Wifi Connectivity

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Overview

XO laptops were intentionally designed for children in developing nations, where it is faster and less expensive to introduce wireless connections, rather than a traditional telecom infrastructure. The XO Laptop is primarily designed to network with other XO Laptops using a mesh network, but the XO is also wifi capable.

At the moment, an XO laptop cannot be on both the Internet and on the mesh network at the same time with a default laptop configuration. This ability will hopefully be re-enabled by default in the future; until then, School Servers can server as Mesh Portals, and further details can be found on the Mesh Network Details page.

Getting Started

• you must have a Wireless Access Point (WAP) nearby
• verify the network name (SSID) and its password, if it has one
• carefully follow the Gettting Started instructions

Special Considerations

Wireless Access Point Setup

The OLPC Support Team has been gathering notes and configuration tips for various Wireless Access Point (WAP) connectivity. We are actively working to resolve minor compatibility issues with various Wireless Access points.

Some key setup considerations for your Wireless Access Point are:

• A single channel should be selected, not "Automatic"
• Preferred Channels are 1, 6, and 11
• The wireless network mode should be "Mixed" or "Wireless-G", not "Disabled" or "Other"
• If Wireless MAC Filtering is enabled, the MAC address for the XO must be entered
• The latest Firmware should loaded on your access point

Channel

With 802.11b or 802.11g, use channel 1, 6 or 11 in the US or Canada. Use of any other channels will degrade your own wireless signal and that of others.

Similarly, the mesh networking between XO laptops is restricted to work only on channels 1, 6 or 11.

Security

WPA Security

WPA security was not initially supported on XO laptops. If you are a knowledgeable Linux user, you can find instructions here to access the Internet with WPA security, by manually setting up WPA. It may be best for less experienced users to wait for the next stable XO software release, which should be available by the end of Janurary 2008. If you absolutely need WPA now, you can get it by performing an Upgrade to version 653, but in the process you may lose all data on your laptop.

XO Setup

network.cfg

If you want to remove any "memory" of connecting to a particular access point, launch the Terminal activity to delete the network manager config file by typing:

rm /home/olpc/.sugar/default/nm/networks.cfg    (press "Enter")

Restart your XO laptop, or restart Sugar by pressing the Ctrl+Alt+Erase keys at the same time; your laptop will NOT automatically try to connect to the "known" access point.

If you change the configuration of your Access Point (such as adding or removing security features), then you will need to remove this file in order to get your XO to connect to the Access Point.