that kinda sucks, linux was making some ground on the mainstream market, and this wont help. But it makes sense for microsoft, the OS is done, making copies costs almost nothing, so they mid as well try to get into yet another market.

Having choices is good, but Linux deserves a shot in this area by all means.

They should just give XP away for free.

This is great news! I own an EEEPC 701 4GB. Slipstreamed XPSP3 runs so much better on this machine than the preloaded Xandros or current versions of Ubuntu. Adding 32$ (or 21€ in my case) will have no noticeable impact even on the cheapest of these machines. Don't get me wrong, choice is good (and it's good there is competitive pressure on MS, competition is always good). But still, for the vast majority of users XPSP3 will make cheap subnotebooks truly approachable.

these low-cost pcs cant never run Vista smoothly. In fact, a lot of mainstream computers(2-3 years old model) cant run Vista without some serious upgrades. why bother setting these limitations.

@strider_mt2k: I love the sentiment. Having choices is always good- unless you're a donkey between two equally green pastures of grass.

I know Apple made an offer to provide the OS and I know OLPC declined the offer, but did Apple (or anybody )ever actually port OS X to the OLPC?

Smart manufacturers won't take the bait, or will offer it as a parallel secondary option. Why you ask? Because of the hardware limitations.

Really, look back at what was considered low-end, low-power hardware only two or three years ago. Give another two years and the low power UMPCs will be running hardware closer to what $800-$1000 standard laptops are running now.

The catch is that those UMPCs will won't run Vista very well. And while it's possable that MS will still be willing to sell and support XP for any reason a couple years down the road, it would mean a massive public admission of failure. And that's assuming that it is willing to get rid of the hardware limitations on the manufacturers.

So the various companies are going to have to make a choice. In a year or two when the logical progression of their model lines starts hitting or surpassing the XP cap it could be a bit of a problem. If they have been purely or even primarily offering XP on their systems switching to anything else will piss off a large amount of their loyal base. The ones most likely to buy the newest version of the favourite toy.

However, if they don't switch they will be stuck watching their competitors offer hardware that can't be matched. It would take all of one product cycle for their 1 GH, 1 GB RAM, 80 GB HD to be matched against Linux boxes running at 1.5 with 2 GB RAM and 250 GB HD. That's not a happy place to be for any company.

The rather arbitrary specs look like MS is trying to give this deal to the Asus Eeepc and not to HP for the Mininote. This looks like a very deliberate and conscious choice by MS to offer XP for the eee but not the Mininote.

As the owner of an Eee I do like the Linux that it comes with. It runs very well on limited resources. Unfortunately there are a couple of uses that I have which would really benefit from XP. It's also a pain to install software in Linux, and doing anything other than the stuff Asus envisioned requires more hacking that I want to bother with.

However, the Eee doesn't really have enough resources to run XP either. It's too bad because Linux makes a good option, but I think that XP on the Eeepc will pretty much kill Linux for anyone other than hard core Linux geeks.

Vista is gonna be the next Chupacabra for OLPC if this happens

@DeadWriter: Point taken, and fair enough at that!

All comers should be considered if they want to play, by all means!

I would imagine that the version of XP provieded for these low-power machines will be a stripped-down, low system requirement form. Heck, you can get various "black" versions off the intertubes without alot of effort, and the fact that they're offering XP so low leads me to believe this.

On the other hand, most of us grew up with Womdpws, so Linux is a big learning curve. The kids these PC's are ai,ed at have never used one, so the learning curve is gone.

Personally, I'd like to see XP on these computers, it's just a more solid system, and if they can strip it down so the PC hardware doesn't go up in flamews, so much the better.

I think it's a good idea, poorly implemented. In order to keep this UMPC's as cheap as possible, you can't really offer XP on them when it adds another $100+ to the cost. Only problem is that their limitations are keeping it on UMPC's that are quickly fading away.

As soon as Intel launches the Atom, these limitations will be blown out of the water, and again consumers will be faced with $100+ if they want a windows option for what's nothing more than a portable second option in most cases.

@lulu321: they're talking xp, not vista. vista wouldnt run on 10 XOs

sadly nick negrophant (or w/e the hell his last name is) is spineless. he's also an idiot. he didnt/hasnt put enough money or manpower into making the sugar OS what he and many others have dreamed it up to be. the way things are looking right now, they'll never get to that point (as of this moment, there are only 2 paid workers that work on the XO's operating system and a couple of volunteers. if you go to olpcnews.com and read some of his recent letters, you'll see that he's kind of given up. he's also turned against basically everyone involved in the project. The worst part though is that he's totally open to XP on the OLPC. XP is a great OS, but XP goes against the key principals that the XO represents.

I think there will at some point be something along the lines of a one laptop per person program and that it will be successful. while this program isnt it, i wish that it would do better than it is doing and actually put an effort into completeing their OS.

edit: i just had a thought...think mark shuttlesworth would be up to helping to develop the sugar OS? all it is is basically a combination of education and social networking sites into a form that allows you to take full advantage of the computers capabilities, in unique and interesting (aka sometimes good sometimes bad) ways.

And it only took a little over a year to notice. [www.nytimes.com]

I pray not.

Will these all count as Vista sales?

Though I find it annoying that Microsoft is trying to get more share on a charity project, its damn good business tactics. Linux needs much more compatibility BEFORE taking on Windows.

Seems good to me, especially if they supply a stripped down version of Windows XP on it. For $32 you can't go wrong. But still, Microsoft's competition is an OS that's free.

Personally, I can't seem to figure my way around linux. I tried live Ubuntu CD and couldn't figure out my way around doing things. I couldn't be able to instantly do things right away like on Windows or Mac. And why are there two taskbars?

Its funny I remember when the project started with the $100 laptop and they said they were going with Linux. Microsoft pleaded them to go with Windows even said they would give it to them for free and now they are willing to pay for it. I guess Linux didn't fit the needs of the project, or MS figured out how to play politics.

OBSODPC?

Piratebay also offers quite the discount on WinXP...

In other news, looks like the MacBook Air meets most of the qualifications!

This is a great thing. Sure, you have to sacrifice a little in terms of the hardware, but having a cheap copy of XP really makes these laptops all the more affordable.

Kudos to MS.

you know..someone else pointed it out awhile ago and I remember it..and I keep saying it..

forget one laptop per child..how about ONE LUNCH PER CHILD..there's plenty of starving kids who could give a shit about a cute little computer..

@akmarksman:
We won the war on poverty.

Just like we won the wars on illiteracy, littering, and drugs.

This is very silly, I think all people should be able to get a cheap OS, I got a boxed version of vista for an embarrassingly high amount of money. XP as well, Funny it was not Vista they sold, hmmm, well lets see, it would not work on one of these machines, so thats out as well. I think linux is a better bet, not because I hate MS and need all the world to change, but because it might encourage people in third world countries to learn development as well, as Linux is more likely to come with compilers etc. However I agree with most of the posters here, the argument is irrelevant when loads of people in these countries do not need computers, they need basic living provisions. I always thought the OLPC scheme was getting ahead of the real problem. -- Blog: http://y2kprawn.blogspot.com/

@easy2panic: Agreed, considering they're supposed to be turning their back on it when, next month?

Actually "agreed" is a good word because it all boils down to "a greed" - the evil empire is worried they'll start to lose market share outside the tiny computer market.

"Gee, if my son in college GTD's using the linux thing on that matchbook he calls a computer, maybe I should try out this Ubuntu thing."

@akmarksman: Education leads to better choices leads to higher quality of life.

Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will sit in a boat and drink beer for life.

@T3hG33k:
they would have happily put windows on it had it been open sourced (so that people could mess with it) and free. this only happened because the main director dude is a shitty businessman.

@KJA:

you can work mac and windows but u cant work linux? whichever one you learned secondary, give ubuntu the same amount of time and patience, and you'll be running linux flawlessly in no time

@jrghoull: they would have happily put windows on it had it been open sourced (so that people could mess with it) and free. this only happened because the main director dude is a shitty businessman.

Lawl there is not a chance they would open source it. I suppose with 2000 leaking there isn't much else there but obviously you understand Microsoft will never make their software open source. They make money off selling their product the way it is they don't need additional help from freelance coders. If the open sourced it I would imagine people would steal a lot of their features which isnot something that is in their best interest.