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[edit] About Sugar
[edit] What is Sugar?
Sugar is an educational software platform built with the python programming language and based on the principles of cognitive and social constructivism.
[edit] Who is doing Sugar development?
Sugar is a community project. At present some of the Sugar developers under contract to OLPC; most of the Sugar developers are volunteers. You can get an idea of the people involve from the Modules page.
[edit] What makes Sugar different from other educational software platforms?
The Sugar interface, in its departure from the desktop metaphor for computing, is the first serious attempt to create a user interface that is based on both cognitive and social constructivism: learners should engage in authentic exploration and collaboration. It is based on three very simple principles about what makes us human: (1) everyone is a teacher and a learner; (2) humans by their nature are social beings; and (3) humans by their nature are expressive. These are the pillars of a user experience for learning.
Sugar also considers two aphorisms: (1) you learn through doing, so if you want more learning you want more doing; and (2) love is a better master than duty—you want people to engage in things that are authentic to them, things that they love.
The presence of other people is always present in the Sugar interface: collaboration is a first-order experience. Students and teachers engage in a dialog with each other, support each other, critique each other, and share ideas.
Sugar is also discoverable: it can accommodate a wide variety of users, with different levels of skill in terms of reading, language, and different levels of experience with computing. It is easy to approach and yet it doesn't put an upper bound on personal expression; one can peel away layers and go deeper and deeper, with no restrictions.
Sugar is based on Python, an interpreted language, allowing the direct appropriation of ideas: in whatever realm the learner is exploring—music, browsing, reading, writing, programming, graphics, etc.—they are able to drill deeper; they are not going to hit a wall, since they can, at every level, engage in debugging both their personal expression and the very tools that they use for that expression.
[edit] Using Sugar
[edit] Who can use Sugar and how do they benefit?
[edit] Does Sugar run on {GNU/Linux, Fedora, Ubuntu, Suse, MAC OS, Windows, etc.}?
Please refer to the Supported systems page for an up-to-date list of supported systems.
[edit] Is there an image of the OS that can be run on a PC?
You can download a LiveCD version of Sugar (Please see http://wiki.laptop.org/go/LiveCd) or run Sugar natively on a supported system. (The language can be set from the Sugar-control-panel in the LiveCD image.)
[edit] Does Sugar run on an ASUS Eee PC (or other "ultra-mobile" or "mini" PCs)?
There is a thread on the mailing list about success stories with the Eee: http://lists.lo-res.org/pipermail/its.an.education.project/2008-May/000282.html Another pointer is: ftp://rohrmoser-engineering.de/pub/XO-LiveCD/XO-LiveCD_080321.pdf Many manufacturers are beginning to take an interest in supporting Sugar.
[edit] Is it possible to have mesh support with the LiveCD ?
Q: If I understand this correctly, mesh support means your wireless card functions as both an access point/router and a network node. In short, your wireless computer can pass along packages from nearby wireless computers and the other way round. Do you need special wireless cards for this, or is this a driver/software issue that could be fixed in the LiveCD, so that more people can experience mesh networks?
A:
[edit] Sugar Labs
[edit] What is Sugar Labs?
Sugar Labs, a (soon to be established) non-profit foundation, serves as a support base and gathering place for the community of educators and software developers who want to extend the Sugar platform and who have been creating Sugar-compatible applications.
[edit] What is the mission of Sugar Labs?
The overarching mission of Sugar Labs is to support the Sugar platform through software development, and community outreach and support. The purpose of the Sugar platform is provide a software and content environment that enhances learning. Towards this end, Sugar is designed to facilitate learners to “explore, express, debug, and critique.”
[edit] What are the principles that guide Sugar Labs?
Sugar Labs subscribes to principle that learning thrives within a culture of freedom of expression, hence it has a natural affinity with the free and open-source software movement (Please see Principles page in this wiki for more details). The core Sugar platform has been developed under a GNU General Public License (GPL); individual activities may be under different licenses.
[edit] What is the relationship of Sugar Labs to One Laptop per Child?
Sugar was originally developed as the user interface (UI) for the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) XO-1 laptop. Sugar Labs was established as an independent entity in order to facilitate the growth of Sugar beyond any single hardware platform. While Sugar Labs has a cooperative working relationship with OLPC, it is by no means an exclusive or proprietary relationship. Sugar Labs is not bound to any specific hardware platform or Linux distribution (Please see Supported systems).
Sugar Labs is the upstream community for the Sugar project. Sugar Labs welcomes a close working relationship with OLPC. Sugar Labs also welcomes other laptop manufacturers among others.
OLPC and Sugar Labs are not diverging, we are on the same page; we are both hoping to fund and support Sugar so that we can continue to provide the best learning experience for children. The Sugar Labs initiative is consistent with taking Sugar to the next level; this is not inconsistent with what OLPC is doing. Any help from outside or inside OLPC should help establish Sugar as a more stable and better product.
[edit] Who is upstream for Sugar?
Sugar Labs is the upstream for the Sugar project.
[edit] Who is Sugar Labs?
Sugar is a community project, so it is the sum of those of you who participate. Sugar Labs was started by some Sugar-community members: Walter Bender, Christoph Derndorfer, Bert Freudenberg, Marco Pesenti Gritti, Bernardo Innocenti, Aaron Kaplan, Simon Schampijer, and Tomeu Vizoso. We are in the process of designing an initial set of rules of governance that will be refined and ratified in a process of public discussion.
[edit] How do I get involved?
Please see the Getting Involved page in this wiki.
[edit] How do I learn more about Sugar Labs?
Please add new questions to the discussion page or send email to press at sugarlabs.org.
[edit] AccessibiltyTeam
The AccessibiltyTeam Currently has no entries in their FAQ.
[edit] Bugsquad
[edit] As a non-programmer/non-developer, how does one go about verifying bugs?
Setup a test environment (install the latest joyride on your XO is probably the best way to do it at the moment), try to reproduce the problem following the steps provided by the bug reporter, add a comment on the ticket about your results. If the bug used to be easily reproducible (which usually you can guess from the ticket text or ask to the reporter) and you cannot reproduce it anymore then close the bug as fixed. -- Marcopg
[edit] BuildTeam
The BuildTeam Currently have no entries in their FAQ.
[edit] DevelopmentTeam
- This page contains many frequently-asked questions along with some answers.
To ask a new question, please post your question(s) here. We encourage you to answer questions and keep these pages organized.
[edit] Meetings
[edit] Are there regular developer meetings on irc?
Yes there are: every Thursday at 17.00 UTC on irc.freenode.net, #sugar-meeting (Please see DevelopmentTeam/Meetings for more information).
[edit] DocumentationTeam
[edit] What documentation is needed?
See OLPC Publications for a partial answer. This addresses primarily hardware and software documentation for students, teachers, system administrators, and developers, and the separate issue of localization. There are proposals for teacher training and textbooks, but little is available.
[edit] What resources are available for creating documents?
- Source code repository
- Content Repositories
- Test builds/OS Images
- OLPC Wiki
- Software developers mailing list
- Peripherals mailing list
- Educators mailing list
- Library and content mailing list
and other such locations.
[edit] How do I get involved?
See Community/GettingInvolved for general information. Beyond that, look at what is being done, and offer to write, edit, or test something.
[edit] Who is working on documentation?
See DocumentationTeam/Contacts.
[edit] EducationTeam
The EducationTeam FAQ is currently empty.
[edit] InfrastructureTeam
[edit] LocalizationTeam
[edit] MarketingTeam
The MarketingTeam currently has no entries in their FAQ.
[edit] ReleaseTeam
The ReleaseTeam FAQ is currently empty.
[edit] TranslationTeam
The DevelopmentTeam FAQ is currently empty.
[edit] WikiTeam
[edit] How do I get in contact with a wiki administrator?
You can find a listing of sysops and bureaucrats on WikiTeam/Contacts
