[olpc-help] Hello World activity - the problem is broader

[OLPC Community Support]

>   i am having a similar problem. 
>   i would like to know, from 10,000 feet, what is 
>an activity: what is an XO bundle? how to validate 
>a .xo file as installable, as usable? what is the 
>difference between a .xo and a .xol file? 

>   i have no windows computers. i use ubuntu linux 

You have an advantage!  :-)

>and have access to XO boxes. my preference is to 
>learn what to do on the XO box (i don't like 
>emulation environments): is it possible to create 
>an activity bundle on the XO itself? 

A "regular" linux box (Ubuntu, Fedora, Suse, whatever) is actually an extreme convenience for XO development, I think (I say "I think" because I haven't rolled up my sleeves yet to get down and dirty with Sugar/Python, but I have enough experience to make the assertion)

(no need for MS Windows!)

Provided your linux box and the XO are on the same network (that is unencumbered by stifling firewall rules), you can ssh into the XO from your linux box and use your non-XO keyboard, mouse, GUI & CLI environment to speed up your development on the XO (including Copy & Paste from wherever :-))

You are logged into the XO (in your GUI Ubuntu terminal, for instance) and can write your code directly on the XO and test it there, but you sit and type at your "adult" computer.

(I've just done exactly that, with the xo bundle I was describing)

You need to make a special allowance on the XO to establish an ssh session. That allowance includes (AFAIK) creating new user account (non-root and non-olpc) for logging in on that account. (For instance, I created a user called "me").  You will need to add the new user to group "wheel", I believe (at least, that was a requisite for me)

You will want to assume root privileges every now and then. This should be fairly easy--can't remember now, but I may have had to "sudo"-edit /etc/shadow and remove the exclamations from the root entry, or some such.

I did use an ethernet adapter (USB-to-Ethernet) instead of WiFi, but you can definitely use WiFi for the above.

Hope this helps a bit.

As for your other questions, you and I are in the same boat.

Hope some developer responds with the answers.

Andrew



>   i have found that the laptop.org wiki is not 
>easy to navigate to find answers to the questions 
>above. 
>
>
>On Tue, 2009-10-20 at 10:36 -0400, OLPC Community Support wrote:
>> Hi,
>> 
>> I discovered that my problem is broader than the "Hello [Sugar] World" 
>activity I referred to previously.
>> 
>> ANY ".xo" bundle I download from anywhere other than the "official"  website 
>fails to install. (This is true of this bundle, named "Theorie", found at 
>http://sourceforge.net/projects/musictheory/files/ ).  The files do not get 
>written to /home/olpc/Activities, and when I manually install them, nothing 
>shows up on the home screen, and I don't know what options to give to 
>/usr/bin/sugar-activity to run the activity.
>> 
>> Please help!  How does a home-brewed module get installed/run??
>> 
>> ANYONE OUT THERE???
>> 
>> this list really looks dead. Developers (are they reading this mailing 
>list?) respond once a year, it seems.
>> 
>> 
>> >http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar_Activity_HOWTO
>> >
>> >This does not work for me. Is it outdated?
>> >
>> >After following the setup instructions and not having the new icon show up 
>on 
>> >the home page (following Ctrl+Alt+Erase, Sugar restart), I even tried to 
>just 
>> >download the pre-prepared *.xo bundle from the above page; that one failed 
>to 
>> >load too.
>> >
>> >Rebooting didn't help either.
>> >
>> >Can anyone help?
>> >
>> >(I am on OLPC build 767 (stream 8.2; variant devel_jffs2))
>> >
>> >TIA
>> >
>> >andrew