{"id":223,"date":"2009-01-15T22:03:48","date_gmt":"2009-01-16T03:03:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/technologists.com\/notes\/?p=223"},"modified":"2009-01-15T22:03:48","modified_gmt":"2009-01-16T03:03:48","slug":"xo-musing-820","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/notes.technologists.com\/notes\/2009\/01\/15\/xo-musing-820\/","title":{"rendered":"XO musing (8.)2.0"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve not used my XO\u00a0nearly as much as I anticipated<\/a>:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The keyboard is\u00a0even more\u00a0a “fatal flaw” than I thought at first.<\/li>\n
  2. The LCD panel failed (right side went blank) just before I was going to take it to Nicaragua. (A free under warranty replacement machine was shipped promptly, but not promptly enough.)<\/li>\n
  3. Miscellaneous software annoyances, most notably the WiFi limitations and the power management deficiencies, also limited applicability.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Obviously, the keyboard is not going to get better, the LCD failure is history, but there is good news about #3.<\/p>\n

    <\/p>\n

    My opinion last year, “it definitely feels to me like a ‘version 1.0’ product that was pushed out the door too soon.”, still seems apropos<\/em>. OLPC referred<\/a> to that version as “release 7.1.0, also known as ‘Ship.2′”.<\/p>\n

    Now, there are two much more encouraging options:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Release 8.2<\/a>,\u00a0which came out in October, and which I installed on my XO a few days ago, feels like a real product, what I would have liked to have seen originally.<\/li>\n
    2. Fedora 10 is available<\/a> on an SD card as a boot time alternative to the standard OPLC Fedora derivative with “Sugar”. I’ve ordered a copy and expect to try it out in a few days.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      (I’m not counting the most publicized<\/a> option, Windows XP. Based on the specs and experience with release 7.1, I can’t imagine this hardware being sufficient for seriously using XP.)<\/p>\n

      Some of the improvements I’ve noticed in 8.2:<\/p>\n