The Drupal install profiles could use a lot of help. Maybe it would be a better idea to ship Carbon with the OLPC instead, as most Drupal websites require a minimum of Views and CCK to be installed.

Drupal makes sense on the server, not on the client. One could always have clients on the XO that will help with writing blogs and asynchronously upload them to the server, but to have a full Drupal installation each XO is not wise.

Thanks for joining the effort - I think we have some great people involved and I hope that between us we can really make some progress here

(notes added to the wiki below)

We talked about this quite a bit at Drupalcon, and the general consensus was (I think) that the school server is probably a more important use case (politically, developmentally etc), although the package for the XO would likely be identical, or very similar at least. Providing for direct Drupal hacking on the XO is very fun too and potentially valuable long term, but I think will get wider usage if Drupal can get established as a primary platform on the school server (so kids can help improve their schools and communities software!).

A couple of great ideas that were discussed:

* A 'school' install profile - that is designed specifically for the XO (good for the screen resolution/contrast, lessons, collaboration etc)
* A small XML-RPC python app that is native to the XO - perhaps a plug-in for the word processor or journal. This would allow usage of a nice editing environment, and also (critically) allow kids to download their homework easily and work offline out of mesh range with the school, and then upload it to the site when they return.

It's really nice idea.
Can help OLPC users and drupal community, too.

I like the goal. Whether or not we get it in there, the process for a kid putting a LAMP (or similar) stack on an OLPC is a valuable experience, is potential curriculum material, and the ability/access for a student to be able to actually do that should remain possible moving forward w/ the development of the OS on the laptop. It's great that it's possible now and should stay possible moving forward.

About the mention of the XO server. Is there any way to get an XO server to play with? Regardless, the XO laptop itself is an appropriate platform as much is a server. If a kid takes their laptop home and is unable to connect to the server, how are they supposed to hack from home on Moodle or Drupal? Also, is the XO server setup to offer accounts and enough/ideal access privs for students to hack and serve their own applications on there?

About Moodle versus Drupal, there's probably a lot of value to running both, and for students learning about both. While the XO is being distributed using education systems as a conduit, what students do on the laptop does not need to necessarily involve what happens in their schools. There's a lot of opportunity to use Drupal-based applications to solve problems in the education environment and community at large; whether in the US, Peru, Uganda, or where ever, and Moodle, Drupal, and other web-based applications will allow for this. Using LAMP stacks could mean less work overall since the apps. will be immediately compatible w/ someone trying to get to the app. from a community or school internet cafe, or anywhere in the world.

Overall, from using the XO a little, it needs to run faster The rendering of web pages is slow, whether that's a page served locally or from a server on the internet/LAN. I look forward to further discussion in the wiki.

Great idea!
Ian