IIAB/FAQ

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How does XS Community Edition (XSCE) help?

Read about Internet-in-a-Box and building your school's very own ebook library below. Bring the power of a (generally free) Digital Library of Alexandria into the hands of any school worldwide.

A School Server brings your classroom/school laptops together, communicating & coordinating learning in ways that deeply empower kids, teachers and community.

XSCE is built by professional volunteers, inspired by One Laptop per Child's famous laptops and their innovative Sugar Learning Platform -- but serving all!

To get a taste of longer-term possible roadmaps, please see Tony Anderson's suggested use cases, and one possible larger XSCE Vision.

What hardware should I use?

XSCE (XS Community Edition) is free software that runs on many different hardware platforms, listed below.

  • Deployment Managers: an all-inclusive, tough and lower-power unit (great for developing world) is expected later in 2013, using resilient TrimSlice devices. Please check back in coming months!

What OS should I use?

Smaller deployments often prefer the comprehensive features provided by a recent version of the Fedora Operating System, eg. Fedora 18, similar to OLPC Release 13.2.0.

Larger deployments often prefer the 10-year-support (security updates, etc) provided by CentOS to minimize upgrade/maintenance costs.

Both above are free and open software systems supported by enterprise Linux corp Red Hat, Inc founded in 1993.

Other OS/distribution support for this global community project would be most welcome in future!

What can I do with ebooks (Pathagar) and Internet-in-a-Box ?

Starting around August 2013, XSCE 0.4 should allow you to build a great collection of electronic books for your school (thanks to Pathagar). Alongside a packed hard-drive full of the incredible Wikipedia + Maps + Literature + Khan Academy resources of http://internet-in-a-box.org.

This permits entirely new opportunities for semi-connected schools and offline libraries worldwide, for the 1st time ever in 2013.

We'd like educators' suggestions especially -- how should kids best take advantage of these crown jewels of learning? Perhaps starting with OLPC/Sugar's laptop browser in places like: 

http://schoolserver/maps
http://schoolserver/books
http://schoolserver/library
http://schoolserver/khanacademy

How do I get Internet-in-a-Box updates every few months or semester?

Great question: the magicians behind http://internet-in-a-box.org anticipate this will be critical. Several people are working on streamlining this process, ideally with an on-demand mail-order service available on different continents, to wipe your terabyte/external hard drive clean with the latest free maps/encyclopedia/books/video lessons, for a extremely low shipping/service fee. Keep in touch!

How do I provide Wifi (wireless) to all my kids?

Specific recommendations are coming, no matter how large or small your school. This is a vital engineering piece for schools, libraries and orphanages even when offline -- so kids can take advantage of the amazing free "digital libraries" of http://internet-in-a-box.org and Pathagar ebooks.

Please join the http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel mailing list to ask us all for the latest tips about high-performance Wifi access points, depending on your coverage needs.

And if your school is online, this is a great place to ask about various schools' filtering recommendations for different age groups.

And please share your experience so that we can build a repertoire of devices that work.

How do I provide Solar Power to my school or orphanage?

This is a very hard question depending on the growth path of your electrical needs, maintenance options within the country in question, price, theft, etc. Some experienced deployment voices hope to provide concrete example recommendations later in 2013, typically involving a standard 12-volt deep-cycle battery. Please don't wait to get your feet wet today however! That means investing in the hard work of research, getting this right for your own community:

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XO_Solar
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/power
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Battery_and_power
http://schoolserver.wordpress.com/training/power-when-its-not-always-available/

Thanks for taking solar engineering seriously, as we do wherever possible!

Where are the docs?

Please see the "Installing" and "Configuring" sections in the latest release, off of http://schoolserver.org

Also: Add a Service to School Server by Creating a Plugin (original written April 2013) and others by George Hunt at http://schoolserver.wordpress.com

Coming Soon: Anish Mangal hopes to formally write up his deployment recommendations based on his experience setting up XSCE in Northern India in May and June of 2013.

Where is XSCE actively used?

Since June 2013, XS Community Edition is being used in two small OLPC implementations -- an orphanage in Port-au-Prince, Haiti as well as in a village in Northern India: http://bhagmalpur.wordpress.com

Of course, many contributors are using XSCE for other personal/community purposes as well, helping refine our community product for diverse/larger deployments.

What's missing that I can contribute?

Funny & great you asked! For now, til we get everyone's many ideas, use cases and docs organized, please see these volunteer engagement opportunities.

Please also suggest your own ideas on public mailing list server-devel@lists.laptop.org, or contact Adam Holt (holt @ laptop.org).

How did XSCE's design evolve?

Here's our brief-but-growing participatory design archive / lineage:

Original OLPC XS design and implementation is available here.

Community history is vital to all seeking to avoid reinventing mistakes of the past, thanks to Everyone's thoughtful input past & present!

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