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

[Walter Bender]

Not sure that XP was even on the table in this discussion. Andres'
Debian distro is a fine option, but perhaps even more simple is the
GNOME desktop on the same Fedora 9 that ships with Sugar on the
OLPC-XO.

FWIW, I run Sugar and GNOME on my Ubuntu distro and switch back and
forth at the login session all the time. It works very well.

-walter

On Thu, Oct 2, 2008 at 11:46 AM, Erik Garrison <erik at laptop.org> wrote:
> 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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>
>



-- 
Walter Bender
Sugar Labs
http://www.sugarlabs.org