Edit: Unfortunately, the images originally included in this post are gone, because of hosting problems in late 2009. My apologies.

It was actually quite easy — most of the major applications I prefer are already in the repositories for the XO.

So I just added Openbox and ObConf and ObMenu through yum, and made the one small change suggested for XFCE here so it would boot properly. Adjust the .xsession file to start Openbox instead of leaping straight to Sugar and bang — Openbox on an XO.

Performance is about what I expect for a 430Mhz machine and a 1200×900 screen. It’s not much better than Sugar, but it does seem a little snappier. Programs definitely load faster — Kazehakase takes a few seconds to start, while Browser usually hovered for a while before showing on the screen.

The only thing I compiled was gtk-chtheme, and I used rxvt-unicode over Sakura this time (it took less time to set up rxvt-unicode, that’s all). Otherwise, it looks pretty nice.

I’m still debating if I want to try and find a way to put Ubuntu on it. I think that would be heaps of trouble for a system that would end up looking the same as the one in the screenshot above. Still, I do enjoy a challenge. …