Microsoft Looking to Run Windows on OLPC

pete314 writes "Microsoft has been provided with a number of test models of Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop per Child computers and is trying to get Windows installed on them. The current design runs a custom version of Red Hat's Fedora Linux. Running Windows will take quite a bit of additional memory: the OLPC has 512Mb of Flash, where XP requires a minimum of 1.5Gb storage."

Re:Windows Fundamentals?

[smithfarm]

Quoting from the URL you cited: "[Windows Fundamentals] allows for a limited number of workloads to be executed locally, including security software, management software, terminal emulation software, document viewers, and the .NET Framework."

Document viewers aside, those don't sound like applications that schoolchildren in poor Third World countries would want to run.

Re:Open Spurce?

[zootm]

However, the article here talks about what is pre-installed.

To be fair, it only says that Microsoft want to "make [Windows] available" on the device, not pre-install it. There's no indication whatsoever in the article that Microsoft want to pre-install it, although one could obviously speculate that they'd like to sell units with Windows pre-installed to governments, this is not mentioned in the article.

Re:Open Spurce?

[badfish99]

PCs won't run z/OS
Have a look at hercules [conmicro.cx]

Re:OLPC and slimware Linux

[10Ghz]

But the real question is why has Linux got so bloated?

It didn't. "Back then" you had primitive apps running on primitive GUI, using crappy and ugly icons and graphics. Antialiasing? Hardware that just works when you plug it in? Hah, dream on! Today you have GUI's that are very, very beautiful. The apps are very advanced, the system indexes your hard-drive in the background for instant search, you have 16+ million colors and high resolution AND antialiased fonts. Everything is spell-checked as you type (including text-boxes in websites), Bittorrents are downloading in the background and we have composited shadows and fadeouts. And guess what? All that takes up RAM and CPU-cycles.

But here's the thing: if you want to, you can turn all that crap off. Instead of GNOME or KDE, use something lighter. Since you are comparing Linux to the "old Linux", why not run FVWM? It's still maintained. Hell, why not run TWM? Also, turn off those antialiased fonts and all those other advanced features we have got over the course of the years. I bet that you will see that Linux runs well on slower hardware, just like it did years ago. The thing that has happened is that 10 years ago Linux-desktops... well, sucked. They ran fast because they were ugly and they didn't really do that much. What you saw was what you got. Today the dominant desktops (KDE & GNOME) are actually very, very good, and they have lots of advanced features and useful services running in the background. And those features need certain amount of horsepower. Don't have that horsepower? Fine, use something lightweight, or switch to CLI. But for some reason people these days seem to have fast enough machines, and they want to run advanced desktops and apps. But you are not REQUIRED to do so.

If you decide to run a system with all bells and whistles turned on, don't start complaining that "years ago Linux ran fast, today it doesn't! What happened?". What happened was that "years ago" Linux didn't have those "bells and whistles". It does today, but you are not forced to use them. If you do use them, stop your complaining because you are comparing apples and oranges.

Re:Just sick

[ajs318]

The "chick.com" link points to some material which is inflammatory and homophobic and may be construed by some as "hate speech".

Re:Open Spurce?

[DragonWriter]

There's no indication whatsoever in the article that Microsoft want to pre-install it, although one could obviously speculate that they'd like to sell units with Windows pre-installed to governments, this is not mentioned in the article.

Both Microsoft and Apple made offers aimed at being the "bundled" OS on the OLPC. Both were rejected for, among other reasons, the licensing terms which they were willing to offer. (IIRC, the Windows version Microsoft proposed would have been a special version of WinCE, which later OLPC and Microsoft were still working on making possible as an option rather than the bundled OS, so its odd that the new reports are that Microsoft is trying to squeeze XP onto the machine, which clearly doesn't have the horsepower, memory, or persistent storage to run XP well. One wonders what the point of such an option would be.)

Re:Open Spurce?

[DaveJay]

Is there a way to moderate "wrong"? Ballmer actually said it specifically about the OLPC project.

From Forbes [forbes.com]:

Computers for kids? Bah, humbug! According to Reuters, while speaking at the Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) Government Leaders Forum on Wednesday, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates repeatedly criticized the prototype $100 laptop created by the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) program, which aims to develop a crank powered, inexpensive computer for use by children in developing nations. It's underpowered, has a too-tiny screen and needs a hard disk, Gates says. It's not the first time he has come out against the device, and also not the first time people have suggested his curmudgeonly behavior might have to do with the fact that the OLPC is being backed by rival Google and won't run Microsoft software.