MIT's $100 laptop to run Redhat

www.tectonic.co.za ^ | November 25 2005 | Staff Writer

[N3WBI3]

The $100 laptop designed by the Massachusetts Institute for Technology (MIT) and the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) association, previewed at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) conference in Tunisia last week, will be using a Redhat Linux variant as its operating system.

The lime-green laptop, which uses a 500Mhz AMD processor and has 1GB Flash RAM instead of a hard drive, will only use open source software, despite an offer from Apple for it to use Apple's OS-X operating system for free.

The laptop is still in development, and it is estimated that the screen alone (currently an eight-inch dual colour/black and white SVGA) needs three months more development. The software, as it currently stands, includes Redhat Linux, a web browser, a word processor, and email application and a programming system (the details of which are still to be announced).

According to MIT, the target price of $100 (or R653.66 at current conversion rates) should come down after the initial launch. Integrated prototypes of the Gen-1 laptop are expected in the third quarter of 2006, and manufacturing should start in the fourth quarter, with 10 to 15 million laptops expected to be shipped by the first quarter of 2007.

Recipients of the laptops will most likely include Brazil, Thailand, Egypt, the State of Massachusetts in the US, Cambodia, Costa Rica and hosts of the last WSIS forum, Tunisia. South Africa was initially included in the list as a recipient of 1 million laptops, but Fantus Mobu from Sita's procurement department told INET Bridge that SA had no commitment to purchase the laptops. This is despite the fact that one of the MIT professors leading the project – professor of education and media technology, emeritus for MIT's Media Laboratory, Seymour Papert – was born and educated in South Africa, and was an active member in the anti-apartheid movement.

Hardware specs - 500Mhz AMD processor - 1GB flash memory (no hard drive); - SVGA 8" diagonal display (dual LCD Color/Black & White mode for power conservation and outdoor reading); - 128MB of DRAM; - AC Cord that doubles as carrying strap as the power source and a hand-crank (one minute of cranking gives enough power for 10 minutes of operation).

[N3WBI3]

Though Whax isn't a bad choice either, and from what I read, it's just as customizable.

And comes with great hacking tools...

[rzeznikj at stout]

I believe Whax comes in .mo, which in theory is interchangeable with Slax, as it too uses .mo

Slax has passtools and Captive, both of which I put on my copy. It's helped me recover the admin pwd off my old laptop. Haven't tried putting any Whax modules with MySlax, but I'll give it a try on an RW and see how it works.

[N3WBI3]

If you have a wireless card try airodump, aireplay, and aircrack.. I use it to test and secure my home network..

[rzeznikj at stout]

I've heard of all of them. I believe they can be added on as modules, so I might put them aside. As it is, I'm only limited to just under 700mb--the CD limit. I would think that by putting stuff on a DVD and subsequently using a computer with at least a decent DVD-ROM, one could increase the stuff on their live-cd.

Unfortunately, I'm running off either one of the desktops on campus or at my folks' home. And they're somewhat squeamish anytime they ask me what I do on the computer and I tell them I'm using OSS and/or Linux ;)

As for my laptop, I had to turn it back to the university when I transferred. Real nice computer (HP Compaq nc6000), but no buyback option was available.

But if I get a laptop again and I'm able to set up my own small network, I'll definitely try it.