Pepper folks shake a little software onto the OLPC

The OLPC kids seem pretty set on their "Sugar" GUI, with its complete disregard for traditional UI forms in search of a new, kid-friendly OS experience. However, there's a new game in town, in the form of Pepper Computer, which has ported its Pepper Pad OS over to those brightly colored XO machines. The port makes plenty of sense, since Pepper's own computers run on similar AMD Geode procs, and both OSes are similarly based on Linux. Pepper Pad was also initially built with younger users in mind, and given the fact that Pepper's OS is quite a bit more mature than OLPC's current offering, it's hard not get attached to the idea. Of course, the absence of a touch screen on the XO might put a bit of a damper on things, but it seems the trackpad can take over just fine in its absence. It doesn't seem like this new development will have much effect on the OLPC project as it relates to those millions of laptops NickNeg is hoping to ship to kiddies in developing countries, but it's nice to know we'll have such an OS option when we snag our own XO off eBay.

[wayan @ Jan 5th 2007 1:15PM]

Actually, I've just been told that Pepper Computer is not porting their OS to the OLPC, they are:

"demoing the Pepper 3.1 software running on the OLPC XO laptop, NOT a Pepper operating system running on it. Pepper 3.1 is an application framework, user experience and suite of Web-connected applications. When it runs on the OLPC laptop, the laptop is still running the OLPC version of Fedora Core 6. It's similar to Opera running on the laptop. In fact, Pepper 3.1 also runs on Windows (it's free to download from http://www.pepper.com.

More details on OLPC News:
http://www.olpcnews.com/software/operating_system/pepper_pad_operating.html#comments

[dfn_doe @ Jan 5th 2007 1:40PM]

Standby for a trademark dispute... The "XO" brand is already used by "XO Communications" here in the US and the ad-hoc networking capabilities of the OLPC device seem to make it a pretty good target for a lawsuit... YMMV IANAL

[Sean Sosik-Hamor @ Jan 5th 2007 1:49PM]

Yup, what wayan said. The only changes we've made to the OLPC's underlying Fedora Core Linux OS are loading up a JRE, booting up to our Pepper 3.1 environment (based on Java) instead of Sugar, and adding a new wpa_supplicant and Wi-Fi drivers. Everything else basically stays the same.

- Sean Sosik-Hamor (Pepper Computer, Inc.)

[Regula Oblique @ Jan 5th 2007 1:54PM]

This thing is starting to look hot even for a low end laptop i think imma pick one up too. :)

[Otsego @ Jan 5th 2007 1:58PM]

actually, im pretty sick of OLPC.

[Brian @ Jan 5th 2007 3:13PM]

I bet a few kids who recieve one, will use a friend's/class mate's OLPC to sell theirs for top dollar on E-Bay - which Engadget will then purchase :b

[Evan @ Jan 5th 2007 5:54PM]

The on-screen text in that photo looks really small. These computers are going to cause an epidemic - they are going to make the kids who use them need glasses.

[raindog @ Jan 5th 2007 9:45PM]

A bigger question I have about the screenshot is whether the laptops are actually fast enough to play YouTube videos.

[Sean Sosik-Hamor @ Jan 5th 2007 10:11PM]

Evan, due to the resolution the text is currently quite small. It's on our todo list to make a customized OLPC theme for Pepper 3.1 that will more efficiently use all the screen real estate. But we only got our OLPCs a week or two ago and scrambled to get Pepper 3.1 up and running for CES. :)

[Sean Sosik-Hamor @ Jan 5th 2007 10:13PM]

raindog, the OLPC itself appears to be fast enough to play YouTube videos but the current roadblock is Flash 7. We sent a video over to Carrypad.com that demos 320x240 Quicktime H.264 movie trailers from Apple.com and they play flawlessly. The YouTube video, however, plays a little choppy as you'll see in the video once Steve Paine releases it.

[raindog @ Jan 7th 2007 3:50PM]

Well, Flash 9's out in beta for Linux; I have it installed on the laptop on which I'm typing this. And it does work a lot better. Have you guys started testing it for eventual inclusion when it goes gold?

[Greg @ Nov 27th 2007 8:44AM]

Hello,
I recently tried the xo laptop in NYC at the wired store. It was cool except for when I tried youtube out. The video was choppy as you discussed. Has anyone tried anything with the flash player to improve this?
Thanks,
Greg