[Olpc-open] [sugar] Lonely laptops

[Michael Burns]

(Posting this to open@ instead of Sugar at . Working on finding a better
place for G1G1-inspired questions.)

On Nov 10, 2007 11:11 AM, drew einhorn <drew.einhorn at gmail.com> wrote:
> Planning on doing G1G1 twice next week and then having a small community
> of two laptops.

Awesome. You'll have a lot of fun with these machines. They are
unbelievably engaging to all ages.

> What works out of the box?

Most things. This is 1.0 software (for some value of 1), of course.
There are bugs. You can find them if you go poking around for a while.
Having said that, wireless connectivity, basic stability and overall
use of the system has been more than functional (and only getting
better!) for months.

> Am going to want production quality sugar installs on
>    a few desktops, and
>    legacy laptops.

Guys,

> What works better if I:
>
>      Tweak my garden variety wireless access point.
>      Get an exotic (for me) access point with unusual protocols.
>      Install a server.
>
> What happens when my daughter and three year old grandson take a
> laptop to Mexico?
>
> Will they be able to seamlessly stay in contact with Grandma's laptop at home.

There are any number of "Maybes", "Ifs" and "That depends" to answer
this question with any honesty. These XOs will work (between
themselves, or in a local mesh) in just about any environment you can
put them. Whether there is a Internet connection or not will of course
determine how 'well' they work for certain use cases.

You will be able to play games, write papers, communicate and interact
from one XO to another in Mexico, regardless of other infrastructure.

Don't forget to read the wiki for disabling wireless during any
commercial plane flights.

http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/1406

> My wife and daughter are teachers and want to start looking at access
> to curriculum (both English and Spanish) first for my grandson, then for others.

Sounds wonderful! I hope you'll share with us some of your findings
and feedback, so we can help others who are in similar situations

> My daughter teaches in a private 600-year old Catholic school in Mexico.
> Where does she look into the mysteries of getting some for her students.

The OLPC "Give Many" program is your best bet, for a private school, I imagine.

http://www.laptopgiving.org/en/group-giving.php

(of course, I don't speak for OLPC...) Mexico, and other latin
american countries, have been making some movement on testing/using
XOs. What stage this is in I do not know. More should be posted on the
wiki.

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Mexico


Cheers!

-- 
Michael Burns * Student
Open Source {Education} Lab