As a possible middle/high school solution, I started looking into getting Ubuntu to run on the XO. OLPC has some information here – but teapot’stutorial on OLPCNews is definitely the way to go:
http://olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=2240.msg21169#msg21169 – also, do yourself a favor and get a SanDisk SD card (or flash drive)….they’re just easier to work with on Linux.
The latest version of Ubuntu Linux can run on the OLPC XO device off of a 2GB SD card, similar to how Microsoft is running windows XP on the XO. Configuring Ubuntu to run off of an SD card takes a couple hours. However, once it is properly running that SD card can be used to run Ubuntu on any XO device and can be easily duplicated using an SD duplicator.
Advantages of running Ubuntu off of an SD card:
1. A desktop environment similar to windows XP / Mac that feels familiar to U.S. users.
2. The XO becomes a dual-boot machine with the ability to load into Sugar for younger audiences, or into a more advanced environment for older students and/or teachers
3. Ubuntu has a wealth of open-source applications that it can run and that can be very easily installed through a GUI installation application including:
a. Open-office – a full-featured office suite of applications (Word processor, spreadsheet, photo editing, presentation software)
b. Firefox 3 (with flash and java enabled)
c. Video editing software and viewing software – allowing for all video formats.
d. Web design software
e. Email / calendaring / communications software
f. Educational suites of applications
4. The ability to print wirelessly
5. A familiar file-structure (as opposed to the journal) – important for things like inserting photos/videos into documents.
6. An easy to use and configure wireless connectivity application
7. The ability to have multiple users with different levels of access to programs (a student user / teacher user / admin user)
8. The ability to access and use NYC student systems like ARIS and Acuity (tested) and Scantron (not yet tested…should work fine).
9. There is proven open-source community developing for Ubuntu (as opposed to Sugar)
10. It is opensource and free – Windows would be an added cost, an office suite even more.
11. A school server is not required.
Disadvantages:
1. The sharing features of Sugar are not build into Ubutu and its applications
2. It is running off of an SD Card, and therefore limited to the speed of the card’s transfer rate to the devices resources. There isn’t anything we can do about this, but it is a limitation. The same holds true for Windows XP on the XO.
3. A 2 GB SD card would add ~$15 – $20 to the cost of the device. 4GB (~$25 – $30) might be better and would give the user ~2.7gb of free space for files.
In my mind there isn’t anything that Windows XP and the programs that run on XP can do that Ubuntu can’t do. Ubuntu and its programs are all free and theoretically should run faster than XP. There is obviously more testing that needs to be done however.
The potential here is huge. A couple things I want to look into – and if anyone out there has any suggestions / recommendations, please comment. First, speed and testing – how reliable is this running off an SD card? It seems pretty quick and stable on the two machines I have tested, but if it is replicated 500 times over, will we see a percentage of machines that just don’t run well off of SD? Stupid question? Second is edubuntu – I can’t hunt down a tarball of edubuntu to test…I’ll keep looking though.
You shouldn’t need an sd card to run Ubuntu. Ubuntu is based on Debian, and there are certainly directions floating around on getting Debian to run directly on the XO.
I’m very surprised that there hasn’t been much work that I’m aware of on getting a standard Linux desktop working well on the XO. There isn’t a huge amount that needs to be done, a lot of which is just changing the settings for sizing UI elements on a small but very high resolution screen. It is an amount of work which can be readily done by two or three people in their spare time.
I suspect the limited availability to hackers has something to do with it. Also, I think perversely the openness of the platform has made it less of a challenge. A lot of work has gone into getting things like the X-Box running a desktop Linux; since you aren’t supposed to, it is more of a challenge to hackers.
Hey Tom – I should have been clearer…I meant Ubuntu with Gnome and X11 and open office and all the GUI stuff that takes up about 1.4 GB of space….the XO doesn’t have enough room for Ubuntu when you configure it to be an XP alternative.
I agree with you, and think that it has something to do with the relatively limited number of XO’s out there – at least in developed countries. I know that Peru and Nepal and Uruguay are doing tons of development…but they are all rightfully focused on getting their implementations to work country-wide that they probably don’t have time to play with these kinds of things.
OK… but running all that stuff (not to mention XP) is probably a bad idea anyhow because of the CPU and memory restrictions of the XO. The question becomes what is the sweet spot? XFCE?
It is a lot – it certainly isn’t fast, but it also isn’t too slow to make you not want to use it. The nice thing about open office, is once you launch one application the rest of them open quickly.
Any suggestions on a configuration that you think might be more ideal are certainly welcome. My only requirements are a desktop environment that boots up immediately, firefox (2 or 3) and a wordprocessor (I was thinking abiword might be a good alternative?).
From the experience in my school on OSS, convincing the general population that OpenOffice is as good as MS Office is the key. They don’t care about Windows at all. What they care about is Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
The EeePC has been a big mover on getting corporate type people trying OpenOffice. Once OpenOffice is ubiquitous, the OS becomes irrelevant and so any device is a good device.
Personally Ubuntu is the best OS (other than MacOS) that I have come across and I would happily use it as my daily OS.
Simon@thefreemac.
Just installed abiword through the package manager. It loads very quickly – much faster than open-office. As far as I can tell it is a full-featured word processor and is easier to use than OpenOffice’s….runs well on Ubuntu w/ XOffice on the OLPC.
Hi,
Here is a great site for you:
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/
I’ve run puppy linux off of a flash drive, and it was great.
Also, considering the lack of power on the olpc, try one of the light and small distros like puppy or dam small linux.
finally, I honestly think Google Docs will do what you need. Abiword et al is great, but why have two applications open when you can just run firefox, save your document with google and access it anywhere. Plus, you can download it to word, open office, pdf etc.
just some thoughts.
-j
Nice – thanks Jay…I will look into that. Google Apps is really great, but not there yet for NYC schools because you have to rely on a stable internet connection for it to work….and if you get a few classrooms online all at once, then the internet is anything but stable. I’m holding out for Google Gears for classroom use….can’t wait.
[…] goes to show the potential flexibility inherent in the platform. The OLPC NYC program, who are looking at Ubuntu as an option for kids who “outgrow” their original OSs, obviously feel the same […]