Microsoft is launching a program to promote the use of its Windows OS in ultra low-cost PCs, one effect of which will be to limit the hardware capabilities of this type of device, IDG News Service has learned.

Details of Microsoft’s recently announced plan to extend the life of Windows XP for ultra low-cost PCs are trickling out. IDG News got its hands on what it says are Microsoft documents outlining the program for PC manufacturers.

When the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) first started, they had an incredibly innovative idea: create cheap laptops for children in developing countries. Unfortunately, the program hit to major stumbling blocks: First, the laptop they came out with cost twice as much as had been planned. Second, everyone else started making cheap laptops, too.

Microsoft used to bury the cost of Windows in the $1,000-plus price of a new PC. But as personal computers take different and cheaper forms, Microsoft Windows is starting to look a heck of a lot more expensive...and expendable.

As the release of low-cost laptops based on Intel's upcoming Atom processor draws near, Microsoft is getting boxed into a corner. The software company plans to stop selling most Windows XP licenses after June 30, yet most of these low-cost laptops won't be powerful enough to run Vista when they arrive later this year.

A look through most department store catalogues reveals a bevy of alleged “deal” laptops; you know the type – cheap and cheerful, sub-$1,000 – but far from bleeding-edge specs. These may be naff at resource-hungry Windows apps but can be a great Linux machine for no extra cost.

With Microsoft trying to horn in on this one laptop per child program I can see two things happening. One I already mentioned and that is the price will rise. Not just because of the operating system that Microsoft seems intent on forcing on everyone but the cost of the hardware will rise too as windows will not run on hardware that Linux can happily run on.

This tutorial shows how you can limit the CPU usage of a process with the tool cpulimit on Debian/Ubuntu. cpulimit is a simple program that attempts to limit the CPU usage of a process (expressed in percentage, not in cpu time).

cpulimit is a simple program that attempts to limit the cpu usage of a process (expressed in percentage, not in cpu time). This is useful to control batch jobs, when you don't want them to eat too much cpu. It does not act on the nice value or other scheduling priority stuff, but on the real cpu usage. Also, it is able to adapt itself to the overall system load, dynamically and quickly.