Microsoft Announces Windows For Raspberry Pi 2

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.

Comments

just want I wanted!

[Anonymous Coward]

How stupid is this?

Re:just want I wanted!

[TheRealMindChild]

At least you will get an actual accelerated video driver instead of framebuffered X

Re:just want I wanted!

[jcupitt65]

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/

Re:just want I wanted!

[Half-pint HAL]

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?)

Re: just want I wanted!

[Anonymous Coward]

Schools have already been assimilated by Apple

Re: just want I wanted!

[matbury]

Loads of schools have bought and are buying iPads without much of an idea of what they're going to use them for, let alone a coherent educational plan. The end result? Expensive, distracting toys that have little, if any, demonstrable effects on learning outcomes in K-12 education. Then there's stories like this: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01... Developmental psychologists are less than enamoured of shiny, techy internet gadgets in classrooms and children's pockets.

Re:just want I wanted!

[Anonymous Coward]

It already has that for over a year now.

Maybe if you knew anything about the Pi you would post things that made sense.

Re: just want I wanted!

[LaurenCates]

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!

[Richy_T]

The netbook thing was an "Embrace, extend extinguish" kind of deal. It ruined the market.

Re:just want I wanted!

[Reprint001]

Indeded. RIP R Pi. 2012 - 2015.

Re:just want I wanted!

[OliWarner]

Linux advocacy was never their goal

Maybe not, but open was.

Microsoft has their reputation for being anti-freedom for a reason. Even in Microsoft wanted to do this on their own (not hard given they already have Arm versions) I'm still slightly surprised that the RPi Foundation is advertising Windows as a feature.

Re:just want I wanted!

[Richard_at_work]

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.

Re:just want I wanted!

[sosume]

Sure, open is the policy. That must be why they used proprietory hardware mpeg decoding for which you need to buy a separate license.

Re: just want I wanted!

[amiga3D]

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.

Re:just want I wanted!

[Microlith]

one of the chief objections to the RPi is the fact that it doesn't run "industry-standard software"... i.e. Windows.

But that's neither a rational or logical objection. It's a biased objection born of ignorance.

Re:just want I wanted!

[MachineShedFred]

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.

Re:just want I wanted!

[operator_error]

Plus, Microsoft forces you to give up all kinds of personal information when you register, as they probably require of you.

Re:just want I wanted!

[BarbaraHudson]

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.

Re:just want I wanted!

[Half-pint HAL]

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.

Re:just want I wanted!

[Half-pint HAL]

one of the chief objections to the RPi is the fact that it doesn't run "industry-standard software"... i.e. Windows.

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.

Re: just want I wanted!

[Anonymous Coward]

Loads of schools have bought and are buying iPads without much of an idea of what they're going to use them for, let alone a coherent educational plan. The end result? Expensive, distracting toys that have little, if any, demonstrable effects on learning outcomes in K-12 education.

That could honestly be said about any tech other than chalk and chalkboard being used in the classroom. There are few uses for computing *in* the classroom. Where computing shines is in remediation done outside the classroom. Other than that, most implementations of computing in the classroom are just "expensive, distracting toys".

Re:just want I wanted!

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you mean anti-freedom? Unless you know c/c++ programming you can't really do much with the Linux Distros either. You are stuck with whatever ubuntu, mint, fedora, opensuse, arch gives you. Open Source is for and by geeks and they are always hostile towards the average joe. Rather pay $$$ for the backward software compatibility, stability, and the A+ software availability then mess around with the buggy linux.

Re: just want I wanted!

[Pieroxy]

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.

Re: just want I wanted!

[macpacheco]

Just because the NY Times says something it doesn't mean its true.
They have published lies against Tesla Motors which have been methodically proven to be wrong.
But the most important step toward better K12 education is adoption of the Khan Academy system which strives towards A grades for all STEM classes, don't allow a student to leave a topic until it fully mastered it. And you can't do the Khan system without a computer with a browser and good video playback capabilities, it doesn't need to be an iPad, it could be pretty much any decent tablet, laptop, ultrabook or desktop computer. Sure the computer is just a tool that needs to be properly used.

Re: just want I wanted!

[macpacheco]

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).

Re:just want I wanted!

[Bert64]

The decline in price of full laptops, combined with the increasing price of netbooks (more powerful hardware because windows needed it)...

Re:just want I wanted!

[cusco]

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.

Re: just want I wanted!

[sdw]

What interactive board does she use? Pros / cons?

Re:just want I wanted!

[soft_guy]

Lots of embedded projects are done on Raspberry Pi. If Windows does not run on the Pi, the company who decides to do a Pi based project will decide to develop under Linux. If Windows is available on the Pi and they have Windows developers available, they might decide to do the project with Windows. Also, its less expensive to hire Windows developers than Linux developers right now. Microsoft likes selling embedded windows because its a great way for them to sell lots of Windows licenses.

Re:just want I wanted!

[exomondo]

even if its performance is abysmal

Why would its performance be abysmal? The Raspberry Pi 2 has 1GB of RAM, the base memory footprint for Windows 8 is ~280mb which is about 60% of what Windows 7 uses, not sure what Windows 10 uses but I'm assuming it's going to be much the same. More to the point one of the biggest memory hogs from a lowend perspective is often the graphics driver, and Pi 2 doesn't have a heavyweight GPU so that shouldn't be a problem.

Re:just want I wanted!

[khellendros1984]

Because Eben Upton and most of the Raspberry Pi Foundation are Broadcom employees. The primary goal was to build something educational and to build it cheaply enough to be affordable around the world. Since they could work on acquiring the parts from inside the company, Broadcom made sense as a vendor to support their goal. They got cheaper parts, some level of code-openening from Broadcom, and manufacturing in Britain. Openness was a secondary goal, and only because it supported the primary goal of education.

Re:just want I wanted!

[shutdown -p now]

Ruined the market for whom?

Re:just want I wanted!

[Dogtanian]

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

You're evidently not *that* familiar with the BBC Micro then. It may have been a great computer in many respects (particularly the Model B), but it was never, *ever* "cheap". Quite the opposite, it always had a reputation as an expensive machine that was mainly owned by schools and kids with well-off Mummies and Daddies.

The ZX81 cost £70 (or £50 in kit form) when launched in 1981. Multiply that by around 3.5 times for today's prices.

The cheaper Model A cost £235 when it came out a few months later, but went up almost immediately to £299. And that still only had 16K- not enough to even use the more demanding graphics modes- and lacked a lot of the Model B's ports. The 32K Model B (which far outsold the Model A and is the one everyone remembers) jumped from £335 to £399, and that was its regular price for most of its life. And remember that *didn't* include the disk drives and nice RGB monitor that every school seemed to have. (Even at a conservative guess I'd assume those came close to doubling the price, if not completely rushing past it (no, monitors and disk drives were *not* cheap). Even £650 at today's prices is over £2000!

So, no. The Raspberry Pi may have the educational aims of the BBC, but the "hackability" and cheapness is more akin to the Sinclair machines (ZX80, ZX81, ZX Spectrum) that most people could afford for all their limitations. And even *those* are expensive if you compare their price in real terms to what you can get a Raspberry Pi for these days!

Re: just want I wanted!

[Half-pint HAL]

That's irrelevant. The limitarion is the teacher, not the whiteboard. I had a degree in Computer Science long before I moved into teaching, and I barely scratched the surface of what's possible with interactive whiteboards when I was teaching English....

Re: just want I wanted!

[Half-pint HAL]

Excellence != Khan Academy. Khan Academy == Acceptable mediocrity.

Re: just want I wanted!

[Half-pint HAL]

Yeuch. KA is riddled with errors and omissions. The idea of a "mastery curriculum" was not dreamt up by Sal Khan, and KA barely attempts to measure mastery anyway. It's a bunch of videos -- nothing more.

Re:just want I wanted!

[Half-pint HAL]

They were not useless -- I'd been waiting almost a decade for netbooks. The problem was bloatware -- MS apps had expanded to fill the vacuum of a much bigger computer... but why? I would love to see computing becoming more efficient, rather than algorithms abhoring a vacuum.

Re:just want I wanted!

[Half-pint HAL]

You're just a filthy commie... no, wait, that's 16k too much... filthy speccy...! ;-)

Re:just want I wanted!

[Half-pint HAL]

I said "if", not "though". Microsoft's goal will be to mark the territory, one way or the other.

Re:just want I wanted!

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably because cost was the overriding factor, along with making something that would fit into the education market.

A couple of other factors worth considering: they did keep the same video core because they can now develop open source drivers.

The degree of openness is also important. Relatively few people will be working with drivers and even fewer will be working with firmware. While it would be nice if these were open, it is not a priority in education.

Re:just want I wanted!

[exomondo]

I said "if", not "though".

I know, either way the question of "why" is just as relevant.

Re: just want I wanted!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeuch. KA is riddled with errors and omissions.

But pointing those out or contributing to correcting them would not be in your interest. Im sure your curriculum is perfect, free of errors and entirely comprehensive.

It's a bunch of videos -- nothing more.

And that demonstrates irrefutably that you are just acting defensively and in doing so trying to spread FUD.

Re:just want I wanted!

[exomondo]

They were not useless

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.

The problem was bloatware -- MS apps had expanded to fill the vacuum of a much bigger computer... but why? I would love to see computing becoming more efficient, rather than algorithms abhoring a vacuum.

Citation? Windows has been reducing its hunger for system resources and on Linux you can use reduced-functionality shells on and less graphically intense window managers to remove the need to load the high-capability graphics drivers that take up a lot of memory.

I'm not sure what "MS apps" you're referring to that have "expanded" or what you mean by that. For example say you open a built-in application like Wordpad, on Windows 7 it uses about 20mb of RAM, open Wordpad on Windows 8.1 and it uses just over 9MB of RAM. Then there's the base install of Windows 8 which brings the memory footprint from 7's ~400MB down to ~280MB of RAM.

Re:just want I wanted!

[Half-pint HAL]

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 extend customer appeal, they extinguished the netbook. That said, a reflashed Chromebook is an acceptable alternative.

Citation? Windows has been reducing its hunger for system resources

Windows has been reducing its hunger for system resources recently. Five years ago, when netbooks were the "next big thing", Windows XP's life was extended because they couldn't get Windows 7 squeezed into the specs of the netbooks at the time. Microsoft is shrinking the Windows footprint now because of the convergence of mobile and desktop, but that wasn't on the cards back then.

Re: just want I wanted!

[Half-pint HAL]

But pointing those out or contributing to correcting them would not be in your interest.

It's not about whether it's in my interest to correct them or not, it is about whether it's in my interest to watch the videos in the first place or not. I have no reason to watch the ones that I have the knowledge to correct, and I have no desire to watch ones that I can't determine the veracity of. Khan Academy's quality may have improved in the last couple of years, but the initial quality was poor enough to lose my interest completely.

It's a bunch of videos -- nothing more.

And that demonstrates irrefutably that you are just acting defensively and in doing so trying to spread FUD.

No it doesn't. It demonstrates that I am oversimplifying. Yes, there are questions and online code editors/checkers. Yes it assesses your knowledge and skips the odd video to personalise the learning track a little, but that's a poor approximation of adaptive learning at best. Yes it has a handful of teacher tools to allow you to integrate it into your own curriculum, but again, this is kind of lip-service as it is not really any more flexible than most offline materials -- and perhaps less so, because it's much easier to alter photocopiable spreadsheets than a web video.

Khan Academy got big not because of good pedagogy, but because of its price. It was created for free by a guy who didn't know a lot about teaching. He made the videos in an ad hoc manner that was quick and easy for him. Cheap production values for free materials. Sadly, the whole online learning sector has gone this way, and ploughed lots of money into making materials with cheap production values (see Coursera, edX etc). It's maddening. Why are all these screencasts and slidecasts touted as "the future of technology" when they're really just a professor-and-chalkboard lecture in a different medium? When I was a child, the UK's Open University had materials like that -- you'd see them on TV in the early morning writing equations on the board -- but they abandoned that and started using the medium of video in its own terms, borrowing more and more techniques from TV to convey information efficiently and effectively. Yes, that takes time, and it takes money. No, Sal couldn't have done that on his own. But the world has fetishised the lo-fi aesthetic, and no-one's willing to step away from it when the money's there to do something better. It's practically ludditism.

Re: just want I wanted!

[macpacheco]

Khan academy is by no means 100% done. They don't have thousands of professionals. AFAIK all videos are done by Sal himself. But it's good enough it has been adopted as primary teaching materials for some USA School districts.
It's not a bunch of videos. This statement of yours just shows you have no interest in even trying to learn about it, you just make up your own FUD to try to prevent others from learning about it.

Re: just want I wanted!

[macpacheco]

You are sooooo wrong, it's not even worth trying to detail how wrong you are.
You just made a generic Khan academy is crap generalization without a single fact to make your point.
By no means Khan academy is 100% ready.
Watching a 10 minute video about Khan academy will show you the exercise generator, with the integrated teacher tools that allow teachers to analyze which students have learned the subject perfectly (and could be assigned to help others), those who need some help (which could come from the ace students), and the students that are struggling with the topic and need teacher direct help.

Re:just want I wanted!

[exomondo]

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.

Now all of that is done on tablets and if you need a keyboard then just attach a bluetooth keyboard cover.

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 extend customer appeal, they extinguished the netbook.

Nobody extinguished the netbook. In fact netbooks still exist and are still being sold, it's just that nobody wants them, instead they opt for a much more capable ultrabook or their needs are better served by a tablet.

Windows has been reducing its hunger for system resources recently. Five years ago, when netbooks were the "next big thing", Windows XP's life was extended because they couldn't get Windows 7 squeezed into the specs of the netbooks at the time.

Yes which is why netbooks of the time ran Windows XP - an operating system from 2001 that ran on much less powerful hardware than netbooks - and they ran it fine. Many of those netbooks also ran Linux except relatively nobody in the target market really wanted to run Linux.

Im afraid there is really no merit to your argument that Windows 7 killed the netbook, in fact the netbook isn't even dead, there are plenty of netbooks still on the market and even quite a lot of them that run Android.

Re: just want I wanted!

[Half-pint HAL]

Last time I looked, none of the tools on KA were unique or innovative. They were all just implementations of standard tools that have been available for years in various forms. Khan Academy's success derives from the media hype, not the technology.

Re:just want I wanted!

[DriveDog]

Yep. The proper response is "the OSs that have run up to now on the RPi ARE the industry standard, as well as the applications that work on them. Windows and Windows applications on lightweight devices have never been "the industry standard". It is unlikely that the majority of future lightweight and/or IoT devices will be running Windows or Windows applications, so it makes no sense to educate students using those, even if they function as claimed.

Re:just want I wanted!

[blackest_k]

I find it hard to imagine windows 7 running well in 400MB of ram, In practice taskmanager has shown booting to the desktop taking around 1GB A Windows 7 desktop is pretty much unusable with 1GB of ram 1.5GB at least lets you boot up and run office or a web browser.

previous experience with XP has found it sluggish with 512 MB but reasonable with 756MB 2000 is very zippy on 512MB and great in a VM. Some of the linux desktops are pretty bad in a VM especially unity but xubuntu is quite usable.

   

Re:just want I wanted!

[exomondo]

I find it hard to imagine windows 7 running well in 400MB of ram

All I said was there is significant a reduction in the amount of base memory used by the operating system.

In practice taskmanager has shown booting to the desktop taking around 1GB A Windows 7 desktop is pretty much unusable with 1GB of ram 1.5GB at least lets you boot up and run office or a web browser.

A lot of it depends on the device drivers you have loaded. Once you're loading high performance graphics drivers, shell extensions, accelerated DWM, etc... of course it adds up. There are various tools that help you to strip out the unnecessary things of a Windows install too. Anyway that's beside the point, from Vista, to 7 to 8 there has been a marked reduction in memory usage.

Re: just want I wanted!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not about whether it's in my interest to correct them or not, it is about whether it's in my interest to watch the videos in the first place or not. I have no reason to watch the ones that I have the knowledge to correct, and I have no desire to watch ones that I can't determine the veracity of.

So you are in fact a liar when you say KA is riddled with errors and omissions. since by your own admission the ones you think are wrong are ones you haven't watched.

No it doesn't. It demonstrates that I am oversimplifying.

Actually it could mean either or both. The fact that you are deliberately oversimplifying proves further that your endeavor here is to spread FUD rather than actual factual information.

Your attitude is understandable, but not excusable. Whenever somebody feels threatened by change, insofar as their inability to adapt to it is concerned, they will react with baseless accusations and attempts to spread FUD as a method of defending themselves which is precisely what you are doing. Many of these tools exist to supplement existing curriculum, not replace it, however that doesn't stop the incumbents from feeling threatened by the change if they are not progressive. Those teachers who are good at their job recognize that change in the world must be reflected in their curriculum and supplemented by the beneficial elements of that change, that change is rarely expected to be all-consuming.

The fact that you can't take a beneficial part of this onboard shows exactly the sort of closed-minded individual you are. Deny it all you want and continue to spread FUD if you wish though or accept that change happens and you can better yourself by recognizing that.

Re: just want I wanted!

[Half-pint HAL]

Your attitude is understandable, but not excusable. Whenever somebody feels threatened by change, insofar as their inability to adapt to it is concerned, they will react with baseless accusations and attempts to spread FUD as a method of defending themselves which is precisely what you are doing. Many of these tools exist to supplement existing curriculum, not replace it, however that doesn't stop the incumbents from feeling threatened by the change if they are not progressive.

When you assume, you make an ass of U and the adaptive learning systems programmer you are talking to. I'm not frightened of change, I'm trying to create it. If I'm worried about any threat, it's the threat of a flood of acceptably mediocre offerings creating a popular view that educational technology is a little freebie that has a few nice effects, thus undermining research into truly revolutionary (but far more expensive) systems. KA throughout it's history has been based on screencasts, and everything added on since has been aimed at leveraging the screencasts. It has all been taken from existing standard edtech practice -- nothing they have done as been cutting edge.

The end result is basically a semi-automated update of what was known as "resource-based learning" back when my father was the one railing against it, and because KA doesn't have as much teacher involvement it's better than previous resource-based approaches, but in the end it still shares many of its limitations in terms of flexibility -- all the assumptions that went into the curriculum design and resultant ordering constraints remain. Which is why this is overly optimistic:

Many of these tools exist to supplement existing curriculum, not replace it,

A tool can supplement an existing curriculum, but materials always end up supplanting it. With teaching materials, it is rarely a question of all-or-nothing, but the middle ground between all and nothing is best described as a poorly coordinated mess. You need to have a profound understanding of the rationale behind the material before you can adapt it without losing the benefits, and if you step off the resource's expected learning path, suddenly you've got to adapt every other resource to meet your new path.

For example, if your language resources start with the present tense, animals and food, and you want to start with the past tense (maybe because you want to tell lots of stories in class, and the past is the typical narrative tense in the language), all your resources will be loaded with vocabulary it expects the kids to know before the lesson starts, so you can't use any of them. You only truly get flexibility when the materials are made by the teacher or to the teacher's specifications -- KA doesn't attempt to do that. That's why I don't like Khan Academy.

Re:just want I wanted!

[Richy_T]

You are completely right. I still use my EEEpc. Though more often I use my Chromebook which has more modern specs and a better for factor (not reflashed though. For advanced features, remoting works well for my needs).

The sibling post of mine notes that you can effectively get a netbook by having a tablet and adding a keyboard. Sorry, I like my keyboard pre-attached. I do have a tablet but it has mostly fallen to being used as a remote control for mythtv and for my daughter to track her yu-gi-oh games. My chromebook is in constant use when I'm not at my main desktop.

Re:just want I wanted!

[Richy_T]

I don't believe he said that Windows 7 killed the notebook, merely that Microsoft's efforts to take a slice of the pie were damaging to the market

Re:just want I wanted!

[exomondo]

How? They used Windows XP, people wanted that and bought netbooks but when tablets came out people preferred those, that is all that happened. Anybody could buy a netbook over a tablet but virtually nobody wants that.

Re:just want I wanted!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really, Chromebooks are gaining popularity now, and they aren't really more functional than netbooks were and in some ways they are even less functional (unless you're knowlegeable and competent enough to put regular Linux on it). There are lots of people that a netbook is sufficiently functional for and some of those now use a Chromebook since regular netbooks have more or less died out.

Re:just want I wanted!

[Richy_T]

XP had more demanding specs which was adopted pushed the netbooks out of their value point (they failed to be competitive with low-end laptops).

Tablets vs netbooks is yet to be decided. Tablet sales are flattening and Chromebooks are still out there.

Re:just want I wanted!

[exomondo]

XP had more demanding specs which was adopted pushed the netbooks out of their value point (they failed to be competitive with low-end laptops).

No it didn't, even the first Asus eeePC was later released with Windows XP. Even at that $200 price point there are still netbooks available, even new ones with Windows.

the joy!

[ruir]

Because I will buy an underdog Raspberry PI to ruin it with Windows...more viruses at home LOL

Re:the joy!

[halivar]

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.

Re:the joy!

[LWATCDR]

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:the joy!

[Anonymous Coward]

Your being sarcastic but...not.

A machine that small is going to be used for performing a function, it's probably not going to be grannies primary email checking machine.

Microsoft graphical user interface, system architecture, security and openness have been historically poor. In my gut (and probably yours too) microsoft has a marketing problem because I wouldn't waste the hour or 2 for installation (could be more I've certainly ran into long installation problems with MS software before).

It would feel like I took something with potential and crippled it instead of empowered it.

Re:the joy!

[chispito]

Why is this modded 'Funny?' This is still good advice.

Re:the joy!

[fisted]

Because he got the virus baked into his OS right from day one, and still seems to be unaware of drive-by attacks?
Made me laugh, at least

Re:the joy!

[Anonymous Coward]

For the gui you can always use third party apps or free tools to modify it, which I do. The system architecture(win32, .net, winrt) is not bad it keeps compatibility with older software unlike linux where it's "Out with the Old and In with the New" which breaks software so easily. Security? Easy, use a standard account instead of the administrator default. By openness you mean source code or the NSA backdoor scare mongering? should you be worried about SELINUX as well?

Re:the joy!

[Anonymous Coward]

and don't click on the damn .scr files.

Don't run Screen Saver files?

Re:the joy!

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, since most had a password unlock feature that emailed your credentials for backup, just in case you forgot!

Re:the joy!

[Anonymous Coward]

Years ago the sort of people that would frequent this site were the kind that knew how to secure an operating system whether that be Windows, Linux or MacOS. Nowadays the mantra is to avoid education on securing a system and to just use "Linux" (even though nobody just runs Linux) because of the theory that its openness and obscurity makes it more secure. The overarching recommendations are what leads to all these problems with security, Linux is purported as an efficient, secure alternative to Windows that you dont need to go to any effort with yet now much of the community has turned on Android (to the point that some claim it is not Linux) because that operating system has proven it to be wrong.

Android made Linux popular and now it is a security nightmare, yet Windows Phone is one of the most virus-free platforms there is and the reason is popularity.

Re:the joy!

[Destined Soul]

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.

When you say lock your door, I'm presuming you mean behind a firewall or router?

The only time I've been infected was during a Win98 install. I ended up connecting it directly to the internet instead of using my router (I don't recall why; that was a long time ago.) After my first set of updates had applied (ie: rebooted from), I discovered that it was already infected. The most interesting part was it was compromised in under 25 minutes.

Since then, a router has been my best and first line of defense. After that, the rest of stuff is avoiding most of the social engineering that's trying to get you to click them.

Re:the joy!

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been running internet-connected Windows desktop for 20 years, and have never gotten a virus.

Neither have I. Back in the day, it was because the average virus was too fat to fit down a 300-baud connection; now it's because nobody bothers targeting Win95 anymore.

Re:the joy!

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about the internals, but the UI sucks more than 7. They should have chucked away the Windows 8 UI and either started again from scratch or from what Windows 7 had. If they can't fix that, I don't have much hope they'll get other bits right,

Why don't they focus

[Anonymous Coward]

On getting Win10 to not suck on PC first?

Re:Why don't they focus

[Anonymous Coward]

What about Windows 10 makes it suck? I'm rather curious.

Re:Why don't they focus

[afidel]

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.

Re:Why don't they focus

[yuhong]

I checked screenshots and the builds doesn't look that much different to me. The tiles was in the older builds too.

Re:Why don't they focus

[afidel]

The tile space is twice as large, can't be reduced, and the app section is not the folder based start menu that we've been using for 20 years, instead it's a shrunken version of the start screen from 8.1 which means things are organized alphabetically instead of into user controllable folders.

Re:Why don't they focus

[yuhong]

It is alphabetically organized, but it still have folders actually (I have it running in a VM).

One Laptop per Child

[Anonymous Coward]

No thank you. I remember what happened last time you joined a community.

Free for the maker community? Damn

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn, I'm not part of that hyped community, so whats the cost for us regulars? That darn maker community

Re:Free for the maker community? Damn

[tbuddy]

Everyone is part of the maker community. They are saying 1 in 5 developers are working on an IoT project 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.

• Do you know how to click a hyperlink?
• Can you fill out a web form?
• Do you know how to hit a submit form?
• Can you check your email?

If you answered yes to these questions you are probably already eligible to be part of the illustrious maker community and may well be eligible to be part of whatever the next Web 3.5 community that comes up. The folks at Microsoft look forward to satisfying your development needs, which will likely involve using your Raspberry Pi 2 as a companion in a drawer to your PS/2 to USB adapter, VGA cables, two button laser mice that may or may not work, and other remnants of IT past.

Re:Free for the maker community? Damn

[petermgreen]

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.

Had to check the calendar

[dosius]

...it's still two months to April Fool's day...

Re:Had to check the calendar

[drolli]

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 missing is that they actually open source windows. But maybe they do that when they replace the kernel by a linux kernel and forget the rest.....

Re:Had to check the calendar

[Anonymous Coward]

> -Microsoft sells Linux hardware - seems to be the case - Nokia N1

The Nokia N1 is from the actual Nokia not from the division that Microsoft bought.

The Nokia X (Android) phones that were in the division that MS bought were quickly dropped and erased.

Re:Had to check the calendar

[BasilBrush]

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.

Whoring for mindshare?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please! Use this wonderful OS we've built! Pretty please!

Pathetic.

No

[Anonymous Coward]

NOo0000oøøøø!

That's not what we want! :(

April Fool's Day?

[Anonymous Coward]

No wait, this is Windows IoT :)

License?

[JaredOfEuropa]

They say it's free to the maker community, but what if you want to turn your creation into a commercial product? Especially for IoT devices it makes little sense to use an OS not known for its reliability, and encumbered by a non-free license. I see no reason not to use proven and free Linux instead.

Re:License?

[Mr D from 63]

A commercial product.... based on Windows?......funny guy.

Re:License?

[Anonymous Coward]

"OS not known for its reliability"

'95 just called they want their FUD back.

Re:License?

[Anonymous Coward]

So... they want a piece of the Pie!

Re:License?

[Sevalecan]

I'm sure you're just being facetious, but I feel the need to point out that many self-checkouts in the nation use Windows... XP Embedded. In fact, I heard one play the Windows XP Startup theme like 2 days ago. That was a blast from the past.

Re:License?

[cybrthng]

Honest question, since when is windows not known as reliable? I have just as many problems supporting Linux on anything as Windows and to be quite honest, sometimes it may be worth paying the couple of dollars to license an OS that has great vendor support out of the box than to roll your own. Microsoft for example offers Windows 8.1 for free on Devices 9" screen size. I can't imagine this version costing much if anything at all - running similar to licensing of Android where some specific configurations may have costs.

Knowing Microsoft will have a "universal" app ecosystem and fully expecting that WinRT will be ported to IoT platforms fully (don't think it has been for 8.1 IoT platforms) it would be silly for an internet of things company to be concerned with OS when they can focus on Device - especially knowing Microsoft's long tail support of everything..

Re:License?

[jellomizer]

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.

Re:License?

[Dr. Evil]

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.

Re:License?

[Anonymous Coward]

My LeCroy oscilloscope runs XP Professional (not even embedded). It's rock solid and a pretty decent scope, plus remote-desktopping into it is a much nicer remote control experience than a lot of scopes provide.

Re:License?

[ITRambo]

I sometimes see a message from someone named Colonel Panic. Who is this guy?

Re:License?

[dintech]

I've seen the Blue Screen of Death on ATMs, Point of Sale terminals, Taxi Passenger TV Screens, Airport Screens and others. It's all out there and failing like it's supposed to. :)

Re:License?

[KingMotley]

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.

Re:License?

[Anonymous Coward]

They say it's free to the maker community, but what if you want to turn your creation into a commercial product? Especially for IoT devices it makes little sense to use an OS not known for its reliability, and encumbered by a non-free license. I see no reason not to use proven and free Linux instead.

Don't forget security and the need to download one gigabyte of patches every two weeks! Who wants that PITA!

Re:License?

[BlueLightning]

I'm more worried about General Failure reading my C drive, to be honest...

Re:License?

[tibit]

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 licensing. It's also why we'll be dropping Windows Embedded in the next two months, as we near the end of testing for the Linux port of our solution. It's utterly infeasible for small vendors (say 100 devices) to deal with Microsoft licensing mess unless they have got way more patience than I do. It's as if the 90s called and wanted their "talk to your distributor" shit back.

Re:License?

[ncc74656]

If there is a genuine advantage of using Windows in such a device

ISWYDT.

Re:License?

[Anonymous Coward]

> 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.

That worked so well for small tablets and phones that MS has made those free now (in the hope and expectation that it will be made up for in store sales).

> With window you got its GUI that is in the way,

On the Galileo Board Windows has no display let alone a GUI. It has been said that on the Pi the features will be 'similar to other boards'.

Re:License?

[BasilBrush]

And we've all experienced many web servers that are down. Most of which are running Linux.

Re:License?

[cusco]

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.

Re:License?

[tombeard]

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.

Re:License?

[exomondo]

Windows development is taught in high schools all over the world, and a lot of the tools are free to students.

Most of the development taught in schools is platform agnostic, usually c/c++ or java.

Linux development is mostly limited to commercial programmers and the more advanced hobbyists.

So you're saying the market of beginner hobbyists is the one not served by Linux, I doubt that very much. In fact I'd say there are probably more commercial programmers for Windows than there are for Linux.

Re:License?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, what causes those blue screens? Ignorant trolls like yourself will claim it's Microsoft's poor quality code. Educated, intelligent people know the most common cause is hardware failure.

Re:License?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your personal NSA agent.

Re:License?

[Anonymous Coward]

2. I have seen more Linux Crashes than Windows crashes in the last 10 year.
This is total bull shit or your doing something wrong on Linux.
I worked in a Data Center for ten years with over 200 Windows servers running and over 600 Linux servers running and the Windows servers crashed far more times than the Linux servers even with there being more Linux servers than Windows.

The times I have seen crapy Linux set ups is when Windows System Admins set up a Linux box with no clue about the OS. They install it and let it run and from there never touch it again. Linux like any OS needs updates and needs some love from time to time.

Raspberry Pi 2 but not Surface RT?

[acoustix]

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.

Re:Raspberry Pi 2 but not Surface RT?

[quenda]

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.

Re:Raspberry Pi 2 but not Surface RT?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Raspberry Pi 2 but not Surface RT?

[cybrthng]

Right now the IoT OS doesn't include "WinRT" which is the app store windows runtime that "Windows RT" uses

Re:Raspberry Pi 2 but not Surface RT?

[CastrTroy]

I think it's a big push to get more apps on the Windows App store. There are probably more Raspberry Pis out there than Surface RT/2(RT) tablets, and at $35, I would buy one if they got a few nice apps in the app store. If they support their new Universal Apps on the Raspberry Pi, then programming would be made quite a bit easier. From the experience I've had with programming stuff for the Windows App store, I have to say that I like it a lot more than programming for Android. By continuing to support Windows on ARM, they are leaving the door open for more devices in the future.

I have a Surface 2(RT), and I have to say, I actually like Windows on ARM quite a bit. The OS is quite a bit better than iOS or Android as far as I'm concerned. Sure it doesn't run full Windows applications but neither do iOS and Android, and it's actually got quite a few capabilities that are sorely missing from those operating systems. 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.

Re:Raspberry Pi 2 but not Surface RT?

[UnknowingFool]

Yes I question this move and the practicality as well. The Surface RT was much more powerful than the Pi 2 and it struggled at times with Windows RT (not Windows 8). I can only imagine that Windows 10 will be "10" in name only and have little in common with the desktop/laptop version other than superficial appearance.

Re:Raspberry Pi 2 but not Surface RT?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

They're working on a plan for tablets that run WindowsRT:
http://winsupersite.com/surface/surface-rt-and-surface-2-get-limited-windows-10-support

Re:Raspberry Pi 2 but not Surface RT?

[ITRambo]

I wouldn't presume that the "Windows 10" they are referring to is not a highly stripped down product, or a port of RT with some Windows 10 features.

Re:Raspberry Pi 2 but not Surface RT?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, so you eventually learned that they don't care about their users? Why did it took you so long?

Re:Raspberry Pi 2 but not Surface RT?

[CastrTroy]

If it doesn't then that's a huge mistake. It would be a big boost to their app store if you could buy a $35 device to download and run apps from the app store. If they aren't providing access to the App store, then what is the purpose of running Windows on the Raspberry Pi. What applications would you be running. Really there's no advantage of using Windows over Linux if you're going to be constrained to controlling things over GPIO.

Re:Raspberry Pi 2 but not Surface RT?

[ron_ivi]

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.

Re:Raspberry Pi 2 but not Surface RT?

[unixisc]

Also, Microsoft, which seems to be pragmatic at times - using Linux as the backbone of their Skype platform - still doesn't seem to have gotten the message that different platforms need different OSs, not the same one.

Windows 10 is good for computing, and that too, largely x64 computing. For internet of things, which is likely to involve computing w/ limited horsepower, such as garage door openers, PBX boxes, car stereos, et al, why not go w/ a microkernel based OS, and have a modular OS that puts only those essential services in user space? Also, the OS could be 16 bit or 32 bit, instead of 64 bit. Reason a different OS is justified - no need to worry about that compatibility baggage (seriously, they're not planning to run Outlook on a car stereo, or OneNote on a home security system, are they?

Other thing - make IPv6 the only layer 3 protocol for this platform. In fact, it's time to start migrating more and more of the infrastructure exclusively to IPv6

Re:Raspberry Pi 2 but not Surface RT?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well... for the Pi they finally figured out that they should stop using CryEngine to draw their start menus.

Re:Raspberry Pi 2 but not Surface RT?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not internal politics. This is.

Department 1: We are responsible for Surface RT upgrades. We're working on a new version of the Surface RT that will have all the shiny.
Department 2: We are building windows 10. We want to support the shiny.
Department 3: We are marketing the shiny. Everybody show love for the shiny.
Department 4 (support): Customers are asking for windows 10 on the old Surface RT.
Department 1, 2, 3: Is it shiny? Cause otherwise it's not in our roadmap.

Re:Raspberry Pi 2 but not Surface RT?

[maestroX]

Seems pretty stupid to me to purposely screw over the people that bought the RT models that are perfectly capable.

By now, it must be obvious closed source merely exists to purposely screw people over, it's the intervals that are getting shorter.

Re:Raspberry Pi 2 but not Surface RT?

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

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.

Re:Raspberry Pi 2 but not Surface RT?

[cusco]

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.

Re:Raspberry Pi 2 but not Surface RT?

[cusco]

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.

Re:Raspberry Pi 2 but not Surface RT?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm thinking RT and the forced modern UI were Ballmer pushed ideas. Now that MS has a real CEO in charge, things are improving, which necessitates the dumping of all things Ballmer.

Re:Raspberry Pi 2 but not Surface RT?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why Linux on the desktop is in such a poor state, the idea that everything done by the proprietary vendors is this idiotic notion of "shiny" when in fact it is the Linux developers that can't see beyond the visual to the underlying improvements and actual beneficial features. Then all of a sudden they wake up and realize they are years behind and it turns into a desperate me-too game of catchup.

Linux has openness going for it but that is just a means to an end, for a user or an application developer the fact they can look at the operating source code is of absolutely no benefit whatsoever. Even for tinkerers they are more likely to want to use these to do things and for that they are unlikely to be particularly worried about what operating system it runs.

Re:Raspberry Pi 2 but not Surface RT?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're wrong. It does include WinRT, and, indeed, the suggested way of writing and packaging apps for it is via AppX packages.

What it doesn't include is UI.

Re:Raspberry Pi 2 but not Surface RT?

[Pikoro]

I still have a copy of windows 2000 RC2 for alpha from MSDN. Got the MIPS and PPC versions too. Keep it around just in case I ever pick up another DEC board.

Re:Raspberry Pi 2 but not Surface RT?

[cusco]

Huh, Power PC, another great CPU architecture abandoned by the bean counters because (as far as I can tell) Intel had a bigger advertising budget that they shared with resellers. Possibly also because Intel spread its management people throughout the industry like pollen, and those stock options they had been paid in would become worthless if another architecture were to succeed, but then maybe that's just the conspiracy theorist in me talking.

Re:Raspberry Pi 2 but not Surface RT?

[Anonymous Coward]

bean counters

It's worse than that. The death of PA-RISC *and* high-end MIPS chips can both be attributed to Rick Belluzzo. As Executive VP at HP, his main accomplishment was killing HPUX and PA-RISC in favor of WinNT-on-Itanium (when Windows NT for Itanium was little more than a pre-announcement press release). He then went to SGI as president where his main accomplishment was killing IRIX and 64-bit-MIPS in favor of WinNT-on-Itanium (before WinNT-on-Itanium even worked). For such brilliance* he was rewarded by being given a President & COO job at Microsoft for a few months. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R... * and it is indeed brilliance -- he managed to destroy 2 of the 4 leading 64-bit compluting platforms for Microsoft when Microsoft didn't even have their product launched yet. you couldn't do that if you tried

The first one is always free...

[Anonymous Coward]

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".

    -- Steve

Re:The first one is always free...

[Isca]

Devices costing less than $300 only have to pay $15 per device to license Windows. Microsoft has also said publicly they are open to negotiating agreements to charge even less than that with manufacturers if the device is significantly less than $300.

Re:The first one is always free...

[JohnFen]

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.

Re:The first one is always free...

[tibit]

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, really. I'm so glad I don't have to directly license anything from MS.

Re:The first one is always free...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up! We have to buy WinCE 6 licenses for embedded equipment we design and manufacture. We're stuck buying them at full price from a distributor, and of course dealing with tracking the serial numbers and stickers for each device. It's quite a PITA, and I'm also a bit worried about the future of WinCE when we see what MS has done to Windows Mobile and Windows RT... We might have to switch to Linux at some point but that will require a LOT of code to be re-written...

Re:The first one is always free...

[cusco]

Not sure if you missed it, but Balmer is no longer in charge. Things are changing.

Re:The first one is always free...

[exomondo]

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?

Maybe it's nothing, maybe it's very little, maybe it's a lot. So whether it is worth it depends on the value of the feature that you are using the Windows version for, if there is no specific Windows feature that you're using it for then write platform-agnostic code and you can distribute it to Windows or Linux systems. Honestly it seems pretty obvious doesn't it?

Malware on IoT...um...not good. I'll leave it to your imagination.

That's pretty much all that comment is anyway, exactly what malware runs on ARM versions of Windows?

Re:The first one is always free...

[JohnFen]

Not sure if you missed it, but Balmer is no longer in charge. Things are changing.

So people keep saying. Personally, I'll wait until I actually see substantial positive change (which I haven't, yet) and it lasts for a while, before I actually trust that.

Options are good

[Dan East]

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.

Re:Options are good

[silfen]

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

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course that's hyperbolic nonsense that has absolutely no bearing on the matter at hand, but you knew that already.

I refuse to eat seafood at a steakhouse, therefore Windows on Raspberry Pi is clearly a bad idea!

Re:Options are good

[penguinoid]

You have a good reason to not want Windows on a Pi?

And for tactical reasons if I don't personally want Windows on a Pi then I don't want others to run Windows on a Pi either. Others having that option means that the Pi community is split, and in particular that less resources would go to Linux on a Pi. Whether the option will be good for other people I can't say, since I don't know the balance of having more programs that could run on it vs Windows eating more resources or being buggy.

*Disclaimer: I don't own a Pi, just explaining that people do have a reason to disapprove of others having this option. Though I imagine the manufacturers approving of this option means they think it is worthwhile.

Re:Options are good

[Eloking]

^ This ^

I found this news extremely interesting. I'm an aerospace engineer and, during my formation, I've done some tinkering with micro controller and other stuff. I've always loved those classes but each time I've started doing it for an hobby, I've always lost patience/interest over some bug or other annoyance you usually get when you're messing with linux and the like (steam on linux = "$ rm -rf /" anyone?).

I like to code, but only if the cruise would be smooth. In fact, most of the code I've done recently are little Excel macro in VB for the job (no laughing allowed) and I certainly don't consider myself a coder (even if most of my co-worker have nicknamed me "coder"). That's why I found this news really interesting and make me bought a Raspberry Pi 2. Because even if it end up a nightmare, the only fact that I could thinker in a known environment at low cost is enough for me to finally jump in.

Re:Options are good

[Wdomburg]

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.

Re:Options are good

[Jack Kolesar]

Well don't keep us in suspense man! What's her name and exactly which disease?!

Re:Options are good

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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.

I think I'd most analogize around the disease ridden prostitute and Windows. Very astute of you!

Re:Options are good

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't seriously be advocating against choice because... Linux? Seriously?

Re:Options are good

[JohnFen]

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.

Re:Options are good

[Anonymous Coward]

So who do you buy your snake oil from?

You realize that your are putting down a product you haven't seen or tried or have any proper information about, simply because of your pre-conceived notions about what you think it will be like? Is that really a rational and intelligent reasoning?

Re:Options are good

[unixisc]

I'd like to see options on the Pi such as Minix, QNX, and other microkernel OSs, instead of just Debian, which is what we have now

Re:Options are good

[unixisc]

Huh? Microsoft has had Windows Phone 8.x running for a while now, but that hasn't attracted developers to the platform in droves. Even now, if you see an app advertized, more often than not, you see it advertized for either iOS only, or iOS & Android. (I'm talking about US only, not sure what it is elsewhere)

Re:Options are good

[penguinoid]

You can't seriously be advocating against choice because... Linux? Seriously?

Correct, I'm not and the post you're replying to implies that I think the having the choice is a good thing. Just because I understand other people, doesn't mean I agree with them.

Re:Options are good

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, take the Plan 9 then http://plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/download/

Re:Options are good

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a trap. Wise up.

Re:Options are good

[Anonymous Coward]

unfortunately it isn't as far fetched as you seem to be believe:

1) wasting time on a Windows development only to find out that the Windows license is too restrictive (no upfront cost doesn't mean there aren't other costs or limitations) costs money

2) if the compatability is sufficiently good then getting an infection is quite possible

Don't worry, recognizing the Microsoft knife in the back will come with experience.

Re:Options are good

[grumpy_old_grandpa]

> free copy

Let's talk about that word, "free", shall we? ;-)

Re:Options are good

[Anonymous Coward]

lose money ? then you aren't paying for Microsoft licenses, support, & upgrades !

But, You are paying to remain ignorant.

There is a reason Unix/Linux is running anywhere people depend on their computer support.
Anyone want Windows ported to Cisco routers & switches, so the internet "blue screens" regularly ?

Windows is a "walmart" operating system.
sounds cheap to buy & install, but requires replacing every other year & fixing it every other week.
And when you replace it, buy new software.

When you think quality, do you think "walmart" or "microsoft" ?

I think NOT.

Re:Options are good

[Anonymous Coward]

> So installing a free copy of an operating system will make you lose money ...

Yes, because the only way to develop for that installation is buying a full PC with Windows 10 and VS.

Wheras deveoping for a Pi with Linux can be done on the Pi.

Re:Options are good

[Anonymous Coward]

I've always loved those classes but each time I've started doing it for an hobby, I've always lost patience/interest over some bug or other annoyance you usually get when you're messing with linux and the like (steam on linux = "$ rm -rf /" anyone?)

What has this to do with Linux? Isn't it possible to accidentally delete files in Windows or does win32 api remove the possibility of your applications having bugs?

Re:Options are good

[cusco]

The Windows store now has as many apps as the Apple store. Of course more advertising is spent on apps in the Apple store since that's what Apple users respond to.

Re:Options are good

[Anonymous Coward]

the first is always free. then when its all you use, it becomes expensive.

Re:Options are good

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure this free copy won't go towards nudging up Microsoft's market numbers even though you'll wipe it as soon as you get it. Right?

Re:Options are good

[Anonymous Coward]

I see a lot of negative comments so far (actually they are all negative).

Because those in an established market fear change, if they aren't innovating (the Linux operating system on the Raspberry Pi isnt particularly innovative or evolving) then of course they fear that a new entrant may disrupt the establishment. For these people that were silly enough to write platform-specific code then I can certainly understand the fear and the spreading of FUD in an attempt to protect themselves.

Choice and competition will drive innovation but those who just want to rest on their laurels will always hate on choice and competition.

Re:Options are good

[thegarbz]

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.

Ever heard that you can't get something for nothing? That is also true of development. When a company distracts itself with useless endevours it chews into their bottom line, when the bottom line gets chewed then the share holders start grilling the company and you end up with layoffs, angry middle managers, unhappy staff, and all in all worse outcomes for other endevours that company is undertaking.

It's bad enough that the latest Windows is the bucket of shit that it is. It's worse that they are actually putting developer hours into bringing it to unsuitable platforms rather than fixing the core problems.

Yes I am affected. As a Surface Pro 3 owner I'm directly and negatively affected by any activity that Microsoft undertakes which takes developing time away from someone who could instead by fixing the stupid display driver issues.

Re:Options are good

[silfen]

So installing a free copy of an operating system will make you lose money or give you a disease?

Yes, it will make you lose money, because the time you invest in learning Windows and Windows programming gives you a poor return on your investment.

Didn't think so. Grow up.

You should take your own advice to heart.

Re:Options are good

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows Phone 8 requires an investment in an entire phone. A very expensive phone, too. Raspberry Pi is $35 with a free version of Windows 10. I don't think they compare.

Re:Options are good

[unixisc]

Too many of those apps are actually web wrappers - what they do is invoke Internet Explorer, and in turn open the web site of the product/service in question.

Re:Options are good

[unixisc]

Huh? Windows Phones are available over a wide spectrum of prices, unless you're w/ Verizon. Starting from the $520 and going up from there.

Re:Options are good

[Wdomburg]

You assume that maintaining another ARM port takes an appreciable number of developer hours, that code quality isn't generally improved by maintaining ports on disparate architectures, that community goodwill has no value, that community testing and input has no value, that this is an "unsuitable platform" in the first place (the Pi 2 is more powerful than a lot of phones they run on, for example), that it won't net any new customers from people who are curious to see how Windows 10 is, etc.

As initiatives go, this is doubtless cheap and has plenty of positive externalities. And from a user perspective, trying it out is a throwaway afternoon at worst.

Re:Options are good

[Wdomburg]

Really? If an afternoon trying out a new platform represents a significant investment to you, your time is far more valuable than mine. Most people I know spend more time dicking around with the lastest MMORG on a regular basis.

As for programming, Windows remains a highly lucrative development platform, regardless of your personal opinion. Even in the mobile space, targeting a platform without a saturated ecosystem may ultimately yield better results. Easier for an app to stand out if it is one of a dozen instead of one of a thousand.

Re:Options are good

[kbdd]

My concern about Windows 10 on the RPi and Microsoft being interested in the platform is that before you know it, the RPi will have a locked bootloader because Microsoft demands it and suddenly, they own your RPi.

That I think is the reason why people should not run Windows 10 on their RPi. It's going to give Microsoft bad ideas.

Re:Options are good

[thegarbz]

Err I believe my assumption is very safe, that Windows which currently serves no ARM architectures other than Surface 2 (which MS has abandoned), that a community publicly shuns, that the bloated Windows would be a nightmare running on anything with 1GB of RAM, yes I see it as a waste of developer time.

This looks, smells, and tastes of a PR stunt from a company who does a lot of PR stunts.

They are targeting IoT as the latest buzzword they need to get behind without realising that IoT is about many SMALL AND CHEAP devices with little overhead, and not sticking a 4 core, 1GB computer on every lightswitch.

This is a waste of Microsoft's time who should be focusing on their core products which are big OSes for big tasks, and their cloud service (which they already market for the IoT crowd).

Re:Options are good

[Wdomburg]

Yes, yes, TANSTAAFL.

But as many free software advocates point out, copying software IS as close to free as it gets. There is no opportunity cost to Microsoft, since the chance that people would otherwise pay for a copy of Windows to run on a Pi is essentially nil. There is little opportunity cost to the user, since they would otherwise be installing and configuring an operating system anyway. Even if they ultimately choose not to keep it, the time and effort involved is fairly negligible and there is arguably value in the experience. (At least to that individual, since they freely chose to engage in it.)

Re:Options are good

[Wdomburg]

Lumia ring a bell? Windows 10 is their convergence release, with mobile being just one more edition. Plenty of phones with far less horsepower are running Windows. Plenty of tablets with similar horsepower are running Windows.

I picked up a couple of Stream 7's, which also sport only 1GB of memory, a modest low power processor and a full copy of Windows - as stocking stuffers this year. They work fine for what they are. Especially since I paid $74 for one and $49 for the other, thanks to in-store "shopping events".

This strikes me more about the hobbyist community and pervasive computer than the "internet of things". This board is not suitable for those applications, regardless of what platform it is running. But this has potential for more demanding embedded applications, internet kiosks, network terminals, or even starter computers for kids (which is what I'm considering getting a Pi 2 for).

I probably won't land on Windows 10 as the final operating system; I haven't used Windows as a desktop in about twenty years now. But I'll certainly play with it.

Re:Options are good

[Wdomburg]

Also, server is not their cash cow. Between desktop Windows, consumer hardware (including the Surface, mice, keyboards, etc) and business software they pull in about $44B. Their server products, including Azure, MS SQL, consulting services, and development tools only bring in about $20B. Entertainment and mobile bring in another $10B.

Microsoft benefits from having a broad, comprehensive product line, whether the divisions themselves are necessarily profitable. Just like Apple, Google, and Amazon, they benefit from getting people to buy into their ecosystem.

They have struggled in recent years, not just because Apple's resurgence has eroded their dominance in the PC market, but because the market has shifted away from the PC model. More people are using tablets or even phones as their primary device, which means more people using iOS, Android or Amazon devices, and their associated app, content and services ecosystems.

Their response seems to be increased openness (see: open sourced .NET releases, patent pledges), interoperability (see: JUniversal, AllJoyn contributions), convergence (see: Windows 10, from mobile to server), and free stuff (see: Windows for small devices, hobbyist platforms; Visual Studio Community Edition etc). I find it hard to fault that.

Performance? RPi1?

[Anonymous Coward]

Performance must be horrible, slow as molasses.

But, since RPi2 is completely compatible with RPi1 A/B/A+/B+, then what's it like running Win10 on RPi1s ?

Re:Performance? RPi1?

[Anonymous Coward]

The RPi2 is completely compatible with RPi, but the RPi 1 is not completely compatible with the RPi2.

Re:Performance? RPi1?

[Guspaz]

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.

I for one welcome Microsoft on IoT/Pi

[cybrthng]

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.

Re:I for one welcome Microsoft on IoT/Pi

[Anonymous Coward]

It's pretty amazing that Windows can run on these devices.

Not at all. Embedded Windows and desktop Windows are not the same.

Re:I for one welcome Microsoft on IoT/Pi

[Anonymous Coward]

In what way are then not the same? The only difference with Windows Embedded is that it is componentised, so that it is easier to pick just the components you need, whereas with desktop Windows it takes some effort to do the same, and can't be taken to quite the same level. Windows Embedded also obviously has deployment tools that aren't applicable to desktop windows. But it's functionally the same OS, it runs the same executables etc.

Re:I for one welcome Microsoft on IoT/Pi

[kamakazi]

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 couple (at least one) person has made that MS getting involved will help mainstream the non-x86 low power stuff, or at least the ARM branch, but then I remembered what happened to the exploding world of netbooks when companies started growing them to run Windows.

The netbook market disappeared, seemingly over night, and now we are left with ultrabooks, or whatever they are calling the MacBook Air class of machines now. Sure they are light and small, but they are a whole lot more than the $100 price point netbooks were approaching.

On the Pi there is a lot of similarity to the Android stuff, we have Java as an app platform. Is this new Pi really powerful enough to mix Java and ARM.net at the same time? Just the overhead of a Java VM plus a .net framework resident at the same time sounds a little bit much for any current ARM SoC with just a gig of RAM

Now if you are targeting actual IoT devices, just developing on the Pi, sure a single purpose embedded device will probably run on a Windows stack just as well as it will on Linux. I am a little concerned about MS attempting to be responsive to exploits, but then I think we will find that most people never update their thermostat or refrigerator regardless of what OS it runs, so I think the exploitability will probably be a wash.

I am more concerned that some inexperienced whiz kid, whether he be of the .net or Java persuasion, will manage to make an actually universally useful device, but not know enough about the actual requirements of embedded programming so it just works well enough for everyone to buy one, then all the non-techy people who buy it get their home netork pwned or it crashes in an untested but relatively common use case and has significant socio-economic impact on our tech dependent society.

So all in all I really don't think MS jumping into the fray is a bad thing. I don't plan on running it on anything I build, but think about it, according to the rumors Apple thought hard about buying Nest. Would you want your house controlled by software coming from 1 Infinite Loop?

Are you actually confident about running it on software coming out of the Googleplex?

The truth is everybody that doesn't read /. is gonna buy these connected devices just like they do blenders and dishwashers, and if they act up they will return them to Walmart or Home Depot or Best Buy and get their money back just like they do now with toasters, TVs, and computers.

Do you care who wrote the code embedded in that 386 running your microwave? Do you even know if it is a 386 running your microwave? Me either. I do know that at least at one point the embedded 386 family was often used for things like that, but I never bothered looking.

OK, I am down meandering and ranting.

Re:I for one welcome Microsoft on IoT/Pi

[cusco]

Win CE? That was so long ago I barely remember it. Wasn't that Win95-based? Windows Embedded was Win XP-based, and I don't think there was a Win 2000 embedded version so you're talking about an operating system that is over fifteen years old as though it were current. BTW, Windows Embedded worked great. There are thousands of dedicated DVRs scattered around the world running it, and they're a **LOT** more stable then the cheap POS Linux DVRs out there (I worked with both kinds for most of a decade).

Re:I for one welcome Microsoft on IoT/Pi

[Anonymous Coward]

it will be exciting to see Visual Studio updated to have the Pi as supported device.

It will. F5 deploy-and-debug, same as what you can do with Windows phones and tablets today.

Not just C# and C++, either. Think Python, Ruby etc.

Re:I for one welcome Microsoft on IoT/Pi

[Anonymous Coward]

Last handheld WinCE device before the windows phone switch was shipped in 2009/2010 (AFAIK the HTC HD2 was the last one - loved it.)

Guess who else uses the WinCE train? Microsoft's automotive division. CE is a well organized and used RTOS - not even close to 9x based at *ALL*. It's still quite relevant.

A Mixed Bag

[Akratist]

I've been thinking about picking up a Raspberry Pi just to mess around with. Part of the appeal is running a very small, cheap, and open platform that I can tinker with as much as I want. Windows doesn't necessarily fit into that paradigm, and I think that will be true of a lot of other people. I have nothing against windows and have spent most of my career in that space, but I'd also like to spend more time in the Linux world. Why? Just because. That said, adding windows to the options for the RP may prove useful for people who aren't looking to experiment, but want a small utilitarian processor for various tasks and don't want to take the time to get familiar with Linux, etc. Again, it's not like someone has put a gun to your head and told you you had to use Windows on it.

Re:A Mixed Bag

[Richy_T]

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.

Re:A Mixed Bag

[cusco]

Not necessarily. There are plenty of people with basic Windows coding skills that could whip up a configuration interface for whatever device these controllers will run in just a few days, but if they were to do the same thing with Linux the manufacturer would either have to retrain their own people or contract with outsiders (and Linux programmers tend to be more expensive than Windows programmers).

Is this tied to hotmail account too?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, what kind of ties does this Windows come with? All the apps need to be installed via Microsoft (tm) store? Users are forced into hotmail users by hiding the option of local accounts? How about requiring .NET as only development environment and neutering the network connections to HTTP into skydrive.com only? Is the local storage also replaced with skydrive? Is the Windows 8.1 requirement for installing SDK? Does one need to use local GPIO/I2C/SPI pins via some Azure-cloud service?

Re: Is this tied to hotmail account too?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is Microsoft we are talking about, not Google.

It's the same!

[Grindalf]

Low power it may be, but with the newer quad core Acorn Risc Machine v7 processor @ 900MHz and a Micro SD Card with a Class 10 speed 128 Gb capacity, it's just like working a normal, but slow, tower PC with a proper keyboard and a proper mouse. As it is designed to teach British school children to write computer software, it will automatically sell Millions of units in it's home market. Just have one micro SD card per operating system!

Re:It's the same!

[Anonymous Coward]

Low power it may be, but with the newer quad core Acorn Risc Machine v7 processor @ 900MHz and a Micro SD Card with a Class 10 speed 128 Gb capacity, it's just like working a normal, but slow, tower PC with a proper keyboard and a proper mouse. As it is designed to teach British school children to write computer software, it will automatically sell Millions of units in it's home market. Just have one micro SD card per operating system!

I honestly think that was the point. Microsoft has an ARM core to their OS from Windows RT and are now finding a sizeable market to sell it to in order to justify the expense of making it in the first place, since the Surface RT didn't sell well and must have cost them millions. RasPi has a large installed base and that market continues to grow. It makes business sense, but we'll see how well it gets adopted. I don't see Windows 10 IoT taking over the whole market overnight, or even within the decade. YMMV

Re:It's the same!

[Anonymous Coward]

I just downloaded the steroidal iso of W$10 and following a glacial install, ran it in a VM on a slow tower for about 15 minutes...then gave up and killed the VM. It was maddeningly slow and balky. Then, just for fun, I loaded the 75% smaller Linux Mint 17.1 Xfce iso. It loaded in a fraction of the time and is fast enough to be useful. It also has tons of useable software on it while the 10 Beta is quite baren. How the heck are they going to get that pig to run on a machine with only 1G of memory? On a Pi? Eeeuuchhh!

Re:It's the same!

[afidel]

Err, this is windows 10 IoT build, basically Windows CE 10.

Re:It's the same!

[Anonymous Coward]

Same kernel across devices for Win10. Try again.

(this is a good thing - don't read this as me being sarcastic about it's quality / performance)

Windows on a Raspberry

[mgf64]

I would not want Windows on a Raspberry unless they paid me to install it.

Re:Windows on a Raspberry

[jonhorvath]

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.

Re:Windows on a Raspberry

[Anonymous Coward]

I would not want Windows on a Raspberry unless they paid me to install it.

They will probably pay someone else to ensure that it comes preinstalled.

Re:Windows on a Raspberry

[Anonymous Coward]

make that, "I do not like them, Sam-am-I."

Honestly, Slashdot community can't even bust a rhyme.

Re:Windows on a Raspberry

[wierd_w]

(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 production)

I am new, it's not a lie!
I am Microsoft's new CEO guy!
-That CEO guy, that CEO guy, I do not like that CEO guy!

Do you like windows on the Raspberry Pi?
-I do not like it, CEO guy, I do not like windows on my Raspberry Pi!

Would you like it here, or there?
-I would not like it here OR there-- I would not like it anywhere! I do not want windows on my Raspberry Pi, I do not like it, CEO guy!

Would you use it in your house? Would you use it with a mouse?
-I would not use it in my house, I would not use it with a mouse. I would not use it here nor there, I would not use it anywhere! I do not want windows on my raspberry pi, I do not like it, CEO guy!

Would you use it on your box? Would you use it with FireFox?
-Not on my box, Not with the 'Fox! Not in my house, Nor with a mouse! I would not use it here nor there, I would not use it anywhere! I do not want windows on my raspberry pi, I do not like it, CEO guy!

Would you, could you, In your car? Check your Outlook near or far!
-I would not, COULD NOT in a car!

You might like it, you will see! This is totally not like Windows RT!
-I abhore WindowsRT, Not in a car, Now let me be! I do not want it on my box, I do not want it with FireFox! I do not want it in my house, I will not use it with my mouse! I do not want it here nor there, I do not want it anywhere! I do not want windows on my Raspberry Pi
-I do not like it, CEO guy!

A train! A train! A Train! A Train! Would you could you-- On a train!?
-Not on a train, Not Like WinRT, Not in a car-- CEO, Let me be! I would not, COULD not, on my box! I would not, COULD not, with firefox! I would not use it with a mouse, I would not use it in my house! I would not use it here or there, I would not use it ANYWHERE! I do not like windows on my raspberry pi, I do not like it, Windows CEO GUY!

Say, In the dark? Would you could you-- in the dark?
-I would not, COULD NOT in the dark!

Would you, could you in the rain?
-I would not could not in the rain, Not in the dark, Not on a train. Not in my car, Not like WinRT, I do not like it-- CEO you see! Not in my house, Not on my box! Not with a mouse, not with the 'Fox! I would not use it here nor there, I would not use it anywhere!

You do not want windows on the raspberry pi!?
-I do not want it, Microsoft CEO guy!

Would you could you-- On a boat?
I would not, COULD NOT on a boat!

Woould you could you-- With a GOAT?
(dramatic pause, and fishy look)
-I would not, could not on a boat; I WILL NOT, WILL NOT WITH A GOAT!(Seriously, slander Microsoft? Really!?) I will not use it in the rain, I will not use it on a train! Not in the dark, not like WinRT, Not in a car--- You! YOU LET ME BE! I do not like it on my box, I do not like it with the 'Fox! I do not want it in my house, I will not use it with my mouse! I will not use it here or there-- I will not use it ANYWHERE! I do not want windows on my Raspberry Pi, I do not want it, Microsoft CEO GUY!

Try it! Try it and you may! Try it and you may I say!

-CEO, If you let me be, I will try it-- You wil see!

- Ughn,, This is terrible! I think I will cry! This is why I dont want windows on my Raspberry Pi! It would be horrible on a boat It would more terrible with a goat! It would short circuit in the rain I not use it in the dark or on a train, Nor in the car, even if its not WinRT! It is so BAD, SO BAD you see!

-I would not use it on my box, I would not use it with the 'Fox. I would not use it in my house, and I would not touch it with my mouse! I will not use it here or there! I would not use it anywhere! I do so Hate windows on my Raspberry Pi!

-Screw you, Screw you, CEO guy!

Retch

[whizbang77045]

Gagg! Choke! Is there no sacred place where we can escape Windows?

Re:Retch

[Anonymous Coward]

Your Raspberry Pi, if you opt not to install windows on it. Or any other computer, if you opt to not install Windows. Is anyone actually forcing you to install Windows? If not, what are you complaining about?

Coming of Age--

[sillivalley]

The Raspberry Pi has grown up!

Grown up, come of age... and turning cheap tricks on the corner...

Yikh... I thought you were raised better than that.

IoT isn't

[Anonymous Coward]

"Internet of Things" isn't a thing, it's just the Internet.

Re:IoT isn't

[gatkinso]

It's things on the internet.

Re:IoT isn't

[unixisc]

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.

Re:IoT isn't

[Dragonslicer]

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.

You don't understand RPi's goals at all.

[Anonymous Coward]

They want to get hobbyist computing back to the masses, they don't care what OS you run. You are saying more choice is bad? Tell that to the next Tier 1 PC vendor who thinks about offering a flavor of GNU\Linux.

That Microsoft License Agreement

[Anonymous Coward]

"You may install and test one copy of the software on your premises."

So that would be Internet of Thing then?

Re:That Microsoft License Agreement

[gatkinso]

Internet Thingy.

Microsoft is so dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft is so dead. They are only becoming funnier.

Re:Microsoft is so dead.

[gatkinso]

Indeed - they only made $5.2 billion in profit in 2013. Looks like roughly the same in 2014. Utterly laughable.

Re:Microsoft is so dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's roughly per-quarter, not year. :)

Re:Microsoft is so dead.

[lord_mike]

That's the weird thing about it. I've never seen a company that has so little mindshare make so much money. It would be like Blackberry making 10's of billions of profit every year, even though everyone's practically forgotten who they are. I know that for Microsoft it's all about legacy installations in business and not the consumer, bur still, considering how they were always part of the conversation not too long ago, it's amazing how far they've fallen and yet still make so much money.

Re:Microsoft is so dead.

[unixisc]

They may have little mindshare in one segment - namely phones. That doesn't imply that they have little mindshare in other segments - namely PCs. Regardless of how popular smartphones & tablets may be, corporate environments still need PCs/laptops, and there, neither Apple nor Google have taken over. So since Microsoft owns that, they are fixing their Windows 8.x issues, as well as looking at expanding beyond that market.

Re:Microsoft is so dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are ignoring what is still a huge business presence for MS products.

Re:Microsoft is so dead.

[gatkinso]

Oh shit you are right!

Hell I'll join.

[gatkinso]

No harm in taking a look.

Re:Hell I'll join.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I tought I'll give Microsoft a try once upon a time and tried to join their program. I got the e-mail that said that they will contact me when they are ready. I am still waiting for this contact. The MS programs are just a scam, I was fooled once, I'll not be fooled twice! The program I tried to join was the Embedded Skype developer program.

Windows on Pi?

[danbob999]

So will Windows 10 have APIs for stuff such as GPIOs, SPI and I2C, along with pin muxing?
Will everything be possible without having to connect a monitor, keyboard and mouse?

Re:Windows on Pi?

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't matter. You won't be able to do anything useful anyway. It's by design in all their products.
This is just marketing. 'We can Raspberry too'.
Nothing to see here for anyone really interested in actually using Raspberry devices.

Re:Windows on Pi?

[Anonymous Coward]

So will Windows 10 have APIs for stuff such as GPIOs, SPI and I2C, along with pin muxing?

Will everything be possible without having to connect a monitor, keyboard and mouse?

Did you try looking?

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/jj131711%28v=vs.85%29.aspx
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/hh439508%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

Is that a trick question? Of course windows can operate without KVM

Re:Windows on Pi?

[danbob999]

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.
On Linux, I can use the following command to read a GPIO:
cat /sys/class/gpio/gpioXYZ/value
How can I do that on Windows from user space? This is a genuine question not a trick.

Re:Windows on Pi?

[gatkinso]

They will after I write a driver for them, which for all three of those is pretty much a cake walk.

Re:Windows on Pi?

[afidel]

Here's 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, I'm sure they'll be adding stuff for the RPI2.

Re:Windows on Pi?

[cusco]

I remote into literally a hundred or more Windows servers worldwide in the course of a month. None of them have keyboards or monitors. My co-worker runs scripts on five times that many every month without logging into any of them with even a remote desktop session.

Re:Windows on Pi?

[danbob999]

#include "arduino.h"

So I understand there is no standard API for GPIO access in Windows, and that it is custom to every chip?

Re:Windows on Pi?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. And they will be WinRT APIs.

Re:Windows on Pi?

[Anonymous Coward]

The free copy of Mathematica that ships with Rasbian does. It wouldn't surprise me if Microsoft did likewise.

Re:Windows on Pi?

[danbob999]

Yes, using remote desktop? That's still using a GUI, and you still need to first login using monitor, keyboard and mouse to enable it. With linux embedded devices such as the Rasberry Pi, it's common to use a serial console and/or SSH for these stuff. Is Windows 10, along with its touch screen UI, really appropriate for these devices?

Re:Windows on Pi?

[afidel]

Correct, Windows only includes standard API's for a small handful of device classes.

Reaction from Slashdotters

[Anonymous Coward]

"I support open platforms with freedom of choice of operating systems. Except Microsoft, fuck them"

Worth the Effort (for Microsoft)?

[LaurenCates]

The one thing I wonder about is how many Windows users that are serious enough computer users to try to look outside the box enough to consider an RPi wouldn't already shrug and say "well, why not Linux?"

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for making any tinkering experience as tailorable and accessible as possible, but I'm not sure that Windows on an RPi is the way to bring Windows users over. Most people don't want another device to do a thing unless they already know that the extra thing in question will (per the marketing) do exactly what they want it to do in the first place. So, I presume a Windows user will probably look for ways to do a task using the equipment they already have.

I'm not trying to knock Windows users, mind you. It's the fact that Windows is ubiquitous in the market that might lead a hardcore Windows user to try and find ways to ask "can't my Windows box do that anyway?" instead of trying to DIY a solution that might take more time and effort than they're willing to expend.

Re:Worth the Effort (for Microsoft)?

[Richard_at_work]

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 a few of these to throw vNext on several platforms to see how it performs, or run a distributed .Net application on for learning purposes etc etc. Loads of things being talked about.

Re:Worth the Effort (for Microsoft)?

[LaurenCates]

"[C]ompletely miss"? No.

Understand that the Slashdot community and people who know more than a single thing about the things that you mentioned don't make up the majority of Windows users? Yes.

Presume that people that are not part of the group above might be interested in RPi from the stories they've read about it (once found an RPi developer magazine in an airport news stand, so it's not totally outside the mainstream) but can't grasp what they'd really use Windows on it for? Sure.

Thinks MS is well aware of its market share and has banked forever on being the go-to operating system for non-power users? You betcha.

The great OLPC parachute drop.

[westlake]

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.

Re:The great OLPC parachute drop.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, OLPC was based on the notion that software freedom leads to exploration and learning.
Until Microsoft bribed them to remove the freedom, so the experiment remains untried.

Re:The great OLPC parachute drop.

[yuhong]

Yea, the Raspberry Pi serve different purposes and goals. The Raspberry Pi is designed to be a general hobbyist platform and OS choice is a good thing there.

WindowsRT anyone?

[janoc]

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?

Re:WindowsRT anyone?

[unixisc]

I agree. For starters, Microsoft shouldn't limit itself to the ARM platform, but make an OS specifically geared for alternate embedded CPUs. Including MIPS, which they once supported. Also, the OS for IoT should be optionally 16 or 32 bit, depending on the CPU. Non computing devices won't need a lot of firepower, won't have much memory - maybe all of it may even be embedded, and may support a limited stack. Microsoft should design its OS from scratch, w/o carrying over the compatibility baggage. They could have win16, win32 support of the API just to leverage developers who know this, but that should just be to enable easier development for the platform

Re:WindowsRT anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, there are a number of apps, including Office and Outlook running quite well on that pocket ARM device known as Windows Phone. Been having some fun with getting my wife started on her first smart phone (from years on "feature" phones) when i got a Lumia 521 to try it myself as an experiment in breaking away from the Android phones I have been using the last few years. I thought it would be an easier learning curve for her than Android after I got a bit familiar with it.

BTW, she has been using Linux (various Mint versions, and now on 17 Mate) for some years now on her desktop PC, and that has mostly been ok, although I still have to be the IT support guy, just like when she was using Windows 98, her previous platform. I just have never seen Linux experience being much use with learning Android, except when I root/hack my phone of course.

But that is not her ambition as an elementary school teacher - she needs stuff that "just works" without getting in the way, and without constant interface changes (hoping Win 10 won't force that issue...). The move from a feature to smart phone of any sort entails that of course, but I figured Win 8 was about the easiest one to get her up to speed, and it has been working fairly well in that regard as we both learn the basics together. Also, it has been a lot cheaper than the iPhone alternative, so that was not an option that I wanted to start out with anyway. I am staying with Android for myself since it has some must-have apps for me not available (so far) on WP, and since I do like to root and "enhance" knowing the consequent risks, but that's OK for me, and not for her - to each our own.

I would think, then, some WinPhone apps could possibly work on this new RPi (although I have not checked the specs yet, so not really sure about that). I am mystified why the RT has not been able to use the apps that are not phone- specific (with some large-sceen and input device tweaks of course), and now leaving it out of the Win 10 upgrade really seems unreasonable, if that can work with the "little brother" phones...

RO

Re:WindowsRT anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

> don't see how WindowsRT presents any advantages there over a dedicated OS without the unneeded GUI bloat.

As far as I can tell there is _no_ GUI bloat, there is no GUI, not even RT's. It is said to have similar features to Windows on the Galileo Board and that doesn't even have the capabilty of a display.

Re:WindowsRT anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am pretty excited about this!

The ARM windows port is a fully featured windows port, minus some x86 dependant legacy cruft. From what I've read it's really damn good and porting software over is pretty easy if you use Visual Studio (Which most windows devs do?)

The problem is that the only consumer win-arm platform is surface RT.. And it's locked down! Without a jailbreak you can only run software from the app store!

So this will literally be the first win-arm platform available that isn't crippled. If it becomes popular I would not be surprised if you start seeing popular windows utilities and software ported to it. Small things at first, like 7-zip and putty. I'd expect things like (a probably unofficial)firefox and chromium to follow.

Re:WindowsRT anyone?

[cusco]

What are the kids going to run on this?

Any number of robotics packages, timers, sensors, actuators, whatever else you can plug into a Raspberry Pi. Not sure where you get the idea that anyone is going to use a Pi as a substitute for their desktop PC, that's not what they're aiming at.

Re:WindowsRT anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

There isn't going to be any UI bloat there, it's the "core" version with UI completely stripped out. In terms of footprint, it's similar to embedded Linux.

Is it April 1st?

[amiga3D]

This sure sounds like an April Fool's day joke.

April 1?

[Anonymous Coward]

No checked the calendar and it isn't April Fools day.

HAHA

[Anonymous Coward]

Anybody using a Rasberry PI is a hacker to some degree, and no self respecting hacker would ever use Windows on the Rasberry PI.

Ah, yes....

[Trailer Trash]

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.

Re:Ah, yes....

[hazeii]

>When was the last time they actually innovated?

You've obviously forgotten CLIPPY! (and Microsoft Bob). Jeez, give them their due.

Re:Ah, yes....

[nsayer]

The last time was 40 years ago... and even then BASIC was something that had been done before.

How useful will it be?

[HalAtWork]

There won't be much to do on/with Windows for the Pi 2, the only thing people will be porting to it is the same open source software that's on Linux for the Pi, buy why take all the work to do that and accomplish basically the same thing that's already possible with Linux? Practice for developers I guess, but I don't see what new opportunities having Windows on the Pi will do, it's not like that will bring along the Windows software ecosysytem. It will be the same ecosystem we already have on Linux, except piece by piece and not everything will be there for a while. It will be easier and faster to get up and running with Linux on the Pi. Will Windows even be able to catch up in this niche that's already so well served?

Re:How useful will it be?

[wb8nbs]

Oh, they'll take care of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8To-6VIJZRE

How cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

MS is like the boy with the ball. He has the ball and won't let the other kids play with it. But when they find another ball to play with suddenly wants to share.

You are not relevant any more MS. Fuck you.

It IS stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not whether microsoft has their operating system available for particular device or not.
It's about what you can DO with it.
And windows is generally rubbish for software development, especially for hacking such devices as Raspberry.
This is stupid. Having windows on such device is stupid.

Re:It IS stupid

[Half-pint HAL]

Unless you want people to believe "computer=Windows", in which case NOT having Windows is stupid.

Re:It IS stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

And windows is generally rubbish for software development

Yeah that must be why nobody develops for windows and everybody develops for linux...oh wait! I would certainly love to hear your arguments supporting this assertion.

especially for hacking such devices as Raspberry.

No. If you are doing general software development then the operating system shouldn't matter much at all. If you are writing drivers then the stable ABI of windows is a far better target than the unstable linux ABI.

Evolution is an interesting thing to watch

[Weaselmancer]

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.

Re:Evolution is an interesting thing to watch

[Anonymous Coward]

Right now Windows Embedded 7 licenses are selling for right around $100 a pop.

Is that really a real volume license price? I haven't checked since I was involved with Windows CE, but that could be had for a runtime license cost of $3 per device for the Core SKU and $16 for Pro. I know CE was different, but would expect their IoT SKUs to be positioned much closer to it.

Re:Evolution is an interesting thing to watch

[wbo]

Right now Windows Embedded 7 licenses are selling for right around $100 a pop

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.

Re:Evolution is an interesting thing to watch

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit

Re:Evolution is an interesting thing to watch

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok it wasnt just me then.

Embedded OS or OEM has *never* cost 100 bucks. It usually starts around 30 bucks and goes down from there depending on volume, SKU, and what sorts of agreements you already have with them. The OEM you see on your local ebay is usually marked up as MS sells also into the upgrade market (that is the resellers profit margin). That is about to 'go away' too.

I am guessing MS is going to re-price around 10-15 dollars for an out of the box copy. For major OEMs it will probably be far less. It has not missed MS's attention that the price of a PC is no longer cost 4k (about 7400 in today's dollars). They have to lower price to compete. In some cases that means giving it away.

Everyone is bashing this. But MS's tools are pretty freeking sweet (which they now also give away). The open source guys should take some notes. I have used them all. By far using visual studio is a joy. The others it feels like I have slipped into a timewarp back into the 90s.

Re:Evolution is an interesting thing to watch

[Weaselmancer]

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

Re:Evolution is an interesting thing to watch

[cusco]

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

Why? They've already got to port Win 10 for the ARM for their phone and tablet businesses anyway, so there should be minimal if any extra cost to doing it for the Pi. Win 10 is going to run essentially the same kernel across **ALL** versions, from Phone to Server, so many tools are going to be the same as for the other versions of the OS.

simply to meet a release date

Maybe you missed it, but Ballmer is gone. MS now has an actual techie running the company again, rather than a sales and marketing guy.

Re:Evolution is an interesting thing to watch

[Anonymous Coward]

The Raspberry Pi is the exact antithesis of what Microsoft stands for.

And some would have said that about free online services like Outlook.com, OneDrive or Bing. Back in the late 90s the idea that Microsoft would be using Linux, contributing to open source, releasing their own frameworks and compilers as open source and supporting virtualizing Linux on their services platforms would have been a joke. Or even having OEMs release the same netbook systems side-by-side with Linux and Windows while discounting Windows licenses to be able to compete. Or the move from non-standard HTML extensions to a highly standards compliant browser. Or the abandonment of the proprietary web plugin Silverlight in favor of the more open standard Javascript and Canvas for interactivity. Or even most recently providing free upgrades from one OS to the next.

Some people think Microsoft is still the Microsoft of the 90s and yes it would be a monumental shift from that MS to the one of today but it's not that much of a stretch once you look at the evolution over the past 20 years or so. Things certainly have changed and those changes are the reason we haven't seen any of the "microsoft is dead" or "year of the linux desktop" proclamations ever come to fruition. The FOSS community seems so dependent on the death of Microsoft to succeed that it ends up lacking innovation and thought leadership.

Re:Evolution is an interesting thing to watch

[Technewonline]

Low power it may be, but with the newer quad core Acorn Risc Machine v7 processor @ 900MHz and a Micro SD Card with a Class 10 speed 128 Gb capacity, it's just like working a normal, but slow, tower PC internet vn with a proper keyboard and a proper mouse. As it is designed to teach British school children to write computer software, it will automatically sell Millions of units in it's home market. Just have one micro SD card per operating system!

eneough RAM to run Windows 10?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does the Raspberry Pi have enough memory to run Windows 10? Doesn't Windows 10 need like 768 MB of memory just for the desktop and some drivers?

Re:eneough RAM to run Windows 10?

[afidel]

The RPI2 has 1GB of ram, and this isn't going to be running explorer, it's basically Windows CE 10.

Re:eneough RAM to run Windows 10?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. I have several full Win8 7" tablets that run just fine on 1GB of ram and a 16 GB partition.

what a contest

[slashmydots]

It's like a contest to see who can run the slowest, crappiest, most useless garbage with Windows on it. It started with the atom chips in netbooks where it takes 30 seconds to render msn.com. Then it moved on to the passmark score of 1000 haswell celeron that's 80% slower than the 3rd generation celeron. Maybe I'll be able to run Windows 10 on my calculator. I just ran 174 Windows updates on an A6 APU from AMD and it took 5 hours. I ran the same on a vishera FX-6300 system with 8GB of RAM and an SSD and it took 25 minutes.

Re:what a contest

[johnsie]

You're doing it wrong. I never had any perfomance issues when I used to use Atom netbooks. You need to tweak the OS a bit to get usable performance. Oh and Windows 8 is alot faster than 7, so it's better to install that and add classic start to get the start menu back as well as disable the completely unneccesary visual affects. Windows XP perforrms good on netbooks, probably better than anything else, but due to security issues that is no longer an option. Not everyone can affor modern hardware, especially in poorer countries, but people want to be able to run a modern OS. The best option to get the balance is to have sofware that is efficient and cant take advantage of different hardware types.

Re:what a contest

[Blaskowicz]

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.

Re:what a contest

[slashmydots]

And what component was it that you modified to make javascript process faster and .NET framework patches install faster? You're wrong.

Re:what a contest

[slashmydots]

Celeron N2820 4th edition haswell - 1003 passmark score.
Celeron 1005M 3rd edition ivy bridge - 1886 passmark score

What the fuck are you talking about pentium 3's for?

Re:what a contest

[Anonymous Coward]

So you did have the Windows 7 starter edition on a 1GB RAM machine with all the bundled crapware running? I bought such a Acer's Atom based netbook and it really was completely useless piece of crap by default. After uninstalling the bundled McAfee antivirus (which made the machine swap like hell when it checked for its updates) the machine was so usable, that one could start downloading the Debian ISO image. With Debian the machine started to be remotely usable, but even then it swapped when browsing some sites. After upgrading the RAM to 2GB and replacing the slow HDD with a SSD the machine is quite ok. It is really shame how the reputation of netbooks was spoiled with too small RAMs and crapware bundled into them. Microsoft could do itself a service and decline the OEM sales with 1GB machines.

Re:what a contest

[Blaskowicz]

Alright. But Celeron N2820 is 22nm Atom, not Haswell.
Celeron was based on Pentium II , two gens of Pentium III, three gens of Pentium 4, two gens of Core 2 Duo and then three gens of i3/i7 (not the first gen of i7 I believe, so not counted)

I happen to think the performance is adequate but well : instead of bitching about the very low power stuff, why not ignore it? stay on desktop where the Haswell Celeron (G1840) is fucking incredibly fast.

Can't wait for all the Windows fanboys to buy this

[Anonymous Coward]

...and then start whining that their precious Halo won't run even though it's Windows.

A different GUI sounds good to me

[johnsie]

My PI 1 is nice as a mini server. I have with apache/mysql etc running good for collecting data from PLC. However, I have never been happy with the GUI's on offer. Maybe Windows will offer a semi-decent GUI as opposed to the half-baked Linux GUIs that are capable of running on a PI.

Re:A different GUI sounds good to me

[SpeZek]

Why do you need a GUI on a server in the first place?

Re:A different GUI sounds good to me

[Anonymous Coward]

Says the person who uses no real time analytics. Thats still a GUI.

Re:A different GUI sounds good to me

[cusco]

It makes administration and troubleshooting a frack of a lot nicer, especially for someone who doesn't do server automation all day every day. I haven't seen the point of no-GUI operating systems since servers started supporting more than 64 mb of RAM, the savings are minimal and the headaches are large. Unless the point is to sneer, "I'm superior because I don't need a GUI."

Why?

[JohnFen]

You can already join the program and be amongst the first to receive product information and beta software releases.

But why would I want to? Seriously, what value proposition is Microsoft bringing to the table? We have excellent development tools for Raspberry PI, and excellent operating systems for it already.

LOL! That's cute...

[lord_mike]

Except that April Fool's is two months from now...

US DISTRIBUTORS HACKED

[Anonymous Coward]

Folks,

Almost immediately after trying to buy this from MCM / Element14/Newark my CC that I use for almost *nothing* had fraudulent charges placed on it. Either MCM or Element 14/Newark has been hacked. Sure it could be my bank, but I'm fairly confident that it was one of those two since it happened almost immediately (as in a couple of hours at max) after ordering RP2's from them. Don't know where else to post this - but I feel that in all likelyhood one has been 0wned!

I just wonder...

[Dekonega]

...how much Kool-Aid you have to drink to get to that point?

Finally a cheap system for doing my taxes!

[Anonymous Coward]

Will it run Turbo Tax?

Visual studio

[bugs2squash]

so will it come with a free copy of visual studio hosted on ARM - or does it need to be programmed in powershell, python or java (or .bat I suppose !). Or do we need to cross-compile from a windows x86 machine ?

Re:Visual studio

[Anonymous Coward]

For C++ and C#, you'll cross-compile from an Intel machine, same as it works for Windows on ARM (phones, Surface RT etc) today. This is all taken care of by Visual Studio for you.

For interpreted languages, obviously, it'll just work. And yes they will be there, and I don't mean PowerShell.

UEFI for the Raspberry Pi ... finally!

[kleinesRaedchen]

Up to now, the platform was just too... open!

Re:IT'S JUST BUSINESS AS USUAL

[Anonymous Coward]

Ipads are costly, easy to use, have no purpose in most schools.
Windows machines, ditto,

But both are resellable at decent cost--minimizing TCO.

Linux boxes are throw away, from netbooks to RPi, to Android devices. Simple as that. You're either outdated and no one knows how to update the dang kernel (what is that anyway to most folks?), or it doesn't work enough that someone's willing to buy it.

Why bother...

[jonwil]

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.

ha ha ha

[Anonymous Coward]

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Sorry just had to let that out.

In other words

[phorm]

We're doing this to undercut any interest in competing OS's, not because we actually care about it. When we've undercut things enough, we'll dump any support entirely...

Ah *sniff*

[Anonymous Coward]

A slice of Windows on a Pi, how quaint - er humble.

Re How is this a good thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

From my point of view Microsoft is like a guy who wasn't invited to the party, because he has a history of being a selfish jackass who doesn't play nice with other people.

And now, he not only shows up to the party when he wasn't wanted or asked, but he's pretending that he's everybody's friend, just one of the guys, as if people don't remember what an ass he's been for the past 20+ years.

Can you explain how this is very cool? Because all I see is Microsoft's standard embrace, extend, extinguish strategy.

Re:Re How is this a good thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

But thats just geeks and their inability to forget things that happened well over a decade ago when the company was run by different people. Things changed, the world moved on, Microsoft doesnt even dominate personal computing anymore, Linux (and iOS) rule the roost when it comes to most people's general everyday computing tasks. Get with the times. And no it isnt "embrace, extend, extinguish", that is what people who dont know what they are talking about say when they want to criticize microsoft but dont have any actual valid reason.

Choice is a good thing, it drives competition and innovation. There has been no innovation in the operating systems driving the Raspberry Pi so maybe this will provoke them to do something genuinely innovative on the platform. The real problem is so many people spend so much time on the anti-microsoft train that in the meantime proprietary operating systems (iOS and Android - yes the majority of Android devices have the big proprietary blob called Google Play Services) dominated tablets, smartphone and smartwatches. Sure Microsoft doesnt dominate now but instead is proprietary blobs from Apple and Google instead, where was all the FOSS innovation? Oh...there was none.

It isnt surprising that the FOSS movement doesnt resonate with people, for all the pontificating about how good it is it lacks vision, imagination and innovation. There is no reason popular smartphones, tablets and watches could not have been innovations from FOSS except it is easier to hate on the incumbents and copy them than it is to innovate and be the leader.

YUCK!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yuck, no windoz please, Ubuntu!!

Yes! Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux is fine as a toy OS, but when you need to actually get stuff done, you need to use a professional grade OS. Windows 10 will turn the raspberry pi from an interesting toy into a useful tool.

Re:IT'S JUST BUSINESS AS USUAL

[amiga3D]

Schools basically give away old windows machines. Now that they remove hard drives they're almost totally worthless. I think they bring more as scrap.