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Application development for the OLPC laptop

Program an activity for the XO-1 using Python

M. Tim Jones, Consultant Engineer, Emulex Corp.
M. Tim Jones
M. Tim Jones is an embedded software engineer and the author of GNU/Linux Application Programming, AI Application Programming (now in its second edition), and BSD Sockets Programming from a Multilanguage Perspective. His engineering background ranges from the development of kernels for geosynchronous spacecraft to embedded systems architecture and networking protocols development. Tim is a Consultant Engineer for Emulex Corp. in Longmont, Colorado.
(An IBM developerWorks Contributing Author)

Summary:  The XO laptop (of the One-Laptop-Per-Child initiative) is an inexpensive laptop project intended to help educate children around the world. The laptop includes many innovations, such as a novel, inexpensive, and durable hardware design and the use of GNU/Linux® as the underlying operating system. The XO also includes an application environment written in Python with a human interface called Sugar, accessible to everyone (including kids). Explore the Sugar APIs and learn how to develop and debug a graphical activity in Sugar using Python.

Date:  18 Dec 2007
Level:  Intermediate
PDF:  A4 and Letter (220 KB | 25 pages)Get Adobe® Reader®

Activity:  14644 views
Comments:  

Before you start

This tutorial describes an emulation of the One Child Per Laptop (OLPC) XO laptop using QEMU. This means that you'll emulate a complete XO laptop on a PC (running a Linux® or Microsoft® Windows® operating system) for the purposes of developing a Python activity —that is, a program in the OLPC Sugar interface, which is based on the Python programming language. At the heart of the XO laptop, like most of the cool devices out there, is the Linux operating system.

About this tutorial

This tutorial shows how to develop Python activities for the XO laptop. From this perspective, you learn about Sugar (the XO user interface, or UI) and the details behind activity development. You also learn about Python programming, Sugar application program interfaces (APIs) for Python, and platform emulation with QEMU.

Objectives

In this tutorial, you learn about the XO laptop and how to write a Python activity using the Sugar UI. Along the way, you learn more about the XO laptop, its architecture, internals, and use.

Prerequisites

This tutorial is written for Linux developers who want to learn more about the XO laptop and the Sugar UI. It assumes a familiarity with the Linux shell and a basic understanding of the Python language.

System requirements

This tutorial provides a hands-on approach to learning about the XO laptop and Sugar activities. It assumes a Linux computer with at least 1.1GB of free space.

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static.content.url=http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/js/artrating/
SITE_ID=1
Zone=Linux, Open source
ArticleID=277863
TutorialTitle=Application development for the OLPC laptop
publish-date=12182007
author1-email=mtj@mtjones.com
author1-email-cc=tomyoung@us.ibm.com

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