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It's a shame the work of the OLPC kernel developers / volunteers who made the Xtra Ordinary distro possible don't get any credit. The "debxo" distribution http://wiki.laptop.org/go/DebXO has been going for a long time and has done all the hard work (i.e., XO-1-specific work) of getting debian to work on the XO-1.

I don't know about "backwards", the XO-1.5 is a just "harware refresh" of the XO-1, giving it more speed, more RAM, and more flash memory, while fixing some of the bugs. Nothing is rolled back, the original innovations (some of which have not yet been matched even by your Mini 10's generation of netbooks) are still there.

Meanwhile, aspects of XO-2's design (two hinged touchscreens) have been widely copied by MS's Courier and others for their next generations of netbooks/tablets.

For those interested in the hardware differences, here's the XO-1 motherboard and the XO-1.5 motherboard.

To summarize the differences from eyeballing the diagrams:
- CPU is upgraded from 400MHz AMD Geode to 1GHz Via C7.
- The corresponding AMD southbridge is replaced w/ Via VX855
- RAM is upgraded from 256MB DDR to 1GB DDR2
- flash is upgraded from 1GB soldered-on to 4GB microSD in a slot (i.e. replaceable, interesting!)
- WLAN is changed from a soldered-on Marvell part to a daughtercard (currently still a Marvell part IIRC).
- the Marvell CaFe chip is apparently gone. This provided NAND FLASH and SD interfaces and some camera functions?
- audio seems to be upgraded

Some stuff that's the same:
- The display controller (Hymax HX8837), that lets the display remain live with the processor suspended.
- The embedded controller (KB3700)
- external SD slot (though not controlled by CaFe anymore)

Not sure:
- battery and charging circuit
- other power supply design

I don't know about "backwards", the XO-1.5 is a just "harware refresh" of the XO-1, giving it more speed, more RAM, and more flash memory, while fixing some of the bugs. Nothing is rolled back, the original innovations (some of which have not yet been matched even by your Mini 10's generation of netbooks) are still there.

Meanwhile, aspects of XO-2's design (two hinged touchscreens) have been widely copied by MS's Courier and others for their next generations of netbooks/tablets.

For those interested in the hardware differences, here's the XO-1 motherboard and the XO-1.5 motherboard.

To summarize the differences from eyeballing the diagrams:
- CPU is upgraded from 400MHz AMD Geode to 1GHz Via C7.
- The corresponding AMD southbridge is replaced w/ Via VX855
- RAM is upgraded from 256MB DDR to 1GB DDR2
- flash is upgraded from 1GB soldered-on to 4GB microSD in a slot (i.e. replaceable, interesting!)
- WLAN is changed from a soldered-on Marvell part to a daughtercard (currently still a Marvell part IIRC).
- the Marvell CaFe chip is apparently gone. This provided NAND FLASH and SD interfaces and some camera functions?
- audio seems to be upgraded

Some stuff that's the same:
- The display controller (Hymax HX8837), that lets the display remain live with the processor suspended.
- The embedded controller (KB3700)
- external SD slot (though not controlled by CaFe anymore)

Not sure:
- battery and charging circuit
- other power supply design

This one does, and it's very similar:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XO-2

The XO-2, most definitely: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XO-2
Asus are also working on something with a similar form-factor, last I heard.

It's almost like companies noticed that the original XO laptop spawned the whole netbook craze, and decided they wanted to be in on OLPC's next big idea.

I just found this! Even though I know the machine isn't targeted at me the XO-1 design seems horrible, even when ignoring the estetics. But this one seems very interesting! If it turns out this way it is absolutely something I'll consider purchasing! The idea was buy one sponsor one, but who felt they wanted an XO-1? I'll gladly sponsor an XO-2, given that this will be the result, more or less.

It is a bit of a shame, but the work is being done.

I'm sure we could use more help, so dig in:

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/F11_for_XO-1

https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-olpc-list

hth,
adric

Limiting amount of applications that can be open simultaneously on one Windows version versus not doing so in another, when both share the same code again - antifeature.

Limiting the number of applications that can be opened on a system with very limited resources can make a great deal of sense when the market is the novice user without technical support:

If you have more than one activity running, you can switch to it by clicking on the appropriate icon in the ring.

The size of the ring segment that an activity occupies is intended to represent its overall memory usage, but that feature does not work yet. When the ring fills up, no additional activities may be launched until some resources are freed up. In today's XO laptops, only a few activities can be started at the same time, and when memory is exhausted, one of them will die suddenly without any warning. Note: it is possible that work or play that is in progress may be lost. Switching Between Activities

All this Windows-OLPC debacle is rather unfair.

Actually, what the guys at OLPC did was to ensure that the OLPC XO-1 laptops would still be able to dual-boot to Linux in case Windows was installed.

See this email from the OLPC Developer mailing list from Mitch Bradley, one of the developers at OLPC:

At the moment, OLPC is doing approximately zero work on Windows. That wasn't true last year. I spent several months last year making it possible to boot Windows from Open Firmware. The reason I did that was to prevent Microsoft from "taking over" the XO machine. Their plan was to purchase machines and instruct the factory to reflash their SPI FLASH boot ROM with a conventional BIOS - which would have prevented OLPC's Linux from working. It would have been possible to boot a different Linux distro from that BIOS, but it would not have been bootable from NAND FLASH, the OLPC security would not have been available, OLPC's special power management would not have worked, and the OFW-resident management features like diagnostics and NAND update would have been lost. Essentially it would have been a one-way ticket to Microsoft land.

That one-way road was unacceptable to Nicholas. He insisted that, if any machines were to be able to run Windows, they must be able to dual-boot.

In fact, this shows Negroponte is actually pro-linux.

The title of this article is taken from the OLPCNews post about the ZDNetAsia article. Wayan Vota, OLPCNews' founder, gave his blog post an absolutely sensational sounding (flamebait -1) title.

If you Read The Flamebitten Article, what Nicholas Negroponte said is that Sugar should NOT have rolled-in the security system, XO-hardware-specific code and other things that would prevent it from reaching a wider audience.

This implies that he thinks Sugar should have been available to a wider audience from the beginning of its development, and I think most people would agree.

That would have allowed more contributors to make applications that run within Sugar's unique UI, allowed more people to use those applications, and might have resulted in a usable operating system instead of what Sugar on the XO currently is: a textbook example of an early-stage UI design pushed to the public before enough testing/development iteration cycles.

The biggest mistake here: on most XO laptops currently in the developing world, buggy Sugar and its handful of buggy applications are the *only* software option available to recipient kids (with no speedy internet connection to download a new operating system or the newly developed activities). The next iteration of the laptop (dubbed 1.5) will have Fedora Linux with both Gnome and Sugar desktops available, which is OLPC's best move yet. Laptop recipients will have access to the hundreds of Gnome-supported applications we all know and love (and Sugar, too).

The second biggest mistake: the XO's dual-mode touchpad's operation within the Fedora/Sugar OS has always been and still is *atrocious*. Kids and teachers often can't use the laptop for more than ten minutes without their mouse jumping all over the screen and making it impossible to aim-and-click anything. Thank yahweh the touchpad is being completely replaced in 1.5. Someone should set up a donate-your-USB-mouse program to give these unfortunate 1.0 kids a real shot at doing something great with their computers.

Rabble-rousing about "OLPC Switching to Windows" (another nice oft-repeated OLPCNews flamebait headline) and how *that* is what "killed the XO and Sugar" is completely ridiculous. You look like fools. You want open hardware? That means Canonical can develop for it. That means Microsoft can develop for it. That means the newly formed "SugarLabs" can develop for it. OLPC will barely lift a finger, and when it does, it's to give the Windows kids access to Linux, too: http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/devel/2009-July/025132.html

Step up to help Negroponte and co. get these deserving kids some useful computer hardware+software or respectfully stop spreading less-than-140-character FUD. That FUD and its redistribution is what killed community participation in the XO, *not* Negroponte and his misinterpreted sound bytes.

Actually, what the guys at OLPC did was to ensure that the OLPC XO-1 laptops would still be able to dual-boot to Linux in case Windows was installed.

See this email from the OLPC Developer mailing list from Mitch Bradley, one of the developers at OLPC:

At the moment, OLPC is doing approximately zero work on Windows. That wasn't true last year. I spent several months last year making it possible to boot Windows from Open Firmware. The reason I did that was to prevent Microsoft from "taking over" the XO machine. Their plan was to purchase machines and instruct the factory to reflash their SPI FLASH boot ROM with a conventional BIOS - which would have prevented OLPC's Linux from working. It would have been possible to boot a different Linux distro from that BIOS, but it would not have been bootable from NAND FLASH, the OLPC security would not have been available, OLPC's special power management would not have worked, and the OFW-resident management features like diagnostics and NAND update would have been lost. Essentially it would have been a one-way ticket to Microsoft land.

That one-way road was unacceptable to Nicholas. He insisted that, if any machines were to be able to run Windows, they must be able to dual-boot.

In fact, this shows Negroponte is actually pro-linux.

To make a really bad car analogy, bad marketing didn't kill GM, in fact marketing kept GM on life support for decades *in spite of* their crappy cars.

The XO as delivered during the first G1G1 (and to country projects during that period) was nearly unusable. Hardware functionality was great, but the software didn't measure up at all, in several respects. Software was still experimenting in blue sky when they needed to be delivering on goals.

First, it didn't perform acceptably within the severely limited RAM (severe for non-memory-footprint-optimized software). Most likely running the same software on the XO gen-1.5 refresh will fix that level of performance issues.

Second, the software was not complete, in that promised features were not yet implemented. Some were important in the real world, like the advanced power saving. Things crashed a lot.

Third, the software implemented experimental ideas like the Journal, which were under revision without taking end-user feedback into serious consideration.

[And Fourth, it was damned hard for willing FOSS volunteers to contribute meaningfully. The build you could easily download and run and report bugs on was far obsolete from what the developers were running, and getting in sync with them was tough.]

From what I could see on the developer mailing lists, they had a severe cat-herding problem. Too many smart people going in whatever direction their creativity and youthful self-confidence took them, rather than getting all hands on deck to recognize the shortcomings and get them fixed *now*. I think they undertook this project in the spirit of constructivism, when they needed to switch gears and deliver a product. Too much green hat, not enough blue hat.

Those are my opinions as a fan of the project.

You have it right, variously. Sugar's origins led to this state, but it's being rectified.

The OLPC XO software distribution included Sugar. Or was Sugar then, back then before Sugar left the building, and made it into Ubuntu. Now the XO distribution is a "spin" of Fedora that has Sugar installed and configured as default (or it will).

cf: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/F11_for_1.5

You'd think so, but you'd be wrong. The engineers working on Sugar (for OLPC) did some testing to find out if hierarchical folders are really necessary, and found out that, even if you have thousands and thousands of files with many levels of nested directories, tags are just as good for categorizing files, and all that nesting doesn't actually contain any extra information--even for power users, such as yourself. On top of that, tags allow one to add extra levels of information to a file, which is a big advantage of forced hierarchy. After all, everything is miscellaneous.

So, folders are a nice concept...for something limited. Go beyond a few thousand files, and folders are not going to cut it. They just don't scale as well as tags, and force you to spend too much time trying to figure out where a file "belongs". They don't really belong anywhere. They can exists under multiple categories. Tags+Search is simply more efficient and allows you to find your files faster, and you can spend as little or as much time on categorizing as you like.

OMG, can you imagine a billion children getting their first taste of computing with Windows XP running on an OLPC XO? Microsoft has apparently paid for 7,000 dual-boot XOs (Linux + Sugar in main flash, XP on an extra flash card) to be used in trials in Uruguay.

http://www.olpcnews.com/countries/uruguay/uruguay_windows_xo_ms_office.html

The only good thing I can say about this is, "Woot!" Microsoft is actually paying to have trials of Linux + Sugar vs. XP plus educational shovelware, on the same hardware, conducted by a multitude of teachers and schoolchildren, none of them on the M$ payroll. Oh, frabjous day! Calloo! Callay!

The best bit is that Uruguay has just started an educational blog, where teachers and students have started posting. Story at http://www.olpcnews.com/countries/uruguay/update_on_xo_laptops.html, more (in Spanish) at http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Blog_educativo

...if the old codebase is not maintained: http://dev.laptop.org/git/sugar/

and the original copyright owner switches to the new codebase:

http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/devel/2009-May/024487.html

Correct. OLPC is in fact becoming the new downstream of Sugar, pulling in the new packages in future OLPC distro releases.

Why does a web browser have full access to the file system, other than read-only access to its own "program" and "files to upload" folder[...]

It has filesystem access because, even without a file server component, users want to upload files

Uploading a file doesn't need file system access; it needs file chooser access. In the Sugar toolkit used by OLPC's XO laptops, for instance, apps that let the user select a file send a request to the file chooser service, which then opens the file and passes the equivalent of a file descriptor to the app. (In fact, a Sugar app's installer doesn't even let a single program request both directory listing and network connection privileges; the user has to apply them manually after the fact.) Another way to do this is to have the user use the operating system's file manager to copy the file into "files to upload" before uploading it, and then the "Browse" button behaves more like the pop-up menu that a <select> element creates.

You lazy bugger - RTFM!

Use the OLPC http://laptop.org/en/laptop/index.shtml and give it to a kid when you are done.

1. Military strength.
2. No battery recalls to date.
3. Recharge from car battery.
4. Built-in wireless with 801.11s (mesh)
5. Video camera.
6. USB ports
7. 1GB flash memory (expandable) instead of hard drive.
8. Open Source BIOS.
9. Linux.

It's called the Journal.

Microsoft can't solve PEBCAK without taking control over the computer completely out of the user's hands.

Are you willing to give them that level control?

We already did. It was called Xbox. All code must be digitally signed by Microsoft.

But seriously, it's possible to improve the granularity of operating system security without resorting to application whitelisting like that seen on video game consoles. The Bitfrost model looks interesting.

They're effectively a blacklist (with some mostly ineffective greylist heuristics), and blacklists aren't really useful against continual new threats.

I can think of four ways to keep viruses and worms from spreading: operating system security, blacklists, greylists, and whitelists. Blacklists and greylists in mainstream antivirus software for Windows are less than perfect, as you point out. Whitelists implemented in non-free operating systems (such as Authenticode and game console lockouts) have tended to be unfriendly to microISVs and free software developers. This leaves OS security. OLPC's web site describes Bitfrost, an interesting security layer that provides finer-grained security than is seen on most Linux or Windows desktop installations without depending entirely on lists. For instance, an app's installer can request directory scanning privileges (P_DOCUMENT_RO) or network privileges (P_NET), not both.

If the software tries to do something outside of its specified protocol, then zappo, it's gone.

Bitfrost on OLPC's XO laptop tries to do something similar with a typical kernel/app separation: apps (called "activities") can specify their "protocol" as a set of privileges, and some privileges (such as scanning directories and connecting to a network) are deemed mutually exclusive unless the user grants them after the installer finishes.

but anyone who has used one knows it isn't really a feasible input method for a desktop unless you feel like your arms cramping up after half an hour of use.

Is that so? Someone should probably tell Nicholas Negropontea, or at least the HID designers of the XO-2.

To the GP, that's pretty good evidence that linux will at least have touch screen support in the future.

I have a first gen G1G1 XO - $200 when I got it a year and a half ago (specs here http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Hardware_specifications). I've sat in a bus shelter in Toronto in February when it was sleeting and -30 watching movies, playing nethack, or surfing the web through an available hot spot; I've also sat on a Toronto bar patio with no shade in 35 degree heat while using it as a dice roller/source book viewer/wiki checker for a marathon GURPS game while getting plastered (spilled the pitcher on it twice). The XO really stands up to punishment, has phenomenal power management and resource allocation. If you can get your hands on a couple of them, gang them together into a wireless cluster that scales usage by turning on additional XOs as resources are needed you're set. Because they have no moving parts they can get moved around easy, the batteries in them last forever - you just need to have big SD cards or external USB drives for data storage. They are designed for wirless mesh networking/collaboration , so making a distributed cluster server should be a viable option.

Go check here for a list of minimalistic Linux distro's:

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Minimal_Linux_distros

Slackware with a XFCE and Firefox/OpenOffice is very, very fast on even older hardware.

Debian running on the XO-1 Relevant link: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/DebXO

I'd have to agree partially, but the iPhone/iPod touch does have some serious limitations. I was using my iPod Touch this past weekend to update Twitter from a high school championship sporting event--yeah, I finally found a way to make Twitter useful--and the keyboard is not very good at all when you're trying to type quickly & accurately. None of the Twitter clients on the iPhone support landscape orientation, making typing a real pain in the neck. Also, how long is Apple going to be stubborn on the whole copy/paste issue? There were some LONG URL's I wanted to link to but couldn't. Both of these issues really slowed me down quite a bit. Don't get me wrong, I love my iPod Touch, but I don't think it would give a small netbook a run for it's money as far as being able to quickly enter data is concerned. Even an OLPC would have done a better job in this particular instance.

I sell a closed source educational software product and I've seen the insides of a lot of schools. I know that any teacher or school IT coordinator is going to hate to see their known infrastructure replaced at the whim of the state legislature by something they had no say in.

You need to be talking to the people in the schools first, not the people making the laws. Odds are you can find some problems that Open Source software can help with and a few IT coordinators who are on board with it. Then evangalize your local success, highlighting money saved and better student performance, and you'll start opening up a lot more people's minds to open source software.

But top-down through the politicians is not the way to go (case in point).

If you really want to change the landscape, though, find a way to actually fund open source educational software development. It's a shame that we don't have something like a PBS for educational software. I'd much rather write software that everyone can have for free.

Sugar is a bad idea dreamed up by theorists attached to their ideas of how children should learn, not on any actual observation or testing.

As a concept for a user interface, I like Sugar very much. Read through the HIG documents and you'll see a lot of innovative ideas; if only desktop OSes would do collaboration or file organization or activity scope this way!

As a completed product, Sugar falls short of the mark. It's slow, it's gray, it's bland. It's slow; I wrote it twice because I had the time to do so while waiting for the screen to redraw.

As a teaching tool, where primary-school-age students are ostensibly going to hit the 'View Source' key and edit the internals of their window manager on-the-fly, Sugar is a joke; a solution in search of a problem.

Actually, running as a non-privileged user still exposes a user to the worst type of risk: corruption of their data files (which of course they only need their user privileges to access). Have you ever heard a user thank you for being able to recover their OS but not their data files (after a crash/virus/etc)?

I'm not even sure there is any real solution to this, although there was some work done in the OLPC security model that related to this:

http://dev.laptop.org/git?p=security;a=blob;f=bitfrost.txt

Not perfect, but it is a start in the right direction for a lot of these type of problems imho.

Which tells me that in the end the 1st world enthusiasts and hackers weren't as liberal as they insist they are, and really aren't any different from Joe Sixpack Biblethumper. So long as they are being catered to, they talk the talk - but when the OLPC refused to adhere to their religious beliefs.... they took a walk.

The first G1G1, which I participated in, embraced the philosophy of open source from top to bottom, which I personally believe is the best interests of children in the 2nd world who are being introduced to computing for the first time. When the push was made to support Windows, it was like- forget this crap. Making a generation of children dependent on a proprietary operating system is not a good thing, IMO. The "core principals" of the OLPC experiment fell into the toilet at that point. The goal did not seem to be people helping people any more, but rather a corporations attempt to extend their failing OS monopoly. Screw that. They can do that all they want, but I'm sure not going to pay for it.

What this has to do with "Joe Sixpack BibleThumper" and liberalism is beyond me.

In the 2007 holiday season, Negroponte told me, the program took in $37 million. This past season, the foundation partnered with Amazon to sell the laptops and increased its advertising and marketing efforts substantiallyâ"to two or three times what they were in 2007, or close to $20 million, virtually all of it pro bono. Yet, sales fell off a cliff, coming in at about $2.5 million. Negroponte attributes âoealmost allâ of the falloff to the poor economy [...]

Or maybe it was because Nicholas Negroponte sold out to Microsoft and pissed off all the people who were buying from/evangalising the project. I'm amazed to see how much of an effect geeks/nerds can have. Don't think you're powerless fellow nerds, you can make a difference, even if it's from the confines of your mum's basement!

Just look at these threads on their mailing list from last year, Nicholas is signed-up to it, multiple people are telling him in specific terms why trying to use Windows is a bad idea, and what does he do? Ignore them.

Negroponte is getting what he deserves for ignoring the community and selling-out to Microsoft. What an arsehole.

Given that you've been online long enough to have a 6-digit Slashdot account and a brand new, shiny netbook on the way, I'm assuming you're not exactly part of OLPC's target audience of the world's poorest children. There's no need to refuse something was never really offered to you in the first place.

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Wireless

(Also, here's a fun game: How would the OLPC have helped these people achieve that goal?)

Maybe like this

You're assuming that the target market of this device are a bunch of bushmen who will use is in broad daylight with no access to electricity.

Are *any* current OLPC users (those that the OLPC got deployed to) at all close to that?

OLPC deployment information

The problem is that I have yet to see an implementation through a browser that can challenge a native GUI implementation and yes this includes Sales Force, Google Mail, Google Docs and all the rest of them.

that's why i ported pyjamas to the desktop:

    http://pyjs.org/

pyjamas-desktop basically rips out all of the javascript, and replaces every single javascript-based function with exact same corresponding functionality that manipulates the DOM model of the underlying technology.

and i chose http://webkit.org/ as the DOM-manipulating technology.

i _could_ have chosen XUL / Gecko, but it took so damn long to find Hulahop - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/HulaHop - that i had to go for webkit.

i could have chosen PyKDE / KHTMLPart but it has very subtle bugs that require the entire KDE library to be compiled with c++ RTTI switched on. if it's switched off, the whole thing falls over.

by porting pyjamas to the desktop, it's possible to make the same application run as EITHER a desktop application (and i don't mean "running as javascript under Adobe AIR") OR a web application.

same source code. unmodified.

it's very cool.

Batteries are a big profit center for companies. One of the things we worked hard on the OLPC to achieve is extended battery life.

You can trade somewhat lower capacity for longevity. Basically, if you are charging the battery, and take it to full charge, you are in fact damaging the battery slightly. So we don't fully charge the battery, so we can get many, many more cycles out of them (we use LiFE, batteries as well, which are much safer than LiIon.

While this may be true for the "get one" and machines used to woo givers, it's not true for those that the kids in 3rd world countries actually get. They get their XOs with nickel-based batteries, and horrible battery life is one of the main complaints.
4 hours max with brand new batteries, and 2 hours for a slightly used machine if not running WiFi seems typical.

Of course, I'm not saying that presenting the givers with a different machine with different batteries is bait-and-switch. No, siree...

As a parent, I also know that you probably aren't going to listen to much from Slashdotters, and that you definitely want to have a machine as a holiday gift. In that case, you should get an XO Laptop from the One Laptop per Child project. For $399, you get a nearly indestructible machine for yourself, and you send one to a needy child in a developing country. In a couple of years, you and your child will be able to use this together. In the meantime, you can know that you are supporting a good cause and helping another child.

I let my two year old try both my desktop computer and my olpc. Neither is really suitable to be used without an adult being in the room. With the OLPC XO-1, I was worried that he might be able to break off the antennas or break the screen/keyboard connector. What actually got first broke was one of the keys got torn off, but I glued it back on. Sugar does have some good activities that he had fun with, specifically the Record activity and TamTam mini (a sound making program). With my desktop computer he liked watching the worms screensaver, and making it make beeps. If I was choosing what to do right now for a two year old, I would probably put Sugar on an old desktop computer. On the other hand, I would not bother doing so unless the kid shows serious interest in computers. If the kid is coming up to you and trying to play with your computers, this will make them happy, otherwise it is not worth the bother. For what it's worth, he had far more fun with a old dsl modem, a old caller id, a ethernet hub and a couple ethernet cables and telephone cables than he has had with the computers so far. So on the dollars per amount of fun, real computers for two year olds are not very good. Also expect stuff to be broken, and some adult will have to be in the room watching or playing along. A regular laptop or netbook would probably be broken within hours by a two year old.

If OLPC couldn't ship 'em to donors, what makes anyone think they're shipping them to kids in the '2nd world'?

The deployment map and deployments wiki page giving the status of the deployments is pretty convincing.

... As he cycles from village to village the bike-mounted machine associates with the local machine and UUCP does its usual magic, transferring mail, files, and download requests. ...

[Citation needed]

A simple google search for "uucp bicycle motorcycle wifi" brought up a number of such things.

One was the "motoman" project, which is essentially what I described but with mororcycles in Cambodia.

Here's a page in the OLPC project Wiki the motoman page on the OLPC project Wiki, which gives this and several other links to info on it.

Also keep in mind that these were developed with 3rd world conditions in mind... origionally they were supposed to have a crank style power for recharging in the many areas without electricity.
And they are really good at forming their own adhoc networks between machines for accessibility.
http://laptop.org/en/laptop/hardware/meshdemo.shtml?KeepThis=true&TB_iframe=true&height=500&width=720

It's not that they ever hope to be cheaper than pencils, papers, OR books.. but they can offer a whole lot more to people who have few other similar alternatives.

From the olpc website at laptop.org
specifically - http://laptop.org/en/laptop/hardware/features.shtml

Design factor was a priority from the start: the laptop could not be big, heavy, fragile, ugly, dangerous, or dull. Another imperative was visual distinction. In part, the goal is to strongly appeal to XO's intended users, but the machine's distinctive appearance is also meant to discourage gray-market traffic. There is no mistaking what it is and for whom it is intended.

XO is about the size of a textbook and lighter than a lunchbox. Thanks to its flexible design and "transformer" hinge, the laptop easily assumes any of several configurations: standard laptop use, e-book reading, and gaming.

The laptop has rounded edges. The integrated handle is kid-sized, as is the sealed, rubber-membrane keyboard. The novel, dual-mode, extra-wide touchpad supports pointing, as well as drawing and writing.

XO is fully compliant with the European Union's RoHS Directive. It contains no hazardous materials. Its LiFePO4 or NiMH batteries contain no toxic heavy metals, plus it features enhanced battery management for an extended recharge-cycle lifetime. It will also tolerate alternate power-charging sources, such as car batteries. Children may also have a second battery for group charging at school while they are using their laptop in class.

Experience shows that laptop components most likely to fail are the hard drive and internal connectors. Therefore, XO has no hard drive to crash and only two internal cables. For added robustness, the machine's plastic walls are 2mm thick, as opposed to the standard 1.3mm. Its wireless antennas, which far outperform the typical laptop, double as external covers for the USB ports, which are protected internally as well. The display is also cushioned by internal "bumpers."

The estimated product lifetime is at least five years. To help ensure such durability, the machines are being subjected to factory testing to destruction, as well as field testing by children.

Also keep in mind that these were developed with 3rd world conditions in mind... origionally they were supposed to have a crank style power for recharging in the many areas without electricity.
And they are really good at forming their own adhoc networks between machines for accessibility.
http://laptop.org/en/laptop/hardware/meshdemo.shtml?KeepThis=true&TB_iframe=true&height=500&width=720

It's not that they ever hope to be cheaper than pencils, papers, OR books.. but they can offer a whole lot more to people who have few other similar alternatives.

From the olpc website at laptop.org
specifically - http://laptop.org/en/laptop/hardware/features.shtml

Design factor was a priority from the start: the laptop could not be big, heavy, fragile, ugly, dangerous, or dull. Another imperative was visual distinction. In part, the goal is to strongly appeal to XO's intended users, but the machine's distinctive appearance is also meant to discourage gray-market traffic. There is no mistaking what it is and for whom it is intended.

XO is about the size of a textbook and lighter than a lunchbox. Thanks to its flexible design and "transformer" hinge, the laptop easily assumes any of several configurations: standard laptop use, e-book reading, and gaming.

The laptop has rounded edges. The integrated handle is kid-sized, as is the sealed, rubber-membrane keyboard. The novel, dual-mode, extra-wide touchpad supports pointing, as well as drawing and writing.

XO is fully compliant with the European Union's RoHS Directive. It contains no hazardous materials. Its LiFePO4 or NiMH batteries contain no toxic heavy metals, plus it features enhanced battery management for an extended recharge-cycle lifetime. It will also tolerate alternate power-charging sources, such as car batteries. Children may also have a second battery for group charging at school while they are using their laptop in class.

Experience shows that laptop components most likely to fail are the hard drive and internal connectors. Therefore, XO has no hard drive to crash and only two internal cables. For added robustness, the machine's plastic walls are 2mm thick, as opposed to the standard 1.3mm. Its wireless antennas, which far outperform the typical laptop, double as external covers for the USB ports, which are protected internally as well. The display is also cushioned by internal "bumpers."

The estimated product lifetime is at least five years. To help ensure such durability, the machines are being subjected to factory testing to destruction, as well as field testing by children.

If you haven't touched it in 9 months, then try upgrading to Release 8.2 and enabling the automatic power management (via homeview->control panel->power).

They've made some other usability strides in past 9 months too - Firefox3 is in the G1G1 activities set, and the activities have an auto updater.

If you haven't touched it in 9 months, then try upgrading to Release 8.2 and enabling the automatic power management (via homeview->control panel->power).

They've made some other usability strides in past 9 months too - Firefox3 is in the G1G1 activities set, and the activities have an auto updater.

I spent some time poking around in laptops.org to get more info, but that didn't lead to any collaboration. Anyone know where it might be documented?

I haven't tested collaboration myself, but here's what looks like documentation. And here's a link that describes how a Jabber server is used to enable collaboration without using the mesh. I believe that by pointing to a particular server anywhere on the net, you can collaborate with anyone else on that server. Here's a blog post showing how to point sugar at a jabber server. I think you can also configure a server within the recent sugar control panel versions.

OTOH, we were impressed by how much better the OLPCs used any nearby wifi access points than any of our "grownups'" computers.

Same here. My XO always sees more APs than my standard notebook, I think it's those cute "ears" which are the antennae. I don't think it's the firmware/software.

And on the third hand, I wish we could figure out how to use the OLPC's browser's bookmarks and history.

Among the improvements since the first G1G1, OLPC now includes Firefox 3 in the G1G1 activity set for Release 8.2, and it works pretty well. I don't use the non-FF browser anymore myself for the reasons you mention.

I spent some time poking around in laptops.org to get more info, but that didn't lead to any collaboration. Anyone know where it might be documented?

I haven't tested collaboration myself, but here's what looks like documentation. And here's a link that describes how a Jabber server is used to enable collaboration without using the mesh. I believe that by pointing to a particular server anywhere on the net, you can collaborate with anyone else on that server. Here's a blog post showing how to point sugar at a jabber server. I think you can also configure a server within the recent sugar control panel versions.

OTOH, we were impressed by how much better the OLPCs used any nearby wifi access points than any of our "grownups'" computers.

Same here. My XO always sees more APs than my standard notebook, I think it's those cute "ears" which are the antennae. I don't think it's the firmware/software.

And on the third hand, I wish we could figure out how to use the OLPC's browser's bookmarks and history.

Among the improvements since the first G1G1, OLPC now includes Firefox 3 in the G1G1 activity set for Release 8.2, and it works pretty well. I don't use the non-FF browser anymore myself for the reasons you mention.

I spent some time poking around in laptops.org to get more info, but that didn't lead to any collaboration. Anyone know where it might be documented?

I haven't tested collaboration myself, but here's what looks like documentation. And here's a link that describes how a Jabber server is used to enable collaboration without using the mesh. I believe that by pointing to a particular server anywhere on the net, you can collaborate with anyone else on that server. Here's a blog post showing how to point sugar at a jabber server. I think you can also configure a server within the recent sugar control panel versions.

OTOH, we were impressed by how much better the OLPCs used any nearby wifi access points than any of our "grownups'" computers.

Same here. My XO always sees more APs than my standard notebook, I think it's those cute "ears" which are the antennae. I don't think it's the firmware/software.

And on the third hand, I wish we could figure out how to use the OLPC's browser's bookmarks and history.

Among the improvements since the first G1G1, OLPC now includes Firefox 3 in the G1G1 activity set for Release 8.2, and it works pretty well. I don't use the non-FF browser anymore myself for the reasons you mention.

According to the spec, the XOs have a 433 MHz CPU and 256 MB of RAM.

Windows XP requires, a 233 MHz CPU and 64 MB of RAM.

Minimums are one thing, but from personal experience I've seen that XP isn't worth a damn without at least a 700mhz cpu and 512 mb of RAM. Now I don't know for sure, but isn't the version of XP the MS puts on these OLPC machines somewhat stripped down to run faster on fewer resources? If not, a version of Windows 2000 would have been more appropriate.

And how long will OLPC be relevant anyway? Now you've got netbooks with 1.6 gig cpu's and 1 gig of RAM running full versions of XP, and their price point is starting to close in on the under $299 mark. If that price keeps going down, how much will an underpowered OLPC (which we all knows costs more than the $100 design target) really matter when you'll eventually be able to get full power netbooks for a little over a couple of hundred bucks pretty soon?