The reason is clear – resources. It takes a lot of developers and testers to write good software. The OLPC uses a custom version of Fedora. The “custom” part of that is the issue. There were significant design decisions made that require significant development to accomplish. The “journal” storage mechanism, the Sugar interface, the chipset power management features, and the rotating screen.

In a “for profit” environment, there would be a cost/revenue analysis. The XO hardware warrants the investment but OLPC is not a “for profit” organization so there is no “revenue” in the equation since the organization is avoiding passing the development costs along to the consumer. While this is a laudable goal, it has created shackles that have jailed progress.

Microsoft has more than a 1000 times the resources available to apply to these types of challenges. It also has the money to “spend now and reap rewards later”. This is exactly what they have done. To their credit, they appear to have done a pretty good job. They made business centric choices. They developed support for the chipset power management and the screen but did not consider the “journal” or the Sugar interface. The resulting lean Windows XP doesn’t fit on the internal 1GB solid state drive so it goes on an SD card in the one available slot.

The video is compelling. I have two XOs and if given the chance, I will run one with XP.

Note: I shouldn’t detract from the topic of this post but I can’t avoid the realization that when “XP4XO” is released, there will definitely be a flood of hacking of drivers to make it a generally usable on many different hardware.

So, how *do* you make a backup image of a USB memory stick or SD card ? I thought the answer would be partimage but that didn’t get the boot info correct and it was overkill to boot <intentional pun >. It turns out there are only two command needed from a Linux terminal window …

Code:
#command to make backup image of SD card
#in this example case the SD card reader appears as "/dev/sdb"
sudo dd if=/dev/sdb | bzip2 >sdb-xbuntu.image.bz2

Code:
#restore backup image of SD card
#in this example case the SD card reader appears as "/dev/sdb"
sudo bunzip2 -c sdb-xbuntu.image.bz2 >/dev/sdb

In a word – “Yes”.

It turns out it only takes a mild obsession to figure out how to get IBM’s Mobility Connect client (aka Lotus Mobile Connect) to run on an OLPC XO. the steps – as best as I can remember are:

1. copy all of the IBMwc*.rpm files to a USB stick
2. insert the stick in one of the OLPC USB ports (we will call this location ‘/media/USBSTICK’)
3. open the terminal activity
4. >su

   

5. #yum install perl.i386
6. #yum stdc++.so.5
7. #cd /media/USBSTICK
8. #rpm -vi gsk7bas-7.0-3.18.i386.rpm
9. #rpm -vi IBMwc-nls-6.1-1.0.i386.rpm
10. #rpm -vi IBMwc-ppp-6.1-1.0.i386.rpm
11. #rpm -vi IBMwc-https-6.1-1.0.i386.rpm
12. #rpm -vi IBMwc-6.1-1.0.i386.rpm

When you are ready to connect to the corporate network:

1. open the terminal activity
2. >su
3. #wclient

The use of “su” may not be necessary

I should note, Domino Web Access 8 is not totally happy with the OLPC Browser. I’m not sure if it is too much JavaScript, too much behind-the-scenes XML transfers and processing or what. With DWA8 ‘lite’ I was able to read mail, compose a message (but the rich text widget had a hiccup), and save the email. the “send” button did not work. Some day, while sitting on hold I’ll have to figure this out further.

It is nearly midnight on the East coast of the Unites States and with that, the end of the Give 1 Get 1 donation program from the OLPC Foundation.

I was curious how successful the donation program had been – with my definition of “success” being the number of donation.

A laptop Magazine interview with Nicholas Negroponte gives a clue …

L: How many laptops have been donated through the G1, G1 program?

NN: It is hard to count, because some people gave many. Birmingham, Alabama ordered 15,000 for its kids, because of G1G1, but I really cannot count those 15,000. The final number will be between 150,000 and 170,000 laptops, without counting the very big ones like Birmingham.

The Birmingham progrma is very cool – as is the 150,000 + laptops going to the intended children.

Are you now saying “HUH ?”

You may or may not have been the recipient of a recall letter for your laptop battery. You may or may not enjoy air travel. Now the two collide …

New US DOT Hazmat Safety Rule to Place Lithium Battery Limits in Carry-on Baggage on Passenger Aircraft Effective January 1, 2008. Passengers will no longer be able to pack loose lithium batteries in checked luggage … to reduce the risk of lithium battery fires.

What does this have to do with the OLPC ? Well, the laptop designed for the OLPC Foundation needed to handle some pretty harsh environments, including operating in very hot, desert conditions – even being tested to 140 degrees while *running* !

Traditional laptop batters are not designed for high temperature environments but the OLPC XO’s battery is. The new LiFePO4 battery and more temperature tolerant that previous batter technologies. They don’t have as good a weight:energy ratio as Lithium ion cells and hopefully that will change too.

So, could you pack a dozen of these batteries in your checked baggage ? Legally “yes” but unless the NTSB airport security crews have degrees in metallurgy and chemistry, I doubt you will get away with it.

This has been both good and not so good. The challenge to all the press is that it has focused on two things – (1) the execution of the G1G1 program and (2) the OLPC software – specifically it’s Sugar interface – and how foreign it is to users of Windows and Mac OS X. I will leave the first along and make a few observations about the second.

The OLPC is designed for your children whom have never seen computers and whom have very little technology in school – probably have very little at all in school for learning beyond the teacher. Compare that with parents who have computers at work *and* home and children who have been around computers literally since birth and you have two very different landscapes. I would agree that kids who start with an OLPC and some day grow up to adults using other computers will need to learn the difference along the way. However, The purpose of the Sugar interface and storing everything via the Journal is that it takes the emphasis off learning the computer and puts it on *learning*. Further, the inherent focus of the OLPC on nature of “constructionist” education means that collaboration will be central to everything the child does with the OLPC does. Further, that collaboration needs consistent metaphors in the software and ways for the teacher to interject class activities with the OLPC and its collaborative capabilities.

A good example of this collaboration took place over Christmas day with the G1G1 owners. One OLPC owner started the “Record” activity and took a picture of themselves and shared the application. This meant everyone in the “class” (defined by being connected to part of an XO School server [1]) could join the activity and see and post their own pictures. At first it was some random photos of owners but it quickly became an exchange of information about who the G1G1 people are and what is important to them – some showed the child in their life who received the XO, some showed greetings, pictures of pets, outdoor shots so you knew what climate they were from, even a “green” picture of an XO running off of a flexible solar panel. What was happening was that users were leaning about the XO and the other XO users through experience rather than rote learning.If this had been a real classroom exercise, those same pictures could have become the basis for cultural and environmental education.

So, the OLPC XO is not at all like a Mac or a PC (sorry guys). It is note meant to be. If you want a Mac, buy a Mac. If you want a PC, buy a PC. If you want to contribute to education in undeveloped countries, donate an OLPC XO. Note, I did not say buy one. And perhaps that is the whole misunderstanding. Some of the G1G1 people “donated” because they wanted an OLPC computer to use as their computer [2].

Eventually, I am guessing the geeks will wipe the OLPC XO software from the machine and replace it with something “more familiar”. Time will tell. But when they do, it will not be a bad thing nor will it be going against the OLPC Foundation mission. I suspect it will prove the OLPC XO device is flexible and able to do more than originally thought. After all, that is what we hope for the children too !

[1] Part of an XO School computer is an enhanced Jabber / XMPP server. This server allows OLPC XOs to be connected over the internet in addition to connection over a Mesh Network.
[2] Personally, I’d be fibbing if I didn’t admit a part of my motivaiton for donating was becuase I thought the OLPC XO is cool and wanted one.

You can also read what David wrote for his New York Time Online article.

The only correction to David’s information is that the G1G1 program is extended to December 31 of 2007. It’s worth every penny and makes you feel good !

The O-L-P-C is a “dream” – to provide one laptop for every child. The laptop we call “OLPC” is really the XO (not sure what it stands for). There are others – such as Intel’s ClassMate PC – that are part of the same dream. The differences between these PCs are slight and huge at the same time. The ClassMate PC is pretty much what developed countries think of when we say “build a computer we can use for education”.

The XO is different. It is what you need when we say “build a computer that children in undeveloped countries and remote areas can use for education”. The XO has a sealed membrane keyboard; has been baked to 140 degrees *while* still running; has an advanced display that is both color and sunlight readable; has a system board that can actually be powered off while the display maintains its image; has lithium iron phosphate battery which is much safer; runs on a wide voltage range; and has a strong exterior case that withstands sand and rain. In short, the hardware is extraordinary.

The challenge to most industrialized people is the software. It is so different from typical PC software. If you have grown up with files and directories and programs you launch and them open files, etc. then the Sugar interface and journal storage is about as foreign as could be imagined.

OLPC espouses five core principles [1]:

1. Child ownership
2. Low ages. The hardware and software are designed for elementary school children aged 6-12.
3. Saturation
4. Connection
5. Free and open source

Two core principles have contributed to the software developed for the XO – “free and open source” and “designed for children ages 6-12″. Couple that with the target audience of undeveloped countries and remote regions and it makes for a very different set of rules from what industrialized countries operate with.

There is also the restrictions that come from the XO being developed by a not-for-profit organization. Developing, testing, and manufacturing the XO had to be done with the monies available. They could not draw on profit generating products with the hope/expectation of generating revenue down the road to offset costs. It could not defer software licensing costs in the beginning and try to make up for it later. Another point is that much of the work is volunteer based. This has hit the software pretty hard.

The XO software does not have $100,000,000 development budgets. There is a lot of code that needs to be developed. The XO needs everything – operating system, user interface, lots of education software, and everything needs to support collaborating between children, parents, families, and teachers. Large corporations are spending millions of dollars to do this in the commercial sector and not even to the level the XO supports. Add to that the special features of the XO hardware like a rotating screen and extra input controls, and even preexisting software needs engineers to make it work well. So, it is understandable that the pre-release software that is on the Internet today still has bugs. But some consumers don’t seem to recognize this fact.

The OLPC project decided to make the XO available to people in the Unites States and Canada thru a donation program. Having seen how it has played out in the press and blogs and forums, I can understand why the OLPC foundation resisted this for so long. Selling 10 million computers to governments 250,000 at a time comes out to 40 sales. Tough sales as you can imagine and long discussions too. But just 40 sales. That requires a very different skill set and staff compared to selling 10 thousand XO’s to individuals one at a time – 40 sales vs 10,000 sales; 40 shipments vs 10,000 shipments; custom delivery vs courier delivery; 800 numbers / emails / tracking codes vs personnel assigned to each of the 40 orders. It’s a logistical disparity on a cosmic scale.

Last (for this blog post) is the question I get more than any other from my non-computer friends.

Don’t they need food and water more than computers ?

Yes, children around the world need food and clean water. They need lots of things. So why one-laptop-per-child ? I found a great response to this question on OLPCNews …

I agree about the problem of starvation and malnutrition. And about the problems of war, disease, oppression, land mines, slavery, and all the others that deny our children livelihoods, health and even life. They are not in question.

Someone needs to focus on immediate survival issues of food, health, water, war, and other troubles of the poor. If that’s you, thank you. We need more of you. And somebody needs to focus on education in order to break the cycle of poverty.

As to what you and I should do, computer scientist Edsger Dijkstra has a suggestion that I find helps to clarify matters for me: “Only do what only you can do.”  Most of us in the laptop project wouldn’t be very effective at direct food aid. We find, however, that we are very effective at what we are doing, and nobody else comes close.

by Edward Cherlin in Use Cases: Education

So, I have my XO. I have been spending a lot of time trying things out and testing the software and making notes of what works and what does not. I have spent time on the forums reading what others write and answering when I know the answers. I have also registered with the software developers site and am posting bugs I find and adding comments to help the developers fix bugs. I wish I could do more. I hope I can do more.