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

[Erik Garrison]

On Thu, Oct 02, 2008 at 12:39:15PM -0400, Walter Bender wrote:
> 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.
> 

Yup.  You are referring to a non-XO machine?  I believe this setup may
require more disk space resources than are available on the XO?

Erik

> 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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> >> _______________________________________________
> >> India mailing list
> >> India at lists.laptop.org
> >> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/india
> >
> >
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Walter Bender
> Sugar Labs
> http://www.sugarlabs.org