Comments on: Negroponte: Slimmer Linux needed for $100 laptop

The head of the One Laptop Per Child organization says he'll use Linux, but it needs to go on a diet.

[grantdavis]

"At least 50 of those children..."

Misquoted as 50 instead of 50 percent? Otherwise 50 out 5-10 million ain't too bad.

[grantdavis]

fixed

quote has been fixed

Best OS for these types of devices is...

Best OS for these types of devices is Windows CE, not many people know about this OS but it certenly the best OS for small devices. and it also virus free(only 4 virus in 12 year history).

and best this about this is it even work on low end hardware, 300 Mhz with 16 RAM, and 128 ROM is enough for it.

thank you MS for giving us a wonderful OS,

[t8]

Giving us this OS? Yeah right!

Linux is the only OS that is truly given. Any Windows variant costs an arm or a leg.

The point here, in case you missed it, is a $100 laptop, not a $300 one.

[cnetsuxalot]

you have got to be kidding

either that, or you are a MS Troll. best os? only 4 viruses? How
about no viruses.

[Zymurgist]

Linux too.

Linux can, and does, run on much slimmer specs. The criticism is really aimed not so much at Linux, but rather popular distributions of it.

You can get Linux itself down to running in 3M - 4M on a 100MHz 386 without much effort, but you sure aren't going to be running X.org on it.

[leebert]

Wince won't run on a 486 but Vector Linux will

Win CE ='s wince

aptly named by M$

/lee

[Bookerman]

Might as Well Bring Back GEOS

See if they can make a deal with Breadbox. Almost nobody uses it anyway, so I bet they organizers could get a good price. One benefit is that the few pieces of software available is geared for learning anyway, so you won't have to worry about kids using it for non-educational means. I wish the group good luck if they are doing for humanitary reasons, but I sense that more issues like this will arise in the near future.

[waynemm]

Good enough idea.

Considering how much Breadbox paid for it, they probably could buy it for less than $1M. They could re-hire the original programmers, that know their stuff as far as keeping it lean and high performance to give it a goign over. But they need to integrate a free Java plug-in with it (though the Taos ones would be the pick of commercial PC ones).

[waynemm]

Good enough idea.

Considering how much Breadbox paid for it, they probably could buy it for less than $1M. They could re-hire the original programmers, that know their stuff as far as keeping it lean and high performance to give it a going over. But they need to integrate a free Java plug-in with it (though the Taos ones would be the pick of commercial PC ones).

[hackian]

Window 3.1 would be blazing fast! Will Gates donate it?...

Have you ever loaded the old Windows 3.1 OS on a newer machine - if you can get past that it is a painful paradigm shift, then you will find it to be incredibly fast!

People want their modern OS but can't accept the hardware needed to run it!

Joke: Maybe Microsoft will donate the old OS for free as an upgrade path for the poor of the world...They have crippled versions of Windows for countries where people are not wanting to pay full price, so why not throw in Windows 3.1

Not a bad idea, to some extent

I recall loading Win 3.1 (on DOS 5 I think). I bet it would fly today. BUT - what about online tools ? I know one thing - Win 3.1 was FAR better than Windows for Workgroups :-)

Wouldn't it be a better approach to use something like Windows Mobile ? Take a modern, thinned down OS & add strategicaly ? So long as you could add open-source office products, that's about do it, I think.

Alternatively - hasn't M$ just withdrawn support for Win-98 ? What's the future for that OS ? If M$ don't support it, they rasonably (when were M$ ever reasonable) couldn't complain if it was used for something ike this ?

[t8]

It would easier to give them XP

As it is more compatiable with todays programs.
However that will not happen, so Linux it is.

[KsprayDad]

Regarding Crank

I just bought..at retail prices...a 1.8w solar trickle charger for $10

If you got these in bulk for say $7.5 a piece and bumped the power to 2w they would be powerful enough to recharge the battery or even run this laptop directly.

Why bother with the foot pedal?

[William Squire]

price too high

Because the price is already too high... The $100 laptop is costing quite a bit more... with the crank, worthless monitor, and no operating system.

And consider... its only at its current price point because Negroponte thinks he can move 100 Million of them per year!

HA!

100 Million hand-cranked, squinty-screen, gutted OS, money-losing clamshells per year? No way. He only has sales because he's snookered in some tech-ignorant governments who really are making a bad decision with regards to their uneducated youth.

This plastic hunk of 1998 computing potential will never be the success that it is being touted as.

Consider that there are only ~600M computers in use across the world today...

[thanhvn]

Instead of complaining about bloated Linux, customize it

The 80/20 rule applies whether it is Linux or Windows. Linux is bloated because people wants more feature. Instead of complaining about it, why not customize it to fit his (Negroponte's) needs. (There is no such thing as one size fits all.) Since Linux is OSS, there should be no legal problem there. If resources is a problem, why not create an OSS project. Plenty of developers will sympathize with the cause and pitch in.

[Scott W]

exactly

DSL runs on a 2.4 kernel and is only 50MB. why don't they use that? it's the most suitable distro for their needs. and it's blazingly quick with the toram kernel parameter.

[chrwei]

OpenEmbeded or Maemo

I realize this isn't exactly an embeded device, but it shares a lot of same goals of handheld pc's (which are considered embeded deviced). low power, not much flexability as far as hardware choices or exansion goes, and no bloat. This is exactly what projects like OE and Maemo have going for them. Familiar linux, which comes in Opie (QT) and GPE (GTK+) flavors is built on OE and runs on many, many, handhelds including all the Sharp Zarus models as well as many iPaqs, the Nokia 770, and x86 based systems with specs far below what the OLPC boasts. The 770 for instance is 200Mhz, 64Mg RAM, and 128Meg Flash and on mine I have a browser with Flash plugin, media players, RSS reader, PDF reader, spreadsheet, word processor, PIM suite, a handfull of games, IM and IRC tools, and I still have plenty of free space. So, what's the OLPC project doing wrong? Oh, right, using RedHat. it's like saying "we're going to have Ford customize a vehicle for us because GMC doesn't offer an economy car", well duh, you are looking in the wrong division.

Puppy Linux

It's incredibly small. It's amazingly fast. It runs very comfortably in 128 Mb of RAM. It's got all the basic software a user needs.
Did I mention it's free?

[MamaduMamadu]

whata buncha crap!

With the kind of specs this computer is supposed to have you can have VERY fast GNU/Linux. Here is how:

Install Debian GNU/Linux. Get rid of all non-needed services & files. Re-complie the kernel if you want more speed. If you want to go even slimmer, use an older version of Debian and Fluxbox as a desktop.

But even the regular Debian-Sarge runs very well on a 300MHz/128k machine. I know - this is what I do on my main desktop.

I suspect that Negroponte is only talking to coporate Linux companies like RH or SuSE. This is why he has the wrong impression.

[OLPC]

He does not know much - still wants a lot

The Media lab is a shame and joke in MIT. MIT is proud of its instrument, radiation labs and so on. What great invention does the media lab have? zilch-nada.
BTW, even for the $100 Laptop - he ask a bunch of Taiwanese companies to wipe the a** for himself.

And in the end, the biggest question is, who is gonna endorse the bill? The governments of the poor countries? but hey wait - 100 bucks is not a tiny deal there. The United Nations? However, the UN bureaucrats are now having a headache to tax to world people to fill up their own pockets - so unlikely as well. Then Ponte's OLPC? or well he tax the Gates to do philanthropy in ponte's name? Any of these funny scenarios serves myself a big laughter.

[Chung Leong]

Maybe they should change their goal to one laptop per two kids

There is little sense in giving separate laptops to two kids since one of them would be to be sitting there pedaling. Might as well have them share one :-)

[M0dK1nG]

You want a SMALL OS, here it is

MenuetOS is a hobby Operating System for the PC written entirely in 64bit assembly language, and released under License. It supports 64 and 32 bit x86 assembly programming for smaller, faster and less resource hungry applications.

Menuet has no roots within unix or the posix standards, nor is it based on any particular operating system. The design goal has been to remove the extra layers between different parts of an OS, which normally complicates programming and create bugs.

Menuet programming is fast and easy to learn.

http://www.menuetos.net/ fits on a floppy!

[cnetsuxalot]

Negroponte is dillusional or he is sucking up to MS

Negroponte is dillusional or he is sucking up to MS for a
handout. Linux is already used in small devices. Many distros
include a lot of software. That can sometimes make using a
particular distro seem like drinking from a firehose, but it's not
bloat. Bloat is software with an unnessarily large memory or
storage footprint. Linux can easily be pared down to fix on a cd,
and runs small compared to MS Bloatware. He is mistaking many
software choices with bloated MS code. Any linux distro can be
forked and pared down to any degree of smallness he might
want. The idea of using Windows CE is just stupid. And, of
course, I like how CNET spins things for MS: "Linux Has Bloat,
just like Windows!" Pure shizite.

[icherche]

Maybe...

I do have to admit, linux is much more bloated then it used to be. I used to recompile the kernal just to get rid of some unecessary services.

Another thing is that in the corporate (money making world) MS software is important and it would give the children a head start if they did use a windows based/modified software.

I agree that he is trying to get MS on the bandwagon though...

[jzsaxpc]

Hook'em while they are young

Thats the key here, forget all of this, lets educate people nonsence, there is a very practical purpose for it, which is, keep the computer industry out of asian hands. Imagine if Japan or China came out with a $50 laptop, well, they sell 800 million, well, ok, they made no money, but it means that 800 million people, for the rest of their life, will use an asian computer. I guess luckily for the American PC industry, their manufacturing processes are not good enough to make a cost effective PC.

So, what they are doing now, is making sure these people grow up on AMERICAN PC's, and making sure that a smaller conglomerate cannot get a hold on that large of a market share.

I imagine that is a huge blow to Microsoft, too bad MS couldn't come up with a decent OS to rival Linux, now you have half of the world growing up on a Linux platform, how many of them are going to pay $300 for Vista? None, lol, pitty for Microsoft, they are screwed now.

[OLPC]

Most of the $100 still from Asia

You missed the point. I don't think Ponte has such a vision as far as taking food from the Asians. Remember that most parts of the puppy computer are from Taiwan except the AMD CPU. Ponte only wants to serve his own purpose - a Viagra in his waning busines.

[g4e]

First hands-on preview of Negroponte's 100$ PC

http://www.mustseeblog.com/?p=58

[g4e]

First hands-on preview of Negroponte's 100$ PC

http://www.mustseeblog.com/?p=58

[g4e]

First hands-on preview of Negroponte's 100$ PC

http://www.mustseeblog.com/?p=58

[ehui]

How Does This Guy Suck Them In?

This has to be the most misguided venture ever.

Do they even bother to hold a survey and visit a third world country to see the actual conditions, or are they sitting in their comfortable offices thinking that they will save the world one child at a time?

The actual quote of having a 10 year old use it while getting a 4 year old to pedal it for the power is absolutely too funny. Does this guy have kids? He should know that this is almost an impossibility (for two kids to work together so one can have "fun" and the other "works").

The more I hear about this initiative the more I have to laugh at this guy.

No poor person can afford a $100 computer, and donating it will just end up with people scavenging it and selling it for component parts.

Visit a poor country Negroponte, maybe then you'll have a clue on how to help the people in these countries.

[icherche]

Maybe YOU should visit a poor country

I work in the development field as an ICT Specialist. I have spent the last 5 years living in very poor-medium poor countries(Right now in Africa) working to see how technology can help the poor.

Quit thinking that all poor people run around naked and live in huts.

First of all the governments are purchasing the computers, not the individuals. A lot of the Donor countries have also expressed their interest. For them 100 million dollars is not an impossible figure.

Even in the poorest of countries there is internet and computers and everything. How do you think they will find qualified people to actually run the government if none of the poor people know how to use a computer? This is opening up opportunities for them and even if the computers are stolen it will open up a technology market that didn't exist before.

I know that Negroponte has visited poor countries - that is actually how he came up with this idea.

[tazfanatic]

Looking for a small OS look here 50mb OS

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

DSL is a very versatile 50MB mini desktop oriented Linux distribution.

Damn Small is small enough and smart enough to do the following things:
Boot from a business card CD as a live linux distribution (LiveCD)
Boot from a USB pen drive
Boot from within a host operating system (that's right, it can run *inside* Windows)
Run very nicely from an IDE Compact Flash drive via a method we call "frugal install"
Transform into a Debian OS with a traditional hard drive install
Run light enough to power a 486DX with 16MB of Ram
Run fully in RAM with as little as 128MB (you will be amazed at how fast your computer can be!)
Modularly grow -- DSL is highly extendable without the need to customize

With these apps built in.

XMMS (MP3, CD Music, and MPEG), FTP client, Dillo web browser, links web browser, FireFox, spreadsheet, Sylpheed email, spellcheck (US English), a word-processor (FLwriter), three editors (Beaver, Vim, and Nano [Pico clone]), graphics editing and viewing (Xpaint, and xzgv), Xpdf (PDF Viewer), emelFM (file manager), Naim (AIM, ICQ, IRC), VNCviwer, Rdesktop, SSH/SCP server and client, DHCP client, PPP, PPPoE (ADSL), a web server, calculator, generic and GhostScript printer support, NFS, Fluxbox window manager, games, system monitoring apps, a host of command line tools, USB support, and pcmcia support, some wireless support.

Use Gentoo Linux (Or any custom build)

You can customize just about everything in linux to suit you. Sure, the default kernel will be bloated -- but that's why we can customize what gets compiled into the kernel. Take out what you don't need/want and add other stuff should you feel like it.

With Gentoo, you do all this from the start -- you boot from a linux disc, build your filesystem, customize your kernel, compile your kernel and other source packages, and when you're done the ONLY things on your computer are the things you told it to put there. Additionally, since everything got custom compiled for your PC, everything should run a bit faster thanks to being optimized at compile time for your machine. You could say the same for any Linux source distribution. (Note: Most linux distributions are binary distributions).

[waynemm]

A wish, for something better.

Well, they could answer emails from people who can actually help them achieve what they want to do, so I am not surprised.

Yes, Linux can be done in 50MB, Linus was even doing a portable version for the Transmeta deal, Palm is doing Linux for smart phones, not to mention how many times it has been done on PDAs/phones before. But, an OS on the functional level of the real Windows XP (drop middleware etc) with apps, is possible under 10MB. But, the sort of GUI OO OS they need has been done before at under 1MB, maybe with a word processor included. One such OS was GEOS Ensemble, and it is an good lesson in efficiency and accuracy of coding (not that it has kept up with the times) to find out what can be done, rather than running to bloatware like Linux and Windows CE. There are so many good options out there, I'm sure they can come up with better ones, even donated, or one off fee commercial solutions. Even if it requires drivers and Apps to be written, they only require to be written for their own computer models. I also have been doing a lean optimised OS design.

Here is some: QNX, Taos Intent, www.menuetos.org, or Java2ME.

The power consumption is also incredible. What was that, 2 Watts, that is not really low power, but a reflection of the power hungry PC processing technology used, and display technology. Even if you look at PC technology, PSION had a laptop out in the early 90's that can do 100 hours battery life, and Poquet had a pocket computer that could do similar battery life. Why, obviously the extra processing requirements have consumed more power, but the issue is design, and there are far better processors for low power out there. ARM is a good place to start, and they are quiet hungry compared to what could be done. For displays, the design I am considering might average 100-500mw. But all together you could look at average power consumption of 10-100mw, plus display consumption, by choosing a different design. When you get to those power levels, even opening and closing the case, typing on the keyboard, or using a trackball, moving the case etc, or a small solar cell, offer significant accumulative charge levels. Also, at these power levels, a crank does not need to be used as much.

There are already options out there to build upon, if you are willing to accept some compromises from the 'glory' of PC usage. Look at what the mobile phone industry has said, about using mobile phone platforms for third world computers, is also a valid option. Even the chip-sets, some of which are setup to run program applications, offer enough processing power. Even a $100 retail portable DVD player is also close to being a laptop. The Sony PS1 or PSP chips, and the Nintendo Gamecube based GBA2 project are also possible mass produced platforms, that could be donated, or supplied cheap. Also, if you look at a company like Psion, it has the low power and OS technology to do a cheaper low end solution.

The options out there are many, and when they announced it was going to be PC Linux based, I am sure that a number of people in the low-cost third world computer development community expressed a bit of surprise with me. I prefer to think in terms of devices with 1000 hours battery life and $10 production costs myself. In the end of the day, that is worth much more as a use anywhere computer for the average person, in those communities, the $100 laptop can be relegated to the classroom/office desk.