[Sugar-devel] Enhancing Sugar to support multiple users

[Simon Schampijer]

On 09/07/2010 01:33 AM, Hal Murray wrote:
>
> dsd at laptop.org said:
>> When we discussed this while I was in Peru, one requirement they identified
>> is that the kid would log onto an XO one day and do some work, and then log
>> onto another XO the following week and continue the same work.
>
>> Assuming this still stands, this strongly calls for a network-based home
>> directory system with some kind of network login service (but someone with
>> experience in such areas should comment). This would require a number of
>> changes at the OS level and server level, but Sugar would be left untouched,
>> as far as I can think.
>
> I think there are two approaches.
>
> One is for /home to live on the file server and XOs to access their files via
> NFS.  There may be interesting alternatives to NFS, but I'm not familiar with
> any of them.
>
> The other is to have a working copy of files on the local machine and
> manually slosh files back and forth, probably using a program to automate
> things.
>
> I don't think either would be great, but both could probably be made to work.
>
> Both depend on reasonable network support.  Somebody would have to do some
> experimenting to see how many users the typical WiFi setup can support.
>
> [...]
>
> Here is another alternative...  Give each child their own SD card.  Patch
> Sugar to look there.  Or patch the system to mount /home/olpc there.  ...

 From my experience in class, handing out cards/usb sticks to kids is 
very delicate for the reasons of loosing them or forgetting them at 
home. Of course you can organize for them to leave them in the school or 
with the teachers, I just would not let the kids take them home... :)

Regards,
    Simon