NOTE: Because the following item contains software which requires the reading and acceptance of License agreements prior to using it, you will be required to accept the licenses before we ship it to you. This "License acceptance before acquisition" model allows the inclusion of software we would be unable to include otherwise. All license are also included in a "License" directory on the SD card when you receive it so that they may be viewed at any time.

Xtra Ordinary Options - Xtra ordinary 2010 - Xtra Ordinary 2009 - Xtra Ordinary 2010 Upgrade from 2009 Helpful Information - Xtra Ordinary Homepage - Xtra Ordinary 2010 Screenshots

 

The Extraordinary full featured Operating System for the One Laptop Per Child XO Laptop Computer. Xtra ordinary 2010 for the OLPC XO-1 laptop is designed to help make the XO more fun and useful for adults who may not find the child focused graphical interface called Sugar practical. Xtra Ordinary allows your XO to behave in a more familiar way. Using the Xtra Ordinary Operating System should be quite easy for anyone who has ever used Microsoft Windows, MAC OS, or any Linux/BSD/Solaris operating system with KDE, Gnome, LXDE, Xfce, or other menu driven window manager....thus making it extremely "Ordinary", while being extraordinary full featured at the same time. The Xtra Ordinary Operating System comes pre-installed on an SD Card which fits into the card slot on the bottom side of the display monitor. Just insert the SD card and turn on the XO Laptop (after unlocking with a developer key). Just turn on the XO laptop with the SD card removed to use it's normal system.

Xtra ordinary 2010 contains the following features:

• Startup time (aka boot time) is about 1 minute.
• No login required, it boots directly to the desktop as shown above.
• New Browser - The Google Chrome Browser, which supports both Flash and Java. The Chrome Browser does give an immediate speed boost to general web browsing. Updates will be available via Google using the google.com debian repository. Please note, Flash and Java are extra difficult on the performance limited XO-1 Laptop. The "youTagger extension has been installed into the Google Chrome Browser which replaces all flash players on YouTube with HTML5 video tags, and allows for much better playback of youtube videos.
• New Sexier Desktop - The previous LXDE based desktop is being replaced by Enlightenment 17, which is still very light weight, yet adds that extra touch of a great looking desktop with a little "eye-candy". Of course it has been configured into the standard layout with the menu, taksbar, power manager, network manager and system tray in their usual spots.
• Single user environment where passwords are not required. This is done using a paswordless super user option for various system tools, as well as maintaining normal file system permissions, to maintain a level of system security. This behavior can be changed by editing the /etc/sudoers file. Although passwords are not necessary, if you change the sudoers file, or wish to use the login manager,  you will need to use them, and will also want to change them. The initial root and olpc user passwords are both changeme, for obvious reasons.
• Multi User Ready - Xtra Ordinary still boots directly to the desktop, but has a lightened up Gnome Display Manager that can be used , as well as perhaps the biggest surprise, a very light weight (as light as I could get it) version of Gnome.
• Gnome-Lite - For those who love Gnome, a light weight version has been created by replacing the normal Gnome window manager and resource hungry Nautilus file manager/desktop manager with much lighter alternatives. this allows for a very usable full Gnome desktop.
• Volume Buttons - Because of the new E7 desktop, the Gnome Settings Manager can be initialized at startup without interfering with the session manager, thus allowing the Volume keys on the XO keyboard to be used to adjust the volume.
• License Before Acquisition - Just like our extremely popular POSTed editions (Post Install Editions: http://on-disk.com/index.php/cPath/28_329), people will need to accept any and all license agreements for software which require end-user acceptance in advance.  This will allow us to include software that otherwise could not be legally included, or where the legality of inclusion may otherwise be in question, such as with the Google-Chrome browser.
• Ability to add and remove virtually thousands of software packages using the included package manger (synaptic). Adding additional software is not like purchasing apps for an iPhone, there is no cost for the additional available software.
• The TrueCrypt application allows creating encrypted file storage.
• Ability to use the following screen resolutions: 1200x900, 1024x768 (default), 800x600, 640x480, 640x400, 640x384, 512x384, 400x300, and 320x240.
• Wireless network connection manager. Just click the icon on the task bar and select what wireless network you want to connect to. Tested to work with open connections including hot-spots, WPA, WPA2 (with pre-authentication and without it), WEP using 64 and 128 bit hex keys.
• Communicating: MSN Messenger client (aMSN) is included to help make communicationg with Windows and MAC based computers easier. The Ekiga softphone can be used with the on-board speakers, microphone, and webcam, however headphones are highly recommended, and using the webcam can interfere with the ability t use audio communications (because of limited memory and CPU speed) . An all-in-one instant Messenger (Pidgin) is also included which allows chatting through nearly all popular instant messenger services..
• Battery Monitor. Tested with a battery life of 3 hours 15 minutes at normal screen brightness (1/2 as high as it can go). Due to variations from one battery to the next it's safe to say that most XOs running Xtra Ordinary OS should get anywhere from two to three hours of continuous use before needing to recharge.
• Support for Bluetooth. A Linux compatible USB bluetooth adapter is required.
• Display brightness is adjustable using the XO keyboard keys.
• Other Software: Thunderbird (icedove) email client, OpenOffice.org full office suite (version 3.1.1), Calibre E-book manager and viewer which allows syncing with E-book devices and is compatable to with a wide variety of formats. Cheese (webcam), PDF Viewer, Gtkam (for connecting digital cameras), GIMP graphics editor, Exaile music player, Pontamus (simple and fast music/mp3 player), Movie Player, AbiWord (fast word processor), Iceowl Calendar (also integrated into the email client), Gramps a family tree/genealogical research program which has the ability to import GEDCOM files and can produce reports in various formats such as AbiWord and OpenOffice.org formats as well as HTML and PDF, and others.

Xtra Ordinary is a complete install on an SD card. It is not a "Live" version thus far less memory is required to run the system. this leaves more resources for running applications. A swap file is also used which has helped prevent the system from locking up when memory is exhusted.

The Xtra Ordinary Operating System is available on a variety of sizes of Secure Digital (SD) cards. We use only the fastest category (class 6 SDHC) cards.  The smallest we offer is a 4GB, which still has around 1.5GB of free space remaining.

 

Shipping Information:
Flash Drives,  SD Cards, and CF Cards are ordered from distribution weekly, and normally ship from On-Disk.com in 1-7 days.

The Xtra Ordinary Operating System is designed as a optional add-on for the One laptop Per Child XO laptop computer. It comes pre-installed on an SD Card which fits into the card slot on the bottom side of the display monitor. Just insert the SD card and turn on the XO Laptop (after unlocking with a developer key). See REQUIREMENTS for details.

Xtra Ordinary 2010 is built on top of updated Debian GNU/Linux 5.0.4. , with some elements taken from the "testing" branch, the LXDE project, with information and some software provided by the OLPC wiki (most notably the initial base system from which we started, the kernel and basic passwordless concept).

As shipped, only the Debian lenny (stable) contrib, non-free, main, security updates, Debian stable multimedia repository, Debian Enlightenment 17 (E17) stable repository, and Google repository are all active and immediately available via the included Synaptic Package Manager, and the Update Manager.

Sources:

All software sources for both installed and installable software are available via their respective Debian repositories, or via the direct links below:

• Multimedia: http://debian-multimedia.org/dists/stable/main/
• Debian Repository: http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/
• Google Chrome browser: http://code.google.com/p/chromium/wiki/LinuxPackaging
• Enlightenment: http://packages.enlightenment.org/debian/
• openoffice 3.1.1: ftp://mirrors.ibiblio.org/pub/mirrors/openoffice/stable/3.1.1/
• TrueCrypt: http://www.truecrypt.org/downloads2

REQUIRED: An unlocked XO Laptop from the One Laptop Per Child project with build 802 or later.  To unlock see: after unlocking with a developer key.

You can upgrade your firmware and  the XO operating system to OS version version 8.2.1 using this flash drive, or by following this information on upgrading to a newer build: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Upgrading_firmware, or by creating your own upgrade USB drive by following the directions below.

Everyone should take a quick peek at your firmware version to make sure it's version Q2E41. There are some who are reporting that although they have the 802 OS version, after double checking found that they were still running on older firmware.

You can check your firmware version by holding down the 4 game keys when turning the unit on. After releasing them it should stop at a prompt and display the firmware version.

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Making your own USB Flash Drive for upgrading your XO:

If you need to update the XO and want to make your own flash drive you can use this procedure to update like we do here. The webpage with the info is at:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Release_notes/8.2.1

If your XO is not connected to the internet

You can use another computer that is connected to the internet (a desktop at home, a computer lab, etc.) plus a USB storage device (such as a compatible USB flash drive) to upgrade your XO. The way it works is on your non-XO computer you download two files containing the upgrade data, saving them to the USB flash drive; then you insert the USB flash drive into your XO and trigger its upgrade process. Note that this process will COMPLETELY erase ALL files on your XO! Make sure you have backed up any files you want to save!

Plug an empty formatted USB flash drive into the computer that is connected to the internet. Then, right-click (Ctrl-click for Mac) on each of the two URLs below and choose "Save Target As" ("Save Link As" for Firefox). Save both files to the USB flash drive. Do not open the files.

• http://download.laptop.org/xo-1/custom/g1g1/gg-802-1/fs.zip (This file contains only instructions for the firmware to update with the following file.)
• http://download.laptop.org/xo-1/custom/g1g1/gg-802-1/gg-802-1.img (This file contains the Sugar platform with the G1G1 2008 set of Activities.)

The first file is about 297 KB, and the second file is quite large (about 450 MB), so they might take a while [15 - 20 min with a fast broadband and several hours with a slow connection] to download. When the download is complete, Eject/Remove the USB flash drive, and unplug it. After you have finished this step, there should be two files on the USB flash drive, the fs.zip file, and the .img file. The MD5 checksum for fs.zip is 6f01ffd64cc17690ce51e1caf605571f and the MD5 checksum for gg-802-1.img is 33f096d4653c41k9e85b61586af09476

Now, follow the steps below to complete your installation:

1. Turn off your XO and connect your USB flash drive to it.
2. Make sure your XO is plugged in.
3. Hold down all four gamepad keys (on the right side of the screen, above the power button). While still holding the four gamepad keys, push the power button to turn the XO on. Keep holding down the four gamepad keys until the message "Release the game key to continue" appears on the screen.
4. Release the gamepad keys. If you see a grid of colored boxes on your screen, congratulations! Your XO is reflashing. It will take about 10 minutes and your XO will automatically reboot when it is done. Your XO may reboot twice, playing the little XO tune.
5. After your XO reboots, the last step is to update to the newest versions of Activities. When the XO boots you will see a bar toward the top of the screen that says "Software Update" and the options being "Cancel", "Later" and "Check now". Before you choose "Check now" to update the activities, you must reconnect your XO to the internet. You may see the sign-in box appear in home view. If it does, and it lists your router, you can do it from there. If it doesn't appear or offers the wrong connection, go to the Neighborhood view and connect from there. Then go back to Home view and then click "Check now" (it's ok to leave the home view because when you go back the options should still be there). First the XO will check for any updates and then it asks if you'd like to install them. Click "Install selected" to install the newest versions of your activities.

Congratulations, you've upgraded! Now, you should be ready to go. Have fun!

(If you chose "Later" on the software update, go to the Sugar Control Panel and select the "Software update" when you are ready to install the updates)

First, see the Technical Support Page

Debian User Forum:http://forums.debian.net/
LinuxQuestions.org:http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/
Debian Help:http://www.debianhelp.org/
LinuxForums.org:http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/debian-linux-help/

 

The Xtra Ordinary Operating System uses LXDE (Lightweight Linux Desktop Environment), LXDE help can be found at:

LXDE Help Forum:  http://forum.lxde.org/
LXDE Online Chat (browser based IRC client):http://www.lxde.org/irc

You will need to read ALL the license agreements and the End User Agreement on this page.  Your order will not be processed unless you affirm your acceptance of these license agreements below.

 

(1) Adobe Flash Player 10
The Adobe Flash Player 10 License Is available here (open in any PDF reader)

(2) Sun Java 6 Runtime
Sun Java Runtime License Agreement (text file will open in new window/tab)

(3.) Google Chrome browser End User License Agreement
Goggle Chrome EULA terms and conditions (html file will open in new window/tab)

(4.) Truecrypt license agrement
Truecrypt license agreement (text file will open in new window/tab)

(5.) ) End User Agreement:
By agreeing to the above Licenses, and purchase of this software you acknowledge the fact that you understand that ownership of the delivered software may not be transferred, nor the included software installed on computers not belonging to you unless the recipient reads and agrees to abide by this End User Agreement and all License Agreements listed above, which are also contained in the "License" directory on the delivered media.

You understand All Software and technical data delivered under this Agreement are subject to US export control laws and may be subject to export or import regulations in other countries. You acknowledge that you have the responsibility to obtain such licenses to export, re-export, or import as may be required after delivery to you.

Extras:
Xtra Ordinary 2010 contains support for MP3 playback and other non-free audio and video decoding to support  various commonly used audio and video formats.