WARNING: The content of this section is considered DEPRECATED and OBSOLETE It is preserved for historical or documenting reasons.
Release 8.2 is obsolete, please see the installation section of the release notes in the latest stable release.
This page provides parallel instructions for installing both signed builds (official or candidate releases) and unsigned development builds for Friends in Testing.
Note that a clean install will reflash your XO; everything you created will be deleted. See olpc-update for an update mechanism that preserves some data.
What version is available?
You need to identify the "build" to which you want to update your system.
This page describes how to update to the 8.2 release from 2009.
You'll need a USB storage device such as a flash drive, with a capacity of 500 MB or higher. It should be formatted as FAT or FAT32, and only contain one partition. Most ordinary USB flash drives are set up this way, except "U3" flash drives which may not work. Remove U3 with uninstall software from http://www.u3.com/uninstall or http://u3uninstall.s3.amazonaws.com/U3Uninstall.exe
Attach the USB storage device to your local (NOT the XO!) computer.
Perform a clean (Full, not Quick!) format of the USB storage device.
Download the OS image named someversion.img (e.g. gg-802-1.img) and the signature file fs.zip to the USB storage device. These are compressed files, but DO NOT open them — in your browser click the right mouse button over the link and choose "Save Link/Target As...".
Power & Game buttons for B2 and older XOs. B3 and newer have "O" at the top and "✓" (check) at the right. Connect the USB storage device to the XO Laptop and power up while holding all the four game keys. (this is VERY important!)
Release the game keys when the XO asks you to. The XO will take a few minutes to rewrite its memory with the new OS image.
Reboot the XO. If the new build includes newer firmware, then your XO will reboot twice. When the XO restarts the update will be complete.
Insert the USB flash drive into the XO laptop and power up to the "ok" prompt, (see Ok for how),
Install the image by typing
probe-usb copy-nand disk:\osNNN.img
where osNNN.img is the file you downloaded (e.g. os2230.img, or en708-1.img).
Press Enter, then wait while your machine reflashes.
When the "ok" prompt returns, reboot the machine by typing:
bye
Note: This procedure can be used for builds signed with the OLPC key. If it is used for builds signed with other keys, it is necessary to disable security otherwise the developer key will need to be in the USB for every boot.