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Comparison of Windows XP and Linux/Sugar On the OLPC XO

Posted by timothy on from the but-the-hardware-is-awesome dept.

griffjon writes "OLPCNews has a comparison of Windows XP to the Sugar/Linux OS on the One Laptop Per Child XO-1, based on the Microsoft Unlimited Potential video, touching on video recording, power usage, boot times, and mesh networking. An interesting, if saddening, read."

10 of 203 comments (clear)

  1. What's the real plan? by clang_jangle · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I thought MS was determined to kill XP, so what point are they trying to make showing how well it can run on the XO? I find this a bit confusing, like MS is talking out both sides of their mouth or something. Are they really going to stop selling XP as they keep claiming, or are they going to build a "new" windows netbook edtion based on XP, or are they just going to keep offering XP alongside Vista? Seems to me either the second or third options would be the most realistic, but they keep saying the opposite. What gives, MS? TFA also links to a blog containing a claim of an XP RTM for the Intel Classmate
    Puzzling.

    --
    Caveat Utilitor
    1. Re:What's the real plan? by belmolis · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Well, if I put my tin-foil hat on, I figure that Microsoft hopes to make the OLPC dependent on XP. With XP no longer available anywhere else, people who really want it will have to get it from OLPCs, rendering them unusable. In this way, MS will satisfy customers who really want XP, while destroying the OLPC.

  2. I have an olpc and would love windows 98' most by magsk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Firstly let me just say I purchased my olpc to use while I travel to third world countries and off the grid (as mot of them are), I like the olpc for its battery life its ability to be recharged without an outlet, and most of all its ruggedness. Now while I understand that xp is a great operating system and modern. I must say that I would be thrilled to use windows 98' on my olpc. . For a few reasons... 1)Suger is very boring, its like using a graphing calculator. 2) I would prefer to use word 97 and excel, along with IE (or ideally firefox, but beggars be choosers) 3) I am more familiar with windows and do believe that my ability to connect to other computers and receive files will be much more successful than using sugar. 4) hopefully will not need to load from SD card Let me finish by saying I know what the olpc was made for, but as someone who did the whole give 1 get 1 because they genuinely appreciate the innovations of the laptop I am an adult and do use it for work.

    1. Re:I have an olpc and would love windows 98' most by nawcom · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Note that this is only an outside opinion, but your whole paragraph equates to someone being served a a nice wet-n-sloppy dog-shit sandwich, and quickly getting back in line for seconds. Though myself a unix dev, I'm sure any Windows user would prefer Windows 2000 to a horribly coded frontend to DOS. Hell, I still use 2000 (either Windows 2000 or Windows FLP) on a VM in OS X, *BSD, or Linux.

      What am I saying? You would like Win2000/WinFLP more, since it's up-to-date and doesn't require heavy memory. But me telling you to use an NT OS instead of a DOS/9x one isn't really help at all; it's about as equivalent to telling a Heroin user to give morphine a try as a better alternative. ;)

  3. Re:Negroponte by johnlcallaway · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Amazing how one can take pieces of disparate information, couple it with nonsensical comments and very flimsy commonality and turn it into a conspiracy theory.

    Remember, just because someone is paranoid doesn't mean people aren't out to get them ...

    --
    I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
  4. nothing to see here, move along! by AlgorithMan · · Score: 4, Interesting
    god, that article is crap! first of all he compares his XO to A VIDEO!? wtf!?
    • i read the conclusion first (which i always do, to save reading time, since usually everything else is just explanations on why the conclusion is the way it is) but the conclusion basically says "sugar encourages learning, windows wants to be idiot-proof"
    • so after the conclusion was useless i wondered how the mentioned battery-life comparison went out - but that section says "Microsoft claims 20 hours of battery life while watching movies - and I didn't really test, how long it runs with sugar"... great comparison, really - comparing a marketing statement (yes, with our cars we all get as far on one fuel filling as the commercials tell us...) to nothing!?
    • recording audio is easier to find in sugar, as is video recording (well, you don't get options on quality-vs-size, but who cares about disk space, right? everyone has 1tb nowadays, right? the XO has 3-5 gb online storage - not much and slow...)
    • then he rants about how horrible sharing files is on windows-XO - you have to pass around a data storage medium - OMG!... oh btw it's the same thing with sugar, unless you have a file-server nearby...
    • wifi probably might be shitty on windows - although they barely sayd anything in the video about that... but windows sucks anyways...
    • security will be an issue, because kids might believe lies... anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-malware, anti-phishing will eat up battery life and performance

    now i really hate microsoft and wish them all the worst, but this article is just plain ridiculous! nothing to see here, move along!

    --
    The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
    1. Re:nothing to see here, move along! by pembo13 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Well a video is all Microsoft has provided, while doing their best to push their operating system onto the XO. And a video is likely all they are using to convince people that Windows XP is the only thing that can make the XO work. I guess the author could have waited for an actual working instance of XP on the XO. But there is no reason to be confident that such will ever come to past. In the meantime, just being to claim that XP on the XO is better is all Microsoft need to achieve their assumed goals.

      I personally use Linux as my OS of choice, however, I think that any operating system that can meet the technical requirements AND meet the "open" (as in open software) requirement would be a good choice for the XO. Assuming that the XO works, someday locals could be writing their own software, and customizing and maintaining the operating system and desktop environment. Unless things change radically in the future, this is an impossibility with Windows XP -- ie. owners of Windows XP on XO, regardless of geography, will be forever dependent on Microsoft.

      --
      "Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
  5. Ubuntu on the XO by P3Ed · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I had to pry my wife's XO out of her lap to post this. Sugar may be good for kids & education or not, but I found it to come up short. Ubuntu on the XO works well, even plays SD video recorded on Myth TV with out stuttering. It's damn hard to type on this little keyboard.

  6. Re:Sugar and XP accomplish different things.... by hairyfeet · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What amazes me is that nobody at the OLPC seems to be even thinking this through. You are putting WinXP,which can be hijacked in no time flat if it isn't running AV,anti-malware,firewall,and patched up(and the patches can take up a TON of space). Since we know that a machine with specs as low as the OLPC can't run all those,not unless they run something ultra stripped like "XP Beast Edition" to make room for the extra software and to cut down on the avenues of attack,which of course MSFT isn't about to give them, we can assume that it will be no time at all until the XP OLPCs will be hijacked.

    As someone who fixes Windows machines for a living I can tell you that no matter how much RAM and CPU you have the average virus or malware is going to thrash the hell out of the drive,that is just the nature of the beast. Since the OLPC uses SSD for storage the XP machines will burn through the write cycles pretty damned fast once they get pwned. And unless they are planning to give out read only flash drives containing the OS I'm guessing the hacked together version of XP they are getting is going to be a royal PITA to reinstall once it burns up the SSD. So they are going to end up with a bunch of dead OLPCs,and since we are talking third world and I doubt they have crates of SSDs to replace all the burnt ones from viruses, the OLPC goes from being a tool for schoolkids to learn with to just another piece of dead Windows junk.

    Maybe when the OLPC goes out of business someone will buy the fab and the design and sell them to everyone so the economies of scale will kick in and we can all have cheap Linux Netbooks. Because going with XP on the OLPC seems to me to be a recipe for failure.

    --
    ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  7. Re:Sugar and XP accomplish different things.... by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Obviously, you have not been to rural Africa! Ability to use MS Word is a highly marketable skill there.

    Since a high proportion of the adults are functionally illiterate, they need to employ someone else to write for them. This applies most especially to those who control the money and power - and in the best position to pay for your services.

    Furthermore, if you have plans to go to the big city and get a job with the government (who have stolen most of the money from the people), you will need a good working knowledge of MS Word to construct a credible CV.

    Your post should be modded "-1 Rubbish"

    --
    Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII