Novel OS Drives the '$100 laptop'

jrwr00 writes with a link to a CNN story about the $100 laptop's unique operating system. We've discussed the OLPC's UI before but the article offers a few new piece of information on the project, which is expected to roll out this year. From the article: "The XO machines are still being tweaked, and [OLPC UI] Sugar isn't expected to be tested by any kids until February. By July or so, several million are expected to reach Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Nigeria, Libya, Pakistan, Thailand and the Palestinian territory. Negroponte said three more African countries might sign on in the next two weeks. The Inter-American Development Bank is trying to get the laptops to multiple Central American countries."

Quote FTFA

[dayid]

"It doesn't feel like Linux. It doesn't feel like Windows. It doesn't feel like Apple," said Vota, who is director of Geekcorps, an organization that facilitates technology volunteers in developing countries. He emphasized that his opinions were his own and not on behalf of Geekcorps. so we have: a) kernel b) operating system c) hardware vendor It doesn't feel like any of those? Wow.

Re:Novell OS? Whoops

[Kelson]

I read this story on CNN first as well, and my first thought at seeing the headline was nightmares about a Novell operating system.

Could be worse. I read through the whole article waiting for the point where they'd explain how SuSE was involved. Then I finally looked back at the headline and realized I'd misread it.

Re:Where are the apps?

[NineNine]

You're right, but I don't think that this thing was designed to ever do anything beyond what it does out of the box. It's primarily just a chat platform, which is supposed to be useful, somehow...

I can only imagine that Negropointe envisioned (after his own media attention, of course), that kids on opposing sides of local wars would IM each other and work things out, and that it would later be portrayed in a movie starring Keanu Reeves (playing Negropointe), produced by Jerry Bruckheimer.