I came across this article today:
http://www.playfuls.com/news_03456_M...Older_PCs.html
It seems that microsoft does exactly what some linux distros have been doing for a long time now. They provide an OS based on windows XP SP2 designed to run on old computers.
Reminds me of damn small linux and all those similar minimalistic distros.

Official page here: http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/p...damentals.mspx

No No Linux distro provide you an OS based on WinXPSP2.. (ok, enough joking). That differs from Linux's way, since the article says that OS is meant to run the Remote Desktop Connection, some simple apps and that's it - whereas Linux can run, even on old hardware, pretty much everything you like, even a web server (for personal use, of course - old hardware might have problems serving a lot of clients). Also "a limited number of workloads" doesn't sound like anything Linux would do..

Lol.
Ok I agree with you.

That article reminded me how the UNIX terminals used to be, working in a terminal connected to a mainframe or supercomputer hosting lost of users.

That's what micro$oft is intending while saying that the OS for legacy PC "is designed to work with the Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection client or third-party clients such as the Citrix ICA client", those are just slower PC's or terminals connecting to other High-end PC's. That model of working is quite older than myself... and of course that micro$oft didn't invent it.

Right...
My ><P machine chrashes daily. I have security tools on it, but without them, that thing would be hacked hourly.

If people can't buy new hardware, they can get linux for free, and keep their existing hardware. Micro$hit wants them to buy XP. It isn't because they care (they don't), it's because they want money. They also don't want people to use Linux.

"Reduced cost of ownership"
Linux is #$%@&* free! Who would pay anything when they can get a better OS for nothing?

I do agree with all of you, just add more opinion which is linux provide remote desktop client+vnc client too ( with cost $0.00). However no much user know linux, and they don't know linux can do it too .

Regards,
Ks

plus thin linux client no need to affraid the viruses, worms, and etc.

I make my previous post more clear.
1. No windows machine can live without antivirus/spyware.
2. No antivirus/antispyware not perform scanning.
3. No any scanning not consume much resource.
4. Result is no very low end PC can use windows.

By the way, Linux not scan antivirus.
Regards,
Ks

And yet again Microsoft misses the point.

"Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs is based on Microsoft Windows XP Embedded Service Pack 2 (SP2)
...
Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs is not a general-purpose operating system."

In other words: "Don't install Linux on that old hardware. We have a solution."

Obviously, once installed, it will turn previously useful (though old) computers into doorstops.

"Well, what did you expect with such old hardware??"

This is truly nothing more than another attempt to keep Linux out of the enterprise.

lol
Yes, that will be microsoft's excuse for their disappointed clients.

This article demonstrates that Microsoft really does take the Linux threat seriously. I was not aware of this program -- The Microsoft page is dated Sept '05. I have been very satisfied running Linux on "legacy" hardware.

So XP can run on old harware...once its stripped down to the point where it must have another system for administration purposes.

Or you could just install Linux and not have to worry about anything special.

Hmm...

The Linux equivalent of this thing is LTSP (Linux Terminal Server Project). Apparently, a lot of people use LTSP to their satisfaction. Windows's Remote Desktop is essentially similar to running X remotely. (Never mind the confusion where the "X server" is in the client computer...it makes sense on a perverse level.)

Vnc is a bit different in basic concept, and eats up a lot more server RAM per client.

What I'm really waiting for business-users to latch on to is the notion of a computing cluster. Most companies, when they switched from "old" mainframes to "new" personal-computers, massively overbought on both hardware and software. They had to: the whole situation is massively redundant yet most of that computing capacity is completely unused.

The conventional so-called-mainframe computer model was that of a continent: one great big island and everybody lives there. When we switched to the so-called-personal computer, everybody got on their own little boat and tied them all together with miles of wire. Every little boat has its own bathroom, its own kitchen, its own everything. They are all viewed as "stoically independent" from one another, sharing nothing. But most people in a business environment don't work that way: they do their work by sharing everything, constantly.

The "little boats" can't do that, so one by one they're pulling back into the marina .. which looks suspiciously like the old "continent" that the PCs were supposedly going to get rid of. The mainframe is coming back... and the PC is becoming a terminal that knows how to run Java. But it isn't trustworthy as it is configured.

A true cluster concept would say that "there are lots of little boats out there, but you don't actually live on them." Your little-boat provides you with an access-point to the cluster and it provides computing resources to the cluster but the two functions are not tightly-connected. The "application" that you are using might be running on several different computers at the same time... not redundantly, but cooperatively.

Most of the systems that are actually doing such things are using some variant of Unix. For fairly obvious reasons.

swagner7:
Haven't you seen the funny video on YouTube? The one made by..umm..RedHat or something? Oh boy that was yummy to watch. Really saved my day there are actually more of such videos. The one I meant says, by quoting Microsoft (and others?), that first MS held Linux a harmless kid but later started to keep it an enemy, and even saying it aloud - they are taking Linux as a threat.

"64k of memory should be enough for anyone -Bill Gates"