I have not written about the OLPC project for many months. The reason is there has been little to write about. The hardware has not changed. It is still amazing. The software has not changed (other than a number of development releases) and still is missing critical function and numerous fundamental bugs. Most of the G1G1 community has been tinkering but not too much “usable” progress has happened beyond the initial quick gains.

The reason is clear – resources. It takes a lot of developers and testers to write good software. The OLPC uses a custom version of Fedora. The “custom” part of that is the issue. There were significant design decisions made that require significant development to accomplish. The “journal” storage mechanism, the Sugar interface, the chipset power management features, and the rotating screen.

In a “for profit” environment, there would be a cost/revenue analysis. The XO hardware warrants the investment but OLPC is not a “for profit” organization so there is no “revenue” in the equation since the organization is avoiding passing the development costs along to the consumer. While this is a laudable goal, it has created shackles that have jailed progress.

Microsoft has more than a 1000 times the resources available to apply to these types of challenges. It also has the money to “spend now and reap rewards later”. This is exactly what they have done. To their credit, they appear to have done a pretty good job. They made business centric choices. They developed support for the chipset power management and the screen but did not consider the “journal” or the Sugar interface. The resulting lean Windows XP doesn’t fit on the internal 1GB solid state drive so it goes on an SD card in the one available slot.

The video is compelling. I have two XOs and if given the chance, I will run one with XP.

Note: I shouldn’t detract from the topic of this post but I can’t avoid the realization that when “XP4XO” is released, there will definitely be a flood of hacking of drivers to make it a generally usable on many different hardware.

How *do* you make a complete backup image of an SD card or a USB memory stick ? And some of you may be asking *why* would you need to do such a thing ? Let me answer the second question first. A group of people have been chatting back and forth over on the OLPC News forum about installing Xbuntu on the XO. During the proceedings, we have discovered that there are tests that will corrupt the OS. Since the tests are running from either a USB memory stick or an SD card, it is much more convenient to simply restore a backup image rather than have to start from the beginning to re create the OS. Also, as you install new applications, your “test OS” becomes more time consuming to re-create.

So, how *do* you make a backup image of a USB memory stick or SD card ? I thought the answer would be partimage but that didn’t get the boot info correct and it was overkill to boot <intentional pun >. It turns out there are only two command needed from a Linux terminal window …

Code:
#command to make backup image of SD card
#in this example case the SD card reader appears as "/dev/sdb"
sudo dd if=/dev/sdb | bzip2 >sdb-xbuntu.image.bz2

Code:
#restore backup image of SD card
#in this example case the SD card reader appears as "/dev/sdb"
sudo bunzip2 -c sdb-xbuntu.image.bz2 >/dev/sdb

In a word – “Yes”.

It turns out it only takes a mild obsession to figure out how to get IBM’s Mobility Connect client (aka Lotus Mobile Connect) to run on an OLPC XO. the steps – as best as I can remember are:

1. copy all of the IBMwc*.rpm files to a USB stick
2. insert the stick in one of the OLPC USB ports (we will call this location ‘/media/USBSTICK’)
3. open the terminal activity
4. >su

   

5. #yum install perl.i386
6. #yum stdc++.so.5
7. #cd /media/USBSTICK
8. #rpm -vi gsk7bas-7.0-3.18.i386.rpm
9. #rpm -vi IBMwc-nls-6.1-1.0.i386.rpm
10. #rpm -vi IBMwc-ppp-6.1-1.0.i386.rpm
11. #rpm -vi IBMwc-https-6.1-1.0.i386.rpm
12. #rpm -vi IBMwc-6.1-1.0.i386.rpm

When you are ready to connect to the corporate network:

1. open the terminal activity
2. >su
3. #wclient

The use of “su” may not be necessary

I should note, Domino Web Access 8 is not totally happy with the OLPC Browser. I’m not sure if it is too much JavaScript, too much behind-the-scenes XML transfers and processing or what. With DWA8 ‘lite’ I was able to read mail, compose a message (but the rich text widget had a hiccup), and save the email. the “send” button did not work. Some day, while sitting on hold I’ll have to figure this out further.

It is nearly midnight on the East coast of the Unites States and with that, the end of the Give 1 Get 1 donation program from the OLPC Foundation.

I was curious how successful the donation program had been – with my definition of “success” being the number of donation.

A laptop Magazine interview with Nicholas Negroponte gives a clue …

L: How many laptops have been donated through the G1, G1 program?

NN: It is hard to count, because some people gave many. Birmingham, Alabama ordered 15,000 for its kids, because of G1G1, but I really cannot count those 15,000. The final number will be between 150,000 and 170,000 laptops, without counting the very big ones like Birmingham.

The Birmingham progrma is very cool – as is the 150,000 + laptops going to the intended children.

Just as the space race proved fertile ground for invention and innovation, so too is the education of the world’s children.

Are you now saying “HUH ?”

You may or may not have been the recipient of a recall letter for your laptop battery. You may or may not enjoy air travel. Now the two collide …

New US DOT Hazmat Safety Rule to Place Lithium Battery Limits in Carry-on Baggage on Passenger Aircraft Effective January 1, 2008. Passengers will no longer be able to pack loose lithium batteries in checked luggage … to reduce the risk of lithium battery fires.

What does this have to do with the OLPC ? Well, the laptop designed for the OLPC Foundation needed to handle some pretty harsh environments, including operating in very hot, desert conditions – even being tested to 140 degrees while *running* !

Traditional laptop batters are not designed for high temperature environments but the OLPC XO’s battery is. The new LiFePO4 battery and more temperature tolerant that previous batter technologies. They don’t have as good a weight:energy ratio as Lithium ion cells and hopefully that will change too.

So, could you pack a dozen of these batteries in your checked baggage ? Legally “yes” but unless the NTSB airport security crews have degrees in metallurgy and chemistry, I doubt you will get away with it.