Thailand software list

In Thailand, SIPA is coordinating the effort with respect to software. This page gives a tentative list of software for the first machines for Thailand. This is fairly minimal since time and resources before first deliveries are limited. Over time, the set of supported software is expected to grow.

= Toolkit =

To conserve RAM and storage, applications should use the same toolkit. This should almost certainly be gtk2. There are a couple of other GNOME libraries that are also essential:


 * pango (for complex text handling)
 * cairo (2D graphics)
 * atk (for accessibility)

The whole suite of GNOME libraries is like to be too much. Some other more minor ones that will probably be needed included:


 * dbus (for IPC)
 * gamin (for file and directory monitoring)

We probably don't want:


 * bonobo
 * orbit

More problematic are:


 * gconf
 * gnome-vfs

These probably are needed but they currently depend on orbit. However, there are patches to older versions of both gconf and gnome-vfs to use dbus.

= Desktop environment =

The needed components include:


 * window manager
 * file manager
 * panel
 * desktop (ie something that allows icons on the desktop; some file managers provide this)
 * session manager

The panel will also need some applets, including at least the following:


 * Clock
 * Volume control
 * Battery monitor
 * Keyboard layout switcher
 * Network monitor

One possibility is to use the standard GNOME components:


 * metacity
 * nautilus
 * gnome-panel
 * gnome-session-manager

However, these have dependencies on orbit and bonobo and likely to consume excessive RAM.

Alternatives worth looking at:


 * Matchbox
 * XFCE including the new file manager Thunar
 * PCMan file manager

= Fonts =

High-quality fonts are essential. There are some existing open-source TrueType fonts from NECTEC: while OK for printing, they leave a lot to be desired for on-screen display. SIPA has two efforts underway to create high-quality Thai fonts:


 * SIPA has hired a Thai designer to design Thai glyphs to go with Bitstream Vera
 * SIPA is working on licensing fonts equivalent to the two most popular Thai fonts used on Windows (Angsana and Cordia)

The difficult part in both cases is doing the hinting that is needed for high-quality on-screen display.

= Applications =


 * Web browser: Firefox or Epiphany. Epiphany uses the same layout engine as Firefox (Gecko), but has the advantage of better integration with the GNOME desktop.
 * E-book reader: Ideally a new program should be written for this.
 * Instant messaging: GAIM
 * Word processor: AbiWord. The current stable version of AbiWord (2.4.2) does not support Thai well. However, the CVS version has recently added support for using pango for text layout and so should work much better
 * PDF/PostScript viewer: Evince
 * Image viewer: Gthumb. This also supports import from digital cameras.
 * Media player: Totem. There is a choice of two backends, gstreamer and xine; gstreamer is the future, but as of gstreamer 0.8, it works much less well than xine; gstreamer 0.10 is out now and may well be better.
 * Music player: Rhythmbox

= Accessories =


 * Archive manager: file-roller
 * Text editor: gedit
 * Calculator: gcalctool
 * Character map: gucharmap
 * Dictionary: gnome-dictionary
 * Terminal: gnome-terminal

= System admin tools =

We will need at least:


 * Backup tool: Allow backup of the user's data to USB pen-drive or (maybe) to the network.
 * Network configuration: NetworkManager looks good, although it supports traditional networking, rather than the mesh networking envisaged for the OLPC.
 * Package manager: Ubuntu's update-manager provides a simpler front-end to Synaptic.
 * Printer configuration: gnome-cups-manager