A special linux distribution for developing OLPC applications

Sat Jan 6 09:27:57 EST 2007

Hey guys, thanks for the feedback.  As Manish, points out we need some mechanism for local developers to build apps for OLPC.  The computer science students, FOSS community, and others in Nepal are really excited about OLPC.  They are already asking for projects that they can help out on.  The academic year is just starting here and we would love for the local universities to churn out student projects for OLPC.

I think that Jim and Asko are right that we should focus on a package instead of a full-fledged distro.

As Dan points out, sugar keeps changing.  Still, I imagine that you guys will keep the activity bundle structure, Python & GTK for applications, dbus, IPv6 networking, etc.  At very least programmers here can learn how to use these tools even if their applications don't work in later Sugar builds.

Also, we'd love to see people learn how to develop for Squeak, pyGames, gcompris, AlphaCity, and others.

I have the weakest technical skills of anyone on the OLPC Nepal team so expect more intelligent postings on this subject from other members of OLPC Nepal.

Bryan Berry
OLPC Nepal
wiki.olpcnepal.org

----- Original Message ----
From: Jim Gettys <jg at laptop.org>
To: Asko Kauppi <askok at dnainternet.net>
Cc: Bryan Berry <bryanbryanb at yahoo.com>; devel at laptop.org
Sent: Thursday, January 4, 2007 11:12:08 PM
Subject: Re: A special linux distribution for developing OLPC applications

For the moment, as Dan notes, having a full distro is a waste of effort.

Having repositories for various Linux distributions including Ubuntu
would be *really* wonderful, so that people can yum install or apt-get
install and update up to date binaries; that would save people time on
builds.

We'd be happy to host these repositories on laptop.org, where we have a
lot of bandwidth, and happy to help with replicating these repositories
and our git trees around the world, as I know in many countries
bandwidth to outside the country is limited and very expensive.
                           Best Regards,
                                    - Jim Gettys

On Thu, 2007-01-04 at 18:57 +0200, Asko Kauppi wrote:
> 
> 
> Once you do it, I could test in Virtual PC surroundings (both Virtual
> PC and Parallels).
> 
> 
> But is a whole distribution really necessary?  As a multi-os
> developer, and an Ubuntu user, I would appreciate having a debian
> package (s.a. "sugar-dev") bring me all that's needed.  Have you
> considered that route, and why not choose it?
> 
> 
> - Asko Kauppi
> 
> 
> 
> Bryan Berry kirjoitti 4.1.2007 kello 18.38:
> 
> > 
> > Hey guys, we are thinking of building a new linux distribution
> > pre-configured w/ all of the development tools for Sugar and Squeak.
> > The reason for this is that it is fairly complicated to set up
> > Sugar-jhbuild from scratch and download all the development tools
> > and documentation.  Complicating this picture, broadband isn't a
> > reality for most developers where we are (Nepal).  Building
> > sugar-jhbuild from scratch will take days across a 56K line.  
> > 
> > We have alot of talented open-source developers here in Nepal that
> > are very interested in contributing to OLPC.  We can't give everyone
> > of them an XO but at least we can help them started on their
> > existing hardware.  We envision that people all over the world could
> > use this distro for Sugar applications development.   We even would
> > like to eventually build in tools for that non-technical people,
> > such as teachers, could use the distro to create learning materials.
> > 
> > We intend to hand out CDs of the distro at FOSS meetings and
> > computer science Departments.
> > 
> > Does anyone know if a similar tool exists?  We would like to avoid
> > duplicating the efforts of others.  
> > 
> > Here is the basic description of what we have in mind
> > http://wiki.olpcnepal.org/index.php?title=Make_A_Distro
> > 
> > We intend to use Ubuntu 6.10 and subsequent Ubuntu releases.  We
> > don't want to get into the business of patch management.
> > 
> > Let me know what you think. 
> > 
> > Tentatively we are thinking of calling it XO-Buntu (ZO-buntu) or
> > Saraswati after the Hindu goddess of knowledge
> > 
> > Bryan Berry
> > OLPC Nepal
> > wiki.olpcnepal.org
> > 
> > 
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-- 
Jim Gettys
One Laptop Per Child

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