Windows administrators know the story – the newest Windows OS does not run on the oldest machine in your organization, and the newest PCs don’t run with your regular Windows version. You try installing your own drivers but it doesn’t work.
At Stratodesk we have found a solution to that problem – we provide one and the same operating system, NoTouch OS, now based on multiple kernels. That means, there is just one NoTouch, one look & feel, one management tool, one known feature set, but from now on you can get different “firmware images” (i.e. deployable “builds” of the software) of the same OS, based on different kernel and driver sets. They can run side by side, be placed in the same configuration groups, in fact you don’t even need to think about what image is where, as NoTouch shields the hardware differences from you. If you ever wondered what the -k35- meant in some image names, this is the answer!
Stratodesk is constantly working on improving the NoTouch solution. We make it easier to use, we improve our configuration framework, we integrate updates from our partners, and we improve hardware support and device drivers. For a long time we have used the reliable and proven Linux kernel 2.6 as the core component of the operating system, with many current drivers made to work with it – a process called “backporting”.
At some point, backporting just is not feasible any more, and one needs to switch to a newer kernel, which incurs a whole new dependency stack on core components. However, we have done this, and you probably did not even notice! Maybe you have used one of those OS images that contain the -k35- designator, such as EEs-k35? Then you are using NoTouch on a Linux kernel 3.5!
Of course there is not much different from an system administrator perspective (and even less from an end user perspective), actually there is nothing different. User interface, features, integrated programs, configuration parameters, its identical. However, k35 works on machines where a regular 2.6-based image would not work. On the other hand, on older machines k35 might not work since drivers for older hardware may have been pruned by the Linux community.
That said, k35 is not an “update”. It is an identical NoTouch image, with the exception of having a different kernel and driver set. K35 is better suited for laptops, tablets and very modern PC hardware.
Similar, we have begun introducing NoTouch images based on Linux kernel 3.13 – the very latest for now. OS images with kernel 3.13 will bear the -k313- designation.
