Interesting and lengthy overview of the OLPC in Linux Today.
Notes From a Senior Editor: A Close Look at the OLPC
The comment that caught my eye was: The software is based on Fedora Cora 6, put on an diet to reduce it to 150 MB, and leverages Python heavily. According to Bletsas, both Microsoft (WinCE) and Apple (OS X) offered their operating systems, but neither fit the footprint or security requirements that the XO demanded. In addition, the closed-source nature of those operating systems wasn’t a good fit to the OLPC philosophy. I wonder what eliminated other Linux distros.