Almost exactly one year ago, Håkon Wium Lie introduced Opera on the XO. With great fanfare he promoted the open standard, if not Open Source browser with this great aplomb:
"They argue that, in an education project, students must be allowed to peek inside the box. That's nice, I say, but if Opera makes the difference between a usable or an unusable machine, perhaps you will reconsider?"Well its now a year later, and what does Håkon Wium Lie have for the new XO user? A easy to install Opera? Let's have Greg Yohn answer:
That's right kids, to get Opera on the XO, you could start at the OLPC Wiki which says:
"Installing Opera on test machines is easy if you are a Linux power-user. Otherwise, it is, for all practical purposes, simply impossible."Or you could just look in the handy OLPC News XO Laptop Help where we have a simple Opera on the XO guide. A step by step HowTo that even non-geeks can follow, backed up by a whole forum of XO laptop users ready to help.
Its wisdom of the crowds at its best!
Update: Here's an even easier Opera browser install path from cpeart:
- from a terminal window: type in 'su' by itself or 'sudo -i' to become root
- on one line, type in: rpm -vi http://snapshot.opera.com/unix/olpc-544/opera-9.12-20070122.10-static-qt.i386-en.rpm
From what I read on the forums, not only can one install Opera, one MUST install Opera in order to use the T Mobile hotspots. Some comments make it look like Java must be installed as well.
Bootstrapping problem for those of us without wi-fi internet access. I feel like such a dork or something. I suppose I can find free wi-fi somewhere, in a form I can access to install Opera? I mean, I am in Seattle, isn't free wi-fi everywhere? Just never had a laptop before so I don't know where. But that means I won't be home near my computer where I can access the nicely detailed instructions for the install.
Thanks for posting this but your links within the article itself do no work.
Here's the link to the "Help" forum:
http://olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?board=1.0
What, my links don't work?
-smacks forehead while looking at code-
They do now. Sorry about that. What I get for experimenting with writing a post from the XO.
Meh, what a weasel worded reply to an honest problem. You simply can't say to kids "the world is your oyster, seek and you will find!" and at the same time say "oh, but you can't see the source code for your web browser, that's secret." Kids don't handle hypocrisy well.
It's really not that hard to install opera on the xo. http://olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=306.0;topicseen
As far as comments bitching about the xo as a personal computer, you might remember that the ox is a LEARNING machine. So have some patience and learn. Think of it as a challenge not an obstacle. I have a dual core mac laptop that is my main machine and I look at the xo as a chance to bone up on my unix skills, perhaps even learn some coding. This machine is built on open source so just sit back and watch what's going to happen now that it's in the hands of hackers and developers, should be fun.
Hi!
Thanks for the help Wayan!
I ran cd opera-9.12-20070122.10-static-qt.i386-en-544 before the ./install.sh command or it would not work.
I am running Opera from the Terminal using the command SU then pressed enter. I typed OPERA and enter and it started to operate.
Its performance beats the default browser noticeably.
Now, I need to get it as a SUGAR Activity.
GregHi!
Thanks for the help Wayan!
I ran cd opera-9.12-20070122.10-static-qt.i386-en-544 before the ./install.sh command or it would not work.
I am running Opera from the Terminal using the command SU then pressed enter. I typed OPERA enter and it started to operate.
Its performance beats the default browser noticeably.
Now, I need to get it as a SUGAR Activity.
Greg
Very slick, Opera works very well.
Any hope of getting flash working as well?
I may never need another computer.
Given that the OLPC wiki is just that -- a wiki -- I don't understand why you would fork documentation efforts.
Instead of spending the time writing parallel docs, why not just contribute this back to the OLPC wiki?
Cheers,
Bill
I installed Opera today and love love love it! It works beautifully on the little screen. Thank you Opera.
Hi Wayan,
Thanks for the encouragement and instructions. Like Greg stated in his comment above, I had to cd command, but other than that, this was pretty easy - even for an English major!
Opera makes this a much more useful machine for us geezers.
Please post instructions for installing java and flash for Opera too.
Happy New Year and thanks for the blog!
Doug
Dorothy:
You don't need Opera to log in to t-mobile. At least, not the couple that I've logged into here in So Calif. That said, Opera is a MUCH faster and smoother browser than the default one. I noticed however that when I updated Sugar to version 653 to fix the touchpad jitters, that it seems to erase opera. I had to reinstall it all over again after updating the OS. Does anyone know how to keep your additions between updates?
Hi Wayne,
Thanks for posting the instructions for installing Opera and to Mr. Lie for developing Opera for the XO!
I previously tried installing Firefox, but got a few errors, so I googled Opera for the XO and came across your article.
Everything is working pretty good, other than a couple of error messages before Opera starts, it very well could be the way I installed it, because I have very limited knowledge of Unix commands and Unix terminal environment.
I'm on the same bus as Greg, and would also like to know how to set Opera up as an activity, I saw some references made to it for Firefox installs. The Firefox install did not go well, but maybe the brief hints to creating an additional activity will. I'll try it out and respond back. I am a primary Windows user, so this may take some time :)
It is GREAT to see that other people have participated in the "Buy one, Give one" OLPC campaign!
You all have my respect and gratitude.
Thanks for believing.
Dave
A webhoster so explanatory! Just think of opera. Get your version and get on. Its cool.