Booting Ubuntu on the XO

Behold: Ubuntu Linux on the XO laptop!

Since I already had an 8GB SD disk for my XO, I had the storage capacity to handle the new distro. I did need to apply for a developer key, which is needed to unlock the openfirmware "BIOS" system build into the XO. For reasons that aren't clear, it took 24 hours to generate the key.

While I appreciate the accomplishment of the default Sugar interface (I've got the latest 707 build running), I find that it gets in my way more than not. And it seems a little too pokey.

Ubuntu has a build just for the XO that uses the lightweight XFCE shell and comes with Firefox. Aside from that, there's not much in the way of apps for this system. For instance, no Flash support for Firefox. Also, I'm sad that I lost the camera functionality. And pygame isn't installed. All of these things are correctable, of course. The XO makes a pretty servicable netbook.