OStatic

Even as a child, I knew that Pixie Sticks were just trouble. The paper tubes loaded with colorful yet mysteriously flavorless sugar weren't particularly tasty, and too many of them led to mom and dad either threatening to pull the car over or hinting ominously about what would happen if they had to tell me again. Parents today know that in addition to the traditional side effects, Pixie Sticks aren't terribly good for USB ports, either.

That's not the case with the other sort of Sugar. Sugar, the kid-friendly open source desktop that was featured first on the OLPC XO laptop is now available (in a beta release) as a liveUSB image. The Sugar on a Stick environment is powered by Fedora 11 and features familiar Sugar desktop applications and functions, as well as new educational and collaborative tools, such as the InfoSlicer online content editor, remixer, and delivery application.

Yesterday the GNOME Foundation announced that Sugar Labs is coming onboard as part of GNOME's Advisory Board. Sugar Labs will be represented on the board by executive director Walter Bender.

Last Thursday, the OLPC Special Interest Group (SIG) announced the availability of the Fedora Sugar Spin LiveCD. This release incorporates the Sugar Desktop Environment in to a Fedora liveCD.

It's an easy way to try out the Sugar environment and associated applications without touching your existing system.