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April 4, 2006 8:22 AM PDT
Negroponte: Slimmer Linux needed for $100 laptop
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"People aren't thinking about small, fast, thin systems," said Nicholas Negroponte, chairman of the One Laptop Per Child nonprofit association, in a speech at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo here. "Suddenly it's like a very fat person (who) uses most of the energy to move the fat. And Linux is no exception. Linux has gotten fat, too."
The association hopes to distribute 5 million to 10 million of the systems to children in India, China, Brazil, Argentina, Thailand, Egypt, and Nigeria in the first quarter of 2007, somewhat later than the late 2006 launch Negroponte predicted at the World Economic Forum last year. He hopes the project will help supply the world's billion children with an education that undertrained teachers often can't supply. "At least 50 percent of those children don't get anything that even approximates what you and I would call an education," he said.
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates criticized the initiative's products earlier this year, saying they should use more powerful machines with better displays, though Gates subsequently offered a warmer opinion. Negroponte chafed at Gates' view nonetheless.
"It's not about a weak computer. It's about a thin, slim, trim, fast computer," he said. Not only that, Microsoft is even involved in the effort. "We are also talking to Microsoft constantly. We are going to ship them development boards. They are going to make a Windows CE version (that supports the hardware). So jeez--why criticize me in public?"
System specs
The system will use a 500MHz processor from Advanced Micro Devices with 128MB of memory. It will use 512MB of flash memory and no hard drive, he said. The biggest remaining cost is the display.
The system will use a dual-mode display with a black-and-white, 1110-by-830-pixel mode in sunlight and a 640-by-480-pixel color mode otherwise.
Negroponte said one meeting with an unnamed display manufacturer spotlighted the importance of high-volume manufacturing.
"I said, 'We'd like to work with you on the display. We need a small display. It doesn't have perfect color uniformity, it can have pixel or two missing, it doesn't have to be that bright," Negroponte recounted. "The manufacturer said, 'Our strategic plan is to make big displays with perfect color uniformity, zero pixel defects and to make it very bright for the living room.'"
"I said, 'That's too bad, because I need 100 million a year.' They said, 'Well, maybe we can change our strategic plan.' That's the reason you need scale," Negroponte said.
As initially envisioned, the laptops sported a hand crank on the side to generate power, but Negroponte has scrapped that idea because the twisting forces that would be bad for the machine. Instead, some form of power generation device, likely a pedal, will be attached to the AC power adapter, he said.
"I was the longest holdout for the crank being on the laptop. I was wrong," he said, adding, "If you're a 10-year-old, maybe you can get your four-year-old to pedal for you."
The organization's goal is to sell $135 laptops in 2007, then cut the price to $100 in 2008 and $50 in 2010, he said.
The machines will consume 2 watts of power when running, 1 watt for the display, Negroponte said.
He's not worried about connecting the machines to the Internet because networking will develop on its own, he said, but later added that the vision relies on a built-in "mesh" network that links all the machines, even when the rest of the computers are shut down.
"I think between WiFi, WiMax and 3G, that's going to happen," Negroponte said. "We're heading to the point where 50 percent of the world will have a cell phone or some kind of (communication device) within 18 months. It's too voice-centric, and I could campaign to make it more data-centric, but that's going to happen, too."
The laptop's mesh networks will be anchored by data cached locally on $100 servers to be housed at schools, he added.
Once children have the laptops, they'll teach themselves, he predicted, making teacher training beside the point. "Teachers teach the kids? Give me a break," he said. "Give any kid an electronic game and the first thing they do is throw away the manual and the second thing they do is use it."
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94 comments
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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,
The point here, in case you missed it, is a $100 laptop, not a $300 one.
about no viruses.
You can get Linux itself down to running in 3M - 4M on a 100MHz 386 without much effort, but you sure aren't going to be running X.org on it.
aptly named by M$
/lee
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
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 ?
However that will not happen, so Linux it is.
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?
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...
Did I mention it's free?
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.
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.
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.
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.menuetos.net/" target="_newWindow">http://www.menuetos.net/</a> fits on a floppy!
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
education to its kids than the one American kids receive. Kids in
other countries do better than Americans without the aid of
computers, but by studying and reading. Instead of foisting the
technology that helps to make U.S. kids fat, ignorant, and lazy,
why not take the computers out of the hands of American
children and get them reading, writing, and doing math again.
Instead of the technofetishist Negroponte, we would do better to
listen to aspects of what Clifford Stoll wrote in Silicon Snake Oil.
The first question to ask is this: What educational or intellectual
improvements have been yielded by the wide availability of
computers to American schoolkids? None that show up in
standardized testing.
A brief description from Amazon:
Easterly, an NYU economics professor and a former research economist at the World Bank, brazenly contends that the West has failed, and continues to fail, to enact its ill-formed, utopian aid plans because, like the colonialists of old, it assumes it knows what is best for everyone. Existing aid strategies, Easterly argues, provide neither accountability nor feedback. Without accountability for failures, he says, broken economic systems are never fixed. And without feedback from the poor who need the aid, no one in charge really understands exactly what trouble spots need fixing. True victories against poverty, he demonstrates, are most often achieved through indigenous, ground-level planning.
Your media lab does not seem to work out anything meaningful.
Full GUI, NFS to a server. Add 40 MB disk and you had a pretty complete Unix with GUI, etc. Primitive by todays standards, but
it all could be done in 4 MB RAM, 40 MB disk.
And not all that slow running the GUI either.