Microsoft sez no OLPC dual-boot, still committed to XP on XO

Those of you who participated in OLPC's "Give One, Get One" program will probably be disappointed to learn that, despite earlier reports to the contrary, Microsoft has no intention of developing dual-boot Windows / Linux support for the XO laptop. According to a statement sent to BetaNews, Redmond flat out denied any work on such a project, instead claiming that it "plans to publish formal design guidelines early this year that will assist [any] flash-based device manufacturers in designing machines that enable a high-quality Windows experience." The blurb goes on to say that the company will be conducting limited XP-on-XO field tests later this month, although BetaNews notes that notebook's hardware limitations have proven problematic for the software giant, which may be forced to offer the OS on an SD card -- a move that would require a new BIOS for the XO to enable booting from removable storage.

[Via Slashdot]

[Juice @ Jan 11th 2008 2:45PM]

Why does Engadget stutter so much? I can't scroll until the whole page loads.

[Constable Odo @ Jan 11th 2008 3:25PM]

No problems here, either. Not under WinXP and IE7 or OSX.4 and Safari 3. It must be your connection. Engadget loads instantaneously on broadband.

[Andir3.0 @ Jan 11th 2008 4:46PM]

It's the loading advertisements.

[Juice @ Jan 11th 2008 2:45PM]

Why does Engadget stutter so much? I can't scroll until the whole page loads...

[Dave King @ Jan 11th 2008 2:57PM]

Juice, it sounds like your computer or your browser. Not the site, as I have no problems loading the site on my Windows Machine at work, or my Mac at home. Both I use Firefox on.

[Juice @ Jan 11th 2008 2:59PM]

Ah, see, I use IE6. Yep stuck in the stone age. What's that you say? No one is supposed to be using IE anymore? Engadget doesn't work well on IE? Oh...

[michael @ Jan 11th 2008 4:29PM]

Or you could try IE7.

I use it a lot, and I find it works perfectly fine. No problems seeing sites on it. I think IE6 is far to unsafe though, and if you can't upgrade to IE7, go for Opera. It's super fast. But it's sometimes hard to find the most simplest buttons.

So yeah, go for IE7 or Opera. I've used both and they're great. IE6 has far too many issues with things.

[ssuk @ Jan 11th 2008 4:46PM]

I recommend using IE7, it may take a few days to get used to, but it's overall a better user experience if you're not willing to give up IE and use Firefox or Opera. You'll also be able to make use of tabbed browsing, which after a while you'll wonder how you lived without it.

[Mark @ Jan 11th 2008 5:32PM]

Dunno, the RSS feeds page stutters for me like hell until it loads fully. IE7 Vista, fully patched, Core 2 Duo e6600 2.4 ghz, 2 gig 667 ram. I doubt it's the hardware, and really, the software is commonly enough used that it should be compatible. Engadget, what's up?

[Superprime @ Jan 11th 2008 2:47PM]

XP-on-XO sounds like a genre of porn

[Farris @ Jan 11th 2008 4:00PM]

Mmmmm.... hot XP on XO action!

[BigD145 @ Jan 11th 2008 2:51PM]

Microsoft doesn't like to play second fiddle.

[ethana2 @ Jan 11th 2008 3:31PM]

They best get used to it.

'Hi, I'm a Mac.'
'And I'm a Dell.'
'What?'
'I'm a Dell.'
'What's the difference between a Dell and just another PC?'
http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2007/12/19/38924.aspx
'Oh.'

[Andir3.0 @ Jan 11th 2008 4:48PM]

Of course not. Microsoft is not interesting in sharing a PC. They want full control over it, and you.

[Andir3.0 @ Jan 11th 2008 5:03PM]

Of course not. Microsoft is not interesting in sharing a PC. They want full control over it, and you.

GRR.. if this posts twice, blame these freakin' servers.

[wickedpheonix @ Jan 11th 2008 2:53PM]

*bump*

"Oh shit the SD card fell out"

Nigerian kid: "waah my computer broke my screen went blue and I can't look at pr0n mommy please fix it!!!!"

[Blink @ Jan 11th 2008 2:59PM]

Why would anyone create a PC that wont boot off removable storage anyways? Who makes these things Verizon?

[cmonkey @ Jan 11th 2008 3:12PM]

It can boot off of USB or SD; it just doesn't default to it, which is what Microsoft presumably wants. Beyond that, the firmware is open source, so it's not a problem to make it default to SD or USB.

This also means that despite what Microsoft loads onto XP XOs, it'll be possible for the end user to dual boot Windows and Linux on it.

[Blink @ Jan 11th 2008 3:14PM]

O, OK. I thought maybe they had it locked down in the name of security or something stupid.

[Loonie @ Jan 11th 2008 3:28PM]

For crying out loud, the bloody thing doesn't need Windows. Sod MS.

[fred @ Jan 11th 2008 5:50PM]

doesn't need Linux either.

But if people want either it is good to have the option.

Unless forcing people to use Linux is the in thing now.

[sracer @ Jan 11th 2008 3:57PM]

@fred... unfortunately, the XO laptop is turning into a trojan horse for Linux zealotry. As long as Microsoft is willing to make changes to Windows for it to work on the XO platform (rather than have XO change to run Windows), then having Windows as an option is a good thing.

[ssuk @ Jan 11th 2008 4:40PM]

MS is evil, to hell with MS.

Am I cool yet?

[Scott @ Jan 11th 2008 5:30PM]

sracer, that's the point--They want to change the hardware! It's not that the hardware can't technically run Windows, it's that Windows doesn't run well enough. In other words, Windows is too bloated. How is making the hardware more expensive good for anyone but Microsoft?

[Loonie @ Jan 11th 2008 5:35PM]

It's nothing to do with zealotry. It works as it is, and does what it's designed to do. I can't help but think, upon hearing all this ridiculous marketspeak like "enable a high-quality Windows experience" that the entire point of this thing has been missed.

[Matt @ Jan 11th 2008 6:51PM]

what's the thing gonna use then?
if there's no windows, then no linux, and ol steve offered his mac os for free, and negroponte declined.

what's it gonna run then?

i have one of these, the sugar os is ok, i just wish windows wouldn't keep meddling around with it, it already runs slow, just imagine windoze trying to churn in that thing

[DT @ Jan 11th 2008 3:40PM]

They're going to publish how to get a high-quality Windows experience? Wow, sign me up! This is big news!

[zephead @ Jan 11th 2008 4:29PM]

"High quality Windows experience"

Another great oxymoron, from the people who brought you "Microsoft Works". :)

[grjohnston @ Jan 11th 2008 3:59PM]

When they get it working, do you think they'll have an XP on XO Expo?

[Farris @ Jan 11th 2008 4:01PM]

You sir, are a comedic genius.

[phisrow @ Jan 11th 2008 4:07PM]

The XO can already boot from external storage(I've booted it from USB Flash, SD, and USB HDD without any trouble(I think PXE/netboot can be done as well; but I haven't tried). Because the XO uses OpenFirmware, not a BIOS, an OS expecting a BIOS will choke; but the device boots more or less anything it can read without any trouble.

Now, I imagine that getting Windows to play well in an environment not explicitly designed for it might well be a nontrivial challenge(and not something Microsoft is used to); but the XO architecture is friendly enough.

[josh @ Jan 11th 2008 4:25PM]

This environment is much better suited for XP Embedded than retail box XP, as a componentized build that left out many of the extraneous features for such a machine (I doubt you need active directory support, for example) would be far preferred (it isn't like this thing has a ton of storage space). In that case the XPe team has a lot more experience customizing to non-standard environments. Now whether MS chose to do that, or instead is trying to push XP starter edition (crippled edition) onto the machine is an open question.

[Leo @ Jan 11th 2008 9:06PM]

What a bunch of garbage. The children and people receiving the laptop don't know Windows anyways from anything else - thing about it - it is going into 3rd world countries, ones with computers!
So the operating system they have is absolutely fine. MS trying to bully it's way into another market is complete and utter non-sense, but I guess the people at OLPC can't see that their laptop does the trick and works fine. Saying to a child in Nigeria, "do you want Windows or Linux?" - give me a break - give them something that works right now - the OLPC.

[mythicalprogrammer @ Jan 12th 2008 5:41PM]

What's this and linux forcing on people? You guys don't know anything about linux to be making comment about it.

Linux can run on more stuffs than Microsoft because it's more robust and scalable. Why you think they chose Linux? Here's a hint to retards that don't know jack: It's cheaper to run it.

The kernel can be modify etc.. what can you do with xp? Blue screen of death? LOL. Can you change the scheduler? Or is there any protection like root? What about NTFS versus ext2,ext3, and ext4? Linux doesn't need to defrag.

It's just bunch of retards bitch about stuff they don't know.

Learning linux can get you jobs like sys admins, network admins, os, embedded system, security, etc.. what can you do with xp? Photoshop? Geek Squad? Oh wait with xp they can be idiots that talk stuff about they don't know. LOL.