User:Inkyfingers/Getting Started(0)
This page is under active construction at this time. Please check back shortly for updated information.
--Inkyfingers 04:51, 19 November 2011 (EST) Hope to finish early December.
About Sugar
Sugar is a desktop environment that is an alternative to the ones typically used in Microsoft Windows, Apple's OS X, or GNU/Linux operating systems. It is conceived as a platform upon which children learn with Sugar Activities. The platform provides mechanisms for collaboration, reflection, and exploration. Sugar Activities cover a broad range of applications: browsing, drawing, composing, writing, programming, etc.
The Sugar desktop has multiple full-screen views: a Home view from which Activities are launched; a Neighborhood view where learners can connect to each other through a Jabber network; a Journal view, which can be used as a lab notebook; and the Activity view, where Sugar Activities are run.
Sugar Activities have no Save menu: everything is saved automatically. Sugar support self discovery: while the interface uses very little text, additional information is revealed when the user hovers over icons.
Sugar is Free Software. It is developed in Python and runs on a GNU/Linux Kernel, originally from the Fedora Project, and now from a variety of GNU/Linux distributions.
For an overview of the technical components composing a Sugar system see the Sugar System Stack.
Getting Sugar
Sugar on a Stick
Sugar on a Stick is the easiest way to get Sugar and this is the introductory page
If this is going to be your first attempt at running sugar, you could take the advice "buy rather than build". For purchase information for Sugar pre-installed on a bootable USB flash drive, see Sugar Creation Kit#Commercial source of SoaS-loaded media.
Please do not be discouraged from building Sugar on a Stick by this comment. It was the first bootable flash drive I had ever made and worked at the second attempt.
If you are a Windows user with no Linux experience, you are not going to do anything more complicated than a purchase at Ebay! Have a look at the Fedora program you will use: https://fedorahosted.org/liveusb-creator/
Hardware requirements
Before you download, you need to know if you will use the 64Bit version. If your computer says on the box or documentation that it is 64Bit, you may use the 64bit download version of Sugar called "x86_64". I think it is safe to say that pcs above Pentium 2 (commenced production end 1995) and meeting the spec. below should run the "i686" version.
You will need to ensure the computer you plan to use is a) capable of booting from USB.
- b) You will probably need to make a change in the BIOS (see your computer's hardware documentation). Change Boot Order, so that Boot from USB comes before Boot from Hard Drive.
From http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora we see these minimum requirements for the current distribution, Fedora 16.
- A 400MHz or faster processor
- At least 768 MB memory (RAM), 1 GB recommended for best performance.
The minimum size of your USB flash drive is 2GB.
Ready to Download
If you are happy you have covered the above, you are ready to install Sugar on a flash drive, referring to Downloads
For Mac users (and if you would like to review what you are about to do in a different format) please see Sugar-on-a-Stick Creation Guide.
FixMe I would like to add the most positive link available for potential Mac users.
Alternatives
- Alternate: Boot from burned CD and enter "liveinst" in root terminal of sugar
- This starts the fedora anaconda installer and you can select your 4 GB or larger USB; or your Hard Disk; as the media to install to.
- (this is a real installation) not a compressed file system with a persistence file)
Linux Distributions supporting Sugar
A list here
- Community/Distributions ALL
- Sugar_Creation_Kit#Community_Distributions With Good Support
Release notes
Release notes for Sugar 0.121 are available here.
Sugar platform release version cycle: | 0.82 | 0.84 | 0.86 | 0.88 | 0.90 | 0.92 | 0.94 | 0.96 | 0.98 | 0.100 | 0.102 | 0.104 | 0.106 | 0.108 | 0.110 | 0.112 |
Other resources
What is required here is a 3 line paragraph helping to orientate a new user to the wiki, and link to the areas he/she might most need.
This project, Sugar Creation Kit provides Sugar resources on a DVD, useful where there is limited internet access.
- Part Two is the on-line version.
- ASLOxo is a DVD .iso full of activities in .xo form for drag drop install to sugar
Other resources are listed on the Deployment Team/Resources page.