Support FAQ/File Access

File Access

How do I save a file?

The XO automatically saves your work in the Journal Activity, accessed from the Home View(in either generation of XO) or in the Frame(in the newest Release 8.2.0). Click the notebook icon just below the XO character or in the Frame to open the Journal and find the activity or file you need.

For more information about the Journal, see OLPC Human Interface Guidelines/The Laptop Experience/The Journal.

How do I load a file on the disk into the Browser?

Open the Browse activity. In a window in the middle of the top of the Browser page you will see the words OLPC Library. Click on that and you will see the url: file:///home/olpc/.library_pages/search/bundle__index.html in the window and the contents of the file: .library_pages/search/bundle_index.html will be loaded in the browser. If you replace that filename in the window with the name of the file you want to load, and have it display, let us say: file:///home/olpc/upload-file.html and click on the window the file upload-file.html will be loaded from your home directory into the Browser.

How do I save or retrieve files from a USB drive or SD (Secure Digital) card?

Please see the complete instructions for using a USB Drive (sometimes known as a flash drive or USB key).

How do I delete a file?

Go to the Journal view, which you can access from the Home Viewor in the Frame. Select the notebook icon to open the Journal.

Find the file to be deleted by scrolling up and down the list.

On newer software releases since 2008's Release 8.2.0, hover your cursor over the icon for that file, and choose the erase option.

On versions prior to 2008's Release 8.2.0, move the cursor over the file to be deleted and press to select and open a preview of the file. Press the minus sign at the top of the screen to delete the file.

How do I play sound files?

New instructions for getting MP3 audio to work in Sugar and Gnome were published in April 2011. (MP3 playing does not work out of the box since this format has some remaining legal/patent issues)

In release 8.1.0 and later builds, Browse can play Ogg audio and video files using the Totem plugin. The Etoys activity can play MP3 and Ogg files. After finding such a file in the Journal, click the far right icon (a square in a gray disc) to start Etoys or Browse to play it.

To play sound files, you can also try the Watch and Listen activity, a Media Player based on the Helix project. When on the Journal entry for a sound file, click in the middle of the entry, to show the details. On that page, hover the mouse over the square-in-disc icon in the upper right corner of the screen. It should say "Resume", and list the possible activities that you can resume this file with. Click on Watch&Listen. Check for supported codecs you may need to download, if you require proprietary formats.