User:Dulcan/Alvin hints and questions

This page is a running review of what I found out on the XO laptop beginning December 21, 2007. I purchased the laptop with 20 friends at work in the 2 for 1 deal. The information was obtained through trying it out and various help pages on http://laptop.org and http://wiki.laptop.org. Feel free to contribute to help us laearn more about using the laptop. This document was started with vi in the Terminal Activity and copied to the Write Activity using the Browser Activity to see the file system. It was, in turn, copied to this page. Liberal use was made of ctrl-a to select all, ctrl-c to copy, and ctrl-v to paste. All of the editing was performed with the XO laptop.

Burning Questions

• CollaborationHow do I gt together with other laptop owners in Fremont, Palo Alto, or Mountain View, California? I expect a lot of people from Google bought it, so I can probably go there.
• How do I copy and paste in the Terminal Activity?

Links

laptop.org/start for getting started wiki.laptop.org http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Simplified_users_guide http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_FAQ http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Table_of_Contents http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Support

Started 12/22/07 Updated 12/28/07 Alvin Dulcan

Needs to be Investigated

• Find the preliminary manual (maybe in FAQ)
• See what the kids have done so far (Peru)

- document what you can do in the terminal (find, vi, screen capture - still need to copy and paste in terminal - copy to from vi, write, online apps, usb - how to switch to black and white mode vs color mode - how do you listen to an mp3 file downloaded from the web

Discoveries listed by Activity

Journal Activity

This is listed first because this should be the focus for running the activities

• It is best to resume a journal entry to reduce the numbr of entries.
• What does the * mean in the journal?
• Clean up is slow because you can only delete journal entries one at a time.

General

- USB drive - see what the kids have done so far - document what you can do in the terminal (find, vi, screen capture - can terminal access usb drive - still need to copy and paste in terminal - copy to from vi, write, online apps, usb - how to switch to black and white mode vs color mode - how do you listen to an mp3 file downloaded from the web

Terminal Activity

Notes - how to copy and understand the journal better

 - man pages arenot loded so I went to 
   http://www.linuxmanpages.com

• Terminal can access usb drive. It is mounted on /media. df shows the mount.

Questions

- spreadsheet:

 - use google online spreadsheet
 - find  python spreadsheet and install it

- brainstorming

 - make your own activity, may a unix find but tie it to an actiity
 - write tetris and install
 - talk to ken gamble about online comunity and physical communtiy 
 - voice recognition and intruder alert
 - graphics processing using the camera (intruder alert)
 - speech recognition
 - use a lot of online apps, butthe result need to be displayed locally
 - screen capture: it looks like you get a screen capture called
   screenshot when you copy something to the clipboard
   It is stored in /home/olpc/.sugar/data which you can gget to from the
   journal
 - can we install the software on another PC so we can work with it? 

- write:

 - insert image only goes to journal with poor choices
 - search is in edit, it is good but it should behooked upto ctrl-fffff  
 - to work on two files, open in two activities and transfer data using the
   clipboard on the left?  
   http://wiki.laptop.org/go/New_Users#Opening_files
   clipboard is not pieces of text but launche the application,
   but ctrl-c and ctrl-v work
 - has spell check, but no auto find; how do you add a word 
   maybe /usr/share/dict/words (no, this is empty)
 - has an auto page break
 - write can save (keep) as html and rtf
 

- browse:

 - how do you get back to the regular screen after going full screen

  (fn enter)
 - how do you tell what web site you are on, or going to (no status bar)
 - ctrl-U does a view source for web pages
 - pandora.com flash message pops up, then nothing	

- general:

 - Specs http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Hardware_specification:
   - AMD Geode LX-700@0.8W (datasheet) 433 MHz
   - Disk (virtual on Flash) 1,048,576 KB (1 GB)  from terminal df command
   - RAM from terminal tp command
     Mem:    237844k total,   226552k used,    11292k free,        0k buffers
   - the ram and virtual disk are in file:///home/olpc/alvin/memory
   - Camera. speaker, microphone, speaker/microphone jacks
     3 USB ports, SD  memory slot
   - since this memory is all flash, how does it know between original and
   new files.

- exchange data with the outside:

 - terminal: USB drive is mounted on /media
 - journal automatically shows the drive at the bottom of the screen:
   - USB files can be opened from the drvie 
   - drag a journal entry to the USB icon to copy to USB.  

- browse to laptop.org/start

 - how to print: docs say you cannot print at this time
 - how to change dates especially time zone( terminal date)
 - how to get version (build 650, for example mentioned on the browse
   wiki page)
 - volume control: I saw it in a music app; buttons on keyboard
 - it would be nice to view all of the activities on one screen rather than
   having to scroll through the icons at the bottom o the screen
 - clipboard is on the left side of the home view

- keyboard

 - top row: esc  search(journal)  neighborhood friends  home  activity 
 - laptop.org getting started keyboard
 - what are the other panels next to the touch pad
 - what is the hand key next to alt: it is shown on the web getting started,
   as not used yet
 - alt-enter toggles full screen mode which can be used in write, browse
 - fn-erase erases from the right
 - alt-f is the same as frame button on the upper right
   this works in write but not in main view
 - alt-n goes to journal
 - alt tab cycles through the activities
 - alt-p cycles through the activities
 - alt-r rotates the screen
 - can you hang the keyboard mapping or add new key shortcuts?

- problems

 - sometimes the touchpad goes haywire; rebbot fixes; maybe a memory
   management problem
 - wireless does not support wpa. I had to use wep.  
   I needed a reboot to make it work
 - a terminal got stuck starting

DEMO

- Journal

 - search for turtleArt
 - Launch Moving circle

- browse

 - laptop.org/start for getting started
 - Full screen (alt enter)
 - Flip screen and close, rotate screen

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Other Pages ----

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Emulating_the_XO http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Emulating_the_XO/Help_and_tips