What $10 PC? India Goes OLPC

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India is not poor as perceived by other countries, they have the best in R&D and very low priced products which are more competitive than the ones made in countries like China and Taiwan. I don't understand why India needs an OLPC or Net-book, they already have so many old PCs which can be donated for poor needy children. But as far as I know, those cannot afford a PC cannot afford Electricity line in India, so what the point?
 
[citation][nom]Dr Raj Gupta[/nom]India is not poor as perceived by other countries, they have the best in R&D and very low priced products which are more competitive than the ones made in countries like China and Taiwan. I don't understand why India needs an OLPC or Net-book, they already have so many old PCs which can be donated for poor needy children. But as far as I know, those cannot afford a PC cannot afford Electricity line in India, so what the point?[/citation]
I believe the OLPC has a hand-crank generator. A few minutes of cranking allows the device to be used for half an hour if I recall.
 
Why is this news not on OLPC's website ?
Why has there been no comment by Indian politician or any decision making authority out there ?
When was the last time that India as a country promised a vendor for thousands of devices - the decisions are usually taken at state level by very smart execs who are proud of their work.
Is it just fluff we are talking about ? What are the details of this deal ? Who was involved ? What criteria was chosen ? Where are the tender details ? Questions...
 
[citation][nom]Dr Raj Gupta[/nom]India is not poor as perceived by other countries, they have the best in R&D and very low priced products which are more competitive than the ones made in countries like China and Taiwan. I don't understand why India needs an OLPC or Net-book, they already have so many old PCs which can be donated for poor needy children. But as far as I know, those cannot afford a PC cannot afford Electricity line in India, so what the point?[/citation]
Yes, that's why India is known as the factory of the world and perceived as possible cyberspace competitor to the PUS alongside Russia.

Gladly accept the US designed, Taiwan contracted and China made OLPC and educate your children.
 
[citation][nom]hellwig[/nom]I believe the OLPC has a hand-crank generator. A few minutes of cranking allows the device to be used for half an hour if I recall.[/citation]
The hand crank was scrapped as a standard feature due to (I believe) the fragile nature of handcranks manufactured in plastic. The laptops come with a regular, region-specific, wall adapter but the last I heard from people at OLPC, a third party was developing a human powered charger that looks like a yo-yo and cost around $10 that was being considered as the standard charging device. It turns out that an energetic kid can generate a lot of power with a device like that.
In any actual deployments I've read about, they've used the wall adapters and set up some kind of system for gang-charging.

Also, why is it so hard to convince the media that OLPC laptops don't have a Windows version? They come from the factory with a Fedora-based Linux installation, but the client is free to put whatever they want on it, including Microsoft's XO bundle which is offered seperately.
 
[citation][nom]Dr Raj Gupta[/nom]India is not poor as perceived by other countries, they have the best in R&D and very low priced products which are more competitive than the ones made in countries like China and Taiwan. I don't understand why India needs an OLPC or Net-book, they already have so many old PCs which can be donated for poor needy children. But as far as I know, those cannot afford a PC cannot afford Electricity line in India, so what the point?[/citation]
It's not that India is a poor country but you certainly can't deny that there's a lot of poverty. Wealth distribution is really bad.
 
average users dont want linux, stop suggesting it.
of course people that know how to use computers say linux is great. but for normal users, they want nothing to do with it. unless it gets some popularity, (commercials ect) people wont like the idea of a ox they havent heard about.
 
[citation][nom]outacontrolpimp[/nom]average users dont want linux, stop suggesting it. of course people that know how to use computers say linux is great. but for normal users, they want nothing to do with it. unless it gets some popularity, (commercials ect) people wont like the idea of a ox they havent heard about.[/citation]
Guess what some (if not most) those kids will be doing in 10-15 years? Yup. DBA or network admin or code grunt. And guess what? Linux is used for most of these type of work. Linux is a great place to start learning coding,etc.
 
WinXP needs about 256MB more ram than Linux, and needs a swap file of at least that. So xp will need to bump the SSD and ram a bit.
 
[citation][nom]outacontrolpimp[/nom]average users dont want linux, stop suggesting it. of course people that know how to use computers say linux is great. but for normal users, they want nothing to do with it. unless it gets some popularity, (commercials ect) people wont like the idea of a ox they havent heard about.[/citation]
If the user has no previous experience with a computer, I don't think they care too much what OS they have. They'd probably go for whichever is cheaper.
 
I know some here have an aversion to Linux, but the reality is that, on these PCs, it makes far more sense to use it than XP for a host of reasons. One of the biggest benefits is that the laptops can be maintained without the need for anti-virus or anti-spyware software. The last thing India would need is having millions of OLPCs eventually becoming infested with spyware and viruses. The other issue to consider is the fact that XP's registry degrades over time, causing the machine to slow down and reducing the operating stability of installed programs. Linux, on the other hand, maintains performance over time.
 
[citation][nom]outacontrolpimp[/nom]average users dont want linux, stop suggesting it. of course people that know how to use computers say linux is great. but for normal users, they want nothing to do with it. unless it gets some popularity, (commercials ect) people wont like the idea of a ox they havent heard about.[/citation]

I will never stop suggesting people to use Ubuntu linux. I don't care if the avearege user knows what that means or not, and I'm not a computer guru. But for the average user, Ubuntu really is great.
And if we rule games out, as we are talking about education and not entertainment, linux is the best choice.

To me, it even sounds pathetic for Micro$oft to sell XP to the kids in 3'rd world countries.
 
Here's a question. Why does 90% of the the Indian Nationals I see that post all over the net always include their title?
Dr. something
Engr. whatchamcallit
etc etc etc...

on topic, isn't the OLPC solar powered? or would that be OLPC2?
 
[citation][nom]antemon[/nom]Isn't the OLPC solar powered? or would that be OLPC2?[/citation]
I think solar panels on each laptop was ruled out right away, probably because it would be the first thing to break on an otherwise very rugged design as well as being a significant additional manufacturing cost. However, solar power charging stations may make more sense and may be useful for other purposes. I think one of the earlier deployments were considering this approach, but I don't know if it worked out.
 
When I first heard about the $10 laptop my first conclusion was that this was some type of government boondoggle - a method of wasting taxpayers money while attempting to look important and spreading largess. Any intelligent and educated person knew a complete computer for $10 was and still is impossible. Someone should go to prison or at least get fired.

The best price yet is (or will be) a $100 laptop from China available possibly as soon as this year or early 2010. HiVision is using a cheaper MIPS based processor (Longsoon or Ingenic), WiFi, 1GB flash storage, Linux OS, 3 USB ports, and Ethernet.

India has made a good choice with the OLPC but I am disappointed that Microsoft's influence has caused the XP OS to be used. It's slower, buggier, more susceptible to viruses, and costs more than the Linux option that was specifically customized for the OLPC and allowed unlimited development of new software for free.

Microsoft and the Indian government should be ashamed. The extra costs mean less for the Indian people and more for Microsoft.
 
[citation][nom]twburger[/nom]India has made a good choice with the OLPC but I am disappointed that Microsoft's influence has caused the XP OS to be used.
...
Microsoft and the Indian government should be ashamed. The extra costs mean less for the Indian people and more for Microsoft.[/citation]
I can't find any indication that this new deployment will be using Windows XP on the XO laptops. I don't think India even qualifies for Microsoft's $3 software bundle and considering their $10 PC project, I would highly doubt they would go through the extra work and cost of deploying with Windows XP. I mean, they clearly weren't planning on putting Windows on the $10 PCs!
 
[citation][nom]twburger[/nom]You are right, there is no indication here that XP will be used, just that it might be. I'm basing my concern on this: http://www.olpcnews.com/software/o [...] ws_xo.htmlIt looks like the guy in charge is pushing XP.[/citation]
Huh. That's not how I read it at all. It looks to me like he's pushing the other way.
But you're right that it is a concern and I agree that putting Windows on the XO's would be a step backward at best. Ultimately, it's the politicians who seem to be demanding Windows XP. The educators seem for the most part to be on board the Sugar train because they understand what it has to offer beyond an office suite and internet browser.
Last I heard, there isn't an implementation of the mesh networking stuff in even this version of Windows XP, which means there is already a hardware feature that doesn't work under Windows that does under Linux. And it's a pretty fundamental component of the Sugar desktop; collaboration is built into as many of the Sugar "activities" as possible and that is primarily facilitated by the mesh network. OLPC (and/or the Sugar team) is working on getting all this working over regular WiFi, but it requires a server. Also, without the mesh, you lose internet connectivity beyond the reach of a WiFi hotspot, which is one of my favourite features.
 
Yes, he favors Sugar but he implies XP is needed to win over those in charge. Maybe I'm simply paranoid.

You're right, Sugar's mesh networking and collaboration is the basic strength of the OLPC and is lost with XP. With Windows it was not until the Internet became available to the general public that computers were of any use for general communications and information sharing.

Sugar allows Internet like digital information sharing and cooperation without the infrastructure of the Internet - which is the situation in most of Africa, Asia, South America and even in many rural areas of the USA and Canada.

Microsoft may not have much vision when it comes to the uses for computer technology (almost completely ignoring the Internet for ten years comes to mind) but they sure know where an emerging market is. They have made a great deal of effort permeating India and China. Ironically it's rich countries like Germany that have decision makers understand and embrace Linux and open source in general after determining the costs and limitations of Microsoft based platforms.

There is not much technical difference between Linux and Windows (don't start an argument about it - I know about the better Linux server up times, MTBF, Linux TCP/IP stack etc.). I've programmed Windows applications since 3.0 and have written Linux programs and both have similar capabilities. The great difference is in the cultural difference between the two platforms. Windows is proprietary and controlled and Linux is open and free.
 
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