Power-on to GUI in 20 seconds

[Mitch Bradley]

pgf wrote:

> bert wrote:
>  > Am 29.08.2008 um 15:34 schrieb pgf at laptop.org:
>  > 
>  > > bert wrote:
>  > >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0fAUGRUDVA
>  > >>
>  > >> Brought to you by Gerardo Richarte, with bootstrapping help from  
>  > >> Mitch Bradley.
>  > >
>  > > i can't resist pointing out that we could probably do that with
>  > > linux too, if we weren't committed to using an off-the-shelf desktop
>  > > distribution.
>  > 
>  > Are we committed to that?
>
> i suspect so.  it gives us huge leverage in terms of reducing
> development time and in increased numbers of familiar developers. 
> while i'm sure there's a bunch of savings that could be had
> in boot time, some of it would come in terms of reduced or
> delayed services and system flexibility.  the fact is that
> once the XO is up and running, it's an extremely powerful,
> full-fledged workstation.  (approximately speaking, of course.  :-) 
> there's something to be said for that.
>   

I think we need to be careful to stay focused on our mission.  To the 
extent that we are too compatible with the big wide world of PCs and all 
the different flavors of Linux, we risk becoming irrelevant.  If you 
want a PC, there are plenty of choices, nearly all of them better (at 
running conventional software) than XO.

In my mind, making yet another PC is uninteresting.  We need to focus on 
doing something that is fundamentally better.  We cannot win at the old 
game; we have to invent a new game.

> (i do think we should be making our dual-boot capabilities
> equally available for all OSes.  i'd love to be able to
> (trivially) try SqueakNOS or debxo, for instance, or be able to
> experiment with application-specific fast-bootable images.  and i
> think a lot of G1G1 folks that might prefer an "alternate"
> distribution of some sort for day-to-day would probably like to
> keep the OLPC code around as well, just to keep their laptops
> "stock", and to track our progress.)
>