Comments on: As Promised, OLPC’s XO Gets Windows XP

By: Jeff Meunier, happy XO owner

Jeff Meunier, happy XO owner — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 23:50:15 +0000

Many of you are are judging this computer as though the designers designed it for you and for the software that you want to use, which is not remotely correct. There’s an enormous difference between someone in the DEVELOPED world surfing the net, watching flash videos, and playing The Sims, and a child in the DEVELOPING world who has never used a computer before, does not have an Internet connection, does not speak English, and will probably never have the opportunity to attend a university and subsequently work as a corporate drone, sitting in a cubicle formatting expense reports on a computer running MS Windows. The XO and Sugar are about letting children explore, invent, express themselves, and learn about computers, mathematics, geometry, art, music, and everything else the XO and Sugar can teach them, from the moment they first turn it on, without having to install or configure a thing. This is not about corporate training, it’s about education. This is why Microsoft does not belong here. Microsoft will destroy OLPC.

By: logicjoe

logicjoe — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 13:39:26 +0000

Your doing your grandson a great disservice if you think xp is an upgrade, its not its a virus.

By: Dwaine

Dwaine — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 19:56:01 +0000

I don’t get it. Why was I directed to a blog? Blogs are nothing but a waste of time!

How do I upgrade?

When I had a choice between a $15 slide rule and a $80 calculator, I chose the calculator.
When I had a choice between drugs-alcohol and health$ I chose health$.
When I had a choice between smoking and not, I chose health$.
When I had a choice between coffee and tee, I chose neither$.
When I had a choice between apt w/dishwasher or not, I chose with.
When I had a choice between marriage or playboy (I missed the AIDs era.)
When I had a choice between house and condo, I chose house.
When I had a choice between 8track and cassette, I chose cassette.
When I had a choice between reel2reel and cassette, I chose cassette.
When I had a choice between cassette and CD, I chose CD.
When I had a choice between Atari and Commodore, I chose Commodore.
When I had a choice between VHS and Beta, I chose VHS.
When I had a choice between VHS and DVD, I chose DVD.
When I had a choice between IBM and Apple, I chose IBM.
When I had a choice between DOS and MS DOS, I chose MS.
When I had a choice between MS Word and Word Prefect, I chose Word.
When I had a choice between Lotus123 and MS Excel, I chose Excel.
When I had a choice between AT&T and MCI, I chose MCI.
When I had a choice between SUV’s and Air Bags, I chose Air Bags.
When I had a choice between Intuit and H&R Block, I chose software.
When I had a choice between Ipod and MP3, I chose Ipod.
When I had a choice between TIVO and commercials, I chose TIVO.
When I had a choice between HD-DTV and not, I chose who cares.
When I had a choice between Blu-Ray and HD, I chose who cares.
When I had a choice between cell phones and pda’s, I’m still holding out for a cheap version of both with many more functions (the iphone is getting close).
When I had a choice between Bush and Gore, you can’t blame me.
Now my grandson wants a choice between his G1G1 and my laptop, he’s only five, but hooked on windows. There’s many losers and winners in our choices. Along with many other reasonable people, we’ve put a lot of good companies out of business. And sometimes, some very good choices: I’m glad we chose Britain over Germany about 65 years ago.

I repeat, how do I upgrade?

By: Randal Leavitt

Randal Leavitt — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 06:57:41 +0000

Well, that does it for me – Im outta here! As an Open Source initiative I thought this OLPC project had some potential to teach the world about freedom. But freedom is a scary topic, and we wouldnt want the little tykes to be worried about their future, would we? So we will instead train them to be good corporate robots and everyone will be happy, secure, predictable, low-paid, and bored with their out-of-date virus collectors keeping their doors open. As for me – well Im climbing back into my nuclear powered transhuman dreamscape generator and heading for the bowels of Jupiter. Too-da-looooo…….

By: Don Mac Brown

Don Mac Brown — Sat, 24 May 2008 19:22:09 +0000

Please let those of us who aren’t Geeks enjoy Windows XP. The idea is to reach the most children, not the most Geeks.

By: Jimbo

Jimbo — Sat, 24 May 2008 03:58:15 +0000

There are some people here who seem to think using Windows XP is a good idea. There are others who seem to think that kids need to learn Windows XP. And then there are some very strong Linux people here who seem to think Linux is the only way to freedom.

Question to all of you: WHY?

Windows XP is now reaching End Of Life- MS will refuse to support it shortly. WHY on Earth would you make a new machine and ship with a DEAD operating system??? IF MS wants there OS on it, then let them fix Vista. Fix it up enough that the OLPC can run it efficiently. If you are going to use the excuse that kids need to learn Windows, then let them learn a CURRENT version, NOT an obsolete version.

For the Linux Camp: What is wrong with you? Linux is about choice, the freedom for me to CHOOSE weather or not I like software, do I prefer SeaMonkey or Firefox? Do I prefer SuSE or Ubuntu? Linux or Windows? Everyone will have there preference, its not our place in the Linux community to decide that for others.

I personally do not feel that Windows was an appropriate choice of Operating Systems to fill the scope of the project. But obviously there was some pressure from those who bought the machines. I am disappointed that it happened, and even more so that the $100 goal was never reached. With Windows I doubt it ever will be reached now. But there must be some market for it, or it would not have happened.

By: miraclman

miraclman — Thu, 22 May 2008 21:37:40 +0000

So easy to criticize So hard to initiate a original idea like olpc. I’m still humbled by the ambition of it. Who am I to judge the ultimate outcome.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Wed, 21 May 2008 13:02:11 +0000

The XO is pretty much unusable in the current state. This isn’t an issue of Linux vs MS either. It is about getting a usable OS on the XO that makes it possible to enjoy all the features. I struggle to use the XO and yet I’ve got over a decade of experience on Unix sysadmin! This is nuts! Flash doesn’t work, web browsing is painfuly slow, video support takes some serious hacking. This is not how things should be.

I have an Asus EEE running Linux – this is what the Linux experience should be like on the XO. Everything just works and hence I would never dream of putting XP on an Asus EEE. As for the XO, where can I order my copy of XP?

By: Terris Linenbach

Terris Linenbach — Wed, 21 May 2008 00:49:11 +0000

The XO laptop is completely unusable in its current form. How many of you out there know about the 3 finger salute when the mousepad goes haywire?

Anyone?

Right. You don’t have an XO. Pray tell, have you tried to run Flash apps on it? As I thought.

Desktop Linux is still awful. I can only hope that XP makes my child’s green XO paperweight more useful than so much toxic waste.

By: Denis Lopez

Denis Lopez — Tue, 20 May 2008 17:39:47 +0000

I was promoving and supporting an educational project XO: An alternative for children who might have a future in the free world, a world where we (developing countries) were not only technology consumers.

We need acces to the information, to a freedom education … XO+Window$ will be another use bussiness for Micro$oft. If Microsoft will be help why they or their foundation “Linda & Bill Gates Foundation” support with money to this project. The XO porject does not need Microsoft privative license.

Education without Freedom? It Does not an educational project, is a big business only, it’s bad for everybody to wants competion or free (freedom) knowledge.

Paying $ 3 in an OX is pay for the “first dose” of technological dependency (like a drug dose) is paying for be an slave in the future. $ 0 is too expensy. Freedom is not sold, but here, in my country, there are many governments that not only delivered the freedom, some of they could be pay for leave it.

I would like to have hope with a this propose, but I live in a country that has taught me, unfortunately, that without scrupulous money moves all.

Anyway, I am an optimistic guy and we will have another project that supports those who want a free and better world. We are not only good for buy things, we are good too as human beings than have a lot of things to share, not only money.