Have the converted official 542 image running under vmware with networking now. For those playing along at home it's the same process as for VirtualBox: download the compiled pcnet32 stuff for the 542 kernel into the image and unpack into the /lib/modules/${kernel}/drivers/net/ directory. Run /sbin/depmod as root, and switch on-boot to true in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 .

Next up is trying to get the kernel to build within the 542 image (probably need gcc too) so that I can get audio working.

[Update] Also needed rpmdevtools and m4. Ran out of temp disk space (which is memory based on the XO) while trying to build the kernel RPM. Upped memory to 2GB and on the next reboot the X server is crashing with some frame-buffer IO issue.

That's pretty much all the time I had to work on it this week (and a bit more, actually). Sigh... maybe someone with some time and a Fedora 7 box will want to build the kernel module (warning though: as I seem to be demonstrating, it seems that an unfamiliar user can kill their boxes with the process). Once we've got the two modules available, we can do a "raw" image (just 542 + the two modules) for use with an external machine (coding on the external machine). After that see if we can't get a developer's image built with all the tools you'd need to work inside it.