Cheat codes
A number of special actions are available by holding down game key combinations at the same time as powering on the XO laptop. Other keyboard shortcuts are available after boot.
XO-1.75 and XO-4
In addition to the other keys, the rotate key prevents normal boot. It is used for repair and servicing with a Serial_adapter.
XO-1.5 Firmware (q3a59 or later)
In addition to the other keys (see next section):
| key | what it does |
|---|---|
| rocker down | on dual boot laptops, provides operating system choice menu. |
XO-1 and XO-1.5 Firmware (q2d04 and later)
| key | what it does |
|---|---|
| '×' game pad | force secure boot when in non-secure mode. |
| '✓' (check) game pad | force a more detailed display while booting; see Startup Diagnosis. |
| 'O' game pad | alternate between boot images. Laptops are shipped without an alternate image; they won't have an alternate image until after first olpc-update is done. The alternate image will then be the previous image that you were running. |
| '◻' (square) game pad | not used directly by the firmware, but is remembered and may be handled by an external autoupdater script to wipe out user directory and do a factory-fresh install. (appropriate for upgrading machines straight from the factory). On q2e37 & later: pressing '◻' skips booting from Windows on SD and boots Sugar from the NAND. |
| all four game keys at once | destroy all data and install to the internal storage from either USB, SD, or network. Requires a signed fs.zip file and an image file; see Secure Upgrade. |
| rocker left | hardware diagnostics. You can pause between individual tests by holding down the "rotate" button - the one below the rocker pad. |
| rocker right | try it and see! (hint: it is harmless and pretty). |
| rocker up | XO-1 only, shows a graphical table of full, free, and defective blocks in internal flash. See Scan NAND. |
| all four rocker keys at once | starts a Pong game! |
The "Rocker" is the large round button to the left of the screen, which can be rocked or tilted in any of four directions (up, down, left, or right).
If your laptop has a Developer Key or has security disabled, the Open Firmware 'ok' prompt will be available as your laptop powers on. See Ok for how to get this to work.
For prototype laptops used by software developers before December 2007, see /Obsolete.