[Olpc-za] Sugar Desktop

[David Robert Lewis]

I wrote this. If it makes any sense, let me know. *


Sugar Desktop Environment*
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I'm a fan of the Sugar desktop environment which has been abandoned 
somewhat by the OLPC XO project who are focusing on hardware. It was 
originally bundled with Fedora but has now been ported to ubuntu and is 
available using:

apt-get install sugar sugar-activities

The reason why I'm a fan, aside from the beautifully abstract and 
visually interesting desktop GUI is from an evolutionary and educational 
perspective. I believe it is pedogologically correct to have a system in 
which one can introduce programmes to the desk without having to commit 
each and every session. Programmes that are not used, can be put away 
preferably under lock and key, and with more development it would be a 
simple matter to be able to manage zones, dedicated to various activities.

While this may not sound terribly revolutionary, in fact rather old-hat 
for a lot of us, the simple activitation of a Sugar activity represents 
an evolutionary fork in GUI development that is missing from every other 
more advanced GUI/Desktops.

Even in Windows, processes can be started and stopped, but it is Sugar 
which offers a graphical and ubiquitous solution which makes sense to a 
cluttered desktop system in a visual way, and can also be seen as a form 
of administration , as we advance towards large stacks of code.

Users don't always have enough computer power to operate every 
application that comes their way, and the Ubuntu environment becomes 
cluttered very quickly. Why must we keep everything in the system, or in 
memory somewhere? Yes with all the dependencies that are generated by 
today's computer programmes, keeping a machine lean and fast, in essence 
managing an OS is an impossible task. There must be a simple way of 
managing resources without having to drop down to the CLI or having to 
constantly install or uninstall, in effect using synaptic to manage the 
system.

Sugar sugests that as Ubuntu scales up, you are free to leave more in 
the system but, there is always the option of putting the application or 
activity away in a user-friendly manner.


Again, I like the possibility of infinite virtualisation offered by 
locking down x spaces in what UNIX freaks refer to as jails. This should 
be standard on any desktop. The ability to hack away at a part of the 
system without affecting or compromising the entire system. The ability 
to visually understand the many layers of Ubuntu with a Sugar interface 
simply because, Ubuntu has all of this power which is not being 
utilised. In essense we are still looking at the OS (and computer) from 
an *old-fashioned bureau or portmanteau point of view* -- A place to 
keep your pens and calculators, gimzos and gadgets but not the kind of 
ubiquitous environment in which you can edit video, mashup audio and 
whiteboard without compromising speed or power, which is what the Sugar 
XO system would offer us if it was developed as an addition to the 
Ubuntu system just like KDE, XFCE and GNOME.

Then there is the wonderful fact that in Sugar you are not expected to 
remember anything. Your work on a Sugar Desk can be part of an ongoing 
log in which you can always look back at the various instances of your 
OS. I would love to have the Sugar develop to the point at which you 
have multiple undoes of the desktop and the underlying OS. At least this 
is what seems to be the metanarrative suggested by the Sugar project

In the future all computers will be able to do this. Unfortunately, 
Sugar is in danger of dying, simply because not enough orientation has 
been done on the long-term goals of the Sugar project and its 
relationship to Ubuntu Should Ubuntu in the future come with a Sugar 
option? What would happen if the Sugar session took over the look and 
feel of Ubuntu, would we be willing to sacrifice our Gnome/KDE/XFCE 
identities?

I love Gnome, its my friend, but I also like Sugar and the two are about 
the best desktops next to KDE that I have seen in the world of Linux. 
Sugar offers us a brand-new environment for experimentation in which 
many of the applications available in KDE for instance may take on new 
form.

I have already suggest Sugar as a vehicle for modifications and as a 
place to produce wonderful works of artifice. I would love to see a 
decent Sugar audio playa that interacted with other Sugar desks. We are 
rapidly approaching the point where all this will become a possibility 
as the network takes on new forms. The Sugar desktop is a portal to a 
new networked reality in which the WWW is merely one facet, not the end 
goal. Applications that work together in new ways - this is what I 
foresee in the near future, environments that are rock-solid because of 
Ubuntu, with all the speed that we can bring without compromising 
serendipity, creativity, conscious exploration.

Any thoughts on this subject would be appreciated.