Microsoft Announces Windows For Raspberry Pi 2 307
jones_supa writes Microsoft is expanding their Windows Developer Program for Internet of Things by delivering a version of Windows 10 that runs on the Raspberry Pi 2. This release of Windows 10 will be free for the maker community through the Windows Developer Program for IoT. With an official partnership with the Raspberry Pi Foundation, Microsoft is bringing development tools, services and ecosystem to the Raspberry Pi community. More details will be shared in the coming months. You can already join the program and be amongst the first to receive product information and beta software releases.
Had to check the calendar (Score:5, Insightful)
...it's still two months to April Fool's day...
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Yes, me too. I mean: the headline "Microsoft releases next version of windows for hobbyist 35$ computer meant for open source"....
Whats next?
-Office for linux - oops Office runs on Andoid.
-Microsoft hosts Linux - yes, azure runs also linux machines
-Microsoft sells Linux hardware - seems to be the case - Nokia N1
-Microsoft contributes to linux kernel - but they are not top 20 any more
-Linux devices are major income source for MS (~400Million$ for nothing from exFat patents)
I mean the last thing which is miss
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Microsoft has always endeavoured to have Windows on as many PCs as possible, no matter who manufactures them. Now the Raspberry Pi is supposedly PC spec (even if not X86 architecture) it's not too surprising to see Windows for it.
License? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:License? (Score:4, Informative)
Well that is mostly just Zealot Open Source talking there.
1. If they were to make a commercial product out of a Raspberry Pi, they would probably just get a different license for the windows. Pay Microsoft some money for the license and pass the cost in the device. If there is a genuine advantage of using Windows in such a device, then it would probably account for the cost. The neat thing with commercial software, their motivation is based on making money, so if you negotiate a deal you can do almost anything you want. Vs. having to try to negotiate with some Open Source Zealot who hates the idea that you want to make make money. So will not make any deal with you just because of his principals.
2. I have seen more Linux Crashes than Windows crashes in the last 10 year. Just like Linux, if you run good drivers on reliable hardware the system will run.
That said. Windows is still a bad choice for most maker projects. Because Windows is a Desktop OS first. While Linux works much better on embedded platforms. With window you got its GUI that is in the way, while Linux you can get it to boot into your programs custom GUI, or just run headless and do what it needs to do and do it well.
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Correction... Desktop versions of Windows is a Desktop OS first. You can always run Windows Server versions with no GUI. Perhaps you can run the desktop versions of windows without the GUI (No GUI meaning, it's not loaded, it's not on disk), but I've never looked into it.
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they would probably just get a different license for the windows
You never tried to license Windows Embedded products, right? Because it's a quagmire of a process that requires signing your soul away and whatnot. In an ideal world, you could just go to a webpage, enter your CC number, and get back a number of licenses/entitlements. But no, Microsoft had to make it hard for everyone.
The fucked-up-ness of Windows Embedded licensing is why at work we spend extra money to run our stuff on off-the-shelf Windows Embedded controllers - we simply don't want to deal with the lice
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ISWYDT [wikipedia.org].
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I'm more worried about General Failure reading my C drive, to be honest...
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Developers. (The one thing that Balmer had right.) There are a gazillion Windows developers, in Seattle you can't throw a stone without hitting one. There are a few thousand Linux developers. Windows development is taught in high schools all over the world, and a lot of the tools are free to students. Linux development is mostly limited to commercial programmers and the more advanced hobbyists.
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Some people never run Windows so they haven't noticed that Windows has been pretty solid for the past 15 years.
Win 10 looks like it's going to be very interesting.
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The only Win boxes in my house are the Uverse set top boxes. They get sluggish, sometimes just hang, and require a reboot about once a month because of a "system has changed". The machine I am writing this on reboots when I have a power outage. Hell, I don't remember the last time I even had to log out of my account.
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And we've all experienced many web servers that are down. Most of which are running Linux.
Raspberry Pi 2 but not Surface RT? (Score:5, Interesting)
How can Microsoft justify Windows 10 on a less powerful device like Raspberry Pi 2 and not support on the Surface RT?
Seems pretty stupid to me to purposely screw over the people that bought the RT models that are perfectly capable.
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How can Microsoft justify Windows 10 on a less powerful device like Raspberry Pi 2 and not support on the Surface RT?
Big companies have byzantine internal politics. Maybe the RT guys won't hand over the "secure boot" private keys for Surface? Or they just lost it.
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Ironic thing is that I probably would have bought a Surface RT if they unlocked the boot loader.
It looked like a nice tablet. I just couldn't stand the OS.
And (rightfully, it seeems) figured it'd turn into abandonware just like all the other alternative-CPU-windows's from history. Note that Windows used to run on DEC Alpha, Tandem MIPS, Itanic, etc.
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Windows ran on the Alpha and Tandem CPUs until Compaq bought them and decided on their own to discontinue development. At a time when our fastest Intel server was a Pentium 166 the DEC database server had a 533 mhz CPU. Microsoft was shocked by Compaq's decision to discontinue the Alpha, they had a lab in Bellevue where DEC and MS staff were working to port Win 2000 Server to that CPU. They were close to wrapping up the project when Compaq laid off the developers.
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How can they justify it? If you bought a Surface RT, you're a proven sucker, and as a proven sucker, you'll be more likely to give up more cash for a new Windows 10 tablet if there's no upgrade for your crappy Surface RT. Simples.
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Right now the IoT OS doesn't include "WinRT" which is the app store windows runtime that "Windows RT" uses
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I also, don't see how they could justify supporting Raspberry Pi, while at the same time abandoning their own products, but I can definitely see why they would want to open up their app store to and easily available $35 computer. I will definitely buy one just for Windows 10 if they do this and it supports the App store.
I suspect it's more about gaining developer/maker mind-share than selling MS App-store apps. MS currently seem to be working very hard to ensure they stay relevant in the future.
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Win 10 for phone is apparently quite good, probably better than 8.1 and certainly better than the previous crippled Win Embedded versions. Supposedly the Win 10 kernel is going to be the same across all versions of the OS, from Phone to Server. If they're still saying that at this late date it's likely to be close to the truth.
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By now, it must be obvious closed source merely exists to purposely screw people over, it's the intervals that are getting shorter.
The first one is always free... (Score:2, Insightful)
So you build you IoT based around Windows...just how long do you think it'll stay free?
So you build your next home gadget around Windows...and it's an amazing success...and now you decide to Kickstart it...and Windows is only free to you as a developer...so just how much extra are you going to have to charge to have Windows on the final version?
Malware on IoT...um...not good. I'll leave it to your imagination.
*HOW MUCH* RAM and flash memory space does this behemoth take?
Nah..."Just Say No".
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That's still more expensive than equally capable alternatives. Also, you'd still have to deal with Microsoft's rather byzantine and insane licensing programs.
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open to negotiating agreements
Ha ha lol. Yeah, sure. First of all, Microsoft generally doesn't even want to deal with you as a device vendor. They direct you to a distributor, who has zero leeway in pricing. You get a list price, except that the price is not publicly listed, and you have to deal with a bunch of legal agreements, and you can't bypass the distributor. The entire process is engineered so that the fifth wheel distributors are artificially indispensable. They are useless, but MS decided they have to stay. It makes no sense,
Options are good (Score:5, Insightful)
I see a lot of negative comments so far (actually they are all negative). You have a good reason to not want Windows on a Pi? Then don't put Windows on a Pi and you can live in peace and happiness. Personally, I think this is very cool, and although Microsoft may have some hidden agenda to take over the world by releasing a version of Windows 10 for the Pi, I still think this is a positive thing in general. It also further legitimizes the non- X86 / PC / tablet / cellphone niche kind of single board general purpose computer, that obviously a lot of non-mainstream users are very interested in.
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I also have good reason not to buy snake oil from snake oil salesmen, not to invest my money in pyramid schemes, and not to have sex with a disease ridden prostitute. And I have good reason to warn others against doing the same thing.
Re:Options are good (Score:4, Insightful)
So installing a free copy of an operating system will make you lose money or give you a disease? Didn't think so. Grow up.
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Let's talk about that word, "free", shall we?
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Personally, I think this is very cool, and although Microsoft may have some hidden agenda to take over the world by releasing a version of Windows 10 for the Pi, I still think this is a positive thing in general.
OK, but why do you think this is cool and a generally positive thing? I don't see it as a negative thing, but I honestly don't understand the appeal of this, either.
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I for one welcome Microsoft on IoT/Pi (Score:2)
It's a shame the first few posts are complaints about virus's or other nonsense. Microsoft has had Windows 8.1 for IoT for a little while now and they have a great growing community of developers and devices that Windows runs on. It's pretty amazing that Windows can run on these devices. Raspberry Pi running Windows 10 with Plex should be a fun experiment if Plex makes a port and it will be exciting to see Visual Studio updated to have the Pi as supported device.
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Remember WinCE? Microsoft's embedded products are not the same as their desktop products. And, no, WinIoT on a Pi will not run the same executables, it is an ARM platform which Microsoft just emphatically orphaned with their last go around. Remember the surface RT? That did not run any standard Windows executables, at the very least the executable would have to be compiled against the ARM build chain, and that isn't an option for end users of proprietary software.
Thinking about this I understand the point
A Mixed Bag (Score:2)
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Anything you'd need to learn to do something useful with a Pi with Windows, would not be too far from what you'd need to learn to do the same with Linux.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
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Err, this is windows 10 IoT build, basically Windows CE 10.
Coming of Age-- (Score:2)
Grown up, come of age... and turning cheap tricks on the corner...
Yikh... I thought you were raised better than that.
Hell I'll join. (Score:2)
No harm in taking a look.
Windows on Pi? (Score:5, Interesting)
Will everything be possible without having to connect a monitor, keyboard and mouse?
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They will after I write a driver for them, which for all three of those is pretty much a cake walk.
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This section describes how to write a driver for a general-purpose I/O (GPIO) controller
That's not really what I was looking for. /sys/class/gpio/gpioXYZ/value
On Linux, I can use the following command to read a GPIO:
cat
How can I do that on Windows from user space? This is a genuine question not a trick.
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Here's [github.io] an example of how to interact with a GPIO pin, there's a whole bunch of examples of how to interact with the various components of the Intel Galelio board (Audrino compatible I think) here [windows.com], I'm sure they'll be adding stuff for the RPI2.
WindowsRT anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
People are getting all excited about this, but they are forgetting that this is *not* going to be a full featured Windows able to run their Office and what not. First of all, it is an ARM architecture, so regular Windows apps won't work unless they have an ARM version (extremely rare). The OS is most likely going to be the cut-down WindowsRT and running on an underpowered hardware - the new Raspberry Pi 2 is still much slower and has less RAM than even the first Microsoft Surface RT, which wasn't exactly known to be a speed demon ...
Microsoft is pushing this as "Internet-of-Things" platform, but I honestly don't see how WindowsRT presents any advantages there over a dedicated OS without the unneeded GUI bloat. And for education? Yes, there will be perhaps Office RT and few Microsoft's apps available, but that's all. What are the kids going to run on this? Visual Studio?
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Is it April 1st? (Score:2)
This sure sounds like an April Fool's day joke.
Ah, yes.... (Score:2)
Just another data point in Microsoft's slide into being the company of "ME TOO!" When was the last time they actually innovated?
As for running Windows on your IoT device, all I can say is LOL.
How useful will it be? (Score:2)
Evolution is an interesting thing to watch (Score:5, Insightful)
It is. It's interesting watching Microsoft thrash around and try to cope with things like this. The Raspberry Pi is the exact antithesis of what Microsoft stands for. Right now Windows Embedded 7 licenses are selling for right around $100 a pop. This entire system costs $35. The margins (if anyone were to try to make an industrial device out of this thing) aren't anywhere near what could make it worth their while, and all because that word "embedded" means something new now.
And yet, they have to try. This gizmo is seriously widening the Linux base, and they gotta do something. You know they're panicked. "You can already join the program and be amongst the first to receive product information and beta software releases." They don't even have a beta available yet, and they're already trying to get market share.
And just imagine how good those tools are going to be when you do get them. They'll be done in a huge hurry because this is a market driven decision. They know they have to get *something* out there super quick because they're losing market share. And the worst part is that they are trying to appeal to the engineer/programmer audience, and we're a pretty discerning audience. It has to be fast because this thing is launching, but it also has to be good because of the audience they are trying to target. And Microsoft is pretty notorious for releasing software when it isn't ready (Vista for example) simply to meet a release date. My guess is that these betas are going to be absolute crap released to make some bean counter's Gantt chart happy, and they'll fall back on the "but it's in beta" excuse when they crash and burn. Microsoft loves having the community do it's QA for them. It'll be a bumpy ride.
And I can't wait to see what bizarre arrangement they try to do when they try to monetize this Windows 10 release for a $35 computer. Because they will. The EULA for this thing is going to be a dadaist work of art.
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I don't know what licensing program this price is from but Microsoft definitely sells Windows Embedded 7 and Embedded 8 licenses for far cheaper than that. Under the EES program I can get licenses for $3 per device for Windows Embedded 7 and $5 for Windows Embedded 8.
We only have about 50 such licenses (using them as thin clients) so we aren't getting any significant discount for quantity either.
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Seriously, I just asked for a quote from a MS certified reseller. They want $100 for a single license of Windows Embedded Standard 7. Not the CE based version (which is what I think you're thinking of), the version that's like Windows 7 but embedded. This is directly from the quote:
7WT-00049 Win Emb Std E 7 EMB ESD OEI (WS7E) Runtime
$100 each Qty 1-99
$93 each Qty 100 Annual Commitment
Visual studio (Score:2)
Why bother... (Score:2)
Windows on Raspberry Pi will have even less app support than Windows Phone or Windows RT.
Plenty of Linux apps available that will run just find on the Raspberry Pi with a recompile or the right build options passed to configure.
Re:the joy! (Score:5, Funny)
I've been running internet-connected Windows desktop for 20 years, and have never gotten a virus. Surf smart, lock your door, and don't click on the damn .scr files.
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Re:the joy! (Score:4, Insightful)
Just as soon as everyone recompiles there virus code to run on ARM....
Actually Windows 10 does not suck. While I prefer Linux and OS/X but Windows is not as terrible as it once was. Now Windows Users.
Re:just want I wanted! (Score:5, Insightful)
How stupid is this?
How stupid? Not at all. The Raspberry Pi is introducing people to Linux incidentally. People who have become accustomed to Linux on Pi are more likely to use it on their main PCs. Microsoft knows that Windows on Pi -- even if its performance is abysmal -- could quickly become the newbies' first choice thanks only to familiarity. The "gateway drug" for Linux defectors is thus protected against. (They did this with netbooks too, remember?)
For the RPi Foundation it makes a lot of sense, as Linux advocacy was never their goal -- they want to get more computing into schools, and one of the chief objections to the RPi is the fact that it doesn't run "industry-standard software"... i.e. Windows. Of course, once schools start realising that the version of Windows can't do everything they expect, they'll conclude that the Raspberry Pi isn't a real computer and stop using it. (They did this with netbooks too, remember?)
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The netbook thing was an "Embrace, extend extinguish" kind of deal. It ruined the market.
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The extinguishing came at the hands of the iPad and Android tablets though. Microsoft didn't get any piece of that, and in fact lost ground.
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The extinguishing came at the hands of the iPad and Android tablets though. Microsoft didn't get any piece of that, and in fact lost ground.
No - the death of netbooks was the rapid decline in price in full-featured notebooks. Same as the decline in desktops has been fueled by the rise of DTRs - cheap (and some not-so-cheap) laptops serving as desktop replacements.
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The decline in price of full laptops, combined with the increasing price of netbooks (more powerful hardware because windows needed it)...
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The "extinguish" part came about when people realized that netbooks were essentially useless unless for any sort of work, and would have happened soon whether MS got involved in the market or not.
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They were cheap, underpowered with low resolution screens and poor quality trackpads making them a race to the bottom competing only on price. They were only useful for the sorts of things that are easier on a tablet, everything else is better on an ultrabook which is why the market has expelled them.
I liked writing blog posts and student worksheets on the train. I wanted to code lightweight programs in Python and Javascript. I didn't need a heavy, full-sized laptop for that, but I certainly needed a keyboard. It happily played back the audio and video files I needed in class, and connected perfectly happily to any standard projector. That the market for netbooks is smaller than the market for tablets, I understand; however, the niche I was in was well-served by the eeePC, and in trying to embrace and e
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Plus, Microsoft forces you to give up all kinds of personal information when you register, as they probably require of you.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: just want I wanted! (Score:5, Interesting)
iPads are just tools. They aren't magic. I've seen some interesting and innovative uses of iPads in education, particularly with kids with special needs. First though you have to have people who know how to use these tools and implement them into an overall educational program. Buying a bunch of anything without a plan makes no sense. This is what's special about the Rpi. They are primarily into teaching and building a community around this educational system. The maker aspect of the Rpi is just a big plus that helps build the community.
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My wife is a teacher and she uses an "interactive board" and it really helps. She can prepare stuff in advance (do that with a chalkboard) move stuff around the board (do that with a chalkboard) show Wikipedia, youtube, anything in just an alt-tab (do that with a chalkboard). When she brings a student to the board do do something, she can them replay it (...)
Well, you get the point. An interactive board is much more than a chalkboard on steroids.
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What interactive board does she use? Pros / cons?
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Ever heard of the Khan academy ? It's entirely the opposite of a remediation tool. You're probably a teacher that feels your job is threathened by tools like the Khan academy. We must strive for excellence in education for kids of all economical and cultural levels, otherwise China and South Korea will take over the world (they don't kid about education).
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Kind of. I taught at a school that issued MacBooks for lab sections (the loans began and ended with the lab period).
The MacBooks in question were running Windows.
The parent poster had already made the point I was going to make, by the way, that Windows, by and large is a "safer" choice for many, many people.
Re:just want I wanted! (Score:5, Interesting)
If open was their goal, why did they go with components which require closed source drivers and firmware?
From what I can see, Raspberry Pi's goal was to be this generations BBC Micro, nothing else. Something that is cheap to hack on - Linux was free from a license cost perspective, so that's what got used. The non-open components were cheap from a cost perspective, so thats what got used.
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If open was their goal, why did they go with components which require closed source drivers and firmware?
Not only this, but components that are not available in quantities of less than tens of thousands of units. The last attempt to make a genuine Raspberry Pi clone collapsed when they ran out of their "sample" batch of Broadcom SoCs and Broadcom refused to sell to them in the sort of quantities that they could have hoped to sell.
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Sure, open is the policy. That must be why they used proprietory hardware mpeg decoding for which you need to buy a separate license.
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But that's neither a rational or logical objection. It's a biased objection born of ignorance.
I agree, but we have to function in the world we live in, and selling to the ignorant is easier than educating the whole world.
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The r-pi has an accelerated desktop now, thank goodness. It was all software on a dumb frame buffer at launch, but those days are far behind us.
Who knows, maybe Wayland support will come soon, we can hope.
a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org/preview-the-upcoming-maynard-desktop/">http://www.raspberrypi.org/preview-the-upcoming-maynard-desktop/
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Everyone is part of the maker community. They are saying 1 in 5 developers are working on an IoT project [computerworld.com] and the definition of developer has become so loose that you are probably already a developer. If you aren't comfortable with calling yourself a developer, call yourself an engineer. Anyone can be an engineer too. If you are unsure if you quality, see if any of the following apply to you.
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I suspect "free for the maker community" translates as "free for personal use but if you use this in a product you are going to have to pay". How much you have to pay will probablly depend on the details of the product.
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I would not like them
here or there.
I would not like them anywhere.
I do not like
Windows and Pi.
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.
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(Due to slashdot's insistence that I not post short, proper poetic lines, I have been forced to jam all the response lines together into paragraphs. This is not by choice. Dice, in it's infinite wisdom, The bringers of Beta, The mobile site, and countless horrible advertisements that play even with the no advertising checkbox filled in-- has decreed that such must be done. If the literazis here have a problem, please address all complaints to Dice Holdings Inc.)
(No chairs were harmed in the making of this p
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It's things on the internet.
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It's the internet w/ more than just computing devices (laptops/phones/tablets). You can now have cars, home security systems, and a whole genre of non computing electronic devices on the internet of things.
And what do each of those things have inside them that connects to the Internet? That's right, a computer.
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Internet Thingy.
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Indeed - they only made $5.2 billion in profit in 2013. Looks like roughly the same in 2014. Utterly laughable.
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Oh shit you are right!
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It's backwards compatible, but not necessarily forward compatible. The RPi1 and RPi2 don't use the same instruction set, moving from ARMv6 to ARMv7, and adding the NEON instruction set extensions.
The great OLPC parachute drop. (Score:2)
No thank you. I remember what happened last time you joined a community.
OLPC was based on the notion that you could have a school without teachers. Even in the first world, the value of laptops in the grade school classroom remains unproven.
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You completely miss the fact that there is a fairly large developer following of MS technologies, and I've seen several MS-orientated people say "ordered and signed up" in the hours following the launch, pretty much all want to try out Windows 10 on it.
You need to see how active people are in the vNext, NancyFX or Omnisharp communities to understand just how many non-Microsoft people are actually involved in Microsoft orientated open source space, many of which would be interested in this sort of thing.
Buy
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What the hell are you talking about?
The first Atom was very adequate, performance over that of a Pentium III 1GHz was useful (and still is), netbooks were a success because they were real computers (with XP or real linux) as long as you had one with a hard drive, not 4GB flash.
Also not sure what a 3rd gen Celeron is, but a Celeron 1.3GHz based on Pentium III Tualatin has a Passmark of 288 not 5000.
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It was actually pretty good until the most recent build where they replaced the fusion start menu with the metro based shrunken start screen abomination.