OLPC, Microsoft Working Toward Dual-Boot XO Laptops

Ian Lamont writes "The OLPC Project and Microsoft are developing a dual-boot system to put both Linux and Windows on the laptops, according to an interview with Nicholas Negroponte. The article is thin on details, as the OLPC/Microsoft talks are apparently at an early stage. Could this be the end of the OS wars in Nigeria and other developing countries?" While Microsoft has been working on an OLPC-capable version of Windows for some time now, the interesting thing here is the dual-booting provision, rather than forcing users into an either-or choice.

Re:So how could MS lose with this scenario?

[SCHecklerX]

But the entire point of the OLPC is education. A computer that shows you its code, so you can learn and create with it. This is entirely the opposite of EVERYTHING M$ does. Programming aside, just being able to customize how you use the damned thing is difficult in Microsoft's world. They. don't. get. it.

Re:XO is already dual-boot

[Minstrel Boy]

Actually I don't use it very much. It has ended up being much simpler (four yum packages) to just install xfce on the XO Fedora build, and run it in place of Sugar as the window environment. I don't have a profound preference for debian vs Fedora, so it's easier to just leverage the XO kernel/userspace development. It's nice to know I *can* run an alternate OS if needed, but I don't find myself needing to do it as much as I anticipated.

KeS

Re:XO is already dual-boot

[Minstrel Boy]

(shrug)

What can I tell you? It's a documented part of the OpenFirmware in both the shipped and current upgrade version. I was able to install Debian by following a rather trivial set of directions on a XO without developer access. Note that some people are of the mistaken impression that dev access is required, but that is not the case: dev access is only needed to alter OpenFirmware settings or access the OF command prompt to specify arbitrary boot files. You can Google OLPC Debian and come up with the wiki page describing that install.

KeS

Typical MS tactic

[Anonymous Coward]

Announce a new product so people will hold off buying the existing solution.
Competition withers, dies, and Microsoft drops the product which they couldn't have delivered anyway.