Here is a link that explains how to set up Ubuntu on the XO.
(via OLPC News)
Addendum: 18/2/9
I installed it and it worked flawlessly. Here are my notes on the installation:
000. Remove the SD card and start the XO. 001. Start Terminal in Sugar. 002. Connect the USB drive 003. Run mount | grep /dev/sd , repeat until it returns a line like this: > /dev/sda1 on /media/ORNGESLIDE2 type vfat rw 004. Become root and stop haldaemon: sudo -s /etc/init.d/haldaemon stop 005. Insert SD card into the slot (the card will be erased, so back up all data on it that you want to preserve). 006. Erase MBR and partition table: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=4096 count=1 007. Make the partition table: echo -e ',,L,*\n\n\n' | sfdisk /dev/mmcblk0 008. Create the root filesystem: mke2fs -jLOLPCRoot /dev/mmcblk0p1 009. Mount the filesystem and unpack the tarball onto it: mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /mnt cd /mnt tar xvjf /media/ORNGESLIDE2/OLPCFiles-intrepid-20081130.tar.bz2 010. Copy the developer key: tar xvf /media/ORNGESLIDE2/security.tar.gz 011. Reboot: reboot 012. Got the "Card didn't power up after 1 second" error: http://www.olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=4053.msg28224#msg28224 http://www.olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=4053.msg28084#msg28084 > I waited at the ok prompt and typed boot and it worked. > Recommended advice is if that works, to upgrade the firmware. > I will hold off for now. 013. After booting into a new system, log in as user olpc with password olpcolpc, and perform final updates: 014. Click on the Network Manager icon at the bottom panel, select the wireless network you want to use. If wireless network uses encryption, you will be prompted for the key/password. If it's a public access point that requires browser login (like T-Mobile hotspot), start Firefox and log in. Start Terminal and complete the configuration: passwd (enter olpcolpc as the current password, then twice the password you intend to use) sudo aptitude update sudo aptitude safe-upgrade sudo aptitude reinstall ssl-cert sudo aptitude clean sudo /etc/init.d/cups start 015. Configure mplayer mkdir .mplayer echo -e 'vo=sdl\nframedrop=1\nlavdopts=skiploopfilter=all:fast=1' > .mplayer/config exit 016. Install flash plugin sudo aptitude install flashplugin-nonfree sudo ln -s /etc/alternatives/firefox-flashplugin /usr/lib/firefox-addons/plugins/flashplugin-alternative.so 017. In Firefox, installed the plugins: flashblock adblock plus 018. Set the timezone: sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata 019. Boot failed, instead it went into Sugar. Ran e2fsck -y /dev/mmcblk0p1 This fixed a bunch of errors. I killed e2fsck the first time, apparently with no ill effects. Rebooted, held the 'square' joystick button, hit escape 'x' on the keyboard to get the boot prompt 'ok'. Typed: boot sd:\boot\olpc.fth System worked, got keyring question Used the old default pw Reset doing: rm .gnome2/keyrings/login.keyring Logged out and in 020. Set up some swap space sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/swap.bin bs=1M count=256 sudo chmod 600 /swap.bin sudo mkswap /swap.bin In /etc/fstab add: /swap.bin none swap defaults 0 0 In /etc/sysctl.confg add: # Swap as little as possible vm.swappiness=0
Thanks for the instructions – they worked like charm, except number 16: the flash player plugin did not get installed due to some sha256sum mismatch. (Perhaps macromedia changed its package and the ubuntu wrapper for that has not been updated to reflect the change.)
Zwi:
Good to hear! Those instructions are just my summarization of someone else’s, because I wanted to be sure I had a detailed notes. One thing I found is that on most of the apps I got triangle shaped artifacts all in the UI. Did you encounter this too?
I have not had a chance to play with many applications yet, but I see no issues with firefox, synaptic, terminal, thunar, mplayer, epdfviewer. The UI looks rather amazing actually – my only complaint could be related to the tiny mouse cursor on the small hi-res screen. đŸ™‚
Just to add one more thing: In instruction #20, the file to be modified is /etc/sysctl.conf of course, not sysctl.confg.
PS: I have also installed sugar and ran it in the sugar-emulator. I am amazed to see it running at a speed comparable to native sugar.
Zwi:
So Sugar on top of Ubuntu runs as fast as native Sugar?!