a
must-have feature for PC enthusiasts.”

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