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[electropriest]

hooray, olpc. so far, i have used my xo almost non-stop. complaints? none. seems to me that most complaints are coming from those that thought they would be receiving a dell, rather than a small, green, power-efficient, good enough-yet-feat-of-engineering machine which we have the honour of partipating in the development of.

i brought it with me to huron college today, as i finish the last bits of my master's degree. there is another XO showing up in my neighbourhood view, which excites me... but so far, no response.

when and where do you all suggest we have our first XO gathering? i am willing to work out the details, if no one else jumps in...

[Dennis]

complaints? none. seems to me that most complaints are coming from those that thought they would be receiving a dell, rather than a small, green, power-efficient, good enough-yet-feat-of-engineering machine which we have the honour of partipating in the development of.

Electropriest,

Same thought has been going through my head - the more I use Sugar and the apps the more I see the depth of thought that went into the meeting the needs of the target audience.

Only hiccup I've come across is that I can't seem to stream a PDF document to the browser client - it'll read and display a url linked PDF but no streaming directly from a file to the browser client - at least that's my experience.

It also seems to do a credible job of handling javascript including AJAX which I had really hoped would be the case.

[electropriest]

agreed. i am actually writing on my xo... under ubuntu. still, i have been alternating through the day between a full linux that i know, and the cutesy-yet-wonderful sugar. i think it's a fine system for an adult, much less a child. does everything most in this world need it to...

i don't understand what you mean when you refer to streaming a PDF. are you trying to download and save it? in my experience, you can re-access you views and downloads via the journal. of course, you could install opera and try it that way... but i haven't been impressed with opera on the xo (im not big on opera, anyhow).

when it comes down to it, you could always run a full linux from an sd card, as i am doing, and then you would have a ful machine. video, printing et al... but then we lose sugar, and aren't much use in helping with development, either.

congrats on AJAX. i, myself, have been impressed with the speed at which google docs runs - as well as gmail and the rest of the google products. and much faster once you drop sugar!

[Dennis]

when it comes down to it, you could always run a full linux from an sd card, as i am doing, and then you would have a ful machine. video, printing et al...

Hi Electropriest,

I hope to load/run Ubuntu on a USB drive - but I'm a bit of a lunix newbie - I saw some of your instructions and those of others that look good and are quite detailed - however I'm concerned about messing up the OX operating system through my own inexperience.

Like you I would like to have both OX and Ubuntu available on the machine. Guess I'll go slow and try to completely understand the process and then give it a try.

<quote>i don't understand what you mean when you refer to streaming a PDF. are you trying to download and save it?</quote>

I have a small site that I maintain for my daughter - on that site are 4 pdf documents one of which is confidential and requires user authentication to be accessed. If you simply did  a password id request and then redirected to a regular pdf URL the pdf is not completely secure since if you know the url you can skip by the authentication process.

So the pdf has been placed in a none (WWW) public folder on the server and once authentication is received the pdf file is streamed and displayed directly in the browser client window. Ruby on Rails (embedded ruby) that renders the HTML is as follows:

<EMBED src="<%= url_for(:controller => 'docs', :action => 'send_pdf', :name => 'phone_list.pdf')%>" width="1024" height="768"></EMBED>

This works in FireFox as expected but in the OX browse utilityl web page comes up but the pdf is not embedded in the page - no where to be seen.

Not a big deal I was just curious as to what protocols etc an educational site designed for OX end users has to constrain itself to - I was especially happy to see it handle the AJAX javascript OK give it's ability to reduce bandwidth needs and greatly enhance the end user experience - I continue to test (:>)


 

[electropriest]

on one hand, i will say this: play. everything you do can be recovered. start by requesting a development key - you can't do much without it. (there are instructions online about that).

on the other hand, i know this can all be scary to jump into. thus the advantages of a local user group. if you or others are itching to try things out, i can likely find time to help. if you have a spare SD, i'd be fine with installing an OS on it for you. (you can pick up a 2GB sd at factorydirect near white oaks for about $12).

the "browse" function really is scaled down - and that will affect how pdfs open, too. some seem to download to the journal, then are opened in ebook reader (which as far as i can tell, is browser... kind of like the "gmail application". others just open. that's one advantage of running xubuntu... i have instaled all the software on my desktop. currently i am using firefox to write you, with 3 tabs open, as well as 5 instant messengers, and audacious on a 3rd desktop, which is playing mp3s from my palm pilot. and all this at 'normal computer' speed. my one worry about sugar (and i have the latest 'joyride' release, is the speed of the browser. it's simplified, but SLOW!

[Dennis]

Hi Electropriest,

Haven't seen much interest expressed in a local London user group. A neighbour of mine, who also participated in the G1G1 program, is having second thoughts about their XO. I've asked them to talk to me first before they think about putting it up on EBay. I suspect some buyers might have fallen victim to the "me too" syndrome.

When time permits, I continue to hack away at getting Ubuntu on a USB stick and learning as I go which is good. I'm acquainting myself with BASH scripting and then plan to use a script file to do some, but not all, of the Ubuntu setup. I hate typing when I can cut and paste (cp from attached second usb FAT 32/ext3 partitioned MaxStor).

While a local user group seems less likely - unless I missed some posts - if you want to meet some time and trial the mesh network I'd be willing to do that. My neighbour and I have connected via the mesh and did a quick chat session but that was it.

Before doing so though - I would like to finish the Unbuntu dual boot setup.

Anyhow - not a big deal one way or the other - let me know what you think.

[Dennis]

Just booted successfully to Ubuntu on USB stick - proud owner of a dual boot XO!!

[electropriest]

Hi, Dennis. I agree - somehow the fire has died for many. Congrats with the USB boot. I myself have moved towards a full debian install on the XO, and to attempting to boot from an external 40GB hard drive to run a full system. I remain excited about the potential of Sugar, though... for children, and have been updating to the newest developer's build each day.

Let's think about experimenting together, sometime. i am a little dissapointed that some you know have given up, but I understand while the project works well with a) developers and revolutionaries, and b) children who have not had their own computer, it may not serve c) average north americans. then again, i guess it wasn't supposed to.

could you do something for me? my wife is hoping to go back to school in the fall, and loves the XO. if your neighbor doesn't feel that they can be part of the development, and that it does not meet their needs, we may be willing to buy it...

[Dennis]

EP,

Learning the hard way here - trashed XO/SUGAR - however was able to put all back together again thanks to the slick USB Image upgrade process.

As far as my friend's XO I'm afraid I already have dibs on it - however their biggest issue is connectivity - they still haven't been able to connect to the internet - I plan to upgrade their machine to 653 and add USB Ubuntu - if that fixes the connectivity issues then they will likely decide to keep the XO.