[OLPC-Philippines] XO tests

Jerome Gotangco jgotangco at gmail.com
Thu Dec 11 19:35:56 EST 2008


On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 5:54 AM, Carlos Nazareno <object404 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Oh, btw, Jerome, were you able to get resolutions other than 1200x900
> working on the XO on Intrepid? If so, were they full-screen resampling
> versions instead of "smaller window areas" like with SCUMMVM which
> will just shrink to a small 640x480 resolution area in the middle of
> the screen with huge black borders all around?

I haven't really tried. I changed the whole DE from XFCE to Openbox
which I'm more comfortable with plus lesser resources.

> Btw, how much total space did the install eat?

1.3GB

> I find XO-Fedora 10's nearly 4GB initial install and the flat-out
> requirement of a 4GB SD Card just nuts :-/

I haven't really tried it - they must be running the full GNOME
desktop with the slew of apps like OOo, Gimp, etc. which really eat up
space. A typical Ubuntu install would go to around 3GB. The DVD iso of
Fedora 10 is around 4GB so when it expands that would be around 6 and
the typical install would be higher (they still install a lot of
non-essential stuff).

Also the Ubuntu Intrepid spin on XO use the stock XO-1 kernel hence
the device drivers are already included that are unique only to the
laptop so the essential key bindings work. It doesn't contain OOo and
other stuff so its very light (I just added Abiword and Gnumeric for
some productivity stuff). Overall, the performance is usable but slow.
Creating a swap file and doing a bash script to use the swap helps in
applications that are memory hogs from the start (life FF+Flash).

> What the heck did they install in that thing? Even Win2k and WinXP
> doesn't eat up that much space on the outset :-/
>
> Then again, Linux distros these days come with a slew of apps on the outset...

Yes that's right. Not to mention that Windows XP is like 8 years old
already. Booting the OS from SD has its drawbacks so we can't expect
much. My first generation iPhone is far much faster than the XO-1 but
a laptop form factor is more usable than touch. But then, I could see
the SD route usable for kids who receive the laptop and eventually
outgrow Sugar.

-- 
Jerome G.

Blog: http://gotangco.blogspot.com


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