As reported by u2.com (login required) last month, The Edge has contributed to the One Laptop Per Child non-profit organization by creating a custom startup sound for the XO laptop. Your chance to get a laptop, and to empower the children of developing countries, is soon drawing to a close for the current offering period. If you’d like to support the cause, head over to laptop.org right now for more details on how you can contribute and give one more child access to knowledge and modern forms of education.

Having received one of these XO machines just in time for Christmas, I set out on a hunt for the startup sound. It took longer than expected, but in the process I was able to find a number of startup sounds, two of which are of particular interest. The first was apparently used for some time during development until such a time that the final sound had been provided. Below you will find links to these two sounds. Before simply downloading these and forgetting about OLPC, please consider donating.

Prototype sound (named startup.flac but downloads as data-startup.flac), used approximately from September 24, 2007 to November 13, 2007*
Final sound, used since September 19, 2007*

* These dates represent when the files were added or removed to the XO firmware and software projects, not necessarily when they showed up in products shipped to consumers.