Comments for OLPC in NYC

Comment on Ubuntu on the XO - an answer to XP? by eodonnell

eodonnell — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:16:18 +0000

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?).

Comment on Ubuntu on the XO - an answer to XP? by Tom Hoffman

Tom Hoffman — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:32:52 +0000

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?

Comment on Ubuntu on the XO - an answer to XP? by eodonnell

eodonnell — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:26:36 +0000

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.

Comment on Ubuntu on the XO - an answer to XP? by Tom Hoffman

Tom Hoffman — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:19:17 +0000

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.

Comment on ILT Evaluates OLPC by Sarah Elkins

Sarah Elkins — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 11:03:31 +0000

Hey, this is some useful hard data about XO advantages! Thanks for posting the link.

Comment on OLPC May 2008 Get Together by Alexandro

Alexandro — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 17:10:38 +0000

Here you go ODP version!!!

Comment on OLPC May 2008 Get Together by Alexandro

Alexandro — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 16:50:35 +0000

Would have been better to get the presentation in OpenDocument Format.

Comment on Kicking Off at KAPPA IV by Jerome Smith

Jerome Smith — Wed, 28 May 2008 15:59:06 +0000

Dont worry ’bout the 6th grade. Worry ’bout the alumni, but keep on helping them to become like us gradates.

Comment on Connecting to hidden wifi networks by Ryan

Ryan — Sun, 18 May 2008 06:19:48 +0000

thanks for the instructions. I’ve been trying to find a why to get it to work on my school’s network (I’m in Manhattan) and this seems to be the answer. I’ve give it a try sometime next week.

Comment on 2 Month “State of the Union” by Eduardo N.H. Silva

Eduardo N.H. Silva — Wed, 07 May 2008 05:09:46 +0000

You can crop images with Paint (although it’s not straight-forward).
Open an Image with Paint. Use the selection tool to select the area of the image, and copy it. The selection will be placed in the clipboard as a image clipping. Just add it to the Journal (via its menu) to keep it.