Opera On the $100 Laptop [The OLPC Project]

[shankar_ganesh]

This is pretty old news... I didn't find this on the forum, so posting it:

Opera OLPC Edition

This is a special edition of the Opera desktop version - the Opera OLPC Edition.

We have been testing Opera on the OLPC laptop since we received the "lean-mean-green-machine", as some here at the office like to call it. I have been keeping both the Opera page on the OLPC Wiki as well as my own blog up-to-date about work on it. We feel the time to be ready to show you the progress we have made.

A few notes about this package:

This is (almost) a normal desktop build - so you can run it on any Linux box - but…

…you really want to read this first, before installing it:

This is a build with statically linked Qt, as are our .1 builds - but the static builds are usually made with gcc 2.95 for compatibility reasons. However, this build is made with gcc 4.1 in order to avoid a nasty issue on the laptop: the builds made with gcc 2.95 kill the machine when you run some javascript. (This one doesn't so you can turn javascript back on, if you were running without).

The package ships with a custom opera6rc:
; Put any default settings here that are overridable by users

[User Prefs]
Force DPI=96
Show Menu=0
Minimum Font Size=12
Show panel toggle=0
Button Set=/usr/share/opera/skin/olpc_skin.zip
Toolbar Configuration=/usr/share/opera/ini/olpc_toolbar.ini

[Fonts]
Toolbar=18,4,0,0,0,0,DejaVu LGC Sans [unknown]
Panel=18,4,0,0,0,0,DejaVu LGC Sans [unknown]
Dialog=18,4,0,0,0,0,DejaVu LGC Sans [unknown]

If you install this package on some other Linux box than it was intended for, you might want to back up the original /etc/opera6rc first.

The package comes with a custom olpc_skin.zip and a custom olpc_toolbar.ini: when installing the package, they will be preselected by default. However, when running the package directly from the tarball without installing it, both the skin and toolbar will not be applied automatically. Also, there is a bug in the Preferences dialog that prevents Opera from detecting two toolbars in the default location. Since we decided to also ship the default toolbar, this will be the only one appearing in the toolbar section in the Preferences. If you select it, there is no way in the GUI to revert to the olpc_toolbar - you'll need to copy it from the default location /usr/share/opera/ini/olpc_toolbar.ini to your profile. Note that some icons in the skin are missing.

To install the build on the OLPC laptop you most likely want to grab the RPM package, then install it with
rpm -i opera-9.12-20070122.10-static-qt.i386-en.rpm

or the -U flag if you have installed Opera previously and you are now just upgrading.

We have also uploaded tarballs and a DEB package for anybody running either some other distro on the machine, or for those that have problems to get the RPM to install. To install from the tarballs follow these instructions:
$ tar jxvf opera-9.12-20070122.10-static-qt.i386-en-544.tar.bz2
$ cd opera-9.12-20070122.10-static-qt.i386-en-544
$ sudo ./install.sh



Note also that we have only tested on a BTest-1 machine with default system installation - other machines than this might have their own issues. This is not a final build, but a development snapshot.

And now for to the fun part: download your build, and play with it!

We would very much appreciate as much feedback as possible! How does Opera run on your OLPC XO?


Download

OPERA OLPC SKIN

 

[Asfaq]

the OLPC project is just a silly concept IMHO.. imagine paying $100 for a stipped down PC with a stripped down OS.. crappy..

 

[Asfaq]

Three facts that add to my opinion:

1. There's a huge shortage of teachers and classrooms in rural India. Typically, a rural school has a single teacher who hasn't been paid for years.

2. The same ministry that rejected the proposal has a pet project (universalisation of secondary education) competing with the OLPC for similar investment. Besides, two other departments have also rejected the project.

3. Mr Negroponte and his Media Lab was kicked out of India just a few years ago after his expensive collaboration to develop rural IT technologies didn't pan out as the govt had expected.

4. India has other stuff they need to spend their money on that will provide benefits much greater than toy-like computers. Let's face it, for educational purposes, 1 computer per child is ridiculous. 5 or 10 kids can share a "real" $300 computer and learn as much as they could with the pull-string model.

5. $100 would probably buy (in India) ALL schooling requirements for a child (school fees, books, school uniforms, shoes etc.) for a YEAR. Nobody is calling for that! why? As humans, we are fixated on "hardware." I'd like to say, "It's the software, stupid!" The problem is that software does not automatically become available (at a reasonable cost). Then there is the whole issue of usability and user interface (Windows! GUI! yuck!). Don't know how long we will be held at ransom by the keyboards, mice and screens of our times, but surely they are not the best means of interacting with a computer. Also about software, are spreadsheets, PowerPoints (or similar) and text editors sufficient? What other software is actually required? A web-browser? How about software for homework and examinations? Will be still stuck with hard-copies printed out and submitted? What about these costs (huge, HUGE!)? This is a big problem and requires innovations in education and how it is formalized. Ok, finally there is content. Who and how will that be made available. Will text books be made available as soft-copies? What are the costs for that?

In the face of all the above I'd say it's a very good decision on India's part to back out of OLPC.

 

[Asfaq]

First, its not only meant for India.

i was obviously refering to it from the Indian context!

Secondly, computers education is neccesary these days.Yes, the pooer schools still wont be able to use it. but, even then a lot of schools will benefit from this as 4000 bucks is surely lesser than 20,000 bucks.

plz read point 4 in my post above