[OLPC India] Use of XOs for Vocational Training & Back Office Support

[Erik Garrison]

On Thu, Oct 02, 2008 at 11:10:07AM -0400, Asksst at aol.com wrote:
> Thanks Marc, Walter, Sameer , Ankur and others. What I gather is that
> dual-boot XOs could be used in the classrooms as well as for
> vocational training  & Back Office Support with attached key-board &
> mouse, but performance  may be an issue. 
>  

I strongly encourage you to examine debxo, a Debian + Gnome distribution
for the XO produced by Andrés Salomon, for use in your vocational
training program.

See: http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/devel/2008-August/018378.html for
the announcement.  The current version can be downloaded from:
http://queued.mit.edu/~dilinger/debxo/ and installed on any unsecured
laptop.  (The laptops must be 'unlocked' using a developer key to
install a non-standard operating system.  See
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Activation_and_Developer_Keys for a
description of what a developer key does).

The debxo Debian + Gnome distribution will provide you with a
traditional desktop environment and access to free/open source software
for vocational training (word processors, spreadsheet programs, web
browsers, skype, etc.).  I do not have hard numbers but I would expect
the Debian distribution to be less resource-intensive than Windows XP.
For instance, Windows XP does not fit on the stock internal memory and
requires installation on an external SD memory card, whereas Debian
doesn't.

The system runs quite well on the XO.  I have been testing it on my
personal XO for more than a month without any significant issues.

If the use of the machines (young vs. older users) is not interleaved,
you can simply wipe the machines and install one OS or the other as
needed.  Dual boot is also an option but to my knowledge it has not been
tested in this context.

I will be happy to answer any questions you have regarding this.

Best,
Erik

> In a message dated 9/30/2008 11:46:41 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
> sverma at sfsu.edu writes:
> 
> On Tue,  Sep 30, 2008 at 8:31 AM, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com>  
> wrote:
> > I cannot speak for OLPC, but in general, the Sugar learning  platform
> > is configurable as a session option such that a computer can  be
> > switched back and forth between a conventional Linux desktop and  Sugar
> > at the granularity of the login session. So yes, it would be  possible
> > to support the scenario that you are  proposing.
> >
> > regards.
> >
> > -walter
> >
> >  --
> > Walter Bender
> > Sugar Labs
> >  http://www.sugarlabs.org
> >  _______________________________________________
> > India mailing  list
> > India at lists.laptop.org
> >  http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/india
> >
> 
> Ah! You are proposing  using a GNOME-like environment on an XO to have
> access to things like  OpenOffice, etc. but I suspect Sheel's approach
> is leaning towards  "vocational" as in turn-the-handle-and-the
> mill-will-produce MS Windows +  MS Office. Sheel, is this correct? Are
> you thinking of specific platforms,  or are you thinking of specific
> skills? If it is the latter, Walter's  suggestion will work well.
> Skills for word-processing, spreadsheets, etc.  can be obtained easily
> with OpenOffice on Linux on an XO, without the  overhead of an
> anti-virus suite :-)
> 
> cheers,
> Sameer
> -- 
> Dr.  Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor of Information Systems
> San  Francisco State University
> San Francisco CA 94132  USA
> http://verma.sfsu.edu/
> http://opensource.sfsu.edu/
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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