The first One Laptop Per Child hardware devices are still months from deployment, but you can sneak a peek at their Sugar desktop environment and bundled applications by running an OS image under an emulator. It's a great way to finally get some hands-on time with this long-anticipated project, even though it's not perfect.

The OLPC wiki has instructions for emulating the laptop via several software schemes -- QEMU, VMware, and Parallels Desktop. I chose to download the VMware image, which is simple and runs inside the freely available VMware Player.

A word of caution: although the native hardware will only sport a 366MHz processor, the emulated system feels slower even on a fast host machine because of a delay in cursor/keyboard responsiveness. The apps launch fast enough, but sluggishness in the user interface contributes to a perceived sluggishness in the overall system. Don't judge its performance too harshly.

Read more: Linux.com

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jamie (Super Administrator) 2006-12-13 09:28:40 So not going to be ready for xmas? Damn .. was going to buy actz one this year. Reply | Quote

psYchotic (Publisher) 2006-12-13 09:34:50 I wasn't aware these were for sale, but you can always try replacing his current operating system with that one, and then spray his laptop green. Seriously though, I think those laptops look pretty darn sweet, and I'd almost wanna be a poor kid just to have one. Now that I've typed it I realize it must sound cruel and stupid. BUT I WANT IT! Reply | Quote

jamie (Super Administrator) 2006-12-13 09:43:39 Will Sugar be like its own OS? Or will it run off Linux? Reply | Quote

psYchotic (Publisher) 2006-12-13 09:51:02 It seems to be more like a desktop environment, just like Gnome is. You can download the sources and make it work on your own computer. But I expect that in the end they will build a custom kernel and finally make their own little distribution, specially crafted to run well on these little gems. Reply | Quote

actz (Super Administrator) 2006-12-13 09:53:51 I'll be holding you to that Jamie. Wonder what they will be priced at. Reply | Quote

jamie (Super Administrator) 2006-12-13 10:00:04 "Nicholas Negroponte's "One Laptop Per Child" dream of creating 100 dollar notebook computers for the world's poorest children, is rapidly gaining popularity with academics, journalists and world leaders." Reply | Quote

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