XP on OLPC - a contrarian view -- followup

[Richard A. Smith]

Robert Myers wrote:

> I just saw the Microsoft video of an XO running XP. In it the XO single 
> boots from an 'insyde' BIOS. The MS guy says that XP doesn't fit on the 
> flash, and is installed on an SD card. In this case, I'd guess the flash 
> is just being used as a home for the BIOS. 

The system firmware + Embedded Controller firmware lives in a 1Meg SPI 
NOR flash part connected to the EC.  The 1Gig NAND flash part does not 
store any system firmware.

> I can see why techs at MS did 
> this to get a working prototype rather than having to wait for (or worse 
> yet, contribute to) the OF V2 bootloader/BIOS.

I prefer to use the term system firmware because BIOS refers to a legacy 
product class.  OpenFirmware's capabilities are so far above a legacy 
BIOS product you can't even put them on the same scale.

-- 
Richard Smith  <richard at laptop.org>
One Laptop Per Child