A mysterious DHL package on my porch today turned out to be a little green wonder.

The XO test 2 laptop from the One Laptop Per Child project!

It came without a battery, which didn't surprise me. I recall from Ivan Kristic's presentation at PyCon 2007 that the lightweight, long-lasting battery they had developed was one of their proudest achievements, and a significant cost. But I was surprised not to get an AC power adapter.

I hunted down the the online specs and found that an old laptop's adapter would work. It did, but was so shaky I lost power by barely moving the case. As luck would have it, the adapter had an expendable plastic flange that a razor knife easily removed without damage. Now the little green learning machine has stable AC power.

I've tried to blunder through the Sugar UI as a new user would. I eventually got stalled when I needed to discover its MAC address, so I could have our Airport Expresses let it in to our wireless net.

So I visited the wiki and discovered how to get a command shell. We're on our way...