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

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."

Comments

What's the real plan?

[clang_jangle]

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.

Re:What's the real plan?

[belmolis]

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.

Re:What's the real plan?

[ConceptJunkie]

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?

They were. Then they realized that Linux would eat their lunch on the OLPC and they knew that Vista boot times on an OLPC would be geologic... if it could run on the machine at all.

Basically, Microsoft got caught with their crappy product being wholly incapable of supporting a new market that was emerging. XP would get a reprieve from this death sentence only to prevent Microsoft from (rightly) looking incapable of supporting low-end hardware. Basically, the cold hard reality of Vista's bloat is too big for even Microsoft to ignore.

Hopefully more and more people will realize that Microsoft hasn't done anything useful since XP was released, except for fixes to XP.

Re:What's the real plan?

[stavros-59]

Microsoft really don't get the point of the OLPC. They've missed the market for mini laptops and only have Windows XP to offer that market. Shoehorning a kludgy XP and Office, antivirus and protection onto the OLPC makes it a far less useful product.

They are doing the same thing to the EEEPC.

Microsoft's Plans for the distribution of EEEPCs in India

Re:What's the real plan?

[Anonymous Coward]

Worked for Jean-Chrétien. /duck

Sugar and XP accomplish different things....

[Manip]

Comparing Sugar to Windows XP is kind of like comparing a pushbike to a 747 engine...

They're designed to do different things. Sugar is designed to be incredibly simple needing little training (or reading skill). It allows people to use a computer without having to learn how to use a computer.

Windows XP is a versatile monster trying to offer all things to all people. It is hugely complex and requires the average person a great deal of time to pickup and use.

I can understand why Microsoft might wish to run XP on the X0 but what I struggle to understand is why anyone is comparing them to one another.

If Microsoft develops some kind of child friendly interface that children can use then we can start talking about it. But until that happens you just aren't comparing the same thing at all.

Re:Sugar and XP accomplish different things....

[Flavio]

I can understand why Microsoft might wish to run XP on the X0 but what I struggle to understand is why anyone is comparing them to one another.

The point of comparing Sugar to XP is to demonstrate what most of us predicted -- i.e., that XP is completely unsuitable for this application.

Having XP in the marketplace annoys me, but my irritation is limited because people have alternatives. A child who gets XP preinstalled on the XO will probably have no alternative and will be left with an inferior product. I hope reviewers keep denouncing Microsoft's involvement with the XO, because no good can come of it.

Re:Sugar and XP accomplish different things....

[fm6]

The point of comparing Sugar to XP is to demonstrate what most of us predicted -- i.e., that XP is completely unsuitable for this application.

And that, believe it or not, is actually good news.

People want Windows on the XO because they think that kids need "practical" tools, like Microsoft Office, so they can develop "marketable" skills. Which is nonsense. There aren't that many jobs for people with those kinds of skills, especially not in rural villages in the developing world. Kids in those places need learning tools that help them build their knowledge and skill base on their own.

So Windows on the XO is unworkable. Great. Now the OLPC people can get back to doing something more useful than producing yet another Wintel clone.

Re:Sugar is worse

[Anonymous Coward]

I suggest you read and understand the philosophy behind OLPC, the XO laptop, and Sugar, before posting such blatantly ignorant posts as this one.

I have an olpc and would love windows 98' most

[magsk]

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.

Re:Sugar is worse

[oldhack]

Sugar is god-awful slow. It's not even a real program; it's just a Python script.

That's a really bright thing to say. What, you program only with solder?

Re:Help me out here???

[oldhack]

Please help me out here, does the author really think that kids in third world countries are going to be doing development work on these limited devices? Based on the quote below from the article the author really beleives that these devices should be open to tampering/fiddling. Does he think that if the device fails there will be a geek squad near by? Are hacking skills of value when you live in a mud hut?\

Kids today. Many of us had Apple/Commodore as the first computer, mucked around a good bit just for no good reason, and learned a good bit of how computer works, and there were no Geek Squad. That's how you learn.

Btw, these are going to developing countries where computers for kids makes some sense, not cavemenistan. It'd be nice if they marketed these things here (US) also rather than only those countries though - today's mainstream PCs just ain't designed for kids to learn the basic.

Geek Squad, pah.

Re:Help me out here???

[nawcom]

The concept is to integrate computer technology into areas that cannot afford it. This is more than just "learning how to click things and checking your email", it (at least the initial plan) was to spread the knowledge of computer technology, programming, and to expand interests to areas that are involuntarily cut off from it.

And for your GeekSquad comment: People who work at GeekSquad are stupid. 99% get confused when "unix" is mentioned, so they whip out their nutsack to show that they haven't had theirs removed. I've had to help GeekSquad kids multiple times with issues; in fact one time I had to tell one of them that they have to use the 48-bit MAC address from the person's laptop in order to set up the router, and he blatantly stated, "Well, we only support Windows." Nuff said.

If you can find someone who is struggling with their preinstalled Linux laptop due to the retarded causes (like spyware, horribly fragmented filesystems, viruses, un-needed bloatware, driver irq issues, etc) that are common in Windows, let me know. Hell, Submit a post here when it happens. In the mean time, when someone in a third world country decides, "Hey, I want to make a program just like this (points at app on the screen) they have the freedom (as in costs) to learn about it and complete their goal.

Ubuntu on the XO

[P3Ed]

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.

Re:It's an easier smear than that.

[cp.tar]

XP on the XO is M$ attempt simply to pull some popularity out of the XO and from their point of view trying to force up the cost of hardware to prevent the software appearing as such an expensive waste of money in comparison, hence the resource hog vista. They really have become a myopically greedy company with a complete disregard for the harm their actions cause.

OLPC is an educational project.
Microsoft wants, more than anything, to keep infecting younger generations.

If kids learn to live without Microsoft's software, if they learn to program and hack on a massive scale, there is no force in the world that will make them endorse Microsoft's expensive solutions unless they are significantly better than the competition, i.e. really worth their price.

This is something that needs to be stopped, as it cuts in their future userbase; it is as if the sheep suddenly started developing civilization: not very good news for shepherds at all.