1.
Acer Inc.
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Acer Inc. is a Taiwanese multinational hardware and electronics corporation specializing in advanced electronics technology and is headquartered in Xizhi, New Taipei City, Taiwan. Acers products include desktop PCs, laptop PCs, tablets, servers, storage devices, Virtual Reality devices, displays, smartphones, Acer also sells gaming PCs and accessories under its Predator sub brand. In 2015, Acer was the sixth-largest personal computer vendor in the world, Acer was founded by Stan Shih, his wife Carolyn Yeh, and a group of five others as Multitech in 1976, headquartered in Hsinchu City, Taiwan. It began with eleven employees and US$25,000 in capital, initially, it was primarily a distributor of electronic parts and a consultant in the use of microprocessor technologies. The company was renamed Acer in 1987, in 1998, Acer reorganised into five groups, Acer International Service Group, Acer Sertek Service Group, Acer Semiconductor Group, Acer Information Products Group, and Acer Peripherals Group. The restructuring resulted in two units, brand name sales and contract manufacturing. In 2001 the company got rid of its units, BenQ and Wistron to focus resources on design. Acer increased worldwide sales while simultaneously reducing its labor force by identifying and using marketing strategies that best utilized their existing distribution channels, by 2005, Acer employed a scant 7,800 people worldwide. Revenues rose from US$4.9 billion in 2003 to US$11.31 billion in 2006, Acers North American market share has slipped over the past few years, while in contrast, the companys European market share has risen. Acer grew quickly in Europe in part by embracing the use of traditional distribution channels targeting retail consumers when some rivals were pursuing online sales. Acer has been striving to become the worlds largest PC vendor, in the belief that the goal can help it achieve economy of scale, but such a reliance on the high-volume, low-value PC market made Acer exposed when buying habits changed. In November 2013 Chairman and CEO J. T. Wang, Wang had been reportedly due to leave Acer at year end, and was supposed to have been succeeded by Wong. Acer co-founder Stan Shih took over as chairman and interim president after the departure of Wang and Wong and began to search for new candidates to assume the roles of CEO. On December 23 Acer named Jason Chen, vice president of sales and marketing at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, as its new president and CEO. Entertainment industry executive and former actress Nancy Hu was named CFO, in 1988, Acer acquired Counterpoint Computers. In 1990, Acer acquired Altos Computer Corporation, in 1997, Acer acquired Texas Instruments notebook computer business. On 27 August 2007, Acer announced plans to acquire its US-based rival Gateway, Acers former chairman, J. T. Wang, stated that the acquisition completes Acers global footprint, by strengthening our United States presence. Included in this acquisition was the eMachines brand, in January 2008, Acer announced that it had acquired a controlling interest of 75% of Packard Bell
2.
Subnotebook
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A subnotebook is a class of laptop computers that are smaller and lighter than a typical notebook. These computers are sometimes confused with the ultra-mobile PC category, which is the name of a platform of small form-factor tablet PCs, subnotebooks are also sometimes confused with netbooks which are a different category of devices that branched off from mini notebooks in general. Netbooks are most often less expensive than subnotebooks, as they are optimized for use as portable Internet capable devices. Netbooks typically have 9W TDP CPUs, sacrificing performance for power efficiency, subnotebooks are smaller than full sized laptops but larger than handheld computers. They often have smaller-sized screens, less than 14 inches, and weigh less than typical laptops, the savings in size and weight are usually achieved partly by omitting ports and optical disc drives. Many can be paired with docking stations to compensate. The Compaq was followed in October 1992 by the very popular IBM ThinkPad, portables with noticeably smaller form factors thus became known as subnotebooks. The term was applied to the NEC UltraLite, unveiled in 1988 — although its dimensions were very similar to the Compaq LTE. Smaller DOS-based PCs such as the Poqet PC and the Atari Portfolio—both released in 1989—were called either pocket PCs or handhelds. One early subnotebook was the PowerBook 100 released in 1991 by Apple Inc. measuring 8. 5″ deep by 11″ wide by 1. 8″ high and weighing 5.1 lbs. Apple followed-up with PowerBook Duo series in October 1992, which reduced their subnotebook line to 8. 5″ deep by 10. 9″ wide by 1. Another early subnotebook was the Hewlett-Packard OmniBook 300, which was launched as a superportable in 1993. It measured 1.4 ×6.4 ×11.1 inches, the version with an 8. 4″ monochrome screen measured just 1.7 ×7.9 ×9.8 inches and weighed 1.8 kg. Toshiba also introduced the T3400CT at this time which was the first subnotebook with a color screen, then Toshiba really put the subnotebook PC format on the map in 1995 with the Libretto 20. This featured a 6. 1″ screen and 270 MB hard disk, cNet reported about the Libretto 50CT that is the first full-fledged Windows 95 notebook in the United States weighing less than two pounds. In 1997, Apple launched the relatively light-weight but short-lived PowerBook 2400c and this was co-designed by IBM and made for Apple by IBM Japan to replace the aging PowerBook Duo line. However, it measured 1.9 ×8.5 ×10.5 inches, IBM had sold thin and light models in its ThinkPad range, such as the ThinkPad 560 ultraportable and best-selling ThinkPad 600. It finally entered the market in 1999 with the 1.3 kg ThinkPad 240
3.
Netbook
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Netbook is a generic name given to a category of small, lightweight, legacy-free, and inexpensive laptop computers that were introduced in 2007. Netbooks compete in the market segment as tablet computers and Chromebooks. Over the course of their evolution, netbooks have ranged in size from below 5 screen diagonal to 12, a typical weight is 1 kg. In the short period since their appearance, netbooks grew in size and features, by 2011, the increasing popularity of tablet computers —a different form factor, but with improved computing capabilities and lower production cost—had led to a decline in netbook sales. Many major netbook producing companies stopped producing them by the end of 2012, many netbook products were replaced on the market by Chromebooks, a variation on the network computer concept in the form of a netbook. With the rise of Chromebooks in 2014, Microsoft began a new effort at creating viable netbooks, HP re-entered the non-Chromebook netbook market with the Stream 11 in 2014. The origins of the netbook can be traced to the highly popular Toshiba range of Libretto sub-notebooks, the 6 Libretto 20 dates back to early 1996 and weighed only 840g. Apple also had a line of PowerBook Duos that were ultra-portable Macintosh laptops in the mid 90s, more recently, Psions now-discontinued netBook line, the OLPC XO-1 and the Palm Foleo were all small, portable, network-enabled computers. The generic use of the netbook, however, began in 2007 when Asus unveiled the Asus Eee PC. Originally designed for emerging markets, the 23 cm ×17 cm device weighed about 0, following the Eee PC, Everex launched its Linux-based CloudBook, Windows XP and Windows Vista models were also introduced and MSI released the Wind—others soon followed suit. When the first Asus Eee PC sold over 300,000 units in four months, companies such as Dell and Acer took note, and while the OLPC XO-1 targets a different audience than do the other manufacturers netbooks, it appears that OLPC is now facing competition. Developing countries now have a choice of vendors, from which they can choose which low-cost netbook they prefer. By late 2008, netbooks had begun to market share away from notebooks. This is illustrated by the fact that typical system performance of a netbook is on the level of a mainstream PC in 2001 and it is estimated that almost thirty times more netbooks were sold in 2008 than in 2007. This trend is reinforced by the rise of web-based applications as well as networking and, according to Wired Magazine. The ongoing recession is also helping with the sales of netbooks. These were provided under Prime Minister Kevin Rudds Digital Education Revolution, the netbooks ran Windows 7 Enterprise. These netbooks were secured with Computrace Lojack for laptops that the police can use to track the device if it is lost or stolen, the NSW DET retains ownership of these netbooks until the student graduates from Year 12, when the student can keep it
4.
Operating system
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An operating system is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources and provides common services for computer programs. All computer programs, excluding firmware, require a system to function. Operating systems are found on many devices that contain a computer – from cellular phones, the dominant desktop operating system is Microsoft Windows with a market share of around 83. 3%. MacOS by Apple Inc. is in place, and the varieties of Linux is in third position. Linux distributions are dominant in the server and supercomputing sectors, other specialized classes of operating systems, such as embedded and real-time systems, exist for many applications. A single-tasking system can run one program at a time. Multi-tasking may be characterized in preemptive and co-operative types, in preemptive multitasking, the operating system slices the CPU time and dedicates a slot to each of the programs. Unix-like operating systems, e. g. Solaris, Linux, cooperative multitasking is achieved by relying on each process to provide time to the other processes in a defined manner. 16-bit versions of Microsoft Windows used cooperative multi-tasking, 32-bit versions of both Windows NT and Win9x, used preemptive multi-tasking. Single-user operating systems have no facilities to distinguish users, but may allow multiple programs to run in tandem, a distributed operating system manages a group of distinct computers and makes them appear to be a single computer. The development of networked computers that could be linked and communicate with each other gave rise to distributed computing, distributed computations are carried out on more than one machine. When computers in a work in cooperation, they form a distributed system. The technique is used both in virtualization and cloud computing management, and is common in large server warehouses, embedded operating systems are designed to be used in embedded computer systems. They are designed to operate on small machines like PDAs with less autonomy and they are able to operate with a limited number of resources. They are very compact and extremely efficient by design, Windows CE and Minix 3 are some examples of embedded operating systems. A real-time operating system is a system that guarantees to process events or data by a specific moment in time. A real-time operating system may be single- or multi-tasking, but when multitasking, early computers were built to perform a series of single tasks, like a calculator. Basic operating system features were developed in the 1950s, such as resident monitor functions that could run different programs in succession to speed up processing
5.
Linux
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Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open-source software development and distribution. The defining component of Linux is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17,1991 by Linus Torvalds, the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to describe the operating system, which has led to some controversy. Linux was originally developed for computers based on the Intel x86 architecture. Because of the dominance of Android on smartphones, Linux has the largest installed base of all operating systems. Linux is also the operating system on servers and other big iron systems such as mainframe computers. It is used by around 2. 3% of desktop computers, the Chromebook, which runs on Chrome OS, dominates the US K–12 education market and represents nearly 20% of the sub-$300 notebook sales in the US. Linux also runs on embedded systems – devices whose operating system is built into the firmware and is highly tailored to the system. This includes TiVo and similar DVR devices, network routers, facility automation controls, televisions, many smartphones and tablet computers run Android and other Linux derivatives. The development of Linux is one of the most prominent examples of free, the underlying source code may be used, modified and distributed—commercially or non-commercially—by anyone under the terms of its respective licenses, such as the GNU General Public License. Typically, Linux is packaged in a known as a Linux distribution for both desktop and server use. Distributions intended to run on servers may omit all graphical environments from the standard install, because Linux is freely redistributable, anyone may create a distribution for any intended use. The Unix operating system was conceived and implemented in 1969 at AT&Ts Bell Laboratories in the United States by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Douglas McIlroy, first released in 1971, Unix was written entirely in assembly language, as was common practice at the time. Later, in a key pioneering approach in 1973, it was rewritten in the C programming language by Dennis Ritchie, the availability of a high-level language implementation of Unix made its porting to different computer platforms easier. Due to an earlier antitrust case forbidding it from entering the computer business, as a result, Unix grew quickly and became widely adopted by academic institutions and businesses. In 1984, AT&T divested itself of Bell Labs, freed of the legal obligation requiring free licensing, the GNU Project, started in 1983 by Richard Stallman, has the goal of creating a complete Unix-compatible software system composed entirely of free software. Later, in 1985, Stallman started the Free Software Foundation, by the early 1990s, many of the programs required in an operating system were completed, although low-level elements such as device drivers, daemons, and the kernel were stalled and incomplete. Linus Torvalds has stated that if the GNU kernel had been available at the time, although not released until 1992 due to legal complications, development of 386BSD, from which NetBSD, OpenBSD and FreeBSD descended, predated that of Linux. Torvalds has also stated that if 386BSD had been available at the time, although the complete source code of MINIX was freely available, the licensing terms prevented it from being free software until the licensing changed in April 2000
6.
Windows XP
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Windows XP is a personal computer operating system that was produced by Microsoft as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on August 24,2001, however, in January 2000, both projects were shelved in favor of a single OS codenamed Whistler, which would serve as a single OS platform for both consumer and business markets. Windows XP was an advance from the MS-DOS based versions of Windows in security, stability. It introduced a significantly redesigned graphical user interface and was the first version of Windows to use product activation in an effort to reduce its copyright infringement. Despite some initial concerns over the new licensing model and product activation system, Windows XP eventually proved to be popular and widely used. It is estimated that at least 400 million copies of Windows XP were sold globally within its first five years of availability, sales of Windows XP licenses to original equipment manufacturers ceased on June 30,2008, but continued for netbooks until October 2010. Windows XP remained popular even after the release of newer versions, vistas 2009 successor, Windows 7, only overtook XP in total market share at the end of 2011. Extended support for Windows XP ended on April 8,2014, as of November 2016, Windows XP desktop market share makes it the fourth most popular Windows version after Windows 7, Windows 10 and Windows 8.1. Windows XP is still popular in some countries, Africa as a whole and in Asia, e. g. in China. A number of activity centers were planned, serving as hubs for email communications, playing music, managing or viewing photos, searching the Internet, however, the project proved to be too ambitious. Microsoft discussed a plan to delay Neptune in favor of an interim OS known as Asteroid, which would have been an update to Windows 2000, and since Neptune and Odyssey would be based on the same code-base anyway, it made sense to combine them into a single project. In June 2000, Microsoft began the technical beta testing process, Whistler was expected to be available in Personal, Professional, Server, Advanced Server. At PDC on July 13,2000, Microsoft announced that Whistler would be released during the half of 2001. Build 2257 featured further refinements to the Watercolor theme, along with the introduction of the two-column Start menu. Microsoft released Whistler Beta 1, build 2296, on October 31,2000, build 2410 in January 2001 introduced Internet Explorer 6.0 and the Microsoft Product Activation system. Making it very friendly for the user to use. Builds 2416 and 2419 added the File and Transfer Settings Wizard, on February 5,2001, Microsoft officially announced that Whistler would be known as Windows XP, where XP stands for experience. As a complement, the version of Microsoft Office was also announced as Office XP
7.
Windows Vista
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Windows Vista is an operating system by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs and media center PCs. Development was completed on 8 November 2006, and over the three months, it was released in stages to computer hardware and software manufacturers, business customers. On 30 January 2007, it was released worldwide and was available for purchase. It was succeeded by Windows 7, which was released to manufacturing on 22 July 2009, Vista aimed to increase the level of communication between machines on a home network, using peer-to-peer technology to simplify sharing files and media between computers and devices. Windows Vista included version 3.0 of the. NET Framework, Microsofts primary stated objective with Windows Vista was to improve the state of security in the Windows operating system. One common criticism of Windows XP and its predecessors was their commonly exploited security vulnerabilities and overall susceptibility to malware, viruses, Microsoft stated that it prioritized improving the security of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 above finishing Windows Vista, thus delaying its completion. While these new features and security improvements have garnered positive reviews, Vista has also been the target of much criticism, as a result of these and other issues, Windows Vista had seen initial adoption and satisfaction rates lower than Windows XP. In May 2010, Windows Vistas market share had a range from 15% to 26%. On 22 October 2010, Microsoft ceased sales of copies of Windows Vista. As of March 2017, Vistas market share was 0. 72%, Microsoft stopped providing mainstream support for Windows Vista on 10 April 2012. Extended support will end on 11 April 2017, Microsoft began work on Windows Vista, known at the time by its codename Longhorn, in May 2001, five months before the release of Windows XP. It was originally expected to ship sometime late in 2003 as a step between Windows XP and Blackcomb, which was planned to be the companys next major operating system release. Gradually, Longhorn assimilated many of the important new features and technologies slated for Blackcomb, in some builds of Longhorn, their license agreement said For the Microsoft product codenamed Whistler. Many of Microsofts developers were also re-tasked to build updates to Windows XP, faced with ongoing delays and concerns about feature creep, Microsoft announced on 27 August 2004, that it had revised its plans. Longhorn became known as Vista in 2005, the early development stages of Longhorn were generally characterized by incremental improvements and updates to Windows XP. After several months of relatively little news or activity from Microsoft with Longhorn, Microsoft released Build 4008 and it was also privately handed out to a select group of software developers. An optional new taskbar was introduced that was thinner than the previous build, the most notable visual and functional difference, however, came with Windows Explorer. The incorporation of the Plex theme made blue the dominant color of the entire application, the Windows XP-style task pane was almost completely replaced with a large horizontal pane that appeared under the toolbars
8.
Windows 7
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Windows 7 is a personal computer operating system developed by Microsoft. It is a part of the Windows NT family of operating systems, Windows 7 was released to manufacturing on July 22,2009, and became generally available on October 22,2009, less than three years after the release of its predecessor, Windows Vista. Windows 7s server counterpart, Windows Server 2008 R2, was released at the same time, Windows 7 continued improvements on Windows Aero with the addition of a redesigned taskbar that allows applications to be pinned to it, and new window management features. Other new features were added to the system, including libraries, the new file sharing system HomeGroup. A new Action Center interface was added to provide an overview of system security and maintenance information. Windows 7 also shipped with updated versions of several applications, including Internet Explorer 8, Windows Media Player. Windows 7 was a success for Microsoft, even prior to its official release. Originally, a version of Windows codenamed Blackcomb was planned as the successor to Windows XP, major features were planned for Blackcomb, including an emphasis on searching and querying data and an advanced storage system named WinFS to enable such scenarios. However, an interim, minor release, codenamed Longhorn, was announced for 2003, by the middle of 2003, however, Longhorn had acquired some of the features originally intended for Blackcomb. Development of Longhorn was also restarted, and thus delayed, in August 2004, a number of features were cut from Longhorn. Blackcomb was renamed Vienna in early 2006, as such, adoption of Vista in comparison to XP remained somewhat low. In July 2007, six months following the release of Vista, it was reported that the next version of Windows would then be codenamed Windows 7. Bill Gates, in an interview with Newsweek, suggested that Windows 7 would be more user-centric, Gates later said that Windows 7 would also focus on performance improvements. Senior Vice President Bill Veghte stated that Windows Vista users migrating to Windows 7 would not find the kind of device compatibility issues they encountered migrating from Windows XP, an estimated 1,000 developers worked on Windows 7. These were broadly divided into core operating system and Windows client experience, in October 2008, it was announced that Windows 7 would also be the official name of the operating system. The first external release to select Microsoft partners came in January 2008 with Milestone 1, at PDC2008, Microsoft demonstrated Windows 7 with its reworked taskbar. On December 27,2008, the Windows 7 Beta was leaked onto the Internet via BitTorrent. According to a performance test by ZDNet, Windows 7 Beta beat both Windows XP and Vista in several key areas, including boot and shutdown time and working with files, such as loading documents
9.
Windows 8
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Windows 8 is a personal computer operating system developed by Microsoft as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. Development of Windows 8 started before the release of its predecessor, Windows 7 and it was announced at CES2011, and followed by the release of three pre-release versions from September 2011 to May 2012. The operating system was released to manufacturing on August 1,2012, Windows 8 added support for USB3.0, Advanced Format hard drives, near field communications, and cloud computing. Windows 8 was released to a critical reception. Despite these shortcomings,60 million Windows 8 licenses were sold through January 2013, on October 17,2013, Microsoft released Windows 8.1. It addressed some aspects of Windows 8 that were criticized by reviewers and early adopters, Windows 8 was ultimately succeeded by Windows 10 in July 2015. Support for Windows 8 RTM ended on January 12,2016, per Microsoft lifecycle policies regarding service packs, Windows 8.1 must be installed to maintain support, Windows 8 development started before Windows 7 had shipped in 2009. Three milestone releases of Windows 8 leaked to the general public, milestone 1, Build 7850, was leaked on April 12,2011. It was the first build where the text of a window was written centered instead of aligned to the left and it was also probably the first appearance of the Metro-style font, and its wallpaper had the text shhh. Lets not leak our hard work, however, its detailed build number reveals that the build was created on September 22,2010. The leaked copy was Enterprise edition, the OS still reads as Windows 7. Milestone 2, Build 7955, was leaked on April 25,2011, the traditional Blue Screen of Death was replaced by a new black screen, although this was later scrapped. This build introduced a new ribbon in Windows Explorer, Build 7959, with minor changes but the first 64-bit version, was leaked on May 1,2011. The Windows 7 logo was replaced with text displaying Microsoft Confidential. On June 17,2011, build 7989 64-bit edition was leaked and it introduced a new boot screen featuring the same fish as the default Windows 7 Beta wallpaper, which was later scrapped, and the circling dots as featured in the final. It also had the text Welcome below them, although this was also scrapped, on June 1,2011, Microsoft unveiled Windows 8s new user interface, as well as additional features at both Computex Taipei and the D9, All Things Digital conference in California. The Building Windows 8 blog launched on August 15,2011, featuring details surrounding Windows 8s features, Microsoft unveiled more Windows 8 features and improvements on the first day of the Build conference on September 13,2011. Microsoft released the first public build of Windows 8, Windows Developer Preview at the event
10.
Windows 10
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Windows 10 is a personal computer operating system developed and released by Microsoft as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. It was officially unveiled in September 2014 following a brief demo at Build 2014, privacy concerns were also voiced by critics and advocates, as the operating systems default settings and certain features require the transmission of user data to Microsoft or its partners. Up to August 2016, Windows 10 usage was increasing, with it then plateauing, the operating system is running on more than 400 million active devices and has an estimated usage share of 27. 72% on traditional PCs and 12. 53% across all platforms. We won’t have an ecosystem for PCs, and one for phones, in December 2013, technology writer Mary Jo Foley reported that Microsoft was working on an update to Windows 8 codenamed Threshold, after a planet in Microsofts Halo video game franchise. Similarly to Blue, Foley called Threshold a wave of operating systems across multiple Microsoft platforms and services, Foley reported that among the goals for Threshold was to create a unified application platform and development toolkit for Windows, Windows Phone and Xbox One. The new Start menu takes after Windows 7s design by using only a portion of the screen, the second column displays Windows 8-style app tiles. Myerson said that changes would occur in a future update. Windows Phone 8.1 would share nearly 90% of the common Windows Runtime APIs with Windows 8.1 on PCs, despite these concessions, Myerson noted that the touch-oriented interface would evolve as well on 10. He also joked that they could not call it Windows One because Windows 1.0 already existed.1, further details surrounding Windows 10s consumer-oriented features were presented during another media event held on January 21,2015, entitled Windows 10, The Next Chapter. Additional developer-oriented details surrounding the Universal Windows Platform concept were revealed and discussed during Microsofts developers conference Build, among them were the unveiling of Islandwood, which provides a middleware toolchain for compiling Objective-C based software to run as universal apps on Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile. On June 1,2015, Microsoft announced that Windows 10 would be released on July 29,2015. The commercials focused on the tagline A more human way to do, the campaign culminated with launch events in thirteen cities on July 29, which celebrated the unprecedented role our biggest fans played in the development of Windows 10. Windows 10 harmonizes the user experience and functionality between different classes of device, and addresses shortcomings in the interface that were introduced in Windows 8. Windows 10 Mobile, the successor to Windows Phone 8.1, shares some user interface elements, the Windows Runtime app ecosystem was revised into the Universal Windows Platform. These universal apps are made to run across platforms and device classes, including smartphones, tablets, Xbox One consoles. Developers can allow cross-buys, where purchased licenses for an app apply to all of the users compatible devices, on Windows 10, Windows Store serves as a unified storefront for apps, Groove Music, and Movies & TV. Windows 10 also allows web apps and desktop software to be packaged for distribution on the Windows Store, desktop software distributed through Windows Store is packaged using the App-V system to allow sandboxing. A new iteration of the Start menu is used on the Windows 10 desktop, with a list of places and other options on the left side, the menu can be resized, and expanded into a full-screen display, which is the default option in Tablet mode
11.
Central processing unit
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The computer industry has used the term central processing unit at least since the early 1960s. The form, design and implementation of CPUs have changed over the course of their history, most modern CPUs are microprocessors, meaning they are contained on a single integrated circuit chip. An IC that contains a CPU may also contain memory, peripheral interfaces, some computers employ a multi-core processor, which is a single chip containing two or more CPUs called cores, in that context, one can speak of such single chips as sockets. Array processors or vector processors have multiple processors that operate in parallel, there also exists the concept of virtual CPUs which are an abstraction of dynamical aggregated computational resources. Early computers such as the ENIAC had to be rewired to perform different tasks. Since the term CPU is generally defined as a device for software execution, the idea of a stored-program computer was already present in the design of J. Presper Eckert and John William Mauchlys ENIAC, but was initially omitted so that it could be finished sooner. On June 30,1945, before ENIAC was made, mathematician John von Neumann distributed the paper entitled First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC and it was the outline of a stored-program computer that would eventually be completed in August 1949. EDVAC was designed to perform a number of instructions of various types. Significantly, the programs written for EDVAC were to be stored in high-speed computer memory rather than specified by the wiring of the computer. This overcame a severe limitation of ENIAC, which was the considerable time, with von Neumanns design, the program that EDVAC ran could be changed simply by changing the contents of the memory. Early CPUs were custom designs used as part of a larger, however, this method of designing custom CPUs for a particular application has largely given way to the development of multi-purpose processors produced in large quantities. This standardization began in the era of discrete transistor mainframes and minicomputers and has accelerated with the popularization of the integrated circuit. The IC has allowed increasingly complex CPUs to be designed and manufactured to tolerances on the order of nanometers, both the miniaturization and standardization of CPUs have increased the presence of digital devices in modern life far beyond the limited application of dedicated computing machines. Modern microprocessors appear in electronic devices ranging from automobiles to cellphones, the so-called Harvard architecture of the Harvard Mark I, which was completed before EDVAC, also utilized a stored-program design using punched paper tape rather than electronic memory. Relays and vacuum tubes were used as switching elements, a useful computer requires thousands or tens of thousands of switching devices. The overall speed of a system is dependent on the speed of the switches, tube computers like EDVAC tended to average eight hours between failures, whereas relay computers like the Harvard Mark I failed very rarely. In the end, tube-based CPUs became dominant because the significant speed advantages afforded generally outweighed the reliability problems, most of these early synchronous CPUs ran at low clock rates compared to modern microelectronic designs. Clock signal frequencies ranging from 100 kHz to 4 MHz were very common at this time, the design complexity of CPUs increased as various technologies facilitated building smaller and more reliable electronic devices
12.
Intel Atom
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Intel Atom was the brand name for a line of ultra-low-voltage IA-32 and x86-64 microprocessors by Intel Corporation. Atom was mainly used in netbooks, nettops, embedded applications ranging from health care to advanced robotics, the line was originally designed in 45 nm complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor technology and subsequent models, codenamed Cedar, used a 32 nm process. The first generation of Atom processors are based on the Bonnell microarchitecture, on 21 December 2009, Intel announced the Pine Trail platform, including new Atom processor code-named Pineview, with total kit power consumption down 20%. On 28 December 2011, Intel updated the Atom line with the Cedar processors, in December 2012, Intel launched the 64-bit Centerton family of Atom CPUs, designed specifically for use in servers. Centerton adds features previously unavailable in Atom processors, such as Intel VT virtualization technology, on 4 September 2013 Intel launched a 22 nm successor to Centerton, codenamed Avoton. In 2012, Intel announced a new system on chip platform designed for smartphones and it was a continuation of the partnership announced by Intel and Google on 13 September 2011 to provide support for the Android operating system on Intel x86 processors. This range competed with existing SoCs developed for the smartphone and tablet market from companies like Texas Instruments, Nvidia, Qualcomm, on April 29,2016, Intel announced the decision to cancel the Broxton SoC for Smartphones and Tablets. Broxton was to use the newest Atom microarchitecture in combination with an Intel modem, apollo Lake, announced early the same month for low-cost entry PCs, will continue using Atom cores. Intel Atom is a successor of the Intel A100 and A110 low-power microprocessors. However, Intel revealed on 15 October 2007 that it was developing another new mobile processor, codenamed Diamondville, Atom was the name under which Silverthorne would be sold, while the supporting chipset formerly code-named Menlow was called Centrino Atom. At Spring Intel Developer Forum 2008 in Shanghai, Intel officially announced that Silverthorne, Silverthorne would be called the Atom Z5xx series and Diamondville would be called the Atom N2xx series. The more expensive lower-power Silverthorne parts will be used in Intel mobile Internet devices whereas Diamondville will be used in low-cost desktop, several Mini-ITX motherboard samples have also been revealed. Intel and Lenovo also jointly announced an Atom powered MID called the IdeaPad U8, in April 2008, a MID development kit was announced by Sophia Systems and the first board called CoreExpress-ECO was revealed by a German company LiPPERT Embedded Computers, GmbH. In December 2012, Intel released Atom for servers, the S1200 series, Atom processors became available to system manufacturers in 2008. The Pineview line is used in multiple AAC devices for the disabled individual who is unable to speak. Intel consumer electronic SoCs are marketed under the Atom brand, prior to application of the Atom brand, there were number of Intel CE SoCs including, Olo River and Canmore. Intel Atom CE branded SoCs include, Sodaville, Groveland, all Atom processors implement the x86 instruction set, however, support for the Intel 64 instruction set was not added until the desktop Diamondville and desktop and mobile Pineview cores. The Atom N2xx and Z5xx series Atom models cannot run x86-64 code, the Centerton server processors will support the Intel 64 instruction set
13.
AMD Accelerated Processing Unit
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The AMD Accelerated Processing Unit, formerly known as Fusion, is the marketing term for a series of 64-bit microprocessors from AMD designed to act as a CPU and graphics accelerator on a single chip. AMD announced the first generation APUs, Llano for high-performance and Brazos for low-power devices in January 2011, the second-generation Trinity for high-performance and Brazos-2 for low-power devices were announced in June 2012. The third-generation Kaveri for high performance devices was launched in January 2014, while Kabini, the Sony PlayStation 4 and Microsoft Xbox One eighth generation video game consoles both use semi-custom third-generation low-power APUs. Although it does not use the name APU, Intels CPUs with integrated HD Graphics are architecturally very similar, the AMD Fusion project started in 2006 with the aim of developing a system on a chip that combined a CPU with a GPU on a single die. AMD took a key step toward realising such a vision when it acquired the graphics chipset manufacturer ATI in 2006, the project reportedly required three internal iterations of the Fusion concept to create a product deemed worthy of release. The first generation desktop and laptop APU, codenamed Llano, was announced on January 4,2011 at the 2011 CES show in Las Vegas and it featured K10 CPU cores and a Radeon HD 6000-series GPU on the same die on the FM1 socket. An APU for low-power devices was announced as the Brazos platform, based on the Bobcat microarchitecture and a Radeon HD 6000-series GPU on the same die. However, it was revealed that AMD had been the subject of a trademark infringement lawsuit by the Swiss company Arctic. The second generation desktop and laptop APU, codenamed Trinity was announced at AMDs Financial Analyst Day 2010 and it featured Piledriver CPU cores and Radeon HD7000 Series GPU cores on the FM2 socket. AMD released a new APU based on the Piledriver microarchitecture on March 12,2013 for Laptops/Mobile, semi-custom chips were introduced in the Microsoft Xbox One and Sony PlayStation 4 video games consoles. A third generation of the technology was released on 14 January 2014, the desktop and laptop variant is codenamed Kaveri, based on Steamroller architecture, while the low-power variants, codenamed Kabini and Temash, are based on Jaguar architecture. AMD is a member of the HSA Foundation and is consequently actively working on developing the Heterogeneous System Architecture in co-operation with the other members. This architecture allows for the use of graphics accelerators, such as OpenCL, stars AMD K10-cores Integrated Evergreen/VLIW5-based GPU Northbridge PCIe DDR3 memory controller to arbitrate between coherent and non-coherent memory requests. The physical memory is partitioned between the GPU and the CPU, Unified Video Decoder AMD Eyefinity multi-monitor-support The first generation APU, released in June 2011, was used in both desktops and laptops.2 and OpenCL1.2. In performance comparisons against the similarly priced Intel Core i3-2105, the Llano APU was criticised for its poor CPU performance, AMD was later criticised for abandoning Socket FM1 after one generation. Bobcat-based CPU Evergreen/VLIW5-based GPU Northbridge PCIe support, DDR3 SDRAM memory controller to arbitrate between coherent and non-coherent memory requests. The physical memory is partitioned between the GPU and the CPU, Unified Video Decoder The AMD Brazos platform was introduced on January 4,2011 targeting the subnotebook, netbook and low power small form factor markets. It features the 9-watt AMD C-Series APU for netbooks and low power devices as well as the 18-watt AMD E-Series APU for mainstream and value notebooks, all-in-ones and small form factor desktops
14.
Solid-state drive
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A solid-state drive is a solid-state storage device that uses integrated circuit assemblies as memory to store data persistently. SSD technology primarily uses electronic interfaces compatible with traditional block input/output hard disk drives, additionally, new I/O interfaces like SATA Express and M.2 have been designed to address specific requirements of the SSD technology. SSDs have no moving mechanical components and this distinguishes them from traditional electromechanical magnetic disks such as hard disk drives or floppy disks, which contain spinning disks and movable read/write heads. Compared with electromechanical disks, SSDs are typically resistant to physical shock, run silently. However, while the price of SSDs has continued to decline over time, as of 2015, most SSDs use MLC NAND-based flash memory, which is a type of non-volatile memory that retains data when power is lost. For applications requiring fast access but not necessarily data persistence after power loss, such devices may employ batteries as integrated power sources to retain data for a certain amount of time after external power is lost. SSDs had origins in the 1950s with two similar technologies, magnetic core memory and charged capacitor read-only storage and these auxiliary memory units emerged during the era of vacuum-tube computers, though their use ceased with the introduction of cheaper drum storage units. Later, in the 1970s and 1980s, SSDs were implemented in memory for early supercomputers of IBM, Amdahl, and Cray. In the late 1970s, General Instruments produced an electrically alterable ROM which operated somewhat like the later NAND flash memory, unfortunately, a ten-year life was not achievable and many companies abandoned the technology. In 1976, Dataram started selling a product called Bulk Core, in 1978, Texas Memory Systems introduced a 16 kilobyte RAM solid-state drive to be used by oil companies for seismic data acquisition. The following year, StorageTek developed the first RAM solid-state drive, the Sharp PC-5000, introduced in 1983, used 128-kilobyte solid-state storage cartridges containing bubble memory. In 1984, Tallgrass Technologies Corporation had a backup unit of 40 MB with a solid state 20 MB unit built in. The 20 MB unit could be used instead of a hard drive, in September 1986, Santa Clara Systems introduced BatRam, a 4 megabyte mass storage system expandable to 20 MB using 4 MB memory modules. The package included a battery to preserve the memory chip contents when the array was not powered. 1987 saw the entry of EMC Corporation into the SSD market, however, by 1993, EMC had exited the SSD market. Software-based RAM disks remain in use as of 2016 because they are an order of faster than other technology, though they consume CPU resources. In 1989, the Psion MC400 laptop included four slots for removable storage in the form of flash-based solid-state disk cards, in 1991, SanDisk Corporation created a 20 MB solid state drive which sold for around $1,000. In 1994, STEC, Inc. bought Cirrus Logics flash controller operation, in 1995, M-Systems introduced flash-based solid-state drives
15.
Hard disk drive
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The platters are paired with magnetic heads, usually arranged on a moving actuator arm, which read and write data to the platter surfaces. Data is accessed in a manner, meaning that individual blocks of data can be stored or retrieved in any order. HDDs are a type of storage, retaining stored data even when powered off. Introduced by IBM in 1956, HDDs became the dominant secondary storage device for computers by the early 1960s. Continuously improved, HDDs have maintained this position into the era of servers. More than 200 companies have produced HDDs historically, though after extensive industry consolidation most current units are manufactured by Seagate, Toshiba, as of 2016, HDD production is growing, although unit shipments and sales revenues are declining. While SSDs have higher cost per bit, SSDs are replacing HDDs where speed, power consumption, small size, the primary characteristics of an HDD are its capacity and performance. Capacity is specified in unit prefixes corresponding to powers of 1000, the two most common form factors for modern HDDs are 3. 5-inch, for desktop computers, and 2. 5-inch, primarily for laptops. HDDs are connected to systems by standard interface cables such as PATA, SATA, Hard disk drives were introduced in 1956, as data storage for an IBM real-time transaction processing computer and were developed for use with general-purpose mainframe and minicomputers. The first IBM drive, the 350 RAMAC in 1956, was approximately the size of two medium-sized refrigerators and stored five million six-bit characters on a stack of 50 disks. In 1962 the IBM350 RAMAC disk storage unit was superseded by the IBM1301 disk storage unit, cylinder-mode read/write operations were supported, and the heads flew about 250 micro-inches above the platter surface. Motion of the head array depended upon a binary system of hydraulic actuators which assured repeatable positioning. The 1301 cabinet was about the size of three home refrigerators placed side by side, storing the equivalent of about 21 million eight-bit bytes, access time was about a quarter of a second. Also in 1962, IBM introduced the model 1311 disk drive, users could buy additional packs and interchange them as needed, much like reels of magnetic tape. Later models of removable pack drives, from IBM and others, became the norm in most computer installations, non-removable HDDs were called fixed disk drives. Some high-performance HDDs were manufactured with one head per track so that no time was lost physically moving the heads to a track, known as fixed-head or head-per-track disk drives they were very expensive and are no longer in production. In 1973, IBM introduced a new type of HDD code-named Winchester and its primary distinguishing feature was that the disk heads were not withdrawn completely from the stack of disk platters when the drive was powered down. Instead, the heads were allowed to land on an area of the disk surface upon spin-down
16.
Computer keyboard
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In computing, a computer keyboard is a typewriter-style device which uses an arrangement of buttons or keys to act as a mechanical lever or electronic switch. Following the decline of punch cards and paper tape, interaction via teleprinter-style keyboards became the input device for computers. A keyboard typically has characters engraved or printed on the keys, however, to produce some symbols requires pressing and holding several keys simultaneously or in sequence. While most keyboard keys produce letters, numbers or signs, other keys or simultaneous key presses can produce actions or execute computer commands. In normal usage, the keyboard is used as a text entry interface to type text and numbers into a word processor, in a modern computer, the interpretation of key presses is generally left to the software. A computer keyboard distinguishes each physical key from every other and reports all key presses to the controlling software, Keyboards are also used for computer gaming, either with regular keyboards or by using keyboards with special gaming features, which can expedite frequently used keystroke combinations. A keyboard is used to give commands to the operating system of a computer, such as Windows Control-Alt-Delete combination. A command-line interface is a type of user interface operated entirely through a keyboard and it was through such devices that modern computer keyboards inherited their layouts. Earlier models were developed separately by individuals such as Royal Earl House, earlier, Herman Hollerith developed the first keypunch devices, which soon evolved to include keys for text and number entry akin to normal typewriters by the 1930s. From the 1940s until the late 1960s, typewriters were the means of data entry. The keyboard remained the primary, most integrated computer peripheral well into the era of personal computing until the introduction of the mouse as a device in 1984. By this time, text-only user interfaces with sparse graphics gave way to comparatively graphics-rich icons on screen, One factor determining the size of a keyboard is the presence of duplicate keys, such as a separate numeric keyboard, for convenience. A keyboard with few keys is called a keypad, another factor determining the size of a keyboard is the size and spacing of the keys. Reduction is limited by the consideration that the keys must be large enough to be easily pressed by fingers. Alternatively a tool is used for pressing small keys, standard alphanumeric keyboards have keys that are on three-quarter inch centers, and have a key travel of at least 0.150 inches. Desktop computer keyboards, such as the 101-key US traditional keyboards or the 104-key Windows keyboards, include characters, punctuation symbols, numbers. The internationally common 102/104 key keyboards have a left shift key. Also the enter key is usually shaped differently, computer keyboards are similar to electric-typewriter keyboards but contain additional keys, such as the command or Windows keys
17.
Touchpad
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Touchpads are a common feature of laptop computers, and are also used as a substitute for a mouse where desk space is scarce. Because they vary in size, they can also be found on personal digital assistants, wireless touchpads are also available as detached accessories. Touchpads operate in one of several ways, including capacitive sensing, the most common technology used as of 2010 entails sensing the capacitive virtual ground effect of a finger, or the capacitance between sensors. Capacitance-based touchpads will not sense the tip of a pencil or other similar implement, gloved fingers may also be problematic. While touchpads, like touchscreens, are able to sense absolute position, resolution is limited by their size, hardware buttons equivalent to a standard mouses left and right buttons are positioned below, above, or beside the touchpad. Some touchpads and associated device driver software may interpret tapping the pad as a click, Tactile touchpads allow for clicking and dragging by incorporating button functionality into the surface of the touchpad itself. To select, one presses down on the touchpad instead of a physical button, to drag, instead performing the click-and-a-half technique, one presses down while on the object, drags without releasing pressure and lets go when done. Touchpad drivers can also allow the use of fingers to facilitate the other mouse buttons. Some touchpads have hotspots, locations on the used for functionality beyond a mouse. Many touchpads use two-finger dragging for scrolling, also, some touchpad drivers support tap zones, regions where a tap will execute a function, for example, pausing a media player or launching an application. All of these functions are implemented in the device driver software. By 1982 Apollo desktop computers were equipped with a touchpad on the side of the keyboard. Introduced a year later, the Gavilan SC included a touchpad above its keyboard, a touchpad was first developed for Psions MC 200/400/600/WORD Series in 1989. Olivetti and Triumph-Adler introduced the first laptops with touchpad in 1992. Cirque introduced the first widely available touchpad, branded as GlidePoint, in 1994. Apple Inc introduced touchpads to the laptop in the PowerBook series in 1994, using Cirque’s GlidePoint technology. Another early adopter of the GlidePoint pointing device was Sharp, later, Synaptics introduced their touchpad into the marketplace, branded the TouchPad. Epson was an early adopter of this product, as touchpads began to be introduced in laptops in the 1990s, there was often confusion as to what the product should be called. No consistent term was used, and references varied, such as, glidepoint, touch sensitive input device, touchpad, trackpad, users were often presented the option to purchase a pointing stick, touchpad, or trackball
18.
Webcam
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A webcam is a video camera that feeds or streams its image in real time to or through a computer to a computer network. When captured by the computer, the stream may be saved, viewed or sent on to other networks via systems such as the internet. When sent to a location, the video stream may be saved, viewed or on sent there. Unlike an IP camera, a webcam is generally connected by a USB cable, or similar cable, or built into computer hardware, some of them, for example, those used as online traffic cameras, are expensive, rugged professional video cameras. Webcams are known for their low manufacturing cost and their high flexibility and they have also become a source of security and privacy issues, as some built-in webcams can be remotely activated by spyware. The most popular use of webcams is the establishment of video links, other popular uses include security surveillance, computer vision, video broadcasting, and for recording social videos. Researchers claim that this method is accurate to ±5 bpm, Webcams may be installed at places such as childcare centres, offices, shops and private areas to monitor security and general activity. Webcams have been used for augmented reality experiences online, one such function has the webcam act as a magic mirror to allow an online shopper to view a virtual item on themselves. The Webcam Social Shopper is one example of software that utilizes the webcam in this manner, improved video quality has helped webcams encroach on traditional video conferencing systems. Webcam features and performance can vary by program, computer operating system, video calling support has also been added to several popular instant messaging programs. Webcams can be used as security cameras, software is available to allow PC-connected cameras to watch for movement and sound, recording both when they are detected. These recordings can then be saved to the computer, e-mailed, unauthorized access of webcams can present significant privacy issues. In December 2011, Russia announced that 290,000 Webcams would be installed in 90,000 polling stations to monitor the Russian presidential election,2012, Webcams can be used to take video clips and still pictures. Various software tools in use can be employed for this, such as PicMaster, Photo Booth. For a more complete list see Comparison of webcam software, special software can use the video stream from a webcam to assist or enhance a users control of applications and games. Video features, including faces, shapes, models and colors can be observed and tracked to produce a form of control. This can be applied to games, providing additional control, improved interactivity, by removing the IR filter of the webcam, IR LEDs can be used, which has the advantage of being invisible to the naked eye, removing a distraction from the user. TrackIR is a version of this technology
19.
VGA
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Video Graphics Array is the display hardware first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987. Today, the VGA analog interface is used for high definition video, including resolutions of 1080p, while the transmission bandwidth of VGA is high enough to support even higher resolution playback, there can be picture quality degradation depending on cable quality and length. How discernible this degradation is depends on the individuals eyesight and the display, though it is noticeable when switching to. The VGA supports both All Points Addressable graphics modes, and alphanumeric text modes, the other color modes defaulted to standard EGA or CGA compatible palettes, but could still be redefined if desired using VGA-specific programming. g. 400×600 or 360×480, and thin pixels,16 colors and the 70 Hz refresh rate with e. g. 736×410 mode. Its single-chip implementation allowed the VGA to be placed directly on a PC′s motherboard with a minimum of difficulty, since it only required video memory, timing crystals, the original VGA specifications are as follows,256 KB Video RAM 16-color and 256-color paletted display modes. 262, 144-color global palette Selectable 25.175 MHz or 28.322 MHz master pixel clock Usual line rate fixed at 31, compatibility is almost full at BIOS level, but even at register level, a very high value of compatibility is reached. The formula for the VGA horizontal frequency is thus ×525 kHz =4500 ÷143 kHz ≈31.4685 kHz, All other frequencies used by the VGA card are derived from this value by integer multiplication or division. Since the exactness of quartz oscillators is limited, real cards will have higher or lower frequency. All derived VGA timings can be varied widely by software that bypasses the VGA firmware interface and communicates directly with the VGA hardware, the use of other timings may in fact damage such monitors and thus was usually avoided by software publishers. For the most common VGA mode, the timings are. The figures shown in this image may be inaccurate and not match the above table exactly. The same general layout applies, merely at a lower frequency and these timings are the same in the higher frequency mode, but all pixel counts are correspondingly multiplied by 9/8ths – thus,720 active pixels,900 total per line, and a 54 pixel back porch. The monitor is triggered into synchronising at the higher frame rate by use of a positive-polarity VSync pulse. Depending on manufacturer, the details of active period and front/back porch widths, particularly in the horizontal domain. 640×400 @70 Hz is traditionally the video used for booting most VGA-compatible x86 personal computers which show a graphical boot screen. 640×480 @60 Hz is the default Windows graphics mode, up to Windows 2000 and it remains an option in XP and later versions via the boot menu low resolution video option and per-application compatibility mode settings. 320×200 @70 Hz is the most common mode for VGA-era PC games, using exactly the same timings as the 640×400 mode, the actual timings vary slightly from the defined standard
20.
Ethernet
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Ethernet /ˈiːθərnɛt/ is a family of computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks, metropolitan area networks and wide area networks. It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 1983 as IEEE802.3, over time, Ethernet has largely replaced competing wired LAN technologies such as token ring, FDDI and ARCNET. The original 10BASE5 Ethernet uses coaxial cable as a medium, while the newer Ethernet variants use twisted pair. Over the course of its history, Ethernet data transfer rates have increased from the original 2.94 megabits per second to the latest 100 gigabits per second. The Ethernet standards comprise several wiring and signaling variants of the OSI physical layer in use with Ethernet, systems communicating over Ethernet divide a stream of data into shorter pieces called frames. As per the OSI model, Ethernet provides services up to, since its commercial release, Ethernet has retained a good degree of backward compatibility. Features such as the 48-bit MAC address and Ethernet frame format have influenced other networking protocols, the primary alternative for some uses of contemporary LANs is Wi-Fi, a wireless protocol standardized as IEEE802.11. Ethernet was developed at Xerox PARC between 1973 and 1974 and it was inspired by ALOHAnet, which Robert Metcalfe had studied as part of his PhD dissertation. In 1975, Xerox filed a patent application listing Metcalfe, David Boggs, Chuck Thacker, in 1976, after the system was deployed at PARC, Metcalfe and Boggs published a seminal paper. Metcalfe left Xerox in June 1979 to form 3Com and he convinced Digital Equipment Corporation, Intel, and Xerox to work together to promote Ethernet as a standard. The so-called DIX standard, for Digital/Intel/Xerox, specified 10 Mbit/s Ethernet, with 48-bit destination and source addresses and it was published on September 30,1980 as The Ethernet, A Local Area Network. Data Link Layer and Physical Layer Specifications, version 2 was published in November,1982 and defines what has become known as Ethernet II. Formal standardization efforts proceeded at the time and resulted in the publication of IEEE802.3 on June 23,1983. Ethernet initially competed with two largely proprietary systems, Token Ring and Token Bus, in the process, 3Com became a major company. 3Com shipped its first 10 Mbit/s Ethernet 3C100 NIC in March 1981, an Ethernet adapter card for the IBM PC was released in 1982, and, by 1985, 3Com had sold 100,000. Parallel port based Ethernet adapters were produced for a time, with drivers for DOS, by the early 1990s, Ethernet became so prevalent that it was a must-have feature for modern computers, and Ethernet ports began to appear on some PCs and most workstations. This process was sped up with the introduction of 10BASE-T and its relatively small modular connector. Since then, Ethernet technology has evolved to meet new bandwidth, in addition to computers, Ethernet is now used to interconnect appliances and other personal devices
21.
IEEE 802.11g-2003
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IEEE802. 11g-2003 or 802. 11g is an amendment to the IEEE802.11 specification that extended throughput to up to 54 Mbit/s using the same 2.4 GHz band as 802. 11b. This specification under the name of Wi-Fi has been implemented all over the world. The 802. 11g protocol is now Clause 19 of the published IEEE802. 11-2007 standard,802.11 is a set of IEEE standards that govern wireless networking transmission methods. They are commonly used today in their 802. 11a,802. 11b,802. 11g,802. 11n and 802. 11ac versions to provide connectivity in the home, office. 802. 11g is the modulation standard for wireless LANs. It works in the 2.4 GHz band but operates at a raw data rate of 54 Mbit/s. Using the CSMA/CA transmission scheme,31.4 Mbit/s is the maximum net throughput possible for packets of 1500 bytes in size and a 54 Mbit/s wireless rate. In practice, access points may not have an ideal implementation,1500 bytes is the usual limit for packets on the Internet and therefore a relevant size to benchmark against. Smaller packets give even lower theoretical throughput, down to 3 Mbit/s using 54 Mbit/s rate and 64 byte packets,802. 11g hardware is fully backwards compatible with 802. 11b hardware. Details of making b and g work well together occupied much of the technical process. In an 802. 11g network, however, the presence of a legacy 802. 11b participant will significantly reduce the speed of the overall 802. 11g network, some 802. 11g routers employ a back-compatible mode for 802. 11b clients called 54g LRS. Even though 802. 11g operates in the frequency band as 802. 11b. Of the 52 OFDM subcarriers,48 are for data and 4 are pilot subcarriers with a separation of 0.3125 MHz. Each of these subcarriers can be a BPSK, QPSK, 16-QAM or 64-QAM, the total bandwidth is 20 MHz with an occupied bandwidth of 16.6 MHz. Symbol duration is 4 microseconds, which includes an interval of 0.8 microseconds. The actual generation and decoding of orthogonal components is done in baseband using DSP which is then upconverted to 2.4 GHz at the transmitter, each of the subcarriers could be represented as a complex number. The time domain signal is generated by taking an Inverse Fast Fourier transform, correspondingly the receiver downconverts, samples at 20 MHz and does an FFT to retrieve the original coefficients. The advantages of using OFDM include reduced multipath effects in reception, the then-proposed 802. 11g standard was rapidly adopted by consumers starting in January 2003, well before ratification, due to the desire for higher speeds and reductions in manufacturing costs
22.
3G
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3G, short for third generation, is the third generation of wireless mobile telecommunications technology. Later 3G releases, often denoted 3. 5G and 3. 75G, also mobile broadband access of several Mbit/s to smartphones. This ensures it can be applied to voice telephony, mobile Internet access, fixed wireless Internet access, video calls. A new generation of cellular standards has appeared approximately every year since 1G systems were introduced in 1981/1982. Each generation is characterized by new bands, higher data rates. The first 3G networks were introduced in 1998 and fourth generation 4G networks in 2008, several telecommunications companies market wireless mobile Internet services as 3G, indicating that the advertised service is provided over a 3G wireless network. Services advertised as 3G are required to meet IMT-2000 technical standards, including standards for reliability, to meet the IMT-2000 standards, a system is required to provide peak data rates of at least 200 kbit/s. However, many services advertised as 3G provide higher speed than the technical requirements for a 3G service. Recent 3G releases, often denoted 3. 5G and 3. 75G, also mobile broadband access of several Mbit/s to smartphones. The cell phones are typically UMTS and GSM hybrids, several radio interfaces are offered, sharing the same infrastructure, The original and most widespread radio interface is called W-CDMA. The TD-SCDMA radio interface was commercialized in 2009 and is offered in China. The latest UMTS release, HSPA+, can provide data rates up to 56 Mbit/s in the downlink in theory and 22 Mbit/s in the uplink. The CDMA2000 system, first offered in 2002, standardized by 3GPP2, used especially in North America and South Korea, the cell phones are typically CDMA2000 and IS-95 hybrids. The latest release EVDO Rev B offers peak rates of 14.7 Mbit/s downstream, the above systems and radio interfaces are based on spread spectrum radio transmission technology. It is based on the three times as efficient 8PSK modulation scheme as supplement to the original GMSK modulation scheme, EDGE is still used extensively due to its ease of upgrade from existing 2G GSM infrastructure and cell-phones. However, in practice EDGE is seldom marketed as a 3G system, EDGE was also a mode in the IS-136 TDMA system, today ceased. Evolved EDGE, the latest revision, has peaks of 1 Mbit/s downstream and 400 kbit/s upstream, the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System, created and revised by the 3GPP. The family is a revision from GSM in terms of encoding methods and hardware
23.
UMTS
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The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System is a third generation mobile cellular system for networks based on the GSM standard. UMTS uses wideband code division multiple access radio access technology to offer greater spectral efficiency, UMTS specifies a complete network system, which includes the radio access network, the core network and the authentication of users via SIM cards. The technology described in UMTS is sometimes referred to as Freedom of Mobile Multimedia Access or 3GSM. Unlike EDGE and CDMA2000, UMTS requires new base stations and new frequency allocations, UMTS supports maximum theoretical data transfer rates of 42 Mbit/s when Evolved HSPA is implemented in the network. Users in deployed networks can expect a transfer rate of up to 384 kbit/s for Release 99 handsets, since 2006, UMTS networks in many countries have been or are in the process of being upgraded with High-Speed Downlink Packet Access, sometimes known as 3. 5G. Currently, HSDPA enables downlink transfer speeds of up to 21 Mbit/s, work is also progressing on improving the uplink transfer speed with the High-Speed Uplink Packet Access. The first national consumer UMTS networks launched in 2002 with a emphasis on telco-provided mobile applications such as mobile TV. UMTS combines three different terrestrial air interfaces, GSMs Mobile Application Part core, and the GSM family of speech codecs, the air interfaces are called UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access. All air interface options are part of ITUs IMT-2000, in the currently most popular variant for cellular mobile telephones, W-CDMA is used. Please note that the terms W-CDMA, TD-CDMA and TD-SCDMA are misleading, while they suggest covering just a channel access method, they are actually the common names for the whole air interface standards. W-CDMA or WCDMA, along with UMTS-FDD, UTRA-FDD, or IMT-2000 CDMA Direct Spread is an air interface found in 3G mobile telecommunications networks. W-CDMA uses the DS-CDMA channel access method with a pair of 5 MHz wide channels, in contrast, the competing CDMA2000 system uses one or more available 1.25 MHz channels for each direction of communication. W-CDMA systems are criticized for their large spectrum usage, which delayed deployment in countries that acted relatively slowly in allocating new frequencies specifically for 3G services. The specific frequency bands originally defined by the UMTS standard are 1885–2025 MHz for the mobile-to-base, in the US, 1710–1755 MHz and 2110–2155 MHz are used instead, as the 1900 MHz band was already used. Some carriers such as T-Mobile use band numbers to identify the UMTS frequencies, in the late 1990s, W-CDMA was developed by NTT DoCoMo as the air interface for their 3G network FOMA. Later NTT DoCoMo submitted the specification to the International Telecommunication Union as a candidate for the international 3G standard known as IMT-2000. The ITU eventually accepted W-CDMA as part of the IMT-2000 family of 3G standards, as an alternative to CDMA2000, EDGE, later, W-CDMA was selected as an air interface for UMTS. As NTT DoCoMo did not wait for the finalisation of the 3G Release 99 specification, however, this has been resolved by NTT DoCoMo updating their network
24.
Athlon II
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Athlon II is a family of AMD multi-core 45 nm central processing units, which is aimed at the budget to mid-range market and is a complementary product lineup to the Phenom II. The Athlon II series is based on the AMD K10 architecture, however, unlike its Phenom siblings, it does not contain any L3 Cache. There are two principal Athlon II dies, the dual-core Regor die with 1 MB L2 Cache per core, Regor is a native dual-core design with lower TDP and additional L2 to offset the removal of L3 cache. The Athlon II x2 200e-220 chips have less L2 cache than the rest of the Regor line, the triple-core Rana is derived from the Propus quad-core design, with one core disabled. In some cases, the Phenom II Deneb die is used with disabled L3 cache, includes, AMD Direct Connect Architecture AMD Wide Floating Point Accelerator AMD Digital Media XPress 2.0 Technology AMD PowerNow. Technology HyperTransport Technology Processors with an e following the number are low-power models, typically 45W for Athlons. Processors with a u following the number are ultra-low voltage models. SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSE4a, AMD64, CoolnQuiet, NX bit, AMD-V Socket AM3, HyperTransport with 2 GHz Die Size,117 mm² Power consumption, 25-65 Watts First release June 2009 Clock rate,1.6 -3. SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSE4a, AMD64, CoolnQuiet, NX bit, AMD-V Socket AM3, HyperTransport with 2 GHz Die Size,169 mm² Power consumption,45 Watts or 95 Watts First release October 2009 Clock rate,2. 2–3
25.
X86 virtualization
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In computing, x86 virtualization refers to hardware virtualization for the x86 architecture. It allows multiple operating systems to simultaneously share x86 processor resources in a safe, in the late 1990s x86 virtualization was achieved by complex software techniques, necessary to compensate for the processors lack of virtualization support while attaining reasonable performance. In 2006, both Intel and AMD introduced limited hardware virtualization support that allowed simpler virtualization software but offered very little speed benefits, greater hardware support, which allowed substantial speed improvements, came with later processor models. The following discussion focuses only on virtualization of the x86 architecture protected mode, in protected mode the operating system kernel runs at a higher privilege such as ring 0, and applications at a lower privilege such as ring 3. In software-based virtualization, a host OS has direct access to hardware while the guest OSs have limited access to hardware, one approach used in x86 software-based virtualization to overcome this limitation is called ring deprivileging, which involves running the guest OS at a ring higher than 0. To improve performance, the basic blocks need to be cached in a coherent way that detects code patching. A number of key structures used by a processor need to be shadowed. This involves denying the guest OS any access to the page table entries by trapping access attempts. Shadow descriptor tables must therefore be used to track changes made to the tables by the guest OS. I/O device emulation, Unsupported devices on the guest OS must be emulated by a device emulator that runs in the host OS. These techniques incur some performance overhead due to lack of MMU virtualization support, on traditional mainframes, the classic type 1 hypervisor was self-standing and did not depend on any operating system or run any user applications itself. In contrast, the first x86 virtualization products were aimed at workstation computers, there has been some controversy whether the x86 architecture with no hardware assistance is virtualizable as described by Popek and Goldberg. The paravirtualized I/O has significant performance benefits as demonstrated in the original SOSP03 Xen paper, revision D and later 64-bit AMD processors added basic support for segmentation in long mode, making it possible to run 64-bit guests in 64-bit hosts via binary translation. On some platforms, it is possible to run a 64-bit guest on a 32-bit host OS if the processor is 64-bit. In 2005 and 2006, Intel and AMD created new processor extensions to the x86 architecture, the first generation of x86 hardware virtualization addressed the issue of privileged instructions. The issue of low performance of virtualized system memory was addressed with MMU virtualization that was added to the chipset later, hardware support for virtualizing the protected mode itself, however, became available 20 years later. On May 23,2006, AMD released the Athlon 64, the Athlon 64 X2, the APU Fusion processors support AMD-V. AMD-V is not supported by any Socket 939 processors, the only Sempron processors which support it are Huron and Sargas
26.
HDMI
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HDMI is a digital replacement for analog video standards. HDMI implements the EIA/CEA-861 standards, which video formats and waveforms, transport of compressed, uncompressed, and LPCM audio, auxiliary data. CEA-861 signals carried by HDMI are electrically compatible with the CEA-861 signals used by the visual interface. No signal conversion is necessary, nor is there a loss of quality when a DVI-to-HDMI adapter is used. The CEC capability allows HDMI devices to each other when necessary. Several versions of HDMI have been developed and deployed since initial release of the technology but all use the same cable and connector. Other than improved audio and video capacity, performance, resolution and color spaces, newer versions have optional advanced features such as 3D, Ethernet data connection, production of consumer HDMI products started in late 2003. In Europe either DVI-HDCP or HDMI is included in the HD ready in-store labeling specification for TV sets for HDTV, HDMI began to appear on consumer HDTV camcorders and digital still cameras in 2006. As of January 6,2015, over 4 billion HDMI devices have been sold, the HDMI founders are Hitachi, Panasonic, Philips, Silicon Image, Sony, Thomson, RCA and Toshiba. Digital Content Protection, LLC provides HDCP for HDMI, HDMI has the support of motion picture producers Fox, Universal, Warner Bros. and Disney, along with system operators DirecTV, EchoStar and CableLabs. The HDMI founders began development on HDMI1.0 on April 16,2002, at the time, DVI-HDCP and DVI-HDTV were being used on HDTVs. HDMI1.0 was designed to improve on DVI-HDTV by using a connector and adding audio capability and enhanced YCbCr capability. The first Authorized Testing Center, which tests HDMI products, was opened by Silicon Image on June 23,2003, in California, the first ATC in Japan was opened by Panasonic on May 1,2004, in Osaka. The first ATC in Europe was opened by Philips on May 25,2005, in Caen, the first ATC in China was opened by Silicon Image on November 21,2005, in Shenzhen. The first ATC in India was opened by Philips on June 12,2008, the HDMI website contains a list of all the ATCs. According to In-Stat, the number of HDMI devices sold was 5 million in 2004,17.4 million in 2005,63 million in 2006, and 143 million in 2007. HDMI has become the de facto standard for HDTVs, and according to In-Stat, In-Stat has estimated that 229 million HDMI devices were sold in 2008. On April 8,2008 there were over 850 consumer electronics, on January 7,2009, HDMI Licensing, LLC announced that HDMI had reached an installed base of over 600 million HDMI devices
27.
Asus Eee PC
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The Asus Eee PC is a netbook computer line from ASUSTeK Computer Incorporated, and a part of the Asus Eee product family. At the time of its introduction in late 2007, it was noted for its combination of a lightweight, Linux-based operating system, solid-state drive, newer models added the options of Microsoft Windows operating system, rotating media hard disk drives and initially retailed for up to 500 euros. The first Eee PC was a milestone in the computer business, launching the netbook category of small. According to Asus, the name Eee derives from the three Es, an abbreviation of its slogan for the device, Easy to learn, Easy to work. In January 2013, Asus officially ended production of their Eee PC series, citing declining sales due to consumers favoring tablets, however, they subsequently restarted the line with the release of the EeeBook series in 2015. Asus announced two Eee PC models at Computex Taipei 2007, the 701 and the 1001, the 701 base model Eee PC 4G was released on October 16,2007 in Taiwan. Both the price and the size of the device are small in comparison with similar Ultra-Mobile PCs, the Eee series is a response to the XO-1 notebook from the One Laptop per Child initiative. At the Intel Developer Forum 2007, Asus demonstrated the Classmate PC and the Eee PC, and listed specifications for four models of the Eee PC. In some countries, the products have the marketing names EeePC 8G, 4G, 4G Surf, the 4G Surf uses socketed RAM but some revisions do not have a door to access the slot. Asus released a version of the Eee PC with Microsoft Windows XP pre-installed in January 2008, in Japan, the version is known as the 4G-X. Some users of the 701 physically modified the machine to replace the 4 GB solid state drive, the 8 GB versions of the 700 series leave the SSD area on the motherboard empty and connect their SSD as an internal PCI Express Mini Card. Replacing the SSD requires only an SSD compatible with the connector, the SSD area on the motherboard may also be used to install other devices, or accommodate physically larger SSDs, or even to hard-solder an SSD salvaged from a 2 GB or 4 GB700 model. As this requires only soldering on a new device without removing an old one, the Eee 900 series was launched in Hong Kong on April 16,2008, and in the UK on May 1,2008 for £329. It was launched in the US on May 12,2008, the Eee 900 series dimensions are a little larger than the 70x models–measuring 225 ×165 ×35 mm and weighing around 1 kg. The machine has a multi-touch trackpad allowing two-finger scroll and zoom via a pinch gesture, the Intel Atom version is named the EeePC 900a and comes with an 8GB or 16 GB SSD. Some of these Eee PCs also have a 4 GB SSD installed similarly to that in the 701 for a storage space of 20GB. Those that do not are named the Asus EEE900 16G, the MS Windows XP version is named the EeePC900 Win and also comes in two versions, one with a total storage of 12 GB and one with 16 GB. The Linux 20G version is sold for the price as the MS Windows 12G version
28.
Tablet computer
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Tablets often come equipped with sensors, including digital cameras, a microphone, and an accelerometer so images on screens are always displayed upright. The touchscreen display uses the recognition of finger or stylus gestures to replace the mouse, trackpad, tablets are typically larger than smartphones or personal digital assistants with screens 7 inches or larger, measured diagonally. However much of a tablets functionality resembles that of a modern smartphone, tablets can be classified according to the presence and physical appearance of keyboards. Slates and booklets do not have a keyboard, and usually accept text. Hybrids, convertibles, and 2-in-1s do have physical keyboards, yet they also make use of virtual keyboards. Some 2-in-1s have processors and operating systems like a full laptop, most tablets can use separate keyboards connected using Bluetooth. The format was conceptualized in the century and prototyped and developed in the last two decades of that century. In April 2010, Apple released the iPad, the first mass-market tablet to achieve widespread popularity, thereafter in the 2010s, tablets rapidly rose in ubiquity and became a large product category used for both personal and workplace applications. The tablet computer and its operating system began with the development of pen computing. Throughout the 20th century devices with these characteristics have been imagined and created whether as blueprints, prototypes, a device more powerful than todays tablets appeared briefly in Jerry Pournelle and Larry Nivens The Mote in Gods Eye. Adults could also use a Dynabook, but the audience was children. In 1992, Atari showed developers the Stylus, later renamed ST-Pad, the ST-Pad was based on the TOS/GEM Atari ST Platform and prototyped early handwriting recognition. Shiraz Shivjis company Momentus demonstrated in the time a failed x86 MS-DOS based Pen Computer with its own GUI. In 1994, the European Union initiated the NewsPad project, inspired by Clarke, Acorn Computers developed and delivered an ARM-based touch screen tablet computer for this program, branding it the NewsPad, the project ended in 1997. During the November 2000 COMDEX, Microsoft used the term Tablet PC to describe a prototype handheld device they were demonstrating, all three products were based on extended versions of the MS-DOS operating system. In 1992, IBM announced and shipped to developers the 2521 ThinkPad, also based on PenPoint was AT&Ts EO Personal Communicator from 1993, which ran on AT&Ts own hardware, including their own AT&T Hobbit CPU. Apple Computer launched the Apple Newton personal digital assistant in 1993 and it utilised Apples own new Newton OS, initially running on hardware manufactured by Motorola and incorporating an ARM CPU, that Apple had specifically co-developed with Acorn Computers. The operating system and platform design were later licensed to Sharp and Digital Ocean, in 1996, Palm, Inc. released the first of the Palm OS based PalmPilot touch and stylus based PDA, the touch based devices initially incorporating a Motorola Dragonball CPU
29.
Ultrabook
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Intel have specified and trademarked Ultrabook as a brand for a class of high-end subnotebook computers featuring reduced bulk without compromising battery life. Ultrabooks use low-power Intel Core processors, solid-state drives, and a chassis to help meet these criteria. Due to their size, Ultrabooks typically omit common laptop features such as optical disc drives. The name Ultrabook represents a portmanteau of the words ultraportable and notebook, in 2012, Intel Capital press officer Jordan Balk Schaer announced a new fund to support startups working on technologies in line with the companys concept for next generation notebooks. The company set aside a $300 million fund to be spent over the three to four years in areas related to Ultrabooks. Intel announced the Ultrabook concept at Computex in 2011, at the Intel Developer Forum in 2011, four Taiwan ODMs showed prototype Ultrabooks that used Intels Ivy Bridge chips. Intel plans to power consumption of its chips for Ultrabooks, like Ivy Bridge processors. At a presentation at the Consumer Electronics Show, an Intel manager stated that market analysis revealed that screen size motivated some of the reluctance to switch to 13 Ultrabooks. As a result, Intel planned to ensure, through cooperation with manufacturers, IHS iSuppli had originally forecast that 22 million Ultrabooks would be shipped by the end of 2012, and 61 million would be shipped in 2013. By October 2012, IHS had revised its projections down significantly, the cheapest Ultrabooks started at $900 USD, instead of the more mainstream $600 USD, and most Ultrabooks retailed at well over $1000, making them too expensive for wide adoption. Overall there was the shift in the market away from PCs as a whole and towards smartphones and tablet computers as the personal computing devices of choice. Intel banked on the release of Windows 8 as well as new form factors, such as laptops with touchscreens and tablets with keyboard docks. Intel required that manufacturers meet certain specifications to market a laptop as an Ultrabook and these requirements changed with each release of Intels Centrino mobile platform
30.
DVD
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DVD is a digital optical disc storage format invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. The medium can store any kind of data and is widely used for software. DVDs offer higher capacity than compact discs while having the same dimensions. Pre-recorded DVDs are mass-produced using molding machines that physically stamp data onto the DVD, such discs are a form of DVD-ROM because data can only be read and not written or erased. Blank recordable DVD discs can be recorded using a DVD recorder. Rewritable DVDs can be recorded and erased many times, DVDs containing other types of information may be referred to as DVD data discs. The OED also states that in 1995, The companies said the name of the format will simply be DVD. Toshiba had been using the name ‘digital video disk’, but that was switched to ‘digital versatile disk’ after computer companies complained that it left out their applications, Digital versatile disc is the explanation provided in a DVD Forum Primer from 2000 and in the DVD Forums mission statement. There were several formats developed for recording video on optical discs before the DVD, Optical recording technology was invented by David Paul Gregg and James Russell in 1958 and first patented in 1961. A consumer optical disc data format known as LaserDisc was developed in the United States and it used much larger discs than the later formats. CD Video used analog video encoding on optical discs matching the established standard 120 mm size of audio CDs, Video CD became one of the first formats for distributing digitally encoded films in this format, in 1993. In the same year, two new optical disc formats were being developed. By the time of the launches for both formats in January 1995, the MMCD nomenclature had been dropped, and Philips and Sony were referring to their format as Digital Video Disc. Representatives from the SD camp asked IBM for advice on the system to use for their disc. Alan E. Bell, a researcher from IBMs Almaden Research Center, got that request and this group was referred to as the Technical Working Group, or TWG. On August 14,1995, an ad hoc group formed from five computer companies issued a release stating that they would only accept a single format. The TWG voted to both formats unless the two camps agreed on a single, converged standard. They recruited Lou Gerstner, president of IBM, to pressure the executives of the warring factions, as a result, the DVD specification provided a storage capacity of 4.7 GB for a single-layered, single-sided disc and 8.5 GB for a dual-layered, single-sided disc
31.
Live USB
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A live USB is a USB flash drive or external hard disk drive containing a full operating system that can be booted. Intel-based Macs carried this functionality over with booting macOS from USB, specialized USB-based booting was proposed by IBM in 2004 with Reincarnating PCs with Portable SoulPads and Boot GNU/Linux from a FireWire device. Live USBs share many of the benefits and limitations of live CDs, in contrast to live CDs, the data contained on the booting device can be changed and additional data stored on the same device. A user can carry his or her preferred operating system, applications, configuration, on the other hand, a USB device is easily lost or stolen, so data encryption and backup is even more important than with a typical desktop system. However, as USB devices typically achieve lower data rates than internal hard drives. LiveUSB OSes like Ubuntu Linux apply all filesystem writes to a casper filesystem overlay that, once full or out of drive space, becomes unusable. Some computers, particularly older ones, may not have a BIOS that supports USB booting, many which do support USB booting may still be unable to boot the device in question. In these cases a computer can often be redirected to boot from a USB device through use of an initial bootable CD or floppy disk, when the firmware switches to legacy BIOS mode, it no longer recognizes USB drives. This limitation could be fixed by changing the Apple firmware to include a USB driver in BIOS mode. Due to the additional write cycles that occur on a full-blown installation and this doesnt apply to systems particularly designed for live systems which keep all changes in RAM until the user logs off. A write-locked SD card in a USB flash card reader adapter is a way to avoid any duty cycles on the flash medium from writes. The SD card as a WORM device has an unlimited life. An OS such as Linux can then run from the live USB/SD card and use conventional media for writing, such as disks, to preserve system changes. A few Linux distributions and live CDs have ready-made scripts which perform the steps below automatically, in addition, on Knoppix and Ubuntu extra applications can be installed, and a persistent file system can be used to store changes. A base install ranges between as little as 40 MB to as much as 1 GB and this can be easier than recreating the USB system but may be moot since many live USB tools are simple to use. An alternative to a solution is a traditional operating system installation with the elimination of swap partitions. However, an installation is not without disadvantages, due to the additional write cycles that occur on a full installation. To mitigate this, some systems are designed to store changes in RAM until the user powers down the system
32.
Preboot Execution Environment
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In computing, the Preboot eXecution Environment specification describes a standardized client-server environment that boots a software assembly, retrieved from a network, on PXE-enabled clients. On the client side it requires only a PXE-capable network interface controller, the concept behind the PXE originated in the early days of protocols like BOOTP/DHCP/TFTP, and as of 2015 it forms part of the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface standard. In modern data centers, PXE is the most frequent choice for operating system booting, installation and this goal requires a client to use a set of pre-boot services, based on industry standard network protocols. In this case the availability and subjection to standards are a key required to guarantee the network boot process system interoperability. Difficulties on BOOTP implementation among other reasons led to the development of the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol standard RFC2131 published in 1997. This pioneer TFTP/BOOTP/DHCP approach fell short because, at the time, the Preboot Execution Environment was introduced as part of the Wired for Management framework by Intel and is described in the specification published by Intel and SystemSoft. PXE version 2.0 was released in December 1998, the PXE environment makes use of several standard client-server protocols like DHCP and TFTP. The PXE environment relies on a combination of industry-standard Internet protocols, namely UDP/IP, DHCP and these protocols have been selected because they are easily implemented in the clients NIC firmware, resulting in standardized small-footprint PXE ROMs. DHCP is used to provide the client network parameters and specifically the location of the TFTP server hosting, ready for download. The PXE-specific options identify the initiated DHCP transaction as a PXE transaction, standard DHCP servers will be able to answer with a regular DHCPOFFER carrying networking information but not the PXE specific parameters. A PXE client will not be able to if it only receives an answer from a non PXE enabled DHCP server. The client next transfers the NBP into its own random-access memory using TFTP, possibly verifies it, nBPs are just the first link in the boot chain process and they generally request via TFTP a small set of complementary files in order to get running a minimalistic OS executive. The small OS executive loads its own drivers and TCP/IP stack. At this point, the instructions required to boot or install a full OS are provided not over TFTP. The PXE Client/Server environment was designed so it can be integrated with an already in place DHCP. This design goal presented a challenge when dealing with the classic DHCP protocol, corporate DHCP servers are usually subject to strict policies that are designed to prevent easily adding the additional parameters and rules required to support a PXE environment. For this reason the PXE standard developed the concept of DHCP redirection or proxyDHCP, the proxyDHCP server providing TFTP server IP address and name of the NBP only to PXE identified booting clients. Both answers together provide the information to allow the PXE client to continue with its booting process
33.
Linpus Linux
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Linpus Linux is a Fedora-based operating system created by the Taiwanese firm Linpus Technologies Inc. Linpus was designed specifically to support the Asian market, with full Unicode support for the Chinese and Japanese languages. A special version, Linpus Lite, was written to run on devices with lower-cost hardware such as netbooks and it has both an icon and tab-based Simple mode, designed for new users, and, a conventional style PC mode for those wanting a more Microsoft Windows-like interface. It is targeted at handheld devices with screens, and supports resolutions as low as VGA. The Acer Aspire One and Norhtec Gecko netbooks come with Linpus Lite Linux pre-installed, a version for normal desktop computers and servers is also available, as well as a Multimedia version called Linpus Media Center. The Media Center version offers an Upgrade pack to purchase patent licenses from MPEG-LA for DVD, MP3, WMV, the fact that the Acer distribution contains this software prevents the system from being considered a fully free/open operating system
34.
Fedora (operating system)
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Fedora /fᵻˈdɒr. ə/ is an operating system based on the Linux kernel, developed by the community-supported Fedora Project and sponsored by Red Hat. Fedora contains software distributed under a free and open-source license and aims to be on the edge of such technologies. As of February 2016, Fedora has an estimated 1.2 million users, including Linus Torvalds, Fedora has a reputation for focusing on innovation, integrating new technologies early on and working closely with upstream Linux communities. Making changes upstream instead of specifically in Fedora ensures that the changes are available to all Linux distributions, Fedora users can upgrade from version to version without reinstalling. The default desktop environment in Fedora is GNOME and the user interface is the GNOME Shell. Other desktop environments, including KDE Plasma, Xfce, LXDE, MATE and Cinnamon, are available, Fedora uses the RPM package management system. Flatpak is also supported by default, and support for Ubuntus snaps can also be added, Fedora uses Delta RPMs when updating installed packages. A Delta RPM contains the difference between an old and new version of a package and this means that only the changes between the installed package and the new one are downloaded reducing network traffic and bandwidth consumption. Fedora provides hardening wrapper, and does hardening for all of its packages by using features such as position-independent executable. Fedora comes installed with a range of software such as LibreOffice. Additional software is available from the repositories and can be installed using the DNF package manager or GNOME Software. Additionally, extra repositories can be added to the system, so that software not available in Fedora can be installed, popular third-party repositories include RPM Fusion free and non-free repositories. Fedora also provides users with a build system for creating their own repositories called Copr. It comes with GNOME by default but other desktops can be installed or can be installed as Spins. Fedora Server – Its target usage is for servers, and it includes the latest data center technologies and this edition doesnt come with a desktop environment, but one can be installed. Fedora Cloud – It provides an image of Fedora which includes just the bare essentials. It is meant for deployment in cloud computing and it also provides Fedora Atomic Host images which are optimized minimal images for container uses. A Live USB drive can be created using Fedora Live USB creator or the dd command and it allows the users to try Fedora without making changes to the hard disk
35.
Firefox
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Mozilla Firefox is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary the Mozilla Corporation. Firefox was created in 2002, under the name Phoenix by the Mozilla community members who wanted a standalone rather than the Mozilla Application Suite bundle. Even during its phase, Firefox proved to be popular with its testers and was praised for its speed, security. Firefox was released in November 2004, and was successful with 60 million downloads within nine months. Firefox is considered the successor of Netscape Navigator, as the Mozilla community was created by Netscape in 1998 before their acquisition by AOL. Firefox usage grew to a peak of 32% at the end of 2009, usage then declined in competition with Google Chrome. As of January 2016, Firefox has between 9% and 16% of worldwide usage as a browser, making it the second most popular web browser. Firefox is still the most popular browser in Cuba, Eritrea, and Germany, with 85. 93%,79. 39%. It is also the most popular browser in many other African countries. According to Mozilla, as of December 2014 there were half a billion Firefox users around the world, the Firefox project began as an experimental branch of the Mozilla project by Dave Hyatt, Joe Hewitt, and Blake Ross. They believed the requirements of Netscapes sponsorship and developer-driven feature creep compromised the utility of the Mozilla browser. To combat what they saw as the Mozilla Suites software bloat, they created a stand-alone browser, on April 3,2003, the Mozilla Organization announced that they planned to change their focus from the Mozilla Suite to Firefox and Thunderbird. The community-driven SeaMonkey was formed and eventually replaced the Mozilla Application Suite in 2005, the Firefox project has undergone several name changes. Phoenix was renamed due to issues with Phoenix Technologies, the replacement name, Firebird. In response, the Mozilla Foundation stated that the browser would always bear the name Mozilla Firebird to avoid confusion, after further pressure, on February 9,2004, Mozilla Firebird became Mozilla Firefox. The name Firefox was said to be derived from a nickname of the red panda, for the abbreviation of Firefox, Mozilla prefers Fx or fx, though it is often abbreviated as FF. The Firefox project went through many versions before the version 1.0 was released on November 9,2004, search, which is a front end of Microsoft search engine Bing, by default in most localizations. Firefox Hello is scheduled to be removed in September 2016, functions can be added through add-ons created by third-party developers
36.
OpenOffice.org
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OpenOffice. org, commonly known as OpenOffice, is a discontinued open-source office suite. It was a version of the earlier StarOffice, which Sun Microsystems acquired in 1999. OpenOffice included a word processor, a spreadsheet, an application, a drawing application, a formula editor. Its default file format was the OpenDocument Format, an ISO/IEC standard and it could also read a wide variety of other file formats, with particular attention to those from Microsoft Office. Sun open-sourced the OpenOffice in July 2000 as a competitor to Microsoft Office, in 2011 Oracle Corporation, the then-owner of Sun, announced that it would no longer offer a commercial version of the suite and soon after donated the project to the Apache Foundation. Apache renamed the software Apache OpenOffice, other active successor projects include LibreOffice and NeoOffice. OpenOffice. org was primarily developed for Linux, Microsoft Windows and Solaris and it was distributed under the GNU Lesser General Public License version 3, early versions were also available under the Sun Industry Standards Source License. OpenOffice. org originated as StarOffice, an office suite developed by German company StarDivision from 1985 on. In August 1999, StarDivision was acquired by Sun Microsystems for US$59.5 million, the new project was known as OpenOffice. org, and the code was released as open source on 13 October 2000. The first public release was Milestone Build 638c, released in October 2001. OpenOffice. org became the office suite on Linux and spawned many derivative versions. It quickly became noteworthy competition to Microsoft Office, achieving 14% penetration in the enterprise market by 2004. It was made OpenOffice. orgs native format from version 2 on, many governments and other organisations adopted OpenDocument, particularly given there was a free implementation of it readily available. Development of OpenOffice. org was sponsored primarily by Sun Microsystems, developers who wished to contribute code were required to sign a Contributor Agreement granting joint ownership of any contributions to Sun, in support of the StarOffice business model. This was controversial for many years, an alternative Public Documentation Licence was also offered for documentation not intended for inclusion or integration into the project code base. After acquiring Sun in January 2010, Oracle Corporation continued developing OpenOffice. org and StarOffice, oracles lack of activity on or visible commitment to OpenOffice. org had also been noted by industry observers. TDF released the fork LibreOffice in January 2011, which most Linux distributions soon moved to, in April 2011, Oracle stopped development of OpenOffice. org and fired the remaining StarDivision development team. In June 2011, Oracle contributed the trademarks to the Apache Software Foundation and it also contributed Oracle-owned code to Apache for relicensing under the Apache License, at the suggestion of IBM, as IBM did not want the code put under a copyleft license
37.
Xfce
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Xfce is a free and open-source desktop environment for Unix and Unix-like operating systems, such as Linux, Solaris, and BSD. Xfce aims to be fast and lightweight, while still being visually appealing, Xfce embodies the traditional UNIX philosophy of modularity and re-usability. It consists of separately packaged parts that provide all functions of the desktop environment. Another priority of Xfce is adherence to standards, specifically those defined at freedesktop. org, like GNOME, Xfce is based on the GTK+ toolkit. It uses the Xfwm window manager, described below and its configuration is entirely mouse-driven, with the configuration files hidden from the casual user. Xfce does not feature any desktop animations, but Xfwm supports compositing, olivier Fourdan started the project in 1996 as a Linux version of the Common Desktop Environment, a Unix desktop environment that was initially proprietary and later released as free software. However, after a years of development and several major versions, Xfce has diverged from CDE. The name Xfce originally stood for XForms Common Environment, but since that time Xfce has been rewritten twice, the name survived, but it is no longer capitalized as XFCE, but rather as Xfce. The developers current stance is that the no longer stands for anything specific. It has been nicknamed Cholesterol Free Desktop Environment, another possibility X Freakin Cool Environment is suggested at Xfce Wiki. As a result, Xfce is currently an acronym that doesnt stand for anything, Xfce began as a simple project created with XForms. Olivier Fourdan released the program, which was just a simple taskbar, Fourdan continued developing the project and in 1998, Xfce 2 was released with the first version of Xfces window manager, Xfwm. He requested to have the project included in Red Hat Linux, Red Hat only accepted software that was open source and released under either a GPL or BSD compatible license, whereas, at the time, XForms was closed source and free only for personal use. For the same reason, Xfce was not in Debian before version 3, in March 1999 Fourdan began a complete rewrite of the project based on GTK+, a non-proprietary toolkit rising in popularity. The result was Xfce 3.0, licensed under the GPL, along with being based completely on free software, the project gained GTK+ drag-and-drop support, native language support, and improved configurability. Xfce was uploaded to SourceForge. net in February 2001, starting with version 3.8.1, in version 4.0.0, released 25 September 2003, Xfce was upgraded to use the GTK+2 libraries. Changes in 4.2.0 included a compositing manager for Xfwm which added support for transparency and drop shadows. In January 2007, Xfce 4.4.0 was released and this included the Thunar file manager, a replacement for Xffm
38.
Context menu
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A context menu is a menu in a graphical user interface that appears upon user interaction, such as a right-click mouse operation. A context menu offers a set of choices that are available in the current state, or context. Usually the available choices are actions related to the selected object, from a technical point of view, such a context menu is a graphical control element. Context menus first appeared in the Smalltalk environment on the Xerox Alto computer, context menus are opened via various forms of user interaction that target a region of the GUI that supports context menus. On systems that support one-button mice, context menus are opened by pressing and holding the primary mouse button or by pressing a keyboard/mouse button combination. A keyboard alternative for macOS is to enable Mouse keys in Universal Access, then, depending on whether a laptop or compact or extended keyboard type is used, the shortcut is Function+Ctrl+5 or Ctrl+5 or Function+Ctrl+i. On systems with an interface such as MacBook or Surface. This behavior differs from that of macOS and most free software GUIs, in Microsoft Windows, pressing the Application key or Shift+F10 opens a context menu for the region that has focus. Context menus are sometimes hierarchically organized, allowing navigation through different levels of the menu structure and this makes it possible to quickly repeat an action with the parameters of the previous execution, and to better separate options from actions. The following window managers provide context menu functionality, 9wm IceWM - middleclick and rightclick context menus on desktop, menubar. Context menus usually open in a position under the pointer. If the context menu is being triggered by keyboard, such as by using Shift + F10, microsofts guidelines call for always using the term context menu, and explicitly deprecate shortcut menu
39.
Linux distribution
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A Linux distribution is an operating system made from a software collection, which is based upon the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. A typical Linux distribution comprises a Linux kernel, GNU tools and libraries, additional software, documentation, a system, a window manager. Most of the software is free and open-source software made available both as compiled binaries and in source code form, allowing modifications to the original software. Usually, Linux distributions optionally include some proprietary software that may not be available in source code form, the software is usually adapted to the distribution and then packaged into software packages by the distributions maintainers. The software packages are available online in so-called repositories, which are storage locations usually distributed around the world, almost six hundred Linux distributions exist, with close to five hundred out of those in active development. There are commercially backed distributions, such as Fedora, openSUSE and Ubuntu, most distributions come ready to use and pre-compiled for a specific instruction set, while some distributions are distributed mostly in source code form and compiled locally during installation. Linus Torvalds developed the Linux kernel and distributed its first version,0.01, since the installation procedure was complicated, especially in the face of growing amounts of available software, distributions sprang up to simplify this. Early distributions included the following, H. J, the SLS distribution was not well maintained, so in July 1993 a new distribution, called Slackware and based on SLS, was released by Patrick Volkerding. Also dissatisfied with SLS, Ian Murdock set to create a distribution by founding Debian. Most early adopters were familiar with Unix from work or school and they embraced Linux distributions for their low cost, and availability of the source code for most or all of the software included. Originally, the distributions were simply a convenience, but later became the usual choice even for Unix or Linux experts. To date, Linux has become popular in server and embedded devices markets than in the desktop market. For example, Linux is used on over 50% of web servers, many Linux distributions provide an installation system akin to that provided with other modern operating systems. Distributions are normally segmented into packages, each package contains a specific application or service. Examples of packages are a library for handling the PNG image format, the package is typically provided as compiled code, with installation and removal of packages handled by a package management system rather than a simple file archiver. Each package intended for such a PMS contains meta-information such as a description, version. Although Linux distributions typically contain much more software than proprietary operating systems, an example would be a newer version of a software application than that supplied with a distribution, or an alternative to that chosen by the distribution. If the additional software is distributed in form, this approach requires local compilation
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Joli OS
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Joli OS is an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution developed by the French company Jolicloud. Joli OS is now an open project, with source code hosted on GitHub. On 22 November 2013, the decided to discontinue Joli OS. The project was launched in 2008 by Netvibes founder Tariq Krim, Krim originally wanted to build a laptop using environmentally friendly manufacturing methods, but the two co-founders refocused the effort on building an operating system. After purchasing a few netbooks and renewing their acquaintance with Linux, they rented space in the Montorgueil area of Paris and were later joined by another developer. The alpha version was built with the help of developers, kernel hackers and designers, venture capital firms Atomico Ventures and Mangrove Capital Partners have provided $4.2 million in funding. Version 1.0 was released in July 2010 and version 1.1 was released on 7 December 2010, version 1.2 was released on 9 March 2011. Joli OS is now built on top of Ubuntu with a customized kernel, Joli OS was designed for easy installation, with Wi-Fi, bluetooth, and 3G modem support all included. The operating system all the major netbooks, including models from Asus, Acer, Dell, HP, MSI, Samsung. Jolicloud claims the OS supports 98% of netbooks with out-of-the-box compatibility but also works on a large number of other devices, up to 10 years old, laptops, desktops. The launcher displays only those applications supported in the library, account management is available from any computer with an HTML5-compatible browser. Joliclouds HTML5 implementation is through the Chromium web browser, which serves as middleware for Web rendering, reviewers evaluating Joli OS differed in their appraisals, depending on whether they were writing for a user who is new to Linux or is more experienced with the operating system. Writing on a Condé Nast Traveler blog, Mike Haney called Joli OS an easy, free OS that you dont have to be a code-monkey to install and does everything you need your netbook to do, quickly. I put it on a Lenovo netbook this weekend that was running like molasses under Windows 7 and he compared Joli OS in look and function to iOS, the operating system used by the Apple iPad, though with the folders and files of a conventional computer. In Computerworld, Serdar Yegulalp wrote that Joli OS1.0 feels like a beta, not a 1.0 release. He noted comparable performance with Windows 7 but slightly faster boot times, but ZDNet reporter David Meyer disagreed with that performance assessment after running Jolicloud on a Nokia Booklet 3G in order to take advantage of that devices unusual 720p screen resolution. In Ars Technica, Ryan Paul wrote that there are a lot of ideas on display in Jolicloud 1.0. He saw no reason for Linux users, particularly Ubuntu users, examples where Jolicloud developers did additional work to ensure out-of-the-box functionality include support for Poulsbo GMA500 drivers, touchscreens and 3G
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Ubuntu Netbook Edition
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UNE was available starting with Ubuntu release 8.04. Canonical, the developers of Ubuntu, collaborated with the Moblin project to ensure optimization for lower hardware requirements, beginning with version 10.10, Ubuntu Netbook Edition used the Unity desktop as its desktop interface. The classic netbook interface was available in Ubuntus software repositories as an option, because Ubuntus desktop edition has moved to the same Unity interface as the netbook edition, starting with Ubuntu 11.04, the netbook edition was merged into the desktop edition. UNE could be installed in several ways, by first installing the regular Ubuntu package, then adding the UNE repository, starting with Ubuntu 10.04, the packages are available on main repositories. Starting with UNE10.10, the interface was switched to Unity, dell Ubuntu Netbook Edition is built specifically for the hardware profile of the Inspiron Mini 9, and is also available for the Inspiron Mini 12. It includes a custom interface and launcher as well as non-free codecs such as MPEG-4. It began shipping on September 22,2008, Ubuntu Netbook Edition installed and ran correctly on the original Celeron M900 MHz Asus Eee PC, but performance and graphical displays were hindered in comparison to Atom-based netbooks
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Comparison of netbook-oriented Linux distributions
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Netbooks are small laptops, with screen sizes between approximately 7 and 12 inches and low power consumption. They use either an SSD or a HDD for storage, have up to 2 gigabytes of RAM, lack an optical disk drive, the name emphasizes their use as portable Internet appliances. There are special Linux distributions, called netbook distributions, for these machines, all such distributions purport to be optimized for use with small, low-resolution displays. They tend to include a mix of VOIP and web-focused tools. For instance, Nokia Maemo and Asus customized Xandros both ship with Skype and Adobe Flash installed, and Ubuntus Netbook Edition offers the option to do the same for OEMs
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Kuki Linux
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Kuki Linux was a lightweight Ubuntu based distribution that was active in 2008 and 2009. It was created to be a replacement for the Fedora based Linpus Linux distribution bundled with the Acer Aspire One with the aim of being lightweight, fast, like Ubuntu, Kuki Linux was free software. Kuki Linux was developed as a replacement for the Linpus Operating System installed on the Linux variant of the Acer Aspire One, kukis aims included backwards compatibility with Ubuntu, to make optimal use of the netbooks hardware, and to provide an intuitive user interface. Kuki Linuxs key aim was to deliver full hardware compatibility with the Acer Aspire One without additional configuration or modification and it used the Xfce desktop environment. The Kuki Linux Kernel contained driver modules chosen to make it better with the Acer Aspire Ones hardware. Kuki Linux was maintained by a group of developers from around the world, Joao Ferro. Joseph Braddock, also known as vw72, was the projects kernel maintainer, pedro Quintas, also known as linxisp, was the website maintainer. He also hosted the projects website, dulcidio Costa, also known as dcosta or hades_pt, contributed professionally designed wallpapers to the project. Kuki Linux was developed from 2008 to 2009, easy Peasy operative system for netbooks Kuki Linux Website on the Internet Archive Kuki at Distrowatch Main Sponsor LINXISP
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ArchOne
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ArchOne is an Arch Linux based Operating System, optimized for Acer Aspire One netbooks, but usable on other PCs with similar hardware. ArchOne is preconfigured to support the hardware of the Acer Aspire One, drivers for network, sound, graphics, special keys and the webcam are active and make the hardware ready to use immediately upon first boot. ArchOne uses a model for upgrades. ArchOne has three versions, each with a different desktop manager, Openbox edition, GNOME edition and the KDE edition. But with the application software, including Firefox, Google Chrome, Skype, KeepassX, Hsoconnect, Gparted, GIMP, OpenOffice. org, VLC
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Moblin
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Moblin, short for mobile Linux, was an open source operating system and application stack for Mobile Internet Devices, netbooks, nettops and embedded devices. It first merged with the Maemo effort and then both were integrated with the MeeGo project, Nokia stopped all MeeGo development after switching to Windows Phone. Intel discontinued work on MeeGo using Tizen instead, after the MeeGo project was scrapped, a group of people left Nokia and formed their own company, Jolla Oy. Jolla is currently developing the successor of MeeGo, Sailfish OS, built around the Intel Atom processor, all builds were designed to minimize boot times and power consumption as a netbook and MID-centric operating system. The netbook/desktop version of Moblin supported other chipsets based on the SSSE3 instruction set, such as the Core2, dell also once accepted orders for its Ubuntu Moblin Remix, a Canonical Ltd. which built Moblin on top of Ubuntu distribution as base. Few commercial products existed around Moblin 2 most prominently a Foxconn netbook, Mandriva offered Moblins v2 version to all Mandriva distribution and netbook owners. At the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2010, MSI and Novell announced SUSE Moblin preloaded on the MSI U135 netbook and it was demonstrated at both the MSI and Intel booths at the show. In addition, Samsung showed four netbooks preloaded with SUSE Moblin, at the Mobile World Congress in February 2010, it was announced that the Moblin project would be merging with Maemo to create the MeeGo mobile software platform. Intel launched the Moblin. org site in July 2007 and significantly updated the site in April 2008 with the launch of the Intel Atom processor family at the Intel Developer Forum in Shanghai, a custom software development kit is available on the site. The Moblin 2 OS was specifically designed to run on an Intel Atom processor in a netbook, in April 2009, Intel turned Moblin over to the Linux Foundation. Subsequently, Moblin was merged with Maemo, becoming MeeGo, meeGos development was also hosted by the Linux Foundation, and initially governed by a Technical Steering Group overseen by Imad Sousou of Intel and Nokias Valtteri Halla. The Linux Foundation canceled MeeGo in September 2011 in favor of Tizen, on May 19,2009, Imad Sousou announced the release of Moblin v2.0 beta for Netbooks and Nettops for developer testing. Moblin 2s Core distribution is based on recent builds of Fedora, the new UI also includes an integrated Gecko web browser. The Register was impressed by the interface but noted the presence of quite a few apparent bugs, Moblin Image Creator, allows developers to create a custom Linux file system for a device. Kernel, platform-specific patches to the Linux kernel and various other device drivers, UI Framework, screen interface and its underlying Clutter- and GTK+-based framework. The Moblin browser supports key plug-ins like Adobe Flash, multimedia, audio and video playback and photo viewing including Helix or GStreamer multimedia frameworks with Universal Plug and Play support through the GUPnP library. Linux Connection Manager, Internet connections that can be extended through plug-ins to support various wired or wireless technologies, myzone is a variation on the desktop or home screen. It provides an overview of the user’s latest activities on the system. fm, a custom toolbar provides more personalized content on the screens it navigates to, than most toolbars do
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SliTaz
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SliTaz GNU/Linux is a lightweight GNU/Linux distribution, community-based, suitable for use on older hardware and as a Live CD or Live USB. The name SliTaz stands for Simple Light Incredible Temporary Autonomous Zone, SliTaz uses the Openbox window manager. Additional packages are added using a program called TazPanel and this is due to the specific package format that SliTaz uses. It can still use packages from the more popular though, as Debian. By default, SliTaz offers no persistence, however it can still be added if the user wishes, the choice of the filesystem/bootloader used with slitaz is then of importance however, persistence being only available with ext2 and ext3 filesystems and the syslinux or extlinux boot loader. Another useful tool is TazLiTo, with which users can create their own LiveCD based on selected packages or even based upon the current system state, SliTaz GNU/Linux is supported on all machines based on the i486 or x86 Intel compatible processors. The Live CD has four variants of SliTaz, requiring from 192 MB of RAM for the Core system to 48 MB for a text mode, SliTaz can even run in 16 MB of RAM and a little swap memory. SliTaz can be booted from a Live CD, Live USB, floppy disk, or a local network, or can be installed. As with any Linux distribution, the route of development of SliTaz is mainly determined by the coders themselves, for SliTaz 5, some major changes seem to be the swapping of systemd by BusyBoxs init and udev, hence avoiding safety risks, and more implementation of Qt. An implementation of x64 and ARM architectures are currently under development, comparison of Linux Live Distros Lightweight Linux distribution List of Linux distributions that run from RAM Official website
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Arch Linux
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Arch Linux is a Linux distribution for computers based on i686 and x86-64 architectures. However, it is slowly phasing out support for the i686 architecture, Arch Linux is composed predominantly of free and open-source software, and supports community involvement. A package manager written specifically for Arch Linux, pacman, is used to install, remove, Arch Linux has comprehensive documentation in the form of a community wiki, called the ArchWiki. Inspired by CRUX, another minimalist distribution, Judd Vinet started Arch Linux in March 2002, Vinet led Arch Linux until 1 October 2007, when he stepped down due to lack of time, transferring control of the project to Aaron Griffin. Originally only for 32-bit x86 CPUs, the first x86_64 installation ISO was released in 2006, the end of i686 support was announced in January 2017, with the February 2017 ISO being the last one including i686, and finally making the architecture unsupported in November 2017. Until pacman version 4.0.0 Arch Linuxs package manager lacked support for signed packages, packages and metadata were not verified for authenticity by pacman during the download-install process. Without package authentication checking, tampered-with or malicious repository mirrors can compromise the integrity of a system, Pacman 4 allowed verification of the package database and packages, but it was disabled by default. In November 2011 package signing became mandatory for new package builds, in June 2012, package signing verification became official and is now enabled by default in the installation process. Arch is largely based around binary packages, packages are targeted for IA-32 and x86-64 microprocessors to assist performance on modern hardware. A ports/ebuild-like system is provided for automated source compilation, known as the Arch Build System. This is largely achieved by encouraging the use of succinctly commented, clean configuration files that are arranged for quick access and this has earned it a reputation as a distribution for intermediate and advanced Linux users who arent afraid of the command line. Relying on complex tools to manage and build system is going to hurt the end users. If you try to hide the complexity of the system, youll end up with a complex system. Layers of abstraction that serve to hide internals are never a good thing, instead, the internals should be designed in a way such that they NEED no hiding. The Arch Linux website supplies ISO images that can be run from CD or USB, a simple command line script is used to install the base system. The installation of packages, which are not part of the base system, can be done with either pacstrap. An alternative to using CD or USB images for installation is to use the version of the package manager Pacman. The user can mount their newly formatted drive partition, and use pacstrap to install base and this method is useful when installing Arch Linux onto USB flash drives, or onto a temporarily mounted device which belongs to another system
