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Microsoft tactics push India toward Linux (Linux-Watch)

Linux-Watch looks at Linux laptops for school children in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. "In evaluating laptop hardware, ELCOT claims to have two primary tests. One is a "fire walk test" that requires laptops to survive being stood and walked upon by 175-pound people. The other -- hopefully easier to pass -- requires that they fully support Linux."
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Microsoft tactics push India toward Linux (Linux-Watch)

Posted Jul 1, 2008 19:05 UTC (Tue) by leopinheiro (guest, #45660) [Link]

The first test does make sense.

And just in case someone asks, we're pretty sure Linux will not be used (again). And nothing
'fully supports' Linux - just in case someone insists.

Microsoft tactics push India toward Linux (Linux-Watch)

Posted Jul 1, 2008 19:25 UTC (Tue) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link]

There are more details on the Elcot page:
ELCOT carries out extensive Linux compatibility test with Redhat and Suse Linux. Unless the Laptop Computer works fully under these two Linux distribution environments, they are not allowed to reach the price bid stage.
I'm sure the procedure includes specific versions of the distributions. Words "fully supports Linux" must be a generalization introduced by Linux-Watch.

Microsoft tactics push India toward Linux (Linux-Watch)

Posted Jul 1, 2008 21:31 UTC (Tue) by jd (subscriber, #26381) [Link]

Care to expand on why Linux will not be used in future? And what alternative (or alternatives)
are being considered? "Windows" has diverged into multiple streams, so you'd need to specify
which flavour if they're going Microsoft. Is the decision on technical grounds, financial
grounds, political grounds or just the availability of user-end software (which I hereby
classify as "coffee grounds")?

Also not sure about this "fully support" business. Almost nothing fully supports every feature
in the Linux kernel and standard supplemental software. In general, you're going to exclude
SOME set of features, but you do get to choose what features you exclude. Now, you could also
mean the reverse, that Linux fully supports the hardware, but that too is fairly rare. Many
hardware vendors do not provide complete enough specs, and even when they do, there's no
guarantee the driver will - or can - support everything, or that user-land software will
exploit the driver to the full.

(It is possible to support a winmodem in Linux, it just isn't easy to.)

The rugedness test makes some sense, but to reflect likely forms of damage, I'd extend it to
being dropped from some well-defined height and being able to support the average of the daily
maximum temperatures in summer at the average of the daily maximum humidity levels. The
environment is going to be just as demanding as the students, and ruggedness tests need to
factor that in.

Microsoft tactics push India toward Linux (Linux-Watch)

Posted Jul 2, 2008 3:09 UTC (Wed) by horen (subscriber, #2514) [Link]

And nothing 'fully supports' Linux - just in case someone insists.

Nothing? What about the laptop?! Does Linux weigh more than 175lbs?

Microsoft tactics push India toward Linux (Linux-Watch)

Posted Jul 2, 2008 11:18 UTC (Wed) by macc (subscriber, #510) [Link]

> Nothing? What about the laptop?! Does Linux weigh more than 175lbs?

Linus is a married man. He's not the skinny student of 1990 anymore ;-)

G!
MACC

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