[Sugar-devel] Remote display

[Sridhar Dhanapalan]

On 19 March 2011 03:51, Martin Langhoff <martin.langhoff at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 11:56 AM, Sridhar Dhanapalan
> <sridhar at laptop.org.au> wrote:
>> I've been looking into the practicality of accessing an XO's display
>> over a network (e.g. VNC). My thought is that this could enable
>> screencasting (taking the encoding load off the XO), interactive
>> whiteboards (run the interactive whiteboard software on the computer
>> connected to the XO's screen) and more.
>
> While it's not exactly what you are asking about -- have you
> considered USB2VGA? With build 10.1.3 it works remarkably well.

Yes, we are using USB2VGA and on the whole are quite happy with it.

It has a few downsides. Firstly, interactive whiteboard software still
needs Windows. The software provides other functionality like the
ability to write on the screen. The ability to calibrate the XO's
display with the whiteboard is especially important.

Secondly, we want it to be easy for teachers to create screencasts.
Doing so on an XO requires some tweaking, and preferably an external
drive. Exporting the display to another computer takes the load off
the XO. Running the OLPC OS in a VM might be better. We don't want to
have to maintain a separate Sugar on a Stick distribution in sync with
our XO OS.

Of course, VNC has its own problems (namely, performance). It probably
won't be practical in a lot of places. However, I just want to get us
to the point where it is a working option for teachers to use.

Sridhar