Installing software on an OLPC?

January 16, 2008 4:50 PM

Can anyone help me put Celtx on an OLPC?

Not sure if it's possible but if it can be done, I'd love to do it.

I did manage to download the file (which was a gar.tz or something like that) and I clicked 'Open' and then nothing happened. I now don't know where the file has gone.

I only got the OLPC yesterday and got it specifically to run this program so haven't really played with it all that much yet. I know jackshit about Linux and would need a ridiculous simple step by step walk thru.

posted by dobbs to computers & internet (14 comments total)

Wow, this is pretty ambitious of a project for such a PC (it might not have the processing power to run it to a reasonable level). But what you'll want to do is compile this thing under the console.

A typical set of commands for a tgz package would be:

cd /var/tmp (or any directory will do)

wget http://path-to-your.tar.gz
tar xzf your.tar.gz
cd yourtardirectory
./configure
make
make install

However you'll want to atleast get to the point where you extract the tgz, then check to see if there are install instructions.

For the OLPC, you might need to also grab gcc and other development tools to support Celtx. I have one myself but haven't really tinkered yet with new software...if you get stuck tho feel free to mefi-mail me and I can try walking through it as well.
posted by samsara at 5:13 PM on January 16, 2008

samsara, thanks for the answer but I don't understand a word of it.

If it's of any note, I did write the celtx people in November and they thought it should run on it. In addition, there's this, which is hopeful.
posted by dobbs at 5:23 PM on January 16, 2008

The file you downloaded contains the executable files for Celtx. I'm not sure what OLPC calls it's console/terminal/command line system, but look for something along those name in its application menu.

Once the command line window opens, find the file. I don't know how OLPC's file system is setup, but try typing 'ls' [enter] and see if it lists Celtx.tar.gx. If it did, type 'tar -xvf Celtx.tar.gz'. This extracts data from the downloaded file. Type 'cd celtx' to go into the directory the data extracted to. From here type 'celtx' and that will hopefully launch the program.
posted by gaelenh at 5:57 PM on January 16, 2008

Thanks gaelenh.

I found the terminal and typed ls and it came back with myLogs. I then typed cd myLogs and then ls again but it came back with nothing.
posted by dobbs at 6:10 PM on January 16, 2008

dobbs - as a linux 'power user', and typing on an XO laptop, I would suggest that your best bet is to post in OLPC and Celtx forums asking for someone to put together an installation package. Doing all the work to compile it yourself is going to be a lot of nitpicky, experience-demanding work. There's going to be a bunch of other software libraries you'll need, and if you're not comfortable working with a command-line, then you'll be in for a world of pain.
posted by anthill at 7:23 PM on January 16, 2008

anthill, since you have one of these, do you know the path to where downloaded files go? I can see them when I press the magnifying glass button but can't determine the path.
posted by dobbs at 10:11 PM on January 16, 2008

One way to do this is to use the 'find' command in the console:

cd /
find * | grep "nameofyourfile.tar.gz"
posted by samsara at 9:13 AM on January 17, 2008

Also, if you get stuck trying to find it...the wget command I referred to earlier is a command-line way of getting webpages or files. So 'wget http://www.site.com/nameofyourfile.tar.gz' will simply download the file to your current directory.

Just to be sure, do a 'su -l' command to make sure you're in the console as root (or 'sudo su' if that'll work). I'm not sure how locked down the standard user is so this should bypass any permission issues.

From there, after you decompress the tar.gz (using 'tar xzf nameofthefile.tgz'), you may need to download support packages for compiling, which I'm sure you can get through 'git' or 'apt-get' (just google for solutions on the errors you get during compiling and you should find someone who has had a similar issue).

Although from this thread it looks like you don't have to compile Celtx at all...which is promising!

In the worst case, you may have to replace the factory install on the OLPC with Ubuntu. But before you go that far maybe ask around on the OLPC News Forums first to see if anyone else has installed Celtx on their OLPC.

Again, I have one of these as well, but not at the house I'm at currently...if you have no luck drop me a mefi-mail and I should be able to pick it up and tinker a bit. All this linux stuff can seem confusing at first but you'll get the hang of it after a little practice and reading.

Best of luck!
posted by samsara at 9:40 AM on January 17, 2008

Thanks for your help, samsara. I couldn't get it to work. I get permission denied stuff when I use Find and the wget didn't seem to work either. I think I'll just ebay this thing and stick with my eeepc, though I much prefer the screen on the olpc.
posted by dobbs at 6:35 PM on January 17, 2008

Np man, though hold on to it for about 3 more days...I'll give it a shot when I get back to my house. If I get it going I'll send you a step by step process.
posted by samsara at 7:21 PM on January 17, 2008

Thanks!
posted by dobbs at 7:22 AM on January 18, 2008

Dobbs: I'm no XO laptop pro yet, so I don't know where it saves files to by default. I just got Celtx working on mine, here's the steps that I followed:


Start up the console activity, which will leave you in your home dierctory, /home/olpc

Type:

wget http://www.celtx.com/download/Celtx.tar.gz

This will download the Celtx package from their website, to your /home/olpc directory. Then:

tar xvf Celtx.tar.gz

This will unpackage the program to /home/olpc/celtx/ . But you still need one more software library, and you need to be the administrator to install it. So, type:

su root

This makes you the boss. Next:

yum install compat-libstdc++-33

Press 'y' if it asks you to. This installs the older C++ libraries (needed by celtx). Then:

exit

This returns you to being a regular permissions user.

So. That's as much as I know. The ugly part is, to start celtx, you have to type:

cd celtx

./celtx

I don't know how to package it as a 'activity' so that it shows up in the Sugar menu.

To save/load work, either make a directory in /home/olpc/, or put in a USB drive and save to /media/.

Happy writing.
posted by anthill at 2:44 PM on January 19, 2008

sorry, you should save to /media/your_usb_stick_name/
posted by anthill at 2:46 PM on January 19, 2008

anthill, thanks! That worked great. Awesome. Thanks thanks thanks!
posted by dobbs at 3:11 PM on January 20, 2008