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First Footage: Same OLPC XO Boots Both Sugar and Windows XP
Posted by Wilson Rothman at 2:01 AM on June 24, 2008
This is the first footage of the same XO OLPC doing a dual-boot of Sugar Linux and Windows XP—something skeptics have said wasn't going to happen. Soon, XOs will ship with both Sugar and XP for Boot Camp-style dual-booting options. They will never come with only XP, though the team is working on adding more of the Sugar functionality, like the mesh network and the fun sharing apps, to the Windows side. Once again, little PCs are coming to the rescue of Windows XP.
This is the first footage of the same XO OLPC doing a dual-boot of Sugar Linux and Windows XP—something skeptics have said wasn't going to happen. Soon, XOs will ship with both Sugar and XP for Boot Camp-style dual-booting options. They will never come with only XP, though the team is working on adding more of the Sugar functionality, like the mesh network and the fun sharing apps, to the Windows side. Once again, little PCs are
To get both operating systems to run, the BIOS has been modified to behave more like standard PCs (rather than Macs or Linux machines). The original BIOS for the XO was originally conceived for AIX and Solaris servers, all running variants of UNIX.
In Windows, the screen flipper and directional pad both work fine, and I'm told by Michail Bletsas, OLPC's connectivity guru, that the camera is also not a problem, as the drivers were available for XP even before they were available for Linux.
You'll note that even sped up 3X what it actually took, Windows still seems a little slow to boot. Michail says it takes a little over a minute for Windows to boot on the XO with 2GB of onboard memory. 2GB of space is needed for Windows XP, though one gets the impression it would do a lot better with 4GB. The machines still have only 256MB of RAM.
And in case you're wondering what that red OLPC is doing in the background, we explained that last Friday. [One Laptop Per Child]
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
Mooby
Posted 3:59 AM 24/6/08
@CHO:It is "Pick Up the Pieces" by Average White Band.
Mooby
DeadWriter
Posted 3:35 AM 24/6/08
People wonder what the biggest problems with XO os is. I rarely see specifics. I will give you one right now- printing. The OS does not communicate easily with printers. When it does, I am there.
DeadWriter
jrghoull
Posted 3:08 AM 24/6/08
@fostina1: if by getting two you are referring to the one that goes to an underprivileged child who actually needs this...then no, you cant just "get one" and i really doubt they will be doing away with such things anytime soon, if ever.
i'm a fan of XP, but not on the XO. If anything, the groups should be focused more on getting sugar to run better. By porting the features from sugar onto xp, i fear that Xp is going to quickly dominate the XO, by having most if not all of the features of sugar, but with none of the openness
while i'm in agreement that you can learn on basically any OS, i feel that XP and MS go against the philosophy of the XO. By messing with the core of the olpc program, there is a risk that other things within the program will be changed as well, and eventually the XO will become just another computer (think eee).
there is alot of work to be done, and i think there needs to be a blend between the standard OS and the sugar OS in order to allow for maximum productivity. however, having priority software (which takes up virtually the entire flash drive) will in the long term hinder it more than help.
(sighs) i guess the only thing i can do is sit back and watch. i just hope that somehow things work out for the olpc program.
jrghoull
Monty
Posted 2:57 AM 24/6/08
Congratulations, Windows XP. It might seem like a small step after invading Apple hardware, but given the impressionable minds that will (may?) be using these around the world, it is every bit as important to retain world domination. I am sure the one minute boot time and regular blue screens of death will not leave them with any hard feelings.
Monty
SinAmos
Posted 2:53 AM 24/6/08
And yet I'm so unimpressed that my nose started bleeding.
SinAmos
fostina1
Posted 2:43 AM 24/6/08
can you get one of these yet without having to get 2?
fostina1
CHO
Posted 2:39 AM 24/6/08
Does anyone know what the background song is?
CHO
KidDoc
Posted 2:16 AM 24/6/08
Now if I could only get a fix for the keyboard my kids ripped apart!
KidDoc
PeterSimpson
Posted 2:14 AM 24/6/08
"[XP] seems a little slow to boot"
That's got to be the understatement of the year! So they had to change the BIOS from LinuxBIOS to something that XP could deal with, and rewrite XP...and it *still* takes twice as long to boot. Perhaps this should be an indication that XP might not be the best choice for an OS for the XO?
PeterSimpson
Kaiser-Machead's Chips Ahoy!
Posted 5:18 AM 24/6/08
@Crescent: OSOLPC (One Sack Of Lemons Per Child)
Kaiser-Machead's Chips Ahoy!
Crescent
Posted 4:37 AM 24/6/08
@jrghoull: seriously, fu## the unpriviladged children, they thing you are rich/soulless capitalist bastards with dollar bills instead of souls
success oriented idiots who are even trying to be successful in relationships as if they were exams to pass, they think you don't know how to really enjoy the life, and live in pursuit of 'happiness' sold by marketing giants in shiny boxes.
so go ahead and get 2, both of them for you, will make you twice as happier!
Crescent
vyrlsuntzu
Posted 4:14 AM 24/6/08
the funny thing about windows is that no matter how much people complain about it, they still want it...
kind of like mcdonalds or wal mart
mmmmm......
maybe we should protect the unenlighted masses from themselves and ban windows, mcdonalds, and wal mart... and hell while we are at it lets ban american idol and cheetos and budweiser and country music...
or we could just buy our own machine and os and let everyone else do what they want without our enlighted opinions
vyrlsuntzu
glaeven
Posted 5:55 AM 24/6/08
i hate to say this, but its an improvement. sugar is just awful. sorry olpc.
glaeven
Monty
Posted 5:40 AM 24/6/08
@poisonfist: Not only would Windows 2000 run better, so would Windows 98, Windows 95, Windows 3.11, MSDOS 6 -- heck, Windows ME would run better if anyone could stand using it. The only Windows OS that would be worse than XP is Vista, and unfortunately those are the only two workstation operating systems that Microsoft will sell.
Monty
poisonfist
Posted 5:34 AM 24/6/08
Wouldn't Win 2k run better on a low spec machine like that?
poisonfist