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[mavrothal]

It is pretty evident I think, that this forum participation and input is decreasing pretty dramatically the last year or so.
There are obviously many reasons for that with the first being that the vast majority of the members have their XO-1s for more than 2 years now, and either are pretty comfortable with them or just abandoned them for a newer/better machine.
There is nothing that can be done for the second (other than XO-1.5 sales), but I would think that people that still use their XO-1s will have some input (Not necessarily problem reporting).

For example the number of sugar activities keeps growing, but I do not remember having seen anything on them in the forum.
How good/bad are they? Any faivorites?
Do they have any educational value? What areas do they cover?

Both OLPC and SugarLabs have new version of the OS with Gnome desktop, and even pretty advanced development builds
How does the XO-1 managing with Gnome?
What cool additions/applications do you have on it?
Anybody replaced Gnome with something "lighter" like Openbox or XFCE?

What about all the teapot's Ubuntu users?
Any tricks to get new/updated programs in this non-supported (but still outstanding) OS?

Coming to the core of the XO philosophy.
Any one passed their XO-1 to kids?
What do they do with it after a year or two?
What do they think?
Have any fun?
Learned anything new?
What about all the programming software (Etoys, Scratch, TurtleArt/Blocks, Pippy)? Do they use any?

We are all asking OLPC for "proof" but what our experience of kids with XOs tell us.
How much can they do on their own?
How much can they do if we provide some guidance and support?
Can they/did teach us new tricks?
Can the XO make things easier for our  "teaching"?

etc...

This forum has several relevant boards that did not see any new threads for months.
Hopefully not everyone abandon their XO-1s yet...

[ChristophD]

Hi there,

thanks a lot for your post, you raise some very good and interesting questions.

What do you think about slightly polishing the post and putting it on the frontpage?

Cheers,
Christoph

[mavrothal]

I think this is a pretty esoteric to the forum post.
Needs a  lot of work to make it more general.
Going as a banner in the forum pages should be sufficient.

[ChristophD]

Hehe, point taken! :-)

[mavrothal]

Yeh...,
but I guess very few of the 60.000+ G1G1 XO-1s are really in any kind  of frequent use, outside deployments, today...

Maybe you can write a font page post entitled "Is anybody still using the G1G1 XO-1s?"

[GregYohn]

I can not even  think of my son using the XO-1 laptop!

I assembled a PC from parts purchased in the US and assembled it in Cali, Colombia. He showed me a Mickey Mouse cartoon with it that would be unavailable to him using his XO. As a good parent, should I deny him access to websites using a lower powered PC? I heard recently that 80% of Americans are online each week. This is for the 5 and UNDER Americans. He is now 3 years old!

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/AC_rDGXfEZ8" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/AC_rDGXfEZ8</a>

Enjoy the cartoon my son provided! Even English viewers will enjoy it!

[mavrothal]

Greg,
you have raised the flash issue on the XO-1 about 50 times in this forum, which is fine.

However, this thread is about what you do with your XO-1, if any.
Not about what you do/should not do with your XO-1, why OLPC failed,  parenting, or anything like this.

Feel free to open a thread of your own and put up your thoughts, but please let this thread be what it intents to be e.g. see if people still using the XO-1, have anything new to say about what was/is/can be done.
Thanks.

[eden]

Honestly, I would use my XO more if I was adept at creating my own custom distro for it.  I am intimidated by the difficulty I perceive that others have had with the hardware and the bootloader. 

I am enjoying Microcore, Tinycore, and Puppy.  I wanted to use one of my XOs as a server and have been experimenting with the *cores for that.

The last time I tried the Gnome desktop a few months ago it was slow and quirky.  Sugar does seem to be improving. 

[GregYohn]

OK, my OLPC is just collecting dust!

I am saddened that it is not useful to my son, but that is off topic! He is living in a country that has had OLPC XO-1's distributed, but it does him no benefit!

I think I only commented 35 times about Flash, but that's OK if you said more!

I think OLPC laptops should only be distributed in places without internet cafe's! People in the Philippines, Colombia, or other places can see well operating computers otherwise. Who would want to go back to the farm, when they have seen the city? The same is true with computers!!!

Greg,
you have raised the flash issue on the XO-1 about 50 times in this forum, which is fine.

However, this thread is about what you do with your XO-1, if any.
Not about what you do/should not do with your XO-1, why OLPC failed,  parenting, or anything like this.

Feel free to open a thread of your own and put up your thoughts, but please let this thread be what it intents to be e.g. see if people still using the XO-1, have anything new to say about what was/is/can be done.
Thanks.

[davewa]

I still use my XO-1.  Being shy about running a "bleeding edge" distro, I'm still using 8.2.1 on it.  I use my XO for two purposes, basically: first, I develop apps on the machine, as you can see from my postings in "Activities Development".  Second, I use the XO as my travel computer while vacationing.  In that mode, I need a browser, word processor, calculator, astronomical observation planner and platform for fairly undemanding games.  Also, the machine is used when I travel to back up images from my camera onto USB memory sticks.

My XO does all I expect.  But then I began my personal computing experience with a 2 MHz 8080, 24K of RAM, audio tape for storage and a teletype for a terminal.  You might say my expectations are lower than most people's.

[kimtoufectis]

I still use my G1G1 XO-1 daily, thanks to OLPC News and its Forum (and also thanks to SugarLabs and OLPC directly) keeping me aware of how the platform evolves.

As someone with the luxury of more computing access than I really need, I don't need an XO, but want to stay involved to

• learn more about how a noble (if seriously flawed) program can advance learning in places it's much needed;
• push my own limitations at keeping the XO stretching in new directions;
• watch the delight a child (even an adult with a sense of play) experiences in the first few minutes of explore an XO, especially via the Speak, Measure, and Record activities.

Mainly I use it to browse the web (using Browse, Opera 11.01, Firefox, and Midori) for mail and RSS news, as a radio (using the Jukebox and Radio activities, plus Anna's ingenious directions to access Pandora Radio without flash and a browser), to access a few game activities (I particularly like Rectangles), and even to download books (though for the most part I still like to do that in the analog mode).

I'm pleased it's still useful, almost exactly three years after receiving it, and that it still works; most laptops are paper weights or landfill by this point.  It's worth noting that without expert help with both software (OLPC Learning Club-DC) and hardware (OLPC Repair DC) my XO would be a relic in my "outdated technologies" collection by now...apparently it really does take a village.

[mavrothal]

Well, I will not tell you what I do with the XO-1. Most of it is evident in this forum
The reason are a) "sold to the idea" b) curiosity c) I like stretching the life and exhausting the abilities of hardware (all my cars, computers etc went straight to the junkyard after a looong life ).
Yes I do use the XO-1 and XO-1.5 daily for almost all my computing needs outside work, but this is not what I want to say here.
I'd rather tell you my younger son's life 3 years now with 1... 2... 3.... 4... XOs around. Besides, the original one was a present for his 9th birthday.

Three things worth noticing. I mostly followed the "Negroponte approach" (give them a laptop and see what happens). More capable equipment and specialized gadgets are at his disposal. I do not mess with/modify his XO in any way. Official/mature-development builds only.

The XO-1 did not see much use. Could not play flash and fancy games available in other platforms in the house. What was also evident is that Sugar activities/games are not engaging enough for someone exposed to "modern" games.
However, if me or someone else provided some guidance, context  or interactivity the involvement/interest was much greater. From collaborative writing, to games, to chatting to interesting activities (Physics, Spirolaterals, Visual Match etc).
But on his own... very little other than downloading and reading books, when we were out of hardcopy ones  . Oh, and some video/piclure recording till the XO-1 camera died for good.

Then the XO-1.5 came and it got some more use but flash was still no good enough... However, it was used OK for some school project requiring a laptop. The XO-1.5 can handle most of the workload of a "modern" computer.
And then the newer XO-1.5 F14/OS came that thanks to a new video driver, can finally handle flash fine, smoothly video-conference on skype etc. Now we like the XO! And use it much more often. But still mostly for content consumption and socializing.

What was surprising to me is when a couple of months ago out of the blue, he came up on his own with scratch and trying to make/making "his" game.
What was even more surprising was that the other day he had a music project for school and he made a little/simple scratch routine that will play the required tunes and show the relevant  videos on specific user queues.  
He still prefers his iPod touch... but this IS something!

What is my take from this single case scenario then.
XO/Sugar will not work wonders out of context and on their own, specially when alternatives are available (I can not really tell their impact when the XO is "the only light in the house at night").
Given the exposure, opportunity and time kids will utilize them on their own in unexpected ways, even if there is no sign for it!

So I would say that giving an XO and walking away does has some impact, but providing context and guidance can be much more effective and rewarding (but also difficult and expensive)

Nothing surprising and just one case, but still...

[XOIOWA]

Hello Everyone!

I do still use my XO 1.0 (almost) every day.  I've tried many of the OS's that have been developed for it, but I've been using teapot's Ubuntu for a long time, and so far it has been the best OS for my needs.  I am going to give Puppy another try, with the anti-jumpy patch that mavrothal just posted.

I use the XO primarily for web browsing (Firefox) and a little bit for spreadsheet work (Gnumeric) and reading PDF's.  Whenever I travel I always take the little machine with me.  It's very easy to pack, and easy to connect to public wi-fi.  I used to use it a lot more for streaming music into my workshop, but I haven't done that in a while.  I should do that again.

I still think this is a great project, even though there were many things that I was disappointed with.  I'm glad that I participated with the G1G1 program.

Like mavrothal, I also tend to stretch out the usefulness of all my hardware (cars, computers, appliances.... ) So, I imagine I will continue to use this little computer until something drastically fails.

I've also really appreciate this forum, and all the people on it.

[eden]

I also have to say that without this forum, I wouldn't have had so much fun.  There is so much good and helpful information here, and a lot of good will. 

[Kerry]

A marine navigation instrument.

History: I have one g1g1 and bought a second on Craigslist that needed a new battery.  Based completely on the work of Paul Higgins I have a couple SDHC cards from him that have Teapot’s Ubuntu plus WINE plus SeaClear, a marine navigation system.  I have never learned Linux, so I have been trying to use the XO like most people use a Windows PC. I use it on my 30-foot, 50-year-old, back-yard-rebuilt, junk-rigged sailboat equipped with a USB GPS to tell me where I am on the charts it displays, and a receive-only USB attached AIS to tell me where other boats are that I cannot see. All this works fairly well, but sometimes hangs up. Paul has moved his system to the familiar reliability of a 10.1” ACER with XP. 
It is time for me to learn Linux, and get the XO working reliably or move on myself.  The low power usage, sunlight readability and ruggedness of the XO however, are a good fit for my small boat when I am out on the big ocean.

Where to from here for me?

Open CPN http://opencpn.org/ works on Linux so that will be my choice for a navigation program (Paul actually installed it on one of my SDHC cards)

I have a few questions, if anyone cares to offer their advice or opinions:
1.    I need to decide whether to
a.   stick with Teapot’s Ubuntu,
b.    upgrade to Lucid Lynx http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Ubuntu_Lucid_on_OLPC_XO
c.   reflash the XO with the latest firmware and system and then use Fedora.
d.             use one of the other XO OS's
 What are the issues I should consider?

2.    If I stick with Teapot’s Ubuntu, will updating the XO mess anything up?

3.    I need to learn Linux.  I think I will try Fedora or Ubuntu on my Windows 7 PC so that I can use a familiar/responsive device to learn the basics: Program install/uninstall, File saves/moves/copies/deletes/ and general system management.  Good idea?

4.    My Ubuntu Linux manuals are intimidating for this non-techie, I need to find a “cheat-sheet”. Suggestions?

Beyond the primary purpose of marine navigation, a browser, a good e-reader program, and a most-basic word editor would likely be all I would need. Maybe audio-only Skype.

So, in conclusion, where I stand is probably somewhat unique, and there is unlikely to be a large community of others using the XO in this way. Questions 1 &2 above are the most challenging for me.