Activate your XO

First, install/upgrade the build

The first thing you should do is make sure your XO is running an appropriate build.

For instance, to upgrade to build 656 on an unactivated machine, download:

http://download.laptop.org/xo-1/os/official/656/jffs2/fs.zip

and

http://download.laptop.org/xo-1/os/official/656/jffs2/os656.img

and put the two files 'fs.zip' and 'os656.img' in the root directory of the key. Insert the key. Hold down all four gamepad buttons (X, O, square, and check) and power on. If you don't see the breakout game, then you might not be holding down all four buttons. Later firmware does a better job of providing feedback here, you might have had old firmware before the upgrade.

This should give you a clean install of 656 on an unactivated machine.

Better still is to use an appropriate Customization key for your country. Insert the key and power on with the four gamepad keys held down; this will reflash as before and then install appropriate content and activities for your country.

Now, activate the machine

When your upgraded but unactivated machine boots it will go to the activation screen and try to find an activation lease from a school server or USB key, and not find one. The

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Activation_and_Developer_Keys#Collecting_Serial_Numbers_and_UUID.27s_for_one_or_many_XOs

page describes how to use an activation/developer key to collect the serial number and UUID from the laptop and put it in a laptops.dat file. If you've got an account on the activation server, you can then upload that laptops.dat file to

   https://activation.laptop.org/request/create/

to generate a lease.sig file. Put the lease.sig file in the root directory of a USB key and boot with it inserted, and it will activate (and copy the activation lease to the NAND).

Alternatively, you can activate from a school server, but the server-side part of this is not in school server builds yet.