Phoenix Technologies says the company’s quick start HyperSpace software now works with ARM processors. That means that you’ll be able to load HyperSpace on low cost computers like the upcoming Pegatron netbook which could sell for as little as $199.
HyperSpace is a low power Linux-based environment which boots in about 10 to 20 seconds on most Intel Atom powered netbooks. It’s not clear how quickly HyperSpace will load on ARM powered machines, but it’s likely that it will be at least a little bit faster than loading a fully functional operating system like Ubuntu (Windows and OS X don’t run on ARM CPUs). HyperSpace includes a handful of programs like Firefox, Skype, and media players that let you start using your computer without waiting 60 seconds or longer for the OS to boot up.
Honestly, HyperSpace makes a bit morse sense for more powerful computers which are capable of runing the software at the same time as Windows is booting. So you can check your email while Windows loads in the background and then switch from one OS to the other. On low power netbooks, you have to shut down HyperSpace before you can fire up Windows, Ubuntu, or another full operating system.
HyperSpace also charges customers an annual subscription fee, which will make the software a non-starter for many users.
More information here:
https://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS5805419360.html
Something like hyperspace (without the subscription) on a ARM based device (not netbook) with nothing but a SD card slot for storage (no hard drive/SSD) and a couple of USB ports (2.0) and wireless G for about $150 would be very interesting. Something that can be used for surfing the web, e-mail and light word processing while running 10 hours on a 2 cell battery would sell like hotcakes.
*cough* OpenPandora *cough*. Althrough it will have only one USB port that serves both for connecting an accesory to it or to a desktop PC and it’ll cost more like U$S330, but that’s a pretty nice price for such a powerful device. And it has two SD card slots, dedicated gaming controls, an amazing keyboard, 800×480 4.3″ touchscreen LCD, a 600mhz ARM processor which could be overclocked up to 900mhz, a really fast graphics processor which may be able to run Doom 3, wireless G, bluetooth and it will run the Angstrom linux distro for mobile devices, but it will also run with Android.