OLPC unboxing and my first thoughts

December 19, 2007

So I got my daughter’s XO laptop yesterday and played with it a bit. I was determined to make it hers so I put it back in the box and let it get wrapped for Christmas day. I’ll have more to say at that point, but until then, here are my first blush thoughts..

I began by noticing the XO logo on the box and couldn’t help but be a little excited about it. I knew what it was from the second I pulled in the driveway and saw it sitting on the porch.

I opened the box to find a very minimalist packaging design.

I kept going, unwrapping and snapping photos.

I had read about how to open it so no problems there.

I inserted the battery, plugged it in and it fired right up. Now the pictures get larger to make the point…

The interface is interesting. I recall having tried it out at some point using VMWare Virtualization but I didn’t give it a whole lot of time since it was an early Sugar release. After playing with it for a bit yesterday, I was left a bit disappointed. I am sure the software can be upgraded, and it will be interesting to see if anyone puts a different version of Linux on it, but it was darn hard to use. I’m pretty geeky, but I’m thinking about my little girl who will have a really hard time using it. Perhaps I am underestimating her, but the interface is fairly counter-intuitive in many respects. Darned if I couldn’t figure out how to make some of the applications even work.

I did manage to connect to a local open wireless network but it was distant and slow. I didn’t try with WPA or WEP at all since there was no wireless at my parents’ house where I unboxed.

I am following a few OLPC feeds (olpcnews.com, experiencing the xo) to see what folks do with it and how they make it work. I’m thinking of the need for more than a web browser, I’d love to see someone make Skype work.

I’m not giving up, it’s far too early. I’m really curious to see how Tom Hoffman’s xochat.org turns out and I’m sure I’ll be bugging him for help if he doesn’t mind.

I want to see this project succeed, but boy is this going to be an interesting road. I’ll be back with more thoughts as I dig into it. In the meantime, can you suggest anyone to follow/read/subscribe to that’s exploring this thing further?

Update: Here is the link to my olpc flickr set so you can see all the unboxing pics at a larger size.

Update 2: Now I understand this comment a bit better.

Posted in XO