Comparison of Windows XP and Linux/Sugar On the OLPC XO 203
griffjon writes "OLPCNews has a comparison of Windows XP to the Sugar/Linux OS on the One Laptop Per Child XO-1, based on the Microsoft Unlimited Potential video, touching on video recording, power usage, boot times, and mesh networking. An interesting, if saddening, read."
What's the real plan? (Score:5, Interesting)
Puzzling.
Re:What's the real plan? (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, if I put my tin-foil hat on, I figure that Microsoft hopes to make the OLPC dependent on XP. With XP no longer available anywhere else, people who really want it will have to get it from OLPCs, rendering them unusable. In this way, MS will satisfy customers who really want XP, while destroying the OLPC.
It's an easier smear than that. (Score:4, Insightful)
Despite all the shortfalls mentioned, M$ marketing will tell you that XP is better than that toy OS but XP is all you can run on toy hardware and be able to do "real work". If you want to do real work right, they will tell you to buy Intel's latest and cripple it with Vista. I know, that has nothing to do with reality but that's what they will tell you.
When it comes to education, they will point to piles and piles of really awful "educational" software available for XP that will soon be ported to Vista. Or they will do what they did here and act like XP + Office and a thumb drive for "sharing" is all you need. Who knows, as the article pointed out, none of it will work once you put in AV and viruses eat it anyway. The sad fact is that XO and Sugar met a real need in a way that M$ can't, but M$ is going to bribe and lie until XO is destroyed.
I thought there was backwards compatibility... (Score:2)
"educational" software available for XP that will soon be ported to Vista
Isn't the big lock-in idea that you don't have to *port* anything forward? What's the point of Vista if it won't run your existing apps?
Otherwise, port it to a real operating system :)
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They are how ever running into much stiffer competition, competition that oddly enough the OLPC project created. Low cost UMPCs are starting to appear all over the place and their numbers will rise. A lot of first world governments are moving to get a laptop into every students hands, as such it is a huge market.
Quite simply FOSS has matured and gained sufficient public attention that it is the most desirable solution to ensure cost effective solutions. First world governments can save a huge amount mone
Re:It's an easier smear than that. (Score:5, Insightful)
XP on the XO is M$ attempt simply to pull some popularity out of the XO and from their point of view trying to force up the cost of hardware to prevent the software appearing as such an expensive waste of money in comparison, hence the resource hog vista. They really have become a myopically greedy company with a complete disregard for the harm their actions cause.
OLPC is an educational project.
Microsoft wants, more than anything, to keep infecting younger generations.
If kids learn to live without Microsoft's software, if they learn to program and hack on a massive scale, there is no force in the world that will make them endorse Microsoft's expensive solutions unless they are significantly better than the competition, i.e. really worth their price.
This is something that needs to be stopped, as it cuts in their future userbase; it is as if the sheep suddenly started developing civilization: not very good news for shepherds at all.
667,000 (Score:3, Informative)
.
Confirmed sales of the XO as of May 2008 were 667,000 units. Summary of laptop orders [wikipedia.org]
The XO isn't meeting the reception the Geek thought it would. Not every education minister believes in constructivism.
Some are worried that what would be buying is an overpriced e-book reader -- because his teachers won't have the experience, training, or resources to use it any other way - and neither will his kids - no matter often the geek fanta
Re:What's the real plan? (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought MS was determined to kill XP, so what point are they trying to make showing how well it can run on the XO?
They were. Then they realized that Linux would eat their lunch on the OLPC and they knew that Vista boot times on an OLPC would be geologic... if it could run on the machine at all.
Basically, Microsoft got caught with their crappy product being wholly incapable of supporting a new market that was emerging. XP would get a reprieve from this death sentence only to prevent Microsoft from (rightly) looking incapable of supporting low-end hardware. Basically, the cold hard reality of Vista's bloat is too big for even Microsoft to ignore.
Hopefully more and more people will realize that Microsoft hasn't done anything useful since XP was released, except for fixes to XP.
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So spin spin spin, Microsoft allows OEM sales of XP for small laptops... while other manufacturers hear that XP can not be sold anymore...
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see, you answered your own question
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the dummies around here tested it on crappy old hardware for 5 seconds when it works perfectly fine on modern hardware made in the last 2-3 years.
Would that be the dummies that sold me a brand new low-end Gateway in 2007 that, because it was saddled with Vista, was literally the slowest personal computer I've ever used and that counts my floppy-based Amiga 500? Ironically, when I bought the machine I bought an extra gig of RAM, so I never even tried it with the meager half gig of RAM it came with. If you
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We all have our stories about mod kiddies getting power mad but if a thread like this is judged so beyond the pale of
Soon it'll be to the point where
Re:What's the real plan? (Score:5, Funny)
Have you ever tried to talk out of ONE side of your mouth? Nobody can understand you.
Re:What's the real plan? (Score:5, Funny)
Worked for Jean-Chrétien. /duck
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Have you ever tried to talk out of ONE side of your mouth? Nobody can understand you.
Except dentists.
Re:What's the real plan? (Score:5, Insightful)
They are doing the same thing to the EEEPC.
Microsoft's Plans for the distribution of EEEPCs in India [techtree.com]
Re:What's the real plan? (Score:5, Informative)
Microsoft never claimed they were killing off XP. They claimed that for normal desktops and most laptops, it soon will be no longer available.
Microsoft still "maintains" and sells their older operating systems for a variety of other needs, such as embedded devices, low power devices, etc. This move coincides with that. In the Windows world, the XO is far from what people would consider a normal PC. While Linux variants, eComStation and OS/2 can still run on "outdated" hardware, newer versions of Windows cannot (run being defined as run in a usable fashion, including doing such things as word processing, etc). While their OS strategy is largely to blame for that, their policy does address it by their continued selling of older operating systems when the requirements are met (ie: slower and/or less powerful hardware, embedded devices, set-top boxes, xBox/xBox360s, etc).
The sadder point, which would have been a valid one for you to bring up, is that the current bloat in their newer OS incarnations is the cause for them having such a policy. Bloat which is not needed in any form or fashion - as an example, a fully implemented (we can hope for that day) Wine or Odin on Linux or OS/2 or eComStation would be able to run virtually any Windows app on OS's that require a much smaller CPU and memory footprint, and make far better use of the available resources.
Thus, (to bring this conversation full circle), Microsoft, instead of being technologically innovative in OS design, has decided to hold on to their older operating systems for the hardware still being built that they know their newer ones cannot run on. It's the same reason why Win3.1 sales in similar vertical markets is just ending now.
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Keep modding me down for being correct. You dont have to like the truth... how about spending the mod points on the GP instead - it's not like this hasnt been covered on /. enough.
Gotta love /. - glad I have karma to burn...
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Many points here that I could debate on end, but I'm not really in the mood, so I'll leave those.
I do however have a question. You said:
It's the same reason why Win3.1 sales in similar vertical markets is just ending now.
Can you point me to such a vertical market? I haven't seen 3.1 in a LONG time. "NT Embedded", yes... "3.1", no.
(not saying you're lying, I'm actually just genuinely interested if there's a hole in my knowledge somewhere
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Microsoft seems to think there still was one and needed to kill it. See the post below. Here's the link even (or search /. for the topic that discusses it - you'll find info on what it is used for there):
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=627113&cid=24355759
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Here's an article. A correction to note: my post should have said WfWG3.11 (Windows for Workgroups). Some items to note... MS is still selling it till Nov 2008. The announcement was made June 2008.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/11/microsoft_retires_windows_311_for_workgroups/
Now... where is it still used? Notta clue... but there are people who commented to that article pointing out places it is still used (some they work at, some they just know about), and it includes some embedded uses. Here's on
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Indeed. For example, did you know that last November, Microsoft announced that it will stop selling and supporting Windows 3.1 to embedded device manufacturers. Which means that it was sold/supported before that, and apprarently there were customers. Go figure.
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Same plan as always.. Try to take over the world.
Get Microsoft products on anything that can come close to running them. CE/XP/Vista, it doesn't matter so long as it is a Microsoft product. Microsoft would love to kill XP, but they can't get Vista to run on the available hardware, so they either allow some other product to take the place of Windows, or they keep XP around for sub normal specifications, and limit the markets it can be sold in so that they don't damage the Vista and later the 7 markets. If so
And that NEVER happens! (Score:2)
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An interesting, if sad, read? (Score:3, Insightful)
OK, so I'm a Linux fanboy. I don't find tfa the least bit sad.
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Sugar and XP accomplish different things.... (Score:5, Informative)
Comparing Sugar to Windows XP is kind of like comparing a pushbike to a 747 engine...
They're designed to do different things. Sugar is designed to be incredibly simple needing little training (or reading skill). It allows people to use a computer without having to learn how to use a computer.
Windows XP is a versatile monster trying to offer all things to all people. It is hugely complex and requires the average person a great deal of time to pickup and use.
I can understand why Microsoft might wish to run XP on the X0 but what I struggle to understand is why anyone is comparing them to one another.
If Microsoft develops some kind of child friendly interface that children can use then we can start talking about it. But until that happens you just aren't comparing the same thing at all.
Re:Sugar and XP accomplish different things.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I can understand why Microsoft might wish to run XP on the X0 but what I struggle to understand is why anyone is comparing them to one another.
The point of comparing Sugar to XP is to demonstrate what most of us predicted -- i.e., that XP is completely unsuitable for this application.
Having XP in the marketplace annoys me, but my irritation is limited because people have alternatives. A child who gets XP preinstalled on the XO will probably have no alternative and will be left with an inferior product. I hope reviewers keep denouncing Microsoft's involvement with the XO, because no good can come of it.
Re:Sugar and XP accomplish different things.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The point of comparing Sugar to XP is to demonstrate what most of us predicted -- i.e., that XP is completely unsuitable for this application.
And that, believe it or not, is actually good news.
People want Windows on the XO because they think that kids need "practical" tools, like Microsoft Office, so they can develop "marketable" skills. Which is nonsense. There aren't that many jobs for people with those kinds of skills, especially not in rural villages in the developing world. Kids in those places need learning tools that help them build their knowledge and skill base on their own.
So Windows on the XO is unworkable. Great. Now the OLPC people can get back to doing something more useful than producing yet another Wintel clone.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not dead yet! (Score:2, Interesting)
(Sugar says.)
Run over to the sugar and other OLPC mailing lists, if you're worried that somebody has killed sugar off.
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Either you're a troll or you've bought the MSBS (Score:2, Informative)
Get on the lists to find out what the real story is.
I shouldn't spoil the plot, but other people might read this.
Sugar on XP is not scheduled to replace either Sugar or Linux. The only people trying (desperately, per the friendly A) to show how XP runs on the thing (and using a lot of slight-of-hand to do so) are with/from Microsoft.
Re:Sugar and XP accomplish different things.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Since a high proportion of the adults are functionally illiterate, they need to employ someone else to write for them. This applies most especially to those who control the money and power - and in the best position to pay for your services.
Furthermore, if you have plans to go to the big city and get a job with the government (who have stolen most of the money from the people), you will need a good working knowledge of MS Word to construct a credible CV.
Your post should be modded "-1 Rubbish"
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Having as many copies of Word as you can carry is not much use if you cannot write in the first place.
Education comes first. Being sold an expensive software product, way down there at the bottom of the 'things Africans need' list.
so first get a teaching tool [martin-woodhouse.co.uk] to the chidren, and teach them to read and write. Then they can buy their own copies of Word when they're older.
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Terminal, nano.
Or if you prefer a gui, x11 + (nedit || gedit || kate || ....)
If you need an office suite, OpenOffice works as well. And there's always LaTeX....
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I've found that getting computer illiterate people familiar with basic concepts is the biggest leap. Once they are comfortable with a keyboard, mouse, file storage, etc. differences between O/Ss and applications are easily handled.
A dual boot system would go even further toward teaching theory vs rote learning.
Re:Sugar and XP accomplish different things.... (Score:4, Insightful)
The point of comparing Sugar to XP is to demonstrate what most of us predicted -- i.e., that XP is completely unsuitable for this application.
Exactly -- It seems... obvious? But the pushback (slashdotters in favor of Windows over Linux? Is it Opposite Day??) is pretty amazing. Sugar is built to be an educational tool; XP was built to be a business tool. There are many, many great arguments why XP is a bad idea for the OLPC XO; but they are often lost on people. TFA is just trying to do a straight, point-by-point comparison to show how bad XP really is as a replacement for Sugar.
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One of these two OS environments was designed to be on a XO and one wasn't. That's why they're being compared - and why the comparison is valid.
Re:Sugar and XP accomplish different things.... (Score:5, Informative)
Because there have been pressures on the OLPC to replace one with the other. To know how useful such pressures are, you have to compare them. That the pressures are lobby-driven and really have nothing in common with what people associate with "sense" is the result of that comparison.
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I think that is sorta the point. What is "needed" on the OLPC and XO is something simple that someone with not experience, and limited reading skills, a child in the developing world for example is something like sugar.
If you are trying to decide to ship Windows XP or Linux with Sugar on top, it might be useful to compare them from the point of view of the target user. Also Sugar is just the shell, the linux based operationg system its running on is still a "versatile monster trying to offer all things to
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The thing I dont understand about BoB is that it was a blatant ripoff of PackardBell's crappy similar entry - which went nowhere at all. How Microsoft made the mistake of "borrowing" their design, adding "Clippy" and the rest of his idiotic designs, and thinking it would go anywhere still amazes me.
You have no idea how many thousands (palettes worth) of BoB they sent to each CompUSA for launch...
It was quite funny. Well, for us... I dont think anyone at Microsoft thought it was funny... (or if they did, t
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Are you talking about the Packard Bell Navigator software? It was a piece of shit much like Bob, and presented a "house" with rooms, organizing your software according to room or some such nonsense. IIRC the keyboard on my Pack of Hell even had a key specially marked for launching the software.
But I'm pretty sure Bob was not a true ripoff of Navigator, as they both came out the same year. I suspect they were really just simultaneously developed, and modified to add interesting fewatures they heard were goin
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As far as Bill was concerned, MS Bob was a big success, as he got to marry the project manager, which might not have been an option if the project had been ignominiously canned as it deserved to be.
Ahh.. so Bob was the equivalent of a wife/girlfriend chosen hifi component..
I have an olpc and would love windows 98' most (Score:5, Interesting)
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Note that this is only an outside opinion, but your whole paragraph equates to someone being served a a nice wet-n-sloppy dog-shit sandwich, and quickly getting back in line for seconds. Though myself a unix dev, I'm sure any Windows user would prefer Windows 2000 to a horribly coded frontend to DOS. Hell, I still use 2000 (either Windows 2000 or Windows FLP [wikipedia.org]) on a VM in OS X, *BSD, or Linux.
What am I saying? You would like Win2000/WinFLP more, since it's up-to-date and doesn't require heavy memory. But me t
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Windows 98 will run smoothly on much lower hardware specifications than Windows 2000, and it also takes much less space. Granted you're not going to want to use it without a firewall, you'll have to reboot it regularly, and even thinking about the internet with it's IE would be a disaster. But yes, 98 with a firewall and Opera would be much faster on the OLPC than 2000, and it would be otherwise functionally identical for most purposes.
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I know xp drivers usually use the same resources as windows 2000, it's just that the installers might check to see what OS you are using, and freak out if you aren't using XP. I usually use WinRAR to pull these files out of the EXEs, and if i can't I run the installer and then copy all of the extracted files from your $TEMP folder before closing the installer app. I was checking out AMDs site for geode level support for windows, and it's pretty low, so I would personally depend on the drivers that came with
Biased Write (Score:2, Interesting)
The author of the article was clearly biased in his opinion. I won't take a position in the matter, but the author doing so made the facts more difficult to grasp when reading the article.
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nothing to see here, move along! (Score:5, Interesting)
now i really hate microsoft and wish them all the worst, but this article is just plain ridiculous! nothing to see here, move along!
Re:nothing to see here, move along! (Score:4, Interesting)
Well a video is all Microsoft has provided, while doing their best to push their operating system onto the XO. And a video is likely all they are using to convince people that Windows XP is the only thing that can make the XO work. I guess the author could have waited for an actual working instance of XP on the XO. But there is no reason to be confident that such will ever come to past. In the meantime, just being to claim that XP on the XO is better is all Microsoft need to achieve their assumed goals.
I personally use Linux as my OS of choice, however, I think that any operating system that can meet the technical requirements AND meet the "open" (as in open software) requirement would be a good choice for the XO. Assuming that the XO works, someday locals could be writing their own software, and customizing and maintaining the operating system and desktop environment. Unless things change radically in the future, this is an impossibility with Windows XP -- ie. owners of Windows XP on XO, regardless of geography, will be forever dependent on Microsoft.
Ubuntu on the XO (Score:5, Interesting)
OLPC is Irrelevant (Score:5, Insightful)
They should have extended the BOGO (buy one get one) promotion or made it possible for people in the developed world to buy one. As it is, noone can develop software for it, because, near as I can tell, you can't buy one.
So, of course, TFA is based on a video. The OLPC is resigned to a third world ghetto and will eventually fade into obscurity, which is a shame.
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They are supposed to be offering another round og G1G1 (give 1 get 1) this autumn. But based upon the last round, I don't think that you're going to get many buyers who will end up developing for it. Another indicator is that Sugar has been ported to other Linux distributions. If you want to develop for it, you can do so today. Some people do, but it is by no means a massive outpouring of support.
Don't get me wrong, the XO itself is a nice piece of hardware. Alas, Sugar is buggy and does not perform al
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That you can't buy one is a really big problem in getting those things to the masses, especially now when Eee and other subnotebooks are taking over that market segment. However for those that really want to develop for the XO, there is the Developers Program [laptop.org] over which one can get a device.
XP on XO conspiracy theory timeline.. (Score:4, Funny)
MS announce XP on XO.
Slashdot goes "Pics or it never happened!"
MS provide screen shots.
Slashdot goes "screenshots can be faked - video or it never happened!"
MS provide video.
Slashdot goes "Whatever, it never happened!"
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It may be that the videos are not faked. Still, if they were not, I would like to replace my workstation (Core 2 Duo with 3GB RAM) with an OLPC laptop, since it seems to run so much faster.
This is sad... (Score:2)
How many years will pass until Linux gets suspend and hibernate right?
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How many years will pass until Linux gets suspend and hibernate right?
How many years will pass until Windows gets suspend and hibernate right?
Fixed that for you.
Actually suspend is 95% on Update.1, and I hear it's even better on the joyride builds.
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Hibernate/suspend -- ACPI -- Bad std drafted by MS (Score:2)
If you are at all actually interested in the answer to this question, look into ACPI. The Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org] notes that MS was one of the companies that helped draft the standard. The Criticism [wikipedia.org] subsection is also informative about some of the problems with the standard. There are also numerous [mixx.com] other [wordpress.com] examples [google.com] of how Microsoft has been quite deliberately poisoning the ACPI well. Slasdot user leoxx posted a comment [slashdot.org] the other day in the Fo
Minesweeper? (Score:2)
Now all the kids in countries where they have had decades of war can play Minesweeper.
Re:Sugar is worse (Score:5, Informative)
I suggest you read and understand the philosophy behind OLPC, the XO laptop, and Sugar, before posting such blatantly ignorant posts as this one.
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What would the philosophy have to do with anything? Maybe you meant specs or white papers or something. Google's philosophy is to do no evil yet if you ask the right people they have. The philosophy really has nothing to do with the actual implementation besides being a guide.
BTW, I'm not looking anything up on this so what did he say that was wrong and such blatantly ignorant posts?
Re:Sugar is worse (Score:5, Informative)
That the underlying philosophy is good doesn't change the fact that Sugar has still a lot of problems. The journal getting filled with tons of completly useless entries, which basically render it unusable, is just one of them, the other is that even a "Hello World"-app takes almost 10 seconds to start up, while it starts instantly when started from the terminal.
Re:Sugar is worse (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides slow, which I can't comment on, everything else you mentioned is a feature. I don't think they're all that bad either.
If sugar was a "real" program (whatever that means) as opposed to a script it wouldn't be user modifiable (at least at runtime).
Honestly when is the last time you saw a novice user create a directory? My mom and my sister certainly don't. On that same note it's not like you couldn't use a naming scheme that would effectively manage your files like directories. All you have to do is prefix related files with some kind of identifier. For all intend and purpose that's what a directory name really is, a prefix. It doesn't matter if it's not supported at the file system level.
If those so-called "spam" files contain the amount of time you spent with a program and other useful things like your interactions with the program then I think they aren't useless. Tracking your time is an important skill that many people haven't learned. Doing it for the user is very useful. The Wii tracks your time it's pretty interesting and useful too.
they really are spam (Score:2)
Start some random activity. (terminal will do)
Having done nothing else, quit the activity.
You have spam!
You get a new spam each time. A kid can create dozens or hundreds in a day, limited mainly by the general bad performance.
These entries have no reasonable use. They are clutter. Important stuff gets lost in the mess.
You're expected to regularly delete these I suppose. This is busy-work. It's difficult too, because you have to take care to avoid deleting something useful. It's additionally difficult becaus
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I find it very surprising that there are no directories, especially if these "spam" files are getting dumped to the same place you save your documents and other files.
This is a feature that is embarrassing not to have.
Re:Sugar is worse (Score:5, Funny)
That's a really bright thing to say. What, you program only with solder?
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Sugar is god-awful slow. It's not even a real program; it's just a Python script.
So you're saying they should have programmed it in Lisp or Scheme?
I recall Sawmill/Sawfish; one of the best window managers at the time, highly configurable, blazingly fast, written in Scheme.
As for "a real program"... sorry, but AFAICT even a VB program is a real program. If Sugar were written in Logo, it would still be a real program.
I mean, what other kind of program is there? Unreal programs? Fake programs?
You could say it weren't a real program if it never worked at all.
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Yes, or maybe Smalltalk. Something with a fast implementation that still provides users with the ability to tinker with the program while it's running.
Re:Negroponte (Score:4, Interesting)
Amazing how one can take pieces of disparate information, couple it with nonsensical comments and very flimsy commonality and turn it into a conspiracy theory.
Remember, just because someone is paranoid doesn't mean people aren't out to get them ...
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By it's very definition, it can be called a coincidence until there is more than simple causal connections . I don't have to call it that at all, it will be that until there is physical evidence. And then linking two people together simply by an accident of birth takes it just beyond conspiracy theory in my opinion.
Or a good story to scare young children and influence naive adults with.
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Tell that to the military then. As they say, "three times is enemy action". When death squads appear wherever Negroponte shows up, without exception, a reasonable conclusion -- not ironclad proof mind you, just a reasonable conclusion -- is that one is a consequence of the other.
And then linking two people together simply by an accident of birth takes it just beyond conspiracy theory in my opinio
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A coincidence doesn't imply that one shouldn't be careful. If I find that money is missing from my car whenever I give Freddie a ride, it doesn't mean Freddie is stealing. Police use coincidences all the time. Fortunately, our legal system requires physical proof rather than coincidence most of the time. Three coincidences probably would not be enough to convict anyone, that damn reasonable doubt thing and all.
I might be more careful leaving money in the car when Freddie is around. But I sure wouldn't go a
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Proof is a different matter, but I am willing to bet that Negroponte will be found guilty by an impartial international court. The evil coincidences are just too strong to ignore.
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Wow .. that was some convincing argument. I think that maybe you've convinced me and everyone else with your unbelievable use of strong arguments based on sound fact gathering and irrefutable evidence.
Oh wait .. we were talking about coincidences, and I switched to sarcasm. Sorry ....
Police can arrest anyone, anytime. Whether a DA will prosecute or a judge and jury will convict on 'strong suspicion' is highly doubtful.
I think I can safely ignore future posts as just being more of the same. Yawn ... I think
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Funny ... I was just thinking the same thing about you.
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I see we have reached a stalemate. I keep responding to your arguments with discussions why I disagree, and you just keep repeating the same old tired expressions without any attempt to enlighten other than 'Oh yeah -- well I'm still right' and making statements that you cannot back up with any facts, just conjecture and 'confidence'. Good thing you didn't go to lawyer school, those types of legal discourses would probably get you a job that includes those famous words, 'you want fries with that??'
Maybe som
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The following is verifiable fact, not propaganda: there were death squads in Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Iraq when Negroponte was in the respective neighborhoods.
Now for a deduction: wherever Negroponte goes, the killers appear. Feel free to call it a coincidence.
I don't care what you believe. I do care what a war crimes tribunal will believe, once it gathers evidence. And I'm pretty sure what its conclusions will
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Sorry .. it was too much fun to see how he would react and if there was anything intelligent that might come out of it.
Guess not....
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He's also directly responsible for 911 and the killer tsunami in asia.
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Amazing how one can take pieces of disparate information, couple it with nonsensical comments and very flimsy commonality and turn it into a conspiracy theory....
Ummm... this IS Slashdot... why is that so amazing? Happens here every few minutes!
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Yes, Lopez was one of the front men. But read this: Was the CIA involved? Did Washington know? Was the public deceived? Now we know: Yes, Yes and yes. [baltimoresun.com].
Re:Help me out here??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Kids today. Many of us had Apple/Commodore as the first computer, mucked around a good bit just for no good reason, and learned a good bit of how computer works, and there were no Geek Squad. That's how you learn.
Btw, these are going to developing countries where computers for kids makes some sense, not cavemenistan. It'd be nice if they marketed these things here (US) also rather than only those countries though - today's mainstream PCs just ain't designed for kids to learn the basic.
Geek Squad, pah.
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This argument comes up a lot; I guess it has a lot of appeal for the geek types, who started out early, tinkering with their {Atari|Commodore|Apple|Spectrum}, learning to program, etc. Sugar is almost exactly aimed at those types of kids. But I can't help but think that such users are a minority, and that the effort is lost on most others. When I think of average kids in my grade they would probably just stare blankly when told about "source code" and go send penis pictures to each other or something.
Re:Help me out here??? (Score:4, Informative)
Please help me out here, does the author really think that kids in third world countries are going to be doing development work on these limited devices?
I think that was generally the idea, that the kids would be able to change almost anything they wanted in the user environment they were given.
Based on the quote below from the article the author really beleives that these devices should be open to tampering/fiddling. Does he think that if the device fails there will be a geek squad near by?
If I understood correctly, there was supposed to be a reset feature that would restore the original state of the OS if you really screwed it up, so that there needn't be any fear of allowing them to fiddle with things.
Are hacking skills of value when you live in a mud hut?
Again, if I understand correctly, the idea was to avoid putting up artificial barriers by assuming that kids have no need to poke and prod and see how things work. Maybe hacking skills will be of little interest and/or value to most kids, and for them the OLPC was supposed to be at least a container for a lot of textbook material, at a cost less than a big stack of textbooks. And, as a bonus, for the kids that find hacking on software interesting, maybe it's something that will help them.
If you think money is better spent on something else, please agitate in favor of that other option instead of railing against a program that (whatever you think of their chances of success are) is trying to provide education to people that can benefit from it.
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Oh, as far as I could tell, you were talking about fiddling with the software, not taking a screwdriver to the machine. Sorry.
Re:Help me out here??? (Score:5, Informative)
The concept is to integrate computer technology into areas that cannot afford it. This is more than just "learning how to click things and checking your email", it (at least the initial plan) was to spread the knowledge of computer technology, programming, and to expand interests to areas that are involuntarily cut off from it.
And for your GeekSquad comment: People who work at GeekSquad are stupid. 99% get confused when "unix" is mentioned, so they whip out their nutsack to show that they haven't had theirs removed. I've had to help GeekSquad kids multiple times with issues; in fact one time I had to tell one of them that they have to use the 48-bit MAC address from the person's laptop in order to set up the router, and he blatantly stated, "Well, we only support Windows." Nuff said.
If you can find someone who is struggling with their preinstalled Linux laptop due to the retarded causes (like spyware, horribly fragmented filesystems, viruses, un-needed bloatware, driver irq issues, etc) that are common in Windows, let me know. Hell, Submit a post here when it happens. In the mean time, when someone in a third world country decides, "Hey, I want to make a program just like this (points at app on the screen) they have the freedom (as in costs) to learn about it and complete their goal.
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Does the author really think that kids in third world countries are going to be doing development work on these limited devices?
I don't see why he would not expect that, I learned my first programing in basic on a much smaller machine in terms of power and storage, even if it was much larger and more power hungry (TI99/4A).
Are hacking skills of value when you live in a mud hut?
I don't see why not, not every application has to be some complex financial app, or web browser, big gui anything. Maybe you need a basic calculater to help you decide when to plant crops. I can easily imagine some farmer wanting to record daily temperatures or rain fail year over year and have the computer pr
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It gives scary warnings if you yank out the drive without going to "safely remove hardware". Of course, in GNOME or on OS X it's a lot quicker and easier to unmount a drive, as I recall, so the scary warnings are far more reasonable.