afrodeity
March 13th, 2009, 09:46 PM
I'm a fan of the Sugar XO desktop environment which has been abandoned somewhat by the OLPC project who are focusing on hardware. It was originally bundled with Fedora but has now been ported to ubuntu and is available using:
sudo apt-get install sugar sugar-activities sugar-emulator
The reason why I'm a fan, aside from the beautifully abstract and visually interesting desk is from an evolutionary perspective. I believe it is pedogologically correct to have a system in which you can introduce programmes to the desk, and then put them away, preferably under lock and key. I don't always have enough computer power to operate every bit of the modern desktop which often becomes cluttered. Why must I keep everything in memory somewhere. While procesess can be started and stopped, it is Sugar which offers this solution in a visual way which one might associate with supercomputing. So as you scale up, you can leave more in system memory, then when you need, you can put the application away in a user-friendly manner.
Then there is the fact that you are not expected to remember anything. Your work or desk can be part of an ongoing log in which you can always look back at the various instances of the desk. I would love to have Sugar develop to the point at which you have multiple undoes of the desktop. At least this is what seems to be the metanarrative suggested by the Sugar project
In the future all computers will be able to do this.
Again, I like the possibility of infinite virtualisation offered by locking down x spaces in what UNIX freaks refer to as jails. This should be standard on any desktop. The ability to hack away at a part of the system without affecting or compromising the rest. The ability to visually understand the many layers of Ubuntu with Sugar desktop, because, Ubuntu has all of this power which is not being used simply because we are still looking at the OS (and computer) from an old-fashioned bureau or portmanteau point of view. A place to keep your pens and calculators, gimzos and gadgets but not the kind of ubiquitous environment in which you can edit video, mashup audio and whiteboard without compromising speed or power, which is what the Sugar desktop would offer us if it was developed as an addition to the Ubuntu Free Desktop like KDE, XFCE and GNOME.
Unfortunately, Sugar on ubuntu is in danger of dying, simply because not enough education has been done on the long-term goals of the Sugar project. Should Ubuntu have a powerful sugar session, and what would happen if this Sugar session took over the look and feel of Ubuntu, would we be willing to sacrifice our Gnome/KDE/XFCE identities? Will Sugar end-up becoming too Ubuntu-like?
I love Gnome, its my friend, but I also like Sugar and the two are about the best desktops next to KDE that I have seen in the world of Linux. Sugar offers us a brand-new environment in which many of the applications available in KDE for instance may take on new form. I have already suggested sugar as a vehicle for modifications and as a place to produce wonderful works of artifice. I would love to see a decent sugar audio playa that interacted with other sugar user's. We are rapidly approaching the point where all this will become a possibility as the network takes on new forms. The sugar desktop is a portal to a new networked reality in which the WWW is merely one facet, not the end goal. Applications that work together in new ways - this is what I foresee in the near future, environments that are rock-solid because of Ubuntu, with all the speed that we can bring without compromising serendipity, creativity, conscious exploration.
Any thoughts on this subject would be appreciated.:)
Here are some Sugar on Ubuntu links:
Sugarlabs.org Community-Distributions-Ubuntu (http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Community/Distributions/Ubuntu)
wiki.laptop.org Sugar on Ubuntu (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar_on_Ubuntu)
sudo apt-get install sugar sugar-activities sugar-emulator
The reason why I'm a fan, aside from the beautifully abstract and visually interesting desk is from an evolutionary perspective. I believe it is pedogologically correct to have a system in which you can introduce programmes to the desk, and then put them away, preferably under lock and key. I don't always have enough computer power to operate every bit of the modern desktop which often becomes cluttered. Why must I keep everything in memory somewhere. While procesess can be started and stopped, it is Sugar which offers this solution in a visual way which one might associate with supercomputing. So as you scale up, you can leave more in system memory, then when you need, you can put the application away in a user-friendly manner.
Then there is the fact that you are not expected to remember anything. Your work or desk can be part of an ongoing log in which you can always look back at the various instances of the desk. I would love to have Sugar develop to the point at which you have multiple undoes of the desktop. At least this is what seems to be the metanarrative suggested by the Sugar project
In the future all computers will be able to do this.
Again, I like the possibility of infinite virtualisation offered by locking down x spaces in what UNIX freaks refer to as jails. This should be standard on any desktop. The ability to hack away at a part of the system without affecting or compromising the rest. The ability to visually understand the many layers of Ubuntu with Sugar desktop, because, Ubuntu has all of this power which is not being used simply because we are still looking at the OS (and computer) from an old-fashioned bureau or portmanteau point of view. A place to keep your pens and calculators, gimzos and gadgets but not the kind of ubiquitous environment in which you can edit video, mashup audio and whiteboard without compromising speed or power, which is what the Sugar desktop would offer us if it was developed as an addition to the Ubuntu Free Desktop like KDE, XFCE and GNOME.
Unfortunately, Sugar on ubuntu is in danger of dying, simply because not enough education has been done on the long-term goals of the Sugar project. Should Ubuntu have a powerful sugar session, and what would happen if this Sugar session took over the look and feel of Ubuntu, would we be willing to sacrifice our Gnome/KDE/XFCE identities? Will Sugar end-up becoming too Ubuntu-like?
I love Gnome, its my friend, but I also like Sugar and the two are about the best desktops next to KDE that I have seen in the world of Linux. Sugar offers us a brand-new environment in which many of the applications available in KDE for instance may take on new form. I have already suggested sugar as a vehicle for modifications and as a place to produce wonderful works of artifice. I would love to see a decent sugar audio playa that interacted with other sugar user's. We are rapidly approaching the point where all this will become a possibility as the network takes on new forms. The sugar desktop is a portal to a new networked reality in which the WWW is merely one facet, not the end goal. Applications that work together in new ways - this is what I foresee in the near future, environments that are rock-solid because of Ubuntu, with all the speed that we can bring without compromising serendipity, creativity, conscious exploration.
Any thoughts on this subject would be appreciated.:)
Here are some Sugar on Ubuntu links:
Sugarlabs.org Community-Distributions-Ubuntu (http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Community/Distributions/Ubuntu)
wiki.laptop.org Sugar on Ubuntu (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar_on_Ubuntu)