Microsoft may have ceased offering Windows XP to retail customers, but that doesn't mean you can't get your hands on the venerable operating system. The company is allowing PC makers to offer customers a "downgrade" option if they purchase a new computer with Windows Vista Business or Ultimate. And Microsoft has been trying to fend off the Linux threat (more of a mosquito than an alien invasion) posed by ultra-low-cost laptops like the Asus Eee PC by allowing some cheap laptop makers to use XP.
Originally, Microsoft was only letting PC makers get away with that low-cost option if a PC met strict requirements. For example, it had to use 1GB of RAM or less, have a 10.2 inch or smaller display, and less than 80GB of storage capacity. Now IDG news is reporting that Microosft is easing off on some of those requirements.
Here's the new definition of an ULPC (Ultra Low Cost PC):
Display: 14.1 inch or smaller
Hard drive: 160GB or less
CPU: Single Core, and no more than 1GHz (with exceptions for low-power processors like the 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU used by the Eee PC 901, Acer Aspire One, and MSI Wind)
RAM: 1GB
Will this move be enough to help Microsoft maintain its market share? We're going to tentatively say yes, because honestly, we're not convinced that Linux-based laptops were going to make much of a dent anyway. Especially ULPC Linux based laptops, which are so cheap that many users are picking them up as second and third computers, not primary machines.
Last week we were speculating that Microsoft could issue a stay of execution for Windows XP. Computer makers are supposed to stop loading the OS on new PCs at the end of June. But here's the thing, some of the most popular laptops on the market this year are pretty much incapable of running Windows Vista.
That's because low power ultraportable devices like the Eee PC and the Everex Cloudbook are hot this year. But these low cost devices also have low powered processors, not much storage space, and even less RAM. So if Microsoft were to kill off Windows XP entirely, the company would be giving Linux an awful big push, because various Linux distributions run beautifully on these tiny computers.
So what's a software company to do if it wants to promote its new OS while making sure that as many computers as possible have Windows on them? Easy. Microsoft is going ahead and telling most computer manufacturers to stop installing Windows XP. But companies that are putting out Vista incapable devices can continue to install the operating system until 2010 and possibly longer.
The move makes a lot of sense. But you know what would make even more sense? Letting computer makers install XP on any machine. While Windows Vista SP1 has brought some reliability and stability improvements, there are still a lot of people out there who prefer Windows XP. By discontinuing the operating system, Microsoft is essentially telling them to hold off on buying a new computer unless they've got a spare XP install disc lying around.
Come June, computer makers are supposed to stop offering Windows XP on prebuilt systems. Microsoft will continue to support the operating system for a while, but the goal is to phase XP out and phase Vista in. But Microsoft has already extended XP's lifetime due to widespread concerns over Windows Vista.
CNet has an interesting article suggesting that Microsoft could give Windows XP another extension. Why? Because of the Eee PC, XO Laptop, Everex Cloudbook, and other low cost ultraportable laptop computers. Hundreds of thousands of these low cost notebooks have been sold over the past few months, and millions could be sold by the end of the year.
Right now, many of these computers are running Linux because it's cheap and it functions well on slower computers with tiny amounts of storage. There's no way you could cram Windows Vista onto most of these machines. But if Microsoft wants to avoid a world where computer users start to think of Linux as a viable alternative to Windows, the company needs to provide software that will run on these machines. And Windows XP fits the bill. Asus already ships a Windows driver disc with the Eee PC, and plans to release a model preloaded with Windows XP in the next few months. But what happens if Microsoft pulls the plug on Windows XP just as computer makers start to ramp up production of machines that are incapable of running Vista?
So the more we think about it, the more we agree with CNet. Either Microsoft will extend the life cycle for Windows XP again, or it will release a custom build of Windows 7 optimized for devices with slow processors, 512MB of RAM or less, and 2GB of storage. Something tells us Microsoft's going to go with option A.ee
We've been playing with an Asus Eee PC for the last few months, and we have to say one of the most useful features on this tiny laptop with a low resolution screen is the fact that you can drag windows by pressing Alt+left click. Since the Eee PC has a non-standard 800 x 480 pixel display, many programs have windows that are too large to fit on the display. Fortunately, you can use the Alt+left click tool to drag them around the screen.
This feature is present in many popular Linux distributions, but if you've got a Windows machine with a low resolution screen, you need a 3rd party applaction like WinMover to achieve the same results. WinMover is a lightweight, customizable app that lets you move windows by clicking anywhere, not just on the top of the window.
You can also resize windows without clicking their edges. Just hit Alt+right click and drag your mouse. Want to save your Alt button for something else? WinMover lets you customize your button combinations for various actions.
While Linux was once the operating system of command line enthusiasts only, there are now several popular graphical desktop environments, including Gnome, XFCE, and KDE. Of the three, XFCE is the lightest-weight, meaning it's designed to run well on older PCs with slower processors and less powerful graphics cards. Gnome and KDE include more desktop effects, some of which might just be pretty to look at, while others can actually make improve productivity.
The KDE developers team is preparing to release the next generation of KDE. While KDE 3 is often described as an interface that Windows users will find familiar (the taskbar is on the bottom of the screen, there's a Windows-like start menu, etc), KDE 4 looks more like a cross between Windows Vista and OS X Leopard. That's because it comes with some amazing visual effects built right in like window transparencies, and a task switcher that looks a lot like Exposé on OS X.
KDE 4 also includes a new icon set, a new file manager, and a bunch of under the hood changes that most users won't notice. And it accomplishes all that while using less memory than KDE 3. That means you can run KDE 4 well on older machines, or newer computers like the Asus Eee PC which come with slower processors and a relatively small amount of RAM.
The video above shows Trolltech employee Jesper Thomschütz running Kubuntu with KDE 4 release candidate 2 on an Eee PC. You can download that LiveCD disc image yourself and test out KDE 4 on your own machine. KDE 4 is officially scheduled for release on January 11th. It will probably be a little while before you see Linux distributions like Kubuntu or OpenSuse coming with KDE 4 as the default graphical user interface, but you should be able to install stable KDE 4 packages to your existing Linux system starting next month.
Pretty soon you'll be able to run Windows on pretty much any PC you buy, no matter how small. Thanks to Boot Camp and Parallels you can run Windows on a Mac. And thanks to an aggressive push by Microsoft, you can run Windows on Asus's low-cost laptop the Eee PC (while the first units are shipping with Linux, they include instructions for loading Windows XP and Asus plans to sell units with XP preinstalled soon).
Microsoft also plans to bring Windows XP to the diminutive XO laptop, of One Laptop Per Child fame. Microsoft released a statement yesterday announcing plans to begin testing XP on the XO in January in the hopes of making a final version available by the second half of 2008.
One problem Microsoft is dealing with is that the XO laptop includes just 1GB of storage, while Windows requires at least 2GB. So Microsoft insisted that an SD card slot be included in the XO, and is developing a version of XP that will run off of a removable storage card. There are no plans to make the custom, low-cost version of Windows available in the US or other developed countries.
Now, the folks over at the Eee User forum have demonstrated that you can indeed run Windows XP with less than 2GB of storage by removing the page file and using nLite to slim down your installation. But 1GB would still be pushing it.
Say you're intensely curious about the stripped down, customized versions of Linux that are running on the tiny laptops like the Asus Eee PC or Nicholas Negroponte's OLPC project, but you don't feel like spending $400 to pick up a new toy that you might never use. As luck would have it, there are (relatively) easy ways to emulate both the OLPC's Sugar OS and the Eee PC's "easy mode" Xandros Linux interface using Ubuntu Linux. You can probably pull off the same feats using different Linux distros as well, but the best tutorials we've found are written for Ubuntu.
Tom Hoffman has posted some pretty simple instructions for running the OLPC's Sugar OS on Ubuntu. Essentially all you need to do is add a repository to your sources.list and install the Sugar emulator. Odds are the display will be too large for your laptop, but you can follow these instructions for changing the resolution.
There are a few more steps involved in getting the Eee PC interface to run on Ubuntu. First off, you'll probably want to have a copy of the DVD that came with the Eee PC, (which sort of defeats the purpose of trying before you buy, but if you've already got an Eee PC you can safely emulate your desktop environment for experimentation purposes). But Asus has posted most of the source files for the Eee PC on its ftp site, so there might be a way to get build the operating system in emulation mode without that disc.
If you're a little more adventurous (and if you read French), it looks like it's also possible to get the Eee PC interface running in Windows using Microsoft Virtual PC software.
One of the great things about the Eee PC is that, unlike a $400 PDA or phone, the $400 laptop is a full fledged computer that just happens to weigh less than 2 pounds.
And while Asus went through a lot of work to load a customized Linux interface onto the Eee PC, the company also made it pretty easy to slap your own operating system on there. In fact, the Eee PC ships with instructions for wiping the hard drive and installing Windows XP (if you happen to have a Windows XP installation disc and a USB DVD drive).
And if you can install Windows, that means you can install Mac OS X. Not officially, of course. Apple only sells OS X licenses for Apple-labeled machines. But the folks over that OSx86 project have been tinkering with ways to install OS X on PCs ever since Apple started to support Intel chips.
So it was only a matter of time until someone went and installed Leopard on an Eee PC. You'll need to get your hands on Leopard disc image, either by making one yourself or from other means that we won't go into here. Leopard reportedly is something less than a speed demon on the Eee PC's 900MHz celeron processor and 512MB of RAM. But we could have predicted that.
If you mess up your computer beyond belief, you can use the restore disc that Asus shipped with the Eee PC. But we still probably wouldn't recommend this hack for anyone who doesn't know what the word "kernel" means.
It's been a busy week here at Download Squad HQ. We produced our first ever Squadcast, spent way too much time playing with our new Eee PC, and drafted a plan for fixing our parents' broken computer over the Thanksgiving Holiday.
Here's what you might have missed if you weren't paying attention this week. And shame on you for that, by the way.
Download Squad's Grant Robertson and Christina Warren got together to talk shop. On the menu this week, first impressions and problems with OS X Leopard, the Eee PC, and using IMAP with Gmail. As you can probably guess from the title, this is the first episode of the Squadcat, but it will not be the last.
Last week we gave you a first look at the new $400, Linux-based Eee PC from Asus. This week we started digging into the software and figuring out how to configure the Eee PC to make it act a bit less like a toy and more like a computer. If you're new to Linux, this tutorial is a must read.
So you're an early adopter and you've run out to buy yourself Asus's $400 Eee PC because it seemed like a great price for a fully functional 2 pound computer that's about the size of a typical hardcover book (and far smaller than Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows).
But the innovative easy to use interface might get old pretty quickly if you want to do more than surf the web and create letters, spreadsheets, and PowerPoint style presentations for your friends telling them how cool you are because you have an Eee PC while they don't.
Asus includes instructions for loading Windows XP onto the Eee PC, but it requires an external DVD drive, some drive compression, and you know, a copy of Windows XP. Curiously, Asus does not include any instructions for unlocking the built-in potential of Xandros Linux, the operating system that ships with the Eee PC. But as we mentioned in this week's Squadcast, it just takes a little bit of work to unlock this machine's potential.
If you've got a bit of Linux experience under your belt, it's pretty simple to add some programs, enable an advanced desktop, and tweak the Eee PC to your heart's content. But it turns out that even if you're a Linux noob, the learning curve isn't that steep. Here are some of the most useful Eee hacks/tweaks we've discovered in our first half week of playing with it. Thanks to the Eee User community for helping inspire our hacking.
Sure, the Asus Eee PC comes with a cool new user interface that makes the tiny laptop with the 7 inch screen easy to use even if you know nothing about Linux. But can you play Doom on it? Well yes, we're pretty sure you can, but we didn't try.
What we did try was adding unsupported Debian Linux repositories that let you install a whole slew of applications beside the 40 or so that the Eee PC ships with. In part one of our series we looked at the "easy mode" interface. Now let's take a look at some of the hidden goodies Asus packed into this little box.
For example, you can pull up a terminal, open Konqueror, and use the Synaptic package manager to install programs. Since the Eee PC is based on Xandros Linux, you're probably best off installing applications from Xandros repositories, but you might have some success installing any Debian based packages. For example, I added "deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian/ stable main" in order to install Audacity.
For more tips on adding repositories and making advanced changes, check out the EeeUser forum and Wiki.
If you have any more questions about the Eee PC interface, feel free to leave them in the comments. In the meantime, here are a few notes:
The VGA-out port works like magic, and can even power a 1280 x 1024 pixel monitor with ease
Web applications like Picnik and Snipshot work great in Firefox.
The battery seems to be good for the stated 3.5 hours.
The keyboard certainly isn't as comfortable for typing as a full sized keyboard, but it sure beats a Treo/BlackBerry/Sidekick/iPhone thumb pad.
November 1st has come and gone, and that means that Asus has begun shipping the Eee PC, a $399 ultra-light laptop that could give both the OLPC and major laptop makers a run for their money.
We're going to focus primarily on the software side of things, but in a nutshell, the first widely available model packs a 900MHz processor, 512MB of RAM and 4GB of solid state memory. It weighs just 2.1 pounds, has a 3.5 hour battery, and a tiny power adapter, making it a perfect machine for stuffing in your bag whenever you leave the house. But it also has a tiny 7 inch 800 x 480 pixel display, which can cause some problems with certain web sites and applications.
For example, Google Reader is almost unreadable in Firefox unless you do a little tweaking. F11 is your friend. Other friends include fullscreen add-ons like FullerScreen and Autohide. We've posted a few photos after the jump to show what a big difference a little Firefox tweaking can make.
Asus has done an excellent job of designing software that makes the hardware as easy to use as possible. The Eee PC runs a custom version of Xandros Linux. The operating system and preloaded applications take up a good 62% of the unit's memory, but you probably weren't going to use the Eee PC for downloading and storing huge video files anyway.
The interface almost looks more like a PDA UI than a computer. There's no start menu. There are tabs with different categories. And you often don't even see an application's full name. For example, to bring up Firefox, you click "Web." But unlike a PDA, the Eee PC can run full desktop applications like Firefox, OpenOffice.org, and Amarok.
Asus is set to launch the tiny Eee PC in the US this week. While the US version will cost about twice the $199 price that Asus teased us with this summer, the Eee PC is a full fledged computer in a 2 pound package for under $400, and that's pretty impressive.
What's also impressive is the custom Linux interface Asus threw together to make the Eee PC as useful as possible. Since the machine has a 900MHz celeron processor, 512MB of RAM, and 4GB of solid state memory, it's capable of running Windows, Linux, or pretty much any other operating system you'd care to install. But out of the box, the Eee PC includes a custom version of Xandros Linux that's meant to take the pain out of Linux for novice users.
In fact, it's probable that many customers will never know that the Eee PC runs Linux at all. EeeUser has put together a thorough review of the operating system. In a nutshell:
The Eee PC starts up and shuts down faster than almost any other computer you've ever used.
Programs are grouped into tabbed categories: Internet, Work, Learn, Play, Settings, Favorites, and Help.
The Internet tab lets you open the Firefox Web browser, connect to your web mail service of choice, use Pidgin for chatting, and Skype for VoIP calls.
The Work tab lets you use Open Office, Kcalc, Adobe Reader, KDE Personal Information manager, and Thunderbird.
The Play tab includes a few games like Solitare, Soduku, and Penguin Race, as well as SMPlayer media player, a music jukebox, Photo Manager, and Video Manager application
There's also an add/remove programs feature, but there aren't a ton of extra applications available at the moment. Since the Eee PC interface is built on top of Xandros, you could probably add some repositories and install a whole slew of applications on the computer. But part of the beauty of this $400 laptop is that it works out of the box. While it certainly presents a lot of tinkering potential, it's designed for ease of use. And installing unsupported applications can lead to all sorts of problems if you're not already a Linux guru.
Update: jkOnTheRun turned us onto a great website showing off the Eee PC user interface. It's really just a series of interactive screenshots, not an emulator. But it should give you a sense of the EeePC layout.
Microsoft may have ceased offering Windows XP to retail customers, but that doesn't mean you can't get your hands on the venerable operating system. The company is allowing PC makers to offer customers a "downgrade" option if they purchase a new computer with Windows Vista Business or Ultimate. And Microsoft has been trying to fend off the Linux threat (more of a mosquito than an alien invasion) posed by ultra-low-cost laptops like the Asus Eee PC by allowing some cheap laptop makers to use XP.
It's been a busy week here at Download Squad HQ. We produced our first ever Squadcast, spent way too much time playing with our new Eee PC, and drafted a plan for fixing our parents' broken computer over the Thanksgiving Holiday.
So you're an early adopter and you've run out to buy yourself Asus's $400 
