Using a USB Flash Drive on the Motherboard for the Operating System? (1 Viewer)

[Steve R.]

When personal computers first came out the operating system was located on a ROM chip that was on the motherboard. Made things a bit difficult to upgrade. Subsequently the operating system ended-up on the hard drive. Time to ditch placing the operating system on the hard drive?

Given the advances in technology why not go back to using an upgradeable ROM chip or have a USB port on the motherboard for the operating system itself?
Should make booting much faster.

However, this approach would present significant challenges concerning the vast number of user added programs, some of which are very closely intertwined with the operating system, such a MS Office and MS Explorer.

Implementing this approach would mean establishing a virtual "wall" between the add-on programs and the operating system. That would be a good thing, since add-on programs should not "modify" the operating system.

User added programs, under this approach, would still reside on the hard drive.

Your thoughts?

 

[CJ_London]

why not go back to using an upgradeable ROM chip

Isn't that what iPad and similar have?

 

[pbaldy]

Oddly enough I think I'm about to get a proposal that uses that technique. We are looking at virtualizing servers, and the consultant described a setup where the VMware host OS lives on an internal flash drive plugged into a USB port, and the virtual machines were on the hard drive. I'm to get his proposal Monday.

 

[Steve R.]

Isn't that what iPad and similar have?

True. I guess I failed to notice that the trend has already begun. Once again, I am late to the party.

Oddly enough I think I'm about to get a proposal that uses that technique. We are looking at virtualizing servers, and the consultant described a setup where the VMware host OS lives on an internal flash drive plugged into a USB port, and the virtual machines were on the hard drive. I'm to get his proposal Monday.

Interesting.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Some years ago we had the equivalent concept to this on Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP-11 computers running RSX-11M and a 3rd-party RAMDISK, which is pretty much what a USB FlashDrive is today. The differences were two: 1st, a bit larger than a FlashDrive, and 2nd, used a disk interface card vs. a USB because USB hadn't been invented yet.

The idea worked pretty well and bootstrapping was crazy-fast. The only problem is that you had to really carefully code the disk drivers to not go crazy when your device interface card reported an I/O completion before you were even finished with the system call that started the whole operation in the first place. But back then, computers and memory were almost commensurate in speed and L1/L2/L3 caches weren't an issue. Now, of course, the driver would have time to finish the I/O Start call before the DMA operation would finish.

We used a concept not too different from that when we made our own data concentrator units that had their O/S on an EPROM. Once you got that puppy right, you just locked down the EPROM and no virus could touch it. Of course, these days the problem with FlashDrive technology is that you can hide all sorts of "stuff" in the drive.

For instance (and I have to be careful here), some years ago there was a flap among the U.S.Government folks about "souvenir" flash drives being handed out at a convention, but nobody knew that these drives had been tainted by Russian spies to contain a special "hidden" partition that contained, for lack of a better description, a Trojan Horse bit of malware. When you tried to init the flash drive, you got invaded. For security reasons, I can say no more, but the idea of an "ordinary" flash drive running the computer is a little iffy for my blood because of the nasties that go along with portable drives that you hide in a watch-pocket.

 

[Vassago]

We also have solid state drives these days. Why not just place everything on one of these and call it a day? Faster load times of all files and, barring any physical damage, they will last a lifetime since they have no moving parts.

 

[Fifty2One]

We also have solid state drives these days. Why not just place everything on one of these and call it a day? Faster load times of all files and, barring any physical damage, they will last a lifetime since they have no moving parts.

...because you want something that costs a bucket of money but has to be constantly upgraded, otherwise we would all still be using these:

 

[Vassago]

...because you want something that costs a bucket of money but has to be constantly upgraded, otherwise we would all still be using these:

Que? How is anything changing from what has already been suggested? You'll still need to upgrade existing hard drives for storage of files, or pay for online storage. You'll probably need to replace or upgrade the USB stick eventually. I don't understand your point.

I think AccessBlaster hit the nail on the head. We already log in for program access on our phones and such. Sony is currently experimenting with Playstation Now for streaming games. That may become the norm soon enough for all media. It's all streamed and you don't own any physical or local copies of anything.

 

[Vassago]

Remember when streaming was a joke? Now if your account is on file movies will stream in real time with almost no lag.

Oh yes I do. I remember when attempting to stream online radio at 64 kb was almost unbearable, even with something that wasn't dialup. We've come a long way in connection speeds.

Kids entering high school today have likely never heard a dialup modem.

 

[Steve R.]

We also have solid state drives these days. Why not just place everything on one of these and call it a day? Faster load times of all files and, barring any physical damage, they will last a lifetime since they have no moving parts.

Good point. I'm just a bit fanatical that the operating system be kept isolated from the other software. Of course, that isolation can still be achieved on a solid state drive, not necessarily limited to a discrete motherboard "chip".

Kids entering high school today have likely never heard a dialup modem.

My ears still cringe.

 

[Vassago]

Good point. I'm just a bit fanatical that the operating system be kept isolated from the other software. Of course, that isolation can still be achieved on a solid state drive, not necessarily limited to a discrete motherboard "chip".

My ears still cringe.

I'm in total agreeance with you, but with so much of the software I use being heavily integrated with my operating system, I'm not sure how feasible it is. I doubt I could successfully reinstall an operating system without losing functionality in my software.

For anything not integrated, I definitely agree. I have a habit of moving applications installed on my Android phone to the sd card whenever the option is available. I still end up with a mess of folder and files on both the sd card and phone and finally my OCD for a clean file structure takes over and it's time to install a new rom.

 

[Steve R.]

... but with so much of the software I use being heavily integrated with my operating system, I'm not sure how feasible it is. I doubt I could successfully reinstall an operating system without losing functionality in my software.

Unfortunately, the "ship has sailed" on that issue. It would take a massive effort to segregate the operating system from other software. I doubt anyone would take up the challenge.