Sugar (GUI)

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Sugar

The Sugar desktop after booting
Developed by	The OLPC Team
OS	Linux
Genre	Desktop environment
License	GNU General Public License
Website	laptop.org/sugar

Sugar is the graphical user interface being developed for the One Laptop per Child computer/education project. Sugar is used on the OLPC XO-1 laptop computer. Unlike more traditional desktop environments, it does not use a "desktop" metaphor and only focuses on one task at a time. It is written in the interpreted Python programming language, whereas most other environments are written in a compiled language such as C. Main contributors to the project include Christopher Blizzard and Marco Pesenti Gritti.

Sugar is also referred to as the OLPC Python Environment. It is composed of the Python language, GTK GUI and Gecko HTML engine. ^[1]

1 Design principles
- 1.1 Performance
- 1.2 Simplicity
2 Current status
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Design principles

[edit] Performance

The OLPC XO-1 has a 1 GB NAND flash drive and 256 MB of memory. Since there is no swap space and storage space on the laptop, only a limited number of activities can run concurrently.

[edit] Simplicity

The laptop's hardware limitations have led to much more compact program design harking back to the early days of the computer. The project's stated goal is to "avoid bloated interfaces", and "limit the controls to those immediately relevant to the task at hand". ^[2]

[edit] Current status

Sugar is still in development. In May 2006, its creators described it as primarily a “tool for expression,” thus plans are in place to include multimedia and social networking features. ^[3]

As of early 2007, Sugar can be installed (with some difficulty) on a variety of operating systems, including several Linux distributions, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. Instructions are available on the project's wiki.^[4]