XP on OLPC - a contrarian view

[Sameer Verma]

Albert Cahalan wrote:
> On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 2:24 AM, Sameer Verma <sverma at sfsu.edu> wrote:
>   
>> Albert Cahalan wrote:
>>     
>
>   
>>> Watch the video. XP boots fast,
>>>       
>> What does a fast boot up have to do with the overall usability and
>> productivity of a system? You can always show a boot screen early in the
>> process and say its boots fast. Its not so much the boot speed that
>> bothers me, but the impression it creates that if it boots fast, it must
>> be fast overall.
>>     
>
> True, but the rest didn't look bad at all.
>
>   
>>> handles video very nicely,
>>> runs Microsoft Office just fine (spreadsheet!), and in general
>>> looks to be highly usable.
>>>       
>> What bothered me most about the video is that it was all XP and no
>> Sugar. Yes, we have yet another OS. Where's Sugar?
>>     
>
> Ever wonder why Microsoft fought Java, Netscape, Borland, and ODF
> so viciously? (purposely making their Java incompatible, attacking
> Netscape's revenue stream by making IE and IIS free, hiring away
> Borland's employees, buying the OOXML ratification)
>
> Microsoft is all about controlling the platform. They want you to
> depend on a Microsoft platform, and especially not a portable platform.
>
> Sugar qualifies as a 3rd-party portable platform. Forget it.
>
>   
>> If we are comparing
>> OS only, how does Xubuntu stack up against XP's performance on the XO?
>>     
>
> That is an excellent question. I suspect that the Xubuntu stack
> has far more potential than sugar.
>
>   

My point for bringing that up wasn't to disparage Sugar. It was to point
out that if Xubuntu can boot fast and respond fast on the XO, it simply
means that Sugar needs optimization. Throwing Sugar away and running
Xubuntu would be no different than throwing out Sugar and running XP. In
fact, John Magolske (who's on the OLPC-SF list) just put up instructions
for running things in a frame buffer console.
http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/olpc-sf/2008-May/000117.html Its fast,
but no Sugar.

> http://wiki.eeeuser.com/ubuntu:eeexubuntu:home
>
> Unfortunately, sugar got blessed.
>
>   
>> The other thing that was strange was that when he captures video, the
>> camera light did not come on. Isn't the camera wired in series with the
>> LED? If that's the case then the LED should be on...or the video was
>> edited post production.
>>     
>
> Probably it is old hardware.
>   

It looks very much like an MP machine. The video is processed
post-production for sure...just like those ads on TV for cleaning drains
where it shows "5 seconds" and a small font disclaimer reads "5 minutes
elapsed" :-) I think its called dramatization.

>   
>>> http://mediadl.microsoft.com/MediaDL/WWW/U/unlimitedpotential/WindowsXP_XOLaptop.wmv
>>> (works OK in mplayer)
>>>
>>> Don't bet for a moment that Linux will get to stay. That is
>>> simply not how Microsoft operates.
>>>       
>> Based on my impression from the video clip, its all talk about XP,
>> Office, etc. and native XP apps, so at this point, I would be surprised
>> if Sugar ships at all.
>>     
>
> Of course. Remember: it's about controlling the platform
>
> BTW, though sugar-free XP is a certainty for business reasons,
> it's not as if giving up the XP experience would be desired by
> any of the buyers. Sugar has that frame getting in the way,
> a look that is some adult's wrong idea of what kids see best,
> a spam-filled journal that is **planned** to lose your data,
> and incompatibility with everything. XP can at least run lots
> of free software like Thunderbird, Audacity, Pidgin, and gimp!
> (even Open Office, but that counts as a platform)
>   

Sameer

-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/