Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Extends XP For Low-Cost Laptops
Ian Lamont writes "Microsoft says it will extend the sales of Windows XP Home to OEMs by several years, but it's not in response to the SaveXP petition. Microsoft is supposedly making the move in part to ensure that Linux doesn't dominate the market for certain types of 'ultra-low-cost' laptops. XP will be available for OEMs until June 30, 2010, or one year after the availability of the next client version of Windows, whichever date comes later. This greatly extends the earlier XP deadline of June 30 of this year (which was an extension itself), and means XP will potentially be installed on new computers nearly a decade after its original release. The author of the article suggests that the post-June 2008 release of Atom-based laptops encouraged Microsoft to extend XP, even though Intel says Atom can support Vista. Intel also claims that 'Moblin' Linux will be available on Atom-equipped mobile devices starting this summer."
wow. this is good news!
-I only code in BASIC.-
That's the bottom line: the "end user" is not Microsoft's customer, the hardware manufacturers are.
Patches needed afterwards? Guess you've never heard of slipstreaming.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I think it needs to be made clear the following: XP Home will be available for budget laptops, such as the EEE PC, OLPC, Cloudbook, and Intel's Classmate PC. XP Home and Pro for standard vendors is still being taken off the market as of June 30. This is only for budget laptops; Dell and the other OEM's won't be carrying XP after June 30. Some of the AP stories and writeups on other websites are making it sound like they've gone back on their statement, and XP will be available again. This is to prevent Linux from getting a foothold in the budget laptop game.
http://www.umpcportal.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=1353 (Vista vs XP on UMPC's) Kinda related. :p The above link shows startup times on basically the same machine, one running Vista one running XP. (I'll give you a hint, the XP machine demolishes vista :p)
indeed
in the years leading up to 2000 there were major advances in the windows/PC world every couple of years
* 1993 - windows NT, a proper 32 bit version of windows.
* 1995 - windows 95, introduced plug and play allowing users to easilly add devices. Unfortunately based on a rather crummy 16/32 bit hybrid codebase that gave better support for older apps but limited stability and security.
* 1998 - windows 98, introduced decent support for USB (there was some support in the last OEM service releases of 95 but USB seriously got going with 98) allowing much easier addition of arbitary external devices.
* 2000 - windows 2000, brought together the stability of the NT line with support for critical things like plug and play and USB.
Since then the windows world has really stagnated. MS is adding new features but by and large they just aren't that significant to most users particually when the performance cost is considered.
Meanwhile linux has as you say been really catching up and even surpassing windows in many areas. For people with no apps tying them to windows (or who are buying a machine they don't plan to run such apps on) linux is now a very viable choice.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Haven't you heard of "Windows XP Embedded" It's a componentized version of Win XP Pro and is based on the same binaries as XP Professional. It's is marketed towards developers for OEMs, ISVs and IHVs that want the full Win32 API support of Windows but without the overhead of Professional. It runs existing Windows applications and device drivers off-the-shelf on devices with at least 32MB Compact Flash, 32MB RAM and a P-200 microprocessor. "XPe" was released on November 28, 2001. As of February 2007, the newest release is Windows XP Embedded SP2 Feature Pack 2007.
XPe is not related to Windows CE. They target different devices and they each have their pros and cons which make them attractive to different OEMs for different types of devices. For instance, XPe will never get down to the small footprint that CE works in. However, CE does not have the Win32 APIs XPe has (although CE has an API that is similar to the Win32 API), nor can it run the tens of thousands of drivers and applications that already exist.
The devices targeted for XPe have included ATMs, arcade games, slot machines, cash registers, industrial robotics, thin clients, set-top boxes, network attached storage (NAS), time clocks, navigation devices, etc. Custom versions of the OS can be deployed onto anything but a full-fledged PC; even though XPe supports the same hardware that XP Professional supports (x86 architecture), licensing restrictions prevent it from being deployed on to standard PCs :-(
I was just thinking as I was reading this topic of how I would love to be able to load only the components I want. I'm a great fan of XP Pro and use it daily in my work. I hope I will never have to downgrade to Vista. These days I am developing software for Adobe Flex & Action Script 3. If I stay at this, I may just switch to Linux when full support for that comes out next year.
The above is directly quoted from Wikipedia.
Um, the 'big three' (ubuntu, fedora, suse) ALL fit on one CD, as they all have liveCDs. And on that one CD (ubuntu at least, been a while since I messed with the othe rones) you get:
An OS, a window manager, a desktop environment, tons of games, an office suite, an image editor, a DVD writer, a ton of 3D effects, a ton of screensavers, etc.
To compare, on the vista DVD, you get:
An OS+window manager+desktop environment (and you can't choose which ones), some games, a few screensavers, 3-4 3D effects, and that's pretty much it. And when installed it takes up what, like 10 gigs?
And as far as the 6 CDs or 1 DVD Linux downloads, these include ALL packages, so if you don't have internet access you can still install all your stuff. But Most of them you don't even need. I just set up a LAMP server today (no gui). I used CDs 1 and 2. That's it. And about 90% was from CD1. So yeah, I would say Linux is pretty damn small indeed.