[olpc-help] G1G1 will not work

[Philip Simmons]

Hello

I purchased for my child for Christmas and the machine now will not  
work.  Is there some sort of warranty?

The particular issue with seems to be a known issue, at least as far  
as I have been able to tell from the research I have done.  I can get  
the machine to start and get to the home page but when I select any of  
the activities it will show "starting..." and it will sit like this  
until we power it off and try again.

Now, I tried to update the software...it appears this has build 650  
and I downloaded the most recent stable build (I think 656) but I am  
unable to perform the update.  I followed the instructions on the  
website that have me enter terminal...but when I attempt to enter  
terminal it simply says starting...  I also tried control/alt/fn/2 and  
I get a login and have tried (from the instructions on the web) su -  
and sudo -i but either route I get a request for a password.  I never  
set a password for the machine and got from the company so have no  
idea what the password is...is there a work around for this?  Can I  
somehow reformat and just put the new software on the machine?


Thanks

Philip