IIAB

This IIAB XSCE content does not reflect the opinion of OLPC. These pages were created by members of a volunteer community supporting OLPC and deployments.

The school Server Community Edition provides communication, networking, content, and maintenance to schools and classrooms. In everyday usage the school server provides services which extend capabilities of the connected laptops while being transparent to the user. These services include:

• Classroom connectivity – Similar to what you would find in an advanced home router.
• Internet gateway – If available, an internet connection is made available to laptops.
• Content – Tools to make instructional media available to their schools and classrooms.
• Maintenance – Tools to keep laptop updated and running smoothly.

Get started by downloading and installing the latest: XSCE 0.4 Release Candidate 1 was released August 24, 2013.

Or consider the earlier full release of XSCE 0.3 released June 6, 2013.

Our FAQ

If you are anything like me, you are already losing interest in lofty, often jumbled, and ambustion prose of the wiki. If so, please jump to the Frequently Asked Questions (and answers!) from our global community.

Volunteer contributors keep our FAQ fresh thanks to organic input from folks just like yourself, always welcome!

Our Ecosystem

Lets emphasize the ecosystem this release. The core product is sound enough to compare, complement, and compete with other projects in the ecosystem.

The School Server Community Edition (XSCE, or http://schoolserver.org) is a global project where volunteer professionals are taking the One Laptop per Child movement into a new decade, enabling quality learning among the world's poorest children. Commercial support for our free software is available for those who need it, at Activity Central and through freelance consultants as necessary. Most important, you're invited to contribute your talents to kids' schools worldwide, in any way you find meaningful!

There are hundreds of similar projects around the world. Each work from slightly different perspectives. If you are interested in the project... but don't quite 'feel it,' please consider one of the following projects.

• http://wiki.laptop.org/go/School_server
• BRCK.com by Ushahidi
• http://SMEserver.org since 1999, based on CentOS
• http://eXeLearning.org being enhanced by Mike Dawson, for Nokia phones
• http://LibraryBox.us by Jason Griffey & All (map shows 25 locations)
• http://internet-in-a-box.org by Braddock Gaskill
• http://LocalFi.org by Caryl Bigenho, Sebastian Silva & All
• Sugar Network by Aleksey Lim
• BeLL Ground Server on RPi, by http://OLE.org
• Pathagar Bookserver by Sayamindu Dasgupta, now maintained by Seth Woodworth & All
• Library For All, apparently for Haiti but is there Creole content?
• Library-in-a-box by Libraries For All.
• LibraryBox
• PirateBox
• eGranary Digital Library
• VillageTelco by Terry Gillett et. al.

Our Future

For more information about getting involved in the project please see Getting involved.

Now's the time to bring together the upcoming XSCE 0.4 version, with our July 8-12 Hack Sprint near Winnipeg in Canada, and final release expected in September 2013.

Do try some of the latest RPM builds, at your own risk of course: http://xsce.activitycentral.com/repos/xsce/devel.

Or you can use the repo definition http://xsce.activitycentral.com/repos/xsce-devel.repo.

Learn more about the long term goals at XSCE Vision.

Our History & Inspiration

How did XSCE's design evolve? Progress only makes sense when we learn from the past...

Nov 2013 Agenda

v0.5 hack sprint culmination, expected Nov 13-15 in Malacca, Malaysia, in conjunction with OLPC Basecamp 2013 (Nov 16-18) whose enlivening blog lays clear our humanitarian commitment.

Oct 2013 Agenda

v0.5 hack sprint crystallization, expected Oct 21-23 in or near San Francisco, following SF's Summit (Oct 18-20), and in conjunction with the Internet Archive's great Books in Browsers Summit Oct 24-25!

Sep 2013 Agenda

v0.4 release expected. Haiti implementation of 0.4 at two schools, for the new school year.

Aug 2013 Agenda

XSCE 0.4 RC1 released August 24. Prep for final release! Haiti implementation late Aug and early Sept. Utilite and/or TrimSlice custom hardware early prototype shipping to beta experimenters.

Jul 2013 Agenda

v0.4 Sprint July 8-12, 1hr north of Winnipeg. v0.4 spec gaining precision, bringing stability & configurability to most XOs, x86, 64-bit Fedora, RPi? Pathagar bookserver & Internet-in-a-Box integration also expected.

Jun 2013 Agenda

Version 0.3 released! Prep July sprint! Volunteers can buy XO-4 Touch Laptops if they will help test XSCE & http://internet-in-a-box.org etc.

May 2013 Agenda

Very successful Toronto-area Sprint May 8-13,with Braddock Gaskill all the way from LA! 0.3 RC1 unleashed May 14; RC2 May 28? India prototype installed.

Apr 2013 Agenda

Prep v0.3 May sprint. Los Angeles interfacing with Caryl Bigenho's http://localfi.org and Braddock Gaskill's http://internet-in-a-box.org.

Mch 2013 Agenda

Boston meetup Mch 1-4 with Sameer Verma, Anish Mangal. Early pre-field test connects an orphanage from Haiti.

Feb 2013 Agenda

Toronto/Waterloo area Sprint Feb 6/7 to 10/11.

Release of XSCE 0.1 Stable and 0.2 Coming.

Jan 2013 Agenda

Proposed Core Spec and Priority Tuning.

Dec 2012 Agenda

Jamaica implementation sprint (delayed).

Nov 2012 Agenda

Centred around Toronto area hack sprint Nov 10-18:

Expand testing+UX with Anna Schoolfield, Tim Moody & Seneca College students' packaging with York Univ/Seneca College Professor Chris Tyler.

Meet with Anish Mangal and Nathan Riddle near Detroit etc to discuss wider community integration.

Oct 2012 Agenda

Working w/ Alex Kleider's model classroom @ http://olpcSF.org/summit & http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugarcamp_SF_2012.

Sep 2012 Agenda

Toronto area hack sprint Sept 16-23, incl public demo Saturday Sept 22.