On Friday Daniel Drake announced the release of OLPC's latest software version 11.2.0 which is a significant step forward for all owners of an XO-1, XO-1.5 or XO-1.5HS.
New: Walter Bender's Abacus activity
There are many new features to look forward to with the most important one being the upgrade from the previously used Sugar 0.84 to Sugar 0.92. Additionally the base operating system has been upgraded from Fedora 11 to Fedora 14, a handful of new activities are now included per default as are significant updates to other ones, and a new video driver provides significant performance improvements on the XO-1.5 / XO-1.5HS.
I haven't had a chance to use the latest version released on Friday but I played around with earlier development releases in the past few months and was consistently impressed with the improvements.
Now if you're eager to install this new version on your XO then make sure to carefully read the installation or update instructions.
If you're using an XO-1 and currently running the 10.1.3 version of the operating system then please also take note of the following information listed in the known problems section of the release notes:
Unfortunately, the base filesystem has grown in this release to the point where it is not possible to upgrade from a freshly-installed 10.1.3 OS to 11.2.0. This is due to temporary disk space requirements during the upgrade process. The update preparation steps are therefore essential, so that enough disk space is available.
On the hardware side of things Martin Langhoff revealed earlier this week that OLPC is making XO-1.75 B1 prototypes available to developers:
Photo of the earlier A2 prototype
Are you programming on XO hardware today? Working on Sugar core or activities? Porting Fedora or other distros to ARM?
As I write this, XO-1.75 B1 prototypes are being assembled 20 meters away from me. These are engineering samples -- some will go to drop tests and mechanical and electrical torture tests. Luckier units will go to the hands of passionate developers interested in helping us with XO-1.75.
To request one, please follow the instructions at http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Contributors_program#FAQ
Congratulations and thanks to OLPC, Sugar Labs, and everyone else involved for their continued efforts to make current and future XOs with Sugar an even more powerful learning platform.
