[Sugar-devel] Sugar on an PocketCHIP requires UI to work at 640x480

[Dave Crossland]

Hi

It seems the closest thing to an XO being released this year is
http://getchip.com/pages/pocketchip

I was happy to finally see a 'dynabook' design
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynabook :)

I ordered one and asked their support line if anything special needs
to be done to get Sugar working, and their response is below:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ben Young (Next Thing Co. Crew) <support at nextthing.co>
Date: 5 May 2016 at 15:54
Subject: [Next Thing Co.] Re: Sugar on an PocketCHIP?

> Brilliant!! Please may I repost your reply on the sugar-devel mailing list? :)

Absolutely! Fun fact, one of our devs had actually looked at using
Sugar for our default environment for CHIP during early stages of
development.

It may also interest you to know that we've created our own app-like
interface for adding new pieces of software, etc.

-- Ben

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ben Young (Next Thing Co. Crew) <support at nextthing.co>
Date: 5 May 2016 at 14:49
Subject: [Next Thing Co.] Re: Sugar on an PocketCHIP?
To: Dave Crossland <dave at lab6.com>

Hi Dave,

There's some instructions on the Sugar Labs wiki
[https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Debian] for installing Sugar on Debian.
However, the instructions point to using packages from the
testing/stretch repository, and I only see it available in
unstable/sid.

I went through the process detailed under the "Using Sugar on Debian"
section, with the exception of using 'sid' in place of 'stretch' in
the first line. The install was ~400MB on top of our 600MB default
install [this could be fairly easily trimmed down though] leaving
~2.6GB of free space.

The installation went well, but there does seem to be a few small
visual artifacts as a result of the 640x480 resolution. In the
calculator for example, the equation entry field is smaller than the
text being input into it.

But in any case, the installation works, it just looks like the DE
itself could use some TLC in regards to lower resolution
compatibility. I would imagine in it's current state to be near
unusable on a PocketCHIP.

-- Ben