Emulate the OLPC or Eee PC operating systems in Ubuntu

by Brad Linder Nov 27th 2007

Say you're intensely curious about the stripped down, customized versions of Linux that are running on the tiny laptops like the Asus Eee PC or Nicholas Negroponte's OLPC project, but you don't feel like spending $400 to pick up a new toy that you might never use. As luck would have it, there are (relatively) easy ways to emulate both the OLPC's Sugar OS and the Eee PC's "easy mode" Xandros Linux interface using Ubuntu Linux. You can probably pull off the same feats using different Linux distros as well, but the best tutorials we've found are written for Ubuntu.

Tom Hoffman has posted some pretty simple instructions for running the OLPC's Sugar OS on Ubuntu. Essentially all you need to do is add a repository to your sources.list and install the Sugar emulator. Odds are the display will be too large for your laptop, but you can follow these instructions for changing the resolution.

There are a few more steps involved in getting the Eee PC interface to run on Ubuntu. First off, you'll probably want to have a copy of the DVD that came with the Eee PC, (which sort of defeats the purpose of trying before you buy, but if you've already got an Eee PC you can safely emulate your desktop environment for experimentation purposes). But Asus has posted most of the source files for the Eee PC on its ftp site, so there might be a way to get build the operating system in emulation mode without that disc.

If you're a little more adventurous (and if you read French), it looks like it's also possible to get the Eee PC interface running in Windows using Microsoft Virtual PC software.

[via Hackszine]

Tags: eee-pc, emulation, olpc, sugar-os, ubuntu, xandros

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

kojo87 said 6:01PM on 11-27-2007

would it be hard to install Ubuntu on a Eee PC? im thinking about getting one for college and im more familiar with Ubuntu. i have a nice desktop so an Eee would be perfect because all i need it for is mobile word processing and web browsing

Featured Time Waster

Civiballs is a beautiful, soothing physics puzzle Time Waster

I have an absolute weakness for physics games, and while Civiballs isn't the strongest physics-based game, what it lacks in the physics department it makes up for a few times over in style and fun.

In Civiballs, you are presented with a few colored balls, and your goal is to get those balls into the same-colored urn on the level. The "civi" part of Civiballs is that there are 3 sets of levels to play, each representing a different civilization. While the civilization doesn't affect gameplay, the artwork for each level is beautifully themed to it's appropriate era.

To play the game, you are given only one tool - a sword with which to cut the chains that are holding the balls. The puzzle part of the game is in figuring out what order, and with what timing to cut each chain. Do it right, and all the right balls end up in the right urns, with no stray balls entering an urn (a no-no). Do it wrong, and you get to start over again.

Civiballs is not terribly deep on gameplay; the entire game can be completed in about 15 minutes. But if you enjoy this type of game, it will be a very enjoyable 15 minutes.

View more Time Wasters