How to get a usable OLPC XO-1 Linux system in 2024

This guide (updated 2024) will guide you through the steps of installing OLPC OS build 883 (v11.3.0) with Gnome desktop and making modifications necessary to add full support for MP3 playback and other functionalities that Fedora did not add with shipping versions. This document will guide you how to flash the OLPC OS-1 build 883, which seems to be the best version available for the OLPC XO-1. Other versions are probably fine, but I found this version doesn't lag too much, and still has support for modern features.

• First, flash the internal NAND with OLPC OS Build 883 (see 11.3.0 release notes, section for XO-1: https://wiki.laptop.org/go/Release_notes/11.3.0#XO-1 for instructions how to flash)
• Once flashing is complete, boot the laptop into OLPC OS.
• Go to OLPC settings (right-click on the OLPC logo in app view). Switch to Gnome and reboot.

Once rebooted, you should be booting into the Gnome OS.

• Connect to your Wi-Fi network (click on the top-right corner with the wifi-logo).
• Open Terminal, change directory to /etc/yum.repos.d/
• All fedora*.repo files must be edited to replace “https:” with “http:” since the stored SSL keys are no longer valid.

$ su
$ cd /etc/yum.repos.d/
$ nano fedora.repo
$ nano fedora-updates.repo
$ nano fedora-updates-testing.repo

By default, the OLPC installation has no bash settings. You can easily copy them from the OLPC account, which uses the global settings:

$ cp /home/olpc/.bashrc /root

If your OLPC has an empty clock battery, you may want to enable network time service. These steps help you configure and enable automatic updates every 10 minutes.

$ yum install ntpdate

Optional: If you prefer to use a different text editor than vi, such as nano, type:

$ echo "export EDITOR=nano" >> /etc/bashrc

This will add a variable that tells which text editor to use by default.

Edit crontab and add ntpdate to be run every 10 minutes.

$ crontab -e

Add the following line in the crontab file:

*/10 * * * * ntpdate pool.ntp.org
<<<EMPTY LINE>>>

Note! The file must contain an empty line feed at the end or the crontab will not properly save.

If you know your current time zone identifier, edit /etc/sysconfig/clock and change the ZONE variable from GMT to your time zone. If you don't know it, run tzselect, then edit the clock file. Once this is done, run tzdata-update.

$ tzselect
$ nano /etc/sysconfig/clock
$ tzdata-update

In my case, I had to change the default from ZONE=“GMT” to ZONE=“America/Chicago”.

• Open terminal, go to /etc/yum.repos.d/
• Create new file “rpmfusion.repo”

$ cd /etc/yum.repos.d
$ nano rpmfusion.repo

• Add the following contents to the file:

[rpmfusion]
name=RPM Fusion $releasever - $basearch
failovermethod=priority
mirrorlist=http://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/mirrorlist?repo=free-fedora-$releasever&arch=$basearch
enabled=1
metadata_expire=7d
gpgcheck=0

If you want to install a RPM package manually, you can also go to https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/mm/publiclist/ , and once you have selected your OS version and architecture, scroll down to bottom to click on either http or rsync methods. You can the download whatever RPM package you need, and use the rpm -i utility to install the RPM package.

Now that you have RPM Fusion enabled, to install X Multimedia System (xmms) and MP3 support, run the following:

$ yum install xmms xmms-mp3

This will install xmms music player from official Fedora repositories and then install MP3 input support from the RPM Fusion repository. The MP3 input plugin will be placed in /usr/lib/xmms/input.