A matrix of Sugar "solutions"

There are many ways to run Sugar:

(A discussion of technical considerations regarding supported systems is found here.)

Starch

  • Starch is a complete disk image for Sugar.
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

Sucrose

  • Sucrose is the Sugar interface plus a set of demonstration activities.
The interface, plus a set of demonstration activities
Operating System Version Sugar Version Bundled Tested Notes
binary packages available
Debian 4.0 Yes Yes Sugar on Debian
Fedora 7,8,9 Yes Yes Sugar on Fedora
Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy) 0.79.0-0ubuntu3 Yes Yes Sugar on Ubuntu
8.04 (Hardy) 0.81.5 No Sugar on Ubuntu
packages not pre-built
Gentoo "[amd64] as of 2007-12-13"[1] Yes Sugar on Gentoo
MacOS X Sugar on MacOS X
Slackware 12 Sugar on Slackware
Windows XP No Sugar on Windows

Sugar for Various Systems

Complete Sugar Solutions
Manufacturer Model Operating System Tested Notes
OLPC XO-1 Fedora-7 Yes Standard 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

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.

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.

OLPC XO-1 (Fedora)

Update to the Latest Version

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

Update To The Latest Experimental Version (a.k.a. Joyride)

Joyride is UNSUPPORTED. While it is unlikely that it will damage your hardware, it may cause data corruption. Do not use it on mission-critical systems.

Joyride contains all the bleeding-edge features that will be included in the next release.

Open the Terminal application and type the following, substituting 1779 for the latest version number.

# olpc-update joyride-1779

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.