Presto PC

Well life on the farm is kind of laid back
Aint much an old country boy like me can't hack -
Thank God I'm a Country Boy, John Denver

I had a chance to play with a beta release of presto today and I was very impressed with it. It is basically a copy of Xandros which is a Linux distribution much like Ubuntu or RedHat but it has a Windows installer (which installs about 3.9 GB worth of software in Windows) that modifies the boot loader adding an option to select either presto or Windows XP at boot time. On my Dell Optiplex GX280 with 1 GB of RAM I was able to get to the presto desktop in about 20 seconds after selecting the option to boot to it over Windows XP. Not quite instant on like my Palm m500 but then again it is a real PC operating system with networking, sound, and the like so not too shabby. It comes pre-installed with Firefox and OpenOffice.org so that is good as well.

Ideally this is a quick option for note taking and internet browsing which is pretty much what I do in a meeting or when I am on the road. This has obvious implications for the netbook/sub-notebook market but I think it also has a place alongside a fuller Windows or even Linux OS installation when a stripped down desktop would fit the bill.

I would love to add it to the boot loader on my laptop but I don't have 4.0 GB to dedicate to its installation. Maybe when I get my new laptop in April...

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