A matrix of Sugar "solutions"
There are many ways to run Sugar:
- As a separate disk image on an existing machine (Please see Try Sugar for examples of running Sugar on top of other systems, e.g., MS-Windows);
- As a session on a Linux system; or
- As part of a complete hardware-software platform.
(A discussion of technical considerations regarding supported systems is found here.)
Starch
- Starch is a complete disk image for Sugar.
| Name | Sugar Version | Tested | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBackup XO-LiveCD | 0.75.13-1 | Yes | This is a Live CD of the OLPC system |
| LiveBackup Fedora-LiveCD | 0.82 | Yes | This is a Fedora Live CD of the Sugar system |
| Ubuntu LiveCD/LiveUSB | 0.82 | Instructions for installing a Ubuntu LiveUSB |
Sucrose
- Sucrose is the Sugar interface plus a set of demonstration activities.
| Operating System | Version | Sugar Version | Bundled | Tested | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| binary packages available | |||||
 Debian |
4.0 | 0.82 | Yes | Yes | Sugar on Debian |
 Fedora |
7,8,9 | 0.82 | Yes | Yes | Sugar on Fedora (Also see Sugar on Fedora) |
 Ubuntu |
8.04 (Hardy) | 0.79.0-0ubuntu3 | Yes | Yes | Sugar on Ubuntu |
| 8.04 (Hardy) | 0.82 | Yes | Sugar on Ubuntu | ||
| packages not pre-built | |||||
 Gentoo |
[x86] [amd64] 2008-10-23 | 0.82.1 | Yes | Yes | Sugar on Gentoo |
| MacOS X | Sugar on MacOS X | ||||
 |
Slackware 12 | Sugar on Slackware | |||
 |
WindowsXP | No | Sugar on Windows Tom van Overbeek describes how to run Sugar using QEMU | ||
Sugar for Various Systems
| Manufacturer | Model | Operating System | Tested | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OLPC | XO-1 | Fedora-7 | Yes | Standard (reference) distribution |
| ASUSTeK | Eee PC | In initial testing phase | ||
| Intel | Classmate Gen 1 & Gen 2 | under development |
Getting the Sugar sources
Distributors can find the latest sources for the sucrose components here. Each sucrose roadmap entry has as well links to the release pages of earlier releases.
Updating Sugar to the Latest Version
Ubuntu
For a LiveCD/LiveUSB, check out the instructions [1].
Updated sucrose packages are usually published in a PPA: See here for details.
If you want up-to-the-minute freshness (and brokenness) you can use jhbuild to build from source instead of the released packages. Follow the instructions here to install sugar-jhbuild as an xsession option.
Debian
Sucrose packages are usually updated in unstable. These packages migrate to testing after a while. You can see the current package versions here.
If you want up-to-the-minute freshness (and brokenness) you can use jhbuild to build from source instead of the released packages.
Fedora
Fedora LiveCD/Live USB
The Fedora Sugar Spin incorporates the Sugar environment on a Fedora Live CD.
With this spin, you'll be able to run Sugar from a Live CD! You'll find several activities on the image including most notably...
- sugar-browse - a web browsing activity based on xulrunner
- sugar-write - a word processor based on abiword
...among with several other applications introducing e.g. chat support.
The Fedora OLPC SIG will be importing further activities into Fedora, which might be installed using 'yum install sugar-*' at a later time.
Where can you get it? Easily, here:
http://sdz.fedorapeople.org/olpc/sugar-spin.iso
Here's the SHA1 checksum, just if you're interested:
f032ab45aa116c2728dcd2d676e29a5ee114fd1d sugar-spin.iso
And what if you wanted to put it onto a USB Key? Even easier! You'll just need to grab Luke Macken's liveusb-creator, which already includes support for the Sugar Spin. Here's the link:
https://fedorahosted.org/releases/l/i/liveusb-creator/liveusb-creator-3.0.zip
Tip of the hat: Sebastian Dziallas and the Fedora team
Fedora on an OLPC XO
On an OLPC XO-1 laptop, run olpc-update as root.
Normally you only need to run olpc-update in the Terminal application with a build number, like this:
# olpc-update 703
Note: Now you can do this by means of the graphical Control Panel.
Update to the latest experimental version (a.k.a. Joyride)
Joyride is for developers; it is not supported. Joyride builds may cause data corruption and in rare cases, even cause hardware damage, so please do not use Joyride on mission-critical systems.
Joyride contains all the "bleeding-edge" features that are being debugged for inclusion in the next release.
Open the Terminal application and type the following, substituting 2469 for the latest version number.
# olpc-update joyride-2469
What's the latest version? You can find the latest build number (shown above as 1779) at the bottom of http://xs-dev.laptop.org/~cscott/xo-1/streams/joyride/
Updates usually takes 10–15 minutes. It's advised that you plug your XO in while Sugar updates itself, then reboot it to see the new OS take effect.
Other Options
These are options that can be used with the update command:
# olpc-update --help
Usage:
olpc-update [options] --hints hints-file
olpc-update [options] [-rf] build-number
olpc-update [options] [-rf] --usb
olpc-update --version
olpc-update --help
For example:
olpc-update 630
olpc-update joyride-1779
olpc-update update.1-700
Options:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-f, --full skip incremental update attempt.
--force force update to an unsigned build.
-r, --reboot reboot after a successful update.
--hints=FILE name of json-encoded hints dictionary identifying the desired
new version.
-u, --usb upgrade from new build on inserted USB stick.
-v display verbose progress information; repeat for more verbose
output.
-q, --quiet don't output anything; use exit status to indicate success.
--version display version and license information.
Gentoo
There are two methods to get Sugar on your Gentoo box: sugar-jhbuild and Sugar overlay. See Gentoo for details.