Change your OS

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Changing the XO's Operating System

There are myriad ways to change, upgrade, downgrade, or replace your XO's operating system, many of which are discussed in greater detail on the OLPC wiki at pages like:

  1. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Olpc-update
  2. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Clean-install_procedure
  3. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Yum
  4. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XFCE
  5. and others.

This manual will discuss only the two most basic mechanisms: "olpc-update over the internet" and the "clean-install procedure". Choosing your update method

In order to choose between the olpc-update mechanism and the clean-install procedure, you must first decide whether you wish to preserve your documents and the accumulated history of your use of your XO.

If you with to PRESERVE this history, you should consider olpc-update; otherwise, you should clean-install.

If your XO's record of history is irrelevant to you, then you might choose based on update duration or internet access:

   * if you have a restricted internet connection, clean-installing may be easier.
   * if you have a slow or moderate internet connection, olpc-update may be faster. 

Choosing your new Software Release

Regardless of which update mechanism you choose, you will need to select a software release which you wish to install. We will refer to your chosen release as the "target" release.

In order to help you select the target release which is right for you, OLPC publishes Release Notes at http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Release_notes. These release notes will explain what has changed from previous releases and will describe any important issues (bugs) which apply to the given release along with any known work-arounds.

   * This manual was created for the 8.2.0 major release. OLPC publishes links to its latest stable release on many pages including on the its releases page: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Releases

olpc-update over the Internet

olpc-update is a program which can update your XO's operating system without touching your personal data. It is currently run from the Terminal Activity.

(Beginner Note: If you are upgrading because you have a version of Sugar that does not support Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) but that is your home Internet connection, you could use a public wireless access point to connect to the Internet for an online upgrade, such as at a coffee shop's hotspot or a local libary.)

(Advanced Note: olpc-update is used by many OLPC developers to sample the fruit of OLPC's active development process. See http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Friends_in_testing for details.)