Fantasy computer builds and other ri-goddamn-diculously expensive electronics...

[Virgil0211]

Thought I'd start a topic about this since looking around at various electronics, custom PC assemblers, etc. Wanted to prompt a discussion about the kinds of computer builds people around here would like to see/work on. For example, I'd love to play around with a computer built on AMD's new APU design, or a computer with two 'double GPU' video cards and two 'double GPU' workstation cards to see if I can get it to function well as both a workstation and a gaming desktop.

The inspiration for this? Well, that would be this monster-

http://www.originpc.com/thebigo-features.asp

So now my first major purchase will either be my first car, my first house, or this f***ing thing. :-P

[MrBogosity]

I like the idea of replacing a computer's BIOS with a virtual machine manager, and all OSes would install in a VM. Even on a machine with only one OS, the OS would boot inside the VM and not have to worry about the nitpicky features of the BIOS or chipset or whatever. And installing a separate OS and switching back and forth would be easy.

[Virgil0211]

I like the idea of replacing a computer's BIOS with a virtual machine manager, and all OSes would install in a VM. Even on a machine with only one OS, the OS would boot inside the VM and not have to worry about the nitpicky features of the BIOS or chipset or whatever. And installing a separate OS and switching back and forth would be easy.

I thought I saw something like that on VMWARE, though I doubt it was a BIOS replacement. I'll have to double check it.

Have you heard anything about AMD's new APU design?

[MrBogosity]

I'm not familiar with it, no.

As for the BIOS issue, unfortunately manufacturers are being required by Microsoft to use Secure UEFI to boot Windows 8, and this prevents someone from installing GRUB (and therefore Linux) on the machines. Bastards.

[Virgil0211]

I'm not familiar with it, no.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Fusion

From what I understand, it takes the multi-core design of modern CPUs and replaces half of the cores with various GPUs in order to supplement the CPU cores. I've heard some interesting things about using GPUs to assist with calculations and such, even being used to make 'mini super-computers', so I'm interested in seeing if this ends up being more effective than a conventional CPU and such. AMD has to do something to catch up to Intel. Far as I know, Intel's next manufacturing process utilizes a 22 nm process whereas AMD is still at 32 nm.

As for the BIOS issue, unfortunately manufacturers are being required by Microsoft to use Secure UEFI to boot Windows 8, and this prevents someone from installing GRUB (and therefore Linux) on the machines. Bastards.

I heard something about that. I'm not particularly worried about it being more than a minor hindrance. Linux users can be rather tenacious, so I'm sure they'd find a way around it eventually. Also, it looks like it'd be more of a problem for pre-assembled desktops. I can understand why companies and such would want to avoid having people boot up other operating systems or running unsigned software. As vulnerable as Windows has been in the past, it's good to see them working on security. Not to mention, locking out Linux would turn off quite a few potential buyers of W8, and I don't see how locking W8 in would prevent any hardcore Linux user from abandoning the latter for the former.

On the other hand, this COULD potentially be abused. Although Microsoft has softened in recent times (at least, it seems that way to me, particularly when compared to companies like Apple), I'm not at the point where I'd completely trust them not to pull something like this. Microsoft's reaction to this question has been rather spotty, especially when compared to their responses to users about the Windows Phone 7 platform. This could be related to the secrecy around the W8 development, and it may be that we'll hear more on the topic closer to launch, but there's no reason MS couldn't have released a clear and concise answer to this issue the second it was raised.

On the subject of W8, have you tried either the Developer Demo or Consumer Beta? I tried it in VirtualBox, though I wasn't able to get the video to work very well (only simulated a video card instead of actually using the one I had). I'm going to look into vmware and see if they'll work any better, but what I've seen so far looks pretty good. Different and takes some getting used to, but still pretty good. And it beat Ubuntu's boot-up time by half a minute, but that may just be due to the fact that it was a virtual PC. I'm not sure.

[MrBogosity]

From what I understand, it takes the multi-core design of modern CPUs and replaces half of the cores with various GPUs in order to supplement the CPU cores. I've heard some interesting things about using GPUs to assist with calculations and such, even being used to make 'mini super-computers', so I'm interested in seeing if this ends up being more effective than a conventional CPU and such.

My ATI card has a GPU, and Vegas 11 can use the GPU to help render. It's WAY faster!

I heard something about that. I'm not particularly worried about it being more than a minor hindrance.

The solution they're putting forward is to gave an independent CA certify the KEKs. That way it won't even be a minor annoyance--but ONLY if the manufacturer uses that CA. Otherwise you'd need to do some pretty extensive hacking, and that kind of hacking is EXACTLY what Secure UEFI is designed to prevent.

As vulnerable as Windows has been in the past, it's good to see them working on security.

SOMETHING needs to be done about this way outdated BIOS. But I always thought virtual machines were the way to go there. You'd have the same abstraction layer that you would with UEFI plus a lot more benefits as well.

On the subject of W8, have you tried either the Developer Demo or Consumer Beta?

Not yet; I've been having WAY too many computer problems lately to be able to play around with stuff. Think I might finally have them sorted, though.

[Virgil0211]

My ATI card has a GPU, and Vegas 11 can use the GPU to help render. It's WAY faster!

That's what they're hoping, if I remember correctly. Apparently, it's already able to beat Intel's Atom as far as computing power/energy requirements. Hasn't been deployed in Desktops and such yet, though. Here's to hoping.

The solution they're putting forward is to gave an independent CA certify the KEKs. That way it won't even be a minor annoyance--but ONLY if the manufacturer uses that CA. Otherwise you'd need to do some pretty extensive hacking, and that kind of hacking is EXACTLY what Secure UEFI is designed to prevent.

Well, no security feature remains impenetrable forever, right? :-P

I'ono. We're still talking about something in development, so things may change (or turn out to have been different) once release comes. Like I said, it seems odd that Microsoft would do something like this that would, in effect, reduce the utility of their OS and hurt future sales. It would also run counter to the somewhat softer attitude they've taken recently to modification and alteration of their products (Kinect and WP7, for instance).

SOMETHING needs to be done about this way outdated BIOS. But I always thought virtual machines were the way to go there. You'd have the same abstraction layer that you would with UEFI plus a lot more benefits as well.

Maybe we'll see Apple or some other company go the virtual machine route, and we'll end up having another competition like we did with blu ray and HDDVD.

Not yet; I've been having WAY too many computer problems lately to be able to play around with stuff. Think I might finally have them sorted, though.

I'm not gonna lie, it's a bit jarring at first. I don't know of a single interface that's similar to Metro aside from WP7. Even then, I'm a WP7 user, and I still found it a little disorienting. But still, it's an interesting idea, switching between Aero and Metro seems relatively straightforward, and it managed to run pretty smoothly all things considered. As I said, this was with a simulated video card in Virtual Box, so I'm not too sure how it works on a normal setup with an actual video card. I'm going to try vmware later. The startup time was pretty fast, though. Longest it took was about 35 seconds from 'start virtual machine' to the login screen, though that may have been due to the virtual machine environment instead of the OS itself.