OLPC is close to XO release.

[IDMclean]

I realize, of course, that I have been away from hypography for quiet sometime. I apologize for my lack of activity but I have been dealing with one crisis after another as well as trying to stay on course and execute my life plan.

 

I wanted to announce that One Laptop per Child is getting rather close to ship out of the XO. If you want to know more about the project I would encourage you to take a look at this article: Laptop With a Mission Widens Its Audience

 

Personally, I am going to ask my grandpa to get me one through the Give 1 Get 1 program. They look cool and I love the specs. Aloha! XD

 

Other Resources:

Wikipedia Article: One Laptop per Child

[freeztar]

That's very cool, I was unaware of this project.

This is the type of thing that restores my faith in humanity. :doh:

[alexander]

the project has been worked on for a few years now, i have been following it because its just an amazing thing, they have worked real long and real hard on the software side of it as well, those laptops are like 100% open source, i think even most of the hardware either is open source or has companies behind them that support open-source. You know those will come with a gazillion different charger options, right? check out the specs on the wiki page, and check out the videos of presentations of those things on youtube, they are pretty damn cool and rigid machines

[IDMclean]

They extended the Give 1 Get 1 through to December 31st. I thought it was rather humorous to see some people camping outside of Best Buy because it had ten of the XOs for "sell". I updated the link above.

[Tormod]

I agree, this is a very nice project.

[IDMclean]

Hello everyone,

it has been an absurdly long time since I posted here once again; however, I am back and perhaps this time with re-enforcements. :)

 

I received my XO-1 (the cute green and white brain child of One Laptop Per Child) this past March. I am extremely happy with the little bugger though frustrated out of my mind with it's homebrew GUI. I find that despite my frustration with the software my reactions to the laptop are cushioned by the fact that its cute and pleasing to look at.

 

The hardware on it is rock sold. So rock sold in fact that I can drop it from a story or two up and it would survive. Not that I want to test this fact. The wireless is really cool, and I love some of the activities that come with it. Though I would like to see open office XO at some point in the future. I've been fiddling around with python using pippy, but I have yet to make something functional. The browser is functional using the Firefox engine, but it lacks tabbed windows.

 

I want to install a second (or third) alternative operating system on it using an SD card, but all of the Desktop OSes have yet to be ported to the XO. Those that have been made to function on the XO like Ubuntu seem to have a number of problems, and the builds that would seem best fit for the XO like Puppy or Damn Small Linux mysteriously fail to work/boot.

 

Booting on my laptop excites me. Seriously. The Firmware is written in Forth. The firmware itself is open source just like the software. I figure I could get my XO to boot off of a Game Boy Advanced or DS if I tried hard enough (and I just might).

 

I've been fantasizing about modding my little XO with a OLED Touch Surface to replace the Keyboard and Touchpad. I think it would be sweet, and I'm fairly sure its possible. The case is held together by five strategically placed screws. There are a number of XO enthusiast out there who have already gone about replacing the standard keyboard.

 

All in all, I am very happy with the potential of the laptop that is allowed by the slim and trim hardware profile, but somewhat disappointed and frustrated with the custom GUI. Also, a GPU would be nice.

 

-Ian