In computing, instant-on is the ability to boot nearly instantly, allowing to go online or to use a specific application without waiting for a PC's traditional operating system to launch. Instant-on technology is today mostly used on laptops, netbooks, and nettops because the user can boot up one program, instead of waiting for the PC's operating system to boot. This allows a user to launch a single program, such as a movie-playing program or a web browser, without the need of the whole operating system. There still remain a few true instant-on machines such as the Atari ST, as described in the Booting article. These machines had complete Operating Systems resident in ROM similar to the way in which the BIOS function is conventionally provided on current computer architectures. The "instant-on" concept as used here results from loading an OS, such as a legacy system DOS, with a small hard drive footprint. Latency inherent to mechanical drive performance can also be eliminated by using Live USB or Live SD flash memory to load systems at electronic speeds which are orders of magnitude faster.
Maemo is a software platform originally developed by Nokia, now developed by the community, for smartphones and Internet tablets. The platform comprises both the Maemo operating system and SDK. Maemo played a key role in Nokia's strategy to compete with Apple and Android, and that strategy failed for complex, institutional and strategic reasons.
A mobile Internet device (MID) is a multimedia capable mobile device providing wireless Internet access. They are designed to provide entertainment, information and location-based services for personal or business use. They allow 2-way communication and real-time sharing. They have been described as filling a niche between smartphones and tablet computers.
Intel Atom is a line of IA-32 and x86-64 instruction set ultra-low-voltage processors by Intel Corporation designed to reduce electric consumption and power dissipation in comparison with ordinary processors of the Intel Core series. Atom is mainly used in netbooks, nettops, embedded applications ranging from health care to advanced robotics, mobile Internet devices (MIDs) and phones. The line was originally designed in 45 nm complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) technology and subsequent models, codenamed Cedar, used a 32 nm process.
A mobile operating system is an operating system for smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, smartglasses, or other non-laptop personal mobile computing devices. While computers such as typical/mobile laptops are "mobile", the operating systems used on them are generally not considered mobile ones, as they were originally designed for desktop computers that historically did not have or need specific mobile features. This line distinguishing mobile and other forms has become blurred in recent years, due to the fact that newer devices have become smaller and more mobile unlike hardware of the past. Key notabilities blurring this line are the introduction of tablet computers and light-weight laptops and the hybridization of the two in 2-in-1 PCs.
Ubuntu Netbook Edition (UNE), known as Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR) prior to the release of Ubuntu 10.04, is a discontinued version of the Ubuntu operating system (OS) that had been optimized to enable it to work better on netbooks and other devices with small screens or with the Intel Atom CPU.
Acer Aspire One is a line of netbooks first released in July 2008 by Acer Inc.
A mini PC is a small-sized, inexpensive, low-power, legacy-free desktop computer designed for basic tasks such as web browsing, accessing web-based applications, document processing, and audio/video playback.
The Dell Inspiron Mini Series is a line of subnotebook/netbook computers designed by Dell. The series was introduced in September 2008 amidst the growing popularity of low-cost netbook computers introduced by competitors.
oFono is a free software project for mobile telephony (GSM/UMTS) applications. It is built on 3GPP standards and uses a high-level D-Bus API for use by telephony applications. oFono is free software released under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2.
OpenedHand, a computer software, was an embedded Linux start-up that was acquired by Intel in Q3, 2008. The firm developed an OpenEmbedded distribution called Poky Linux and the Clutter library. The latter is heavily used in the customized UIs of Maemo and Moblin, embedded Linux distributions from Nokia and Intel, respectively.
Joli OS was an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution created by Tariq Krim and Romain Huet co-founders of the French company Jolicloud. Joli OS is now an open source project, with source code hosted on GitHub.
MeeGo is a discontinued Linux distribution hosted by the Linux Foundation, using source code from the operating systems Moblin and Maemo. MeeGo was primarily targeted at mobile devices and information appliances in the consumer electronics market. It was designed to act as an operating system for hardware platforms such as netbooks, entry-level desktops, nettops, tablet computers, mobile computing and communications devices, in-vehicle infotainment devices, SmartTV / ConnectedTV, IPTV-boxes, smart phones, and other embedded systems.
The Nokia Nseries was a high-end lineup of feature phones, smartphones, and tablets marketed by Nokia Corporation from 2005 to 2011. The Nseries devices commonly supported multiple high-speed wireless technologies at the time, such as 3G, or Wireless LAN. Digital multimedia services, such as music playback, photo/video capture or viewing, gaming or internet services were the central focus of the lineup. The lineup was replaced in 2011 by the Nokia Lumia line as the company's primary smartphone lineup.
The Nokia N9 is a flagship smartphone developed by Nokia, running on the Linux-based MeeGo mobile operating system. Announced in June 2011 and released in September, it was the first and only device from Nokia with MeeGo, partly because of the company's partnership with Microsoft announced that year. It was initially released in three colors: black, cyan and magenta, before a white version was announced at Nokia World 2011.
Mer was a free and open-source software distribution, targeted at hardware vendors to serve as a middleware for Linux kernel-based mobile-oriented operating systems. It is a fork of MeeGo.
Jolla Oy is a Finnish technology company; vendor and developer of Sailfish OS. Headquartered in Tampere, Finland, Jolla has its own research and development offices in Helsinki, Tampere and Cyberport, Hong Kong. Jolla was founded in 2011 by former Nokia staff of the MeeGo project team to use the MeeGo opportunities and its "endless possibilities".
Sailfish OS is a Linux-based operating system based on free software, and open source projects such as Mer as well as including a closed source UI. The project is being developed by the Finnish company Jolla.
Besides the Linux distributions designed for general-purpose use on desktops and servers, distributions may be specialized for different purposes including computer architecture support, embedded systems, stability, security, localization to a specific region or language, targeting of specific user groups, support for real-time applications, or commitment to a given desktop environment. Furthermore, some distributions deliberately include only free software. As of 2015, over four hundred Linux distributions are actively developed, with about a dozen distributions being most popular for general-purpose use.
Linux for mobile devices, sometimes referred to as mobile Linux, is the usage of Linux-based operating systems on portable devices, whose primary or only Human interface device (HID) is a touchscreen. It mainly comprises smartphones and tablet computers, but also some mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs) portable media players that come with a touchscreen separately.
