Ubuntu Intrepid for the XO

From OLPC
Revision as of 12:31, 2 December 2008 by Sola (talk | contribs) (Ubuntu Intrepid on the XO)
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Jump to: navigation, search

Alex Belits (alias Teapot) has recently released a customized version of Ubuntu Intrepid (8.10).

This is an easy-to-setup, easy-to-use desktop operating system for the XO based on the rock-solid foundations of Ubuntu.

XO specific customizations:
- Deep suspend/resume works for closing/opening the lid
- Automatic shallow suspend is supported by a custom script which activates shallow suspend if there is no user input and there is no high load on the system. This script can be easily activated/deactivated according to the needs. This can be used for ebook reading or browsing. Similar to advanced power management of Sugar.
- Custom desktop theme with XO-friendly colors (green...etc)
- Battery indicator
- Dedicated arrow buttons (left side of the screen) mapped as direction buttons (so can be used when browsing for example)
- Game buttons are mapped as (Home/End, Page Up/Down), so these can be used for browsing or reading. - Screen rotation with the dedicated button

Notable features:
- Xfce desktop preconfigured with GDM, so the user gets a graphical login and desktop without extra setup. This desktop environment is suitable for the resources of the XO and advanced enough to work with
- Automatic login can be easily set-up with the GDM configurator GUI tool
- Synaptic and GDebi are installed by default so newbies can install extra software by the GUI
- Web browsing: Firefox 3.0.4 (installed by default but not very snappy), Opera 9.6 can be easily installed
- PDF capable: ePDFViewer by default by Evince can be installed easily with Synaptic
- Flash capable: Flash v10 works in Firefox and Opera (after installing the plugin with Synaptic). Flash-enhanced websites seem to render correctly.
- Java capable: Java JRE 1.6 u10 works without issues (after installing with Synaptic). Azureus works.
- Watching YouTube videos is supported with a dedicated download/watch program (TubeWatcher). (This is because Flash video playback is not fast enough to be enjoyable in the browser)
- FBReader works (advanced ebook reader). (Installed with Synaptic)
- All other Ubuntu Intrepid tested applications can be installed and used (AbiWord, Gnumeric, OpenOffice...etc)
- Mplayer installed by default. VLC Player can be installed easily and plays good-quality movies smoothly
- The Sugar installation is not affected. The whole OS boots/runs comfortably from the SD card. If the SD card is removed and the machine is rebooted you boot into Sugar.
- The above install can fit to a 2GB SD card but you won't have too much free space remaining. A 4GB SD card is recommended.

The install instructions and the download link can be obtained from the original OLPC News thread: http://www.olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=4053.0
@TODO: Copy install instructions here as well

Retrieved from "http://wiki.laptop.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Ubuntu_Intrepid_for_the_XO&oldid=183510"