[ale] OLPC.. Wow.

[Charles Shapiro]

To get this discussion back on-topic, it looks like the GOGO XOs were
shipped with firmware security enabled. This means that they're pretty
closed-up; you can boot them and run the shipped software, but you can only
update the kernel to versions crypto-signed by the OLPC folks. It's not
immediately clear to me whether you can run un-signed binary applications on
it in this condition.

To disable the security, you need a "developer key". Developer keys are
"shall issue" from OLPC; there's a wiki page (
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Developer_Key )  which details the process. Looks
like this'd be a _real_ good idea for anyone who has shelled out money for
this thing and worries about having it turn into a brick.  Plus, once it's
developer-keyed, you can apparently get to a khoul little mini-FORTH
interpreter inside the thing. Is that neat or what?

Also I'm still wondering about changing the mouse buttons. I hope that maybe
it has xmodmap(1) in it? Looks like that's the best way. I'm surprised
nobody's kvetched about this. Seems like so far it's "One Laptop per
RIGHT-HANDED Child".  I wonder if developing a slightly more detailed GUI
window manager manager would be khoul. Looks like nobody's doin' that
either. Hmm. Lots of opportunities here.

-- CHS


On 1/3/08, Robert Reese <ale at sixit.com> wrote:
>
> *********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********
> On 1/3/2008 at 10:05 AM Charles Shapiro wrote:
>
> > I'm too paranoid to run wifi in my house.
>
> Why don't you just sandwich an access point between two firewalls and also
> set up the security for wifi (hidden yet bizarre SSID, mac filtering, WPA,
> etc.)?  Anyone that can get through all that plus the firewalls probably
> also has the tech to sniff the network connection outside your home
> anyway.  ;c)
>
> Cheers,
> Robert~
>
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