Will the XO-4 need nonfree firmware

[James Cameron]

G'day Richard,

There are to be two wireless devices available for selection by bulk
purchasers of XO-4.  One is the Marvell Libertas SD 8686 Network
Adapter (802.11g), and the other is SD 8787 (802.11n).

Yes, the XO-4 will need a nonfree firmware program copied by the
operating system into the wireless device.

The firmware program is in the file sd8686_v9.bin in Fedora package
linux-firmware, or libertas-sd8686-firmware, or
libertas-sd8787-firmware.  The 8686 firmware is also in the Debian
non-free package firmware-libertas.

It is also included within Open Firmware on the SPI FLASH chip inside
the laptop.  You can copy it from the SPI FLASH to the internal eMMC
storage at the firmware prompt:

ok copy rom:helper_sd.bin int:\boot\sd8686_helper.bin
ok copy rom:sd8686.bin int:\boot\sd8686.bin
ok copy rom:mv8787.bin int:\boot\mv8787.bin

These steps might be placed in the boot script of the operating system
in order to avoid nonfree infection of an operating system
distribution.

At this stage, there are no other devices built into the XO-4 that
require firmware download by the operating system before they can
function.

-- 
James Cameron
http://quozl.linux.org.au/