After having posted my first impressions with the XO a few weeks ago, I think it’s time for an update.

The first thing that needs clarification: In practical terms (I won’t go into the technical details), the screen does not actually offer a resolution of 1200×900, but only 800×600 — however, the picture is as sharp as if it was 1200×900.
That was a bit of a disappointment at first, as I had expected to browse the web with a “desktop resolution” (in my naïveté, I expected there to be a toggle switch between hires monochrome and lores color mode).

Much more of an annoyance was the Sugar interface though — it proved to be way too limiting for an experienced computer user like myself (e.g. documents can only be saved through the Journal activity).
I was delighted to learn that I could install a different window manager — so I opted for Xfce, giving the XO a much more familar interface.

That in turn enabled me to install pretty much any application that could also be found on a regular Linux PC — like Firefox for web browsing, as well as MPlayer and VLC for multimedia files.

Unfortunately, my XO is suffering from the sticky keys syndrome; the left ALT key is stuck, which makes the keyboard pretty much unusable. Nobody seems to be quite sure what the cause is — whether it’s a hard- or a software issue — so it remains to be seen whether there’s gonna be a fix for this.
In the meantime, I’ve figured out that there’s a workaround; remapping can be used to disable the ALT key.

All of this has taught me a lot about Linux (sort of… ) — knowledge that might come in handy, considering that I intend to become a full-time Linux user soon (more on that at a later time).

Beyond that, I’m not entirely sure what to use this machine for, as it’s not really suitable for day-to-day productive use. For example, I have yet to use my beloved TiddlyWiki on this machine.

Bottom line: The XO is not quite what I had expected, as it’s hardly a replacement for a “proper” UMPC. But it’s definitely a nice gadget — a geek toy!

PS: A few weeks ago at the airport, the security guard was quite enamored of the device — but she gave it back to me, eventually…