Software discussion

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Overview

OLPC software is a set of carefully chosen and integrated linux applications, creating an innovative user environment.

Basically, the laptop runs Red Hat linux with X Window, with a novel Sugar user interface and support library, supporting a core set of "activities". Activities are programs which follow the OLPC Human Interface Guidelines. There is an emphasis on Python and GTK. Random linux software can be run too, but having a common and enabling user interface is nice, and requiring additional libraries (KDE, java runtime, whatever) is in tension with disk and memory limits.

Activities lists the current base applications, and a few of those under development.

You can:

Get an overview:
- Sugar; Software components; ...?
- Software goals and open-source software; Software FAQ
Play - there are a couple of options:
- Burn a LiveCd. This is likely simplest.
- Run an OS image in emulation. This doesn't require burning a cd and rebooting, but may require installing software, and may run slowly.
Create software
- Getting involved in OLPC; Getting started programming
- Software components, projects, and ideas.
- Take a look at the several software article categories at the bottom of this article.
- ...
Document OLPC python code

If you are comfortable reading python and writing documentation, much new code is in need of doc strings, tutorials, etc. (sugar, geckoembed, ...what else?)

Hardcore bug hunt
- Release roadmap
- Test meeting Minutes
- http://dev.laptop.org/query
- Help upstream projects (see Getting involved in OLPC).
Kernel Hacking
- Kernel
- Rebuild the Linux Kernel

Some Details

(This section needs to be updated)

There are four flavors of software:

"Activities", written or ported to the Sugar user interface, and following OLPC interface. Some activities are listed in software components and software projects. They main languages are python and C. The standard libraries are listed in software components.
Code written for a programmable activity, such as squeak and its etoys, OLPCities(?), javascript(?), ...(?).
Linux software using the standard libraries listed in software components.
Any other linux software. Memory and disk space are constrained (256MB,1GB), so requiring additional libraries makes this a less attractive option.

Developers program

The OLPC developer wiki

BTest Software

The BTest-1 Release Notes and BTest-2 Release Notes are required reading for anyone with BTest Hardware and Software
The OLPC Software Release Notes are also required reading.
BTest-1 Demo Notes describes some of the software on the BTest systems
All BTest systems should be upgraded to current software and firmware before use, since many problems have already been resolved since the machines were manufactured
Firmware releases are stored here.

Build images