We Built a Cloud GPU Notebook That Boots in Seconds
Posted2 months agoActiveabout 2 months ago
modal.comTechstory
calmpositive
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40/100
Cloud ComputingGPU AccelerationContainerization
Key topics
Cloud Computing
GPU Acceleration
Containerization
Modal's new cloud GPU notebook boots in seconds, sparking discussion on the technology behind it and its potential applications.
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Active discussionFirst comment
4d
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17
108-120h
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- 01Story posted
Nov 2, 2025 at 7:50 PM EST
2 months ago
Step 01 - 02First comment
Nov 7, 2025 at 2:28 AM EST
4d after posting
Step 02 - 03Peak activity
17 comments in 108-120h
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Step 03 - 04Latest activity
Nov 10, 2025 at 5:31 AM EST
about 2 months ago
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ID: 45794824Type: storyLast synced: 11/20/2025, 5:36:19 PM
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How much does a idling GPU actually take when there is no monitor attached and no activity on it? My monitor turns off after 10 minutes of inactivity or something, and at that point, I feel like the power draw should be really small (but haven't verified it myself).
Still to this day I think this is how it should be. You want to switch ON your computer and it should be ready for use.
But what do we get? What feels like minutes of random waiting time. My Raspberry PI with Linux which probably eats 10 of those Amiga 2Ks for breakfast shifts through through a few 1000 lines of initialising output… my Mac which probably eats like 50 of those Amiga 2Ks for lunch… showing a slowly growing bar doing whatever… Why didn't this improve at all in the last 30 years?
> Still to this day I think this is how it should be. You want to switch ON your computer and it should be ready for use.
Don't we already kind of have this? It's setup to be dynamic, and we'd ended up calling it "sleep", but it basically does what you're talking about, but dynamically and optionally, basically chucking the entire state into RAM (or disk for "hibernate") then resumes from that when you wanna continue.
Personally I've avoided it for the longest of times because something always breaks or ends up wonky when you resumes, at least on my desktop. The PS5 and the Steam Deck handles this seemingly even with games running, so seems possible, and I know others who are using it, maybe Linux desktop is just lagging behind there a bit so I continue to properly shut down my computer every night.
Its actually kind of funny, because while people talk about how unreliable Bluetooth is, moving a few of those devices from USB to Bluetooth (like my trackball mouse) made the situation far more reliable. Sleep has been that bad.
I don't know why Windows now hides it from the power menu by default now.
Unfortunately, the MeGoo OS was discontinued shortly after. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MeeGo
You can get fast boot times on linux if you care to tweak things.
You may not care about the newer features , or think you don’t at the least, but there’s a limit to how fast they can be loaded.
More than just loaded, they’re also often checked for integrity as well.
I remember reading that if a webpage takes more than 4 seconds to load, 50% of users will have closed the page.
Right? Any process that eventually completes successfully takes seconds, even if it's a million of them.
Nadella, is that you ? /s
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