[Sugar-devel] Yama First impressions, OLPC OS 13.1 31018

[Kim]

Yama Ploskonka <yamaplos <at> gmail.com> writes:

> 
> 
> IMHO networking security might gain from having an option to permanently 
> hide the password. I believe Linux is years ahead of Windows in this, as 
> we can choose to make the password visible or not, but it would add 
> security if passwords also could be hidden permanently, as a third 
> choice, especially to avoid other people getting some school password.
> It still should be possible to have it visible or not when entering it - 
> so much easier to correct mistakes, mistakes get common as passwords get 
> longer or complex.
> 
> *Sugar GUI*
> (I personally have given up on Sugar getting easier to use as versions 
> accrue. What I saw shows not much difference of what we had)
> 1) I personally like the spiral, aesthetically.
> Yet, it makes finding something even harder, but then finding Activities 
> easily didn't seem to be the goal of the Favorites view.
> Terminal is hidden again.
> If someone /deserves/ Terminal privileges, they can learn how to get it, 
> so it's OK.


I'd call my 1.5 HS first impressions "poor."  Beginning from a clean install
(fs-update from a USB stick), things loaded fine and the opening "hello" boot-up
experience is improved.  After using the control panel to connect to the web,
set time, place, jabber, and frame settings, I killed Sugar in Browse amost
immediately (I tried to save the clipping I had just made of my developer key
link to my journal using the context menu the appears when hovering over the
clipping icon on the left side of the frame).  In three years of using an xo-1
and -1.5, this OS crashed more quickly than any other, and that includes some of
the earlier builds in this sequence (number 8 didn't have these problems).

Finally getting the developeer key into Terminal produced a "that certificate is
invalid" message, so to complete the process I needed to add
"--no-check-certificate" to the end of the command as instructed.  These are
great ways to let send non-tech folks like me know they're not the target
audience...

I agree the Sugar interface doesn't seem a developer priority right now; that's
a shame.  I am puzzled that brand new activities often only support older
OS's...and Dextrose 3 had some features I've given up hoping for in other
versions of sugar, like an indicator of processor/memory strain in the frame and
an easy way to offer user feedback

Switching over to the Gnome interface also failed to delight:  I can't hide the
bars at the top and bottom of the screen by right-clicking as I could in the
past, and choosing on "Change Desktop Background" after right-clicking on the
desktop did nothing.

In gnome I do like that I don't have to reconnect to wifi; my settings carry
over from Sugar.