[Olpc-za] Sugar Desktop

Morgan Collett morgan.collett at gmail.com
Fri Mar 20 06:06:11 EDT 2009


On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 17:28, David Robert Lewis
<ethnopunk at telkomsa.net> wrote:
> I wrote this. If it makes any sense, let me know. *
>
>
> Sugar Desktop Environment*
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 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.

Hi David

Sugar's in no danger of "dying" - there is a healthy community around
Sugar Labs (http://www.sugarlabs.org/) which operates as a
distro-neutral upstream project. There are people involved from the
full spectrum of youth / parents / educators / pedagogues...

See http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs/GettingInvolved for (some
of the) ways in which people can get involved in the project.

I recommend you subscribe to the IAEP ("It's an education project")
mailing list at http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep which
discusses the concepts behind learning and Sugar.

One of the focuses of the Sugar Labs development team at the moment is
"Sugar on a stick" (Soas) which is a Sugar-powered Linux environment
which can be booted on any x86 computer capable of booting from USB.
This provides an environment which can be operated on existing PCs, no
matter whether they have Windows or OSX or GNU/Linux installed. There
are development versions of this available for download, but the more
mature product intended for widespread use is planned for Q3 this
year.

Ubuntu doesn't have many of the Sugar activities packaged, so you
should see which other activities you can download and run from
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Activities (which is being slowly replaced
by http://activities.sugarlabs.org/).

I lead the Ubuntu Sugar Team, which coordinates packaging of Sugar on
Ubuntu. Due to limited personpower and time available we are focusing
on packaging 0.84.0, the latest stable release, for Jaunty but also
try and support Sugar on older Ubuntu releases. The mailing list for
that team is http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/Ubuntu-sugarteam
which is the intersection of the Ubuntu and Sugar communities.

Ubuntu ships with GNOME preloaded and the default. Kubuntu ships with
KDE. We may do a formal Ubuntu derivative in the future that ships
Sugar as the default environment, complete with install media, but for
now the best is to install Ubuntu and then Sugar on top of it, which
lets you select GNOME or Sugar as the desktop session in the gdm login
screen.

Please continue discussion(s) on the appropriate list(s) as mentioned above...

Regards
Morgan


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