At least Sony Vaio P and Vaio TZ had a linux-based InstanON too.
But I don't remember seeing the name Phoenix or Hyperspace when poking around with them. The Vaio P at least was a 2008 or 9 Atom just like the samsung there.
I poked at them a little and preserved the files when I wiped the drive to install lubunu in both cases, but I never managed to commandere the bios support to launch an os of my own instead of the original.
But I did work out that you don't have to preserve the original partitions or the windows install. If you just create any ntfs partition and stick the files on it, that's all it takes for the instant-on buttons to launch it. So for a while I had no windows, entire drive given to lubuntu, grub in mbr, but a small ntfs partition with the few InstanON files on it, and the instant-on worked.
And InstanON drained the battery faster than either windows 7 or linux did. The P shipped with vista and maybe it was better than vista but I didn't use vista long enough to tell. I forget what the TZ shipped with.
It was pretty pointless. It was not a better or more convenient media player or web browser than just booting the full os. Even the TZ, which has a dvd drive, and so the instant-on makes it a neat stand-alone dvd player appliance, even that wasn't really better than booting the os and using a dvd player app.
But you know it could have been really cool if you could just get the buttons to launch software of your choosing instead of only the junk it shipped with.
A button that did nothing but launch memtest86 would have been more useful.
But I don't remember seeing the name Phoenix or Hyperspace when poking around with them. The Vaio P at least was a 2008 or 9 Atom just like the samsung there.
I poked at them a little and preserved the files when I wiped the drive to install lubunu in both cases, but I never managed to commandere the bios support to launch an os of my own instead of the original.
But I did work out that you don't have to preserve the original partitions or the windows install. If you just create any ntfs partition and stick the files on it, that's all it takes for the instant-on buttons to launch it. So for a while I had no windows, entire drive given to lubuntu, grub in mbr, but a small ntfs partition with the few InstanON files on it, and the instant-on worked.
And InstanON drained the battery faster than either windows 7 or linux did. The P shipped with vista and maybe it was better than vista but I didn't use vista long enough to tell. I forget what the TZ shipped with.
It was pretty pointless. It was not a better or more convenient media player or web browser than just booting the full os. Even the TZ, which has a dvd drive, and so the instant-on makes it a neat stand-alone dvd player appliance, even that wasn't really better than booting the os and using a dvd player app.
But you know it could have been really cool if you could just get the buttons to launch software of your choosing instead of only the junk it shipped with. A button that did nothing but launch memtest86 would have been more useful.