New Stable Build
----------------
Build 385 and firmware q2b87 form a new stable build. We do not
anticipate another stable build for approximately 3-6 weeks,
as we work on suspend and resume, power management, and the Geode LX
bringup.
We should have a automated backup script before the next stable
build for backup of laptop contents to the school server we are working
on; in the meanwhile, note that backup is simple using the "rsync"
command included on the systems.
Please update your systems to this build. Key changes and improvements
include:
o A fix for a number of crashes in Sugar, which have been seen
occasionally became much more common in build 368 was finally traced
to a bug in the fontconfig library.
o Updated library content.
o Improved UI for selecting networks, and further bug fixes in the
network driver.
o Fix for LiFePo battery problems. This is the last known battery
problem.
o Many directories (e.g. /tmp, /var/log) are stored in a tmpfs file
system, for both performance and to avoid wear on the flash. Tmpfs'
default limit is half of RAM; it is now limited to 15% of the RAM in
your system, to keep runaway programs from causing out of memory
conditions.
o Sugar's memory of WEP wireless keys should be much improved.
o Updated TamTam bundle: save and restore work properly
o A new, improved calculator program from Reinier Heeres at Harvard.
o Temporary workaround for presence service problem is in place.
o Sufficient font aliases have been added for old X11 core fonts that
most applications not yet updated to the current X client-side font
model should work: specifically, the menus in Adobe Flash 9 for Linux
would crash the plug in and browser despite more than 4 years of
deployment of the new font system. Note that proper internationalization
is impossible using the old X Window System font system. We see use of
these fonts as a crutch that must be removed to meet OLPC's worldwide
mission. The "xset -fp /usr/share/fonts/dejavu-lgc" can be used to
remove these aliases.
Downloading of files and invoking the right helper application depending
on file type could not be completed by this build.
Please update your systems to new firmware and new Sugar environments.
The firmware fixes include fixes for both battery charging to fix a
battery overcharge problem, so it is particularly important to update
both the firmware and the Sugar environment.
Release notes are found here:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Software_Release_Notes
Both of the firmware and the NAND image will be updated by using the
procedure found here:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Autoreinstallation_image
Additionally, you can find the first content from the OLPC Library.
http://dev.laptop.org/pub/content/ has links to online content
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Library has related information.
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Library_Release_Notes has release notes.
Please see the attached announcement of the previous stable build for
additional information.
--
Jim Gettys
One Laptop Per Child
--- Begin Message ---
We are very happy to announce the availability of a new stable build.
It is composed of Build 368 and the Q2B85 firmware.
Highlights of this stable build:
1) Working mesh network! UI to select the Mesh network!
2) Battery charging is working well at last!
3) An greatly improved web browser
4) Gnash (free Flash player; still somewhat unstable) pre-installed;
Flash 9 also works, but not packaged or installed.
5) touch pad driver fix for jumping cursor: the touch pad should be much
more usable, and the tablet usable on B2 systems.
6) boot time has substantially improved due to a scheduler fix.
7) battery indicator in Sugar
8) availability of Helix Media Player
9) instructions for customizing your own image
10)30% system performance improvement when any network device
is in use.
Please update your systems to new firmware and new Sugar environments.
The firmware fixes include fixes for both battery charging to fix a
battery overcharge problem, so it is particularly important to update
both the firmware and the Sugar environment.
Both of the firmware and the NAND image will be updated by using the
procedure found here:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Autoreinstallation_image
Additionally, you can find the first content from the OLPC Library.
http://dev.laptop.org/pub/content/ has links to online content
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Library has related information.
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Library_Release_Notes has release notes.
We'd like to thank the people who have reported bugs; each bug is gold
to us, particularly hardware bugs. *Please* let us know in trac
(found at http://dev.laptop.org/: you must enable cookies) of each and
every hardware failure (or strange behavior) you have, even if it
happens for "stupid" reasons. Each failure, no matter what the cause
(good, bad, stupid, clever, even abuse), is of great help identifying
and getting problems fixed, weak mechanical components strengthened,
and bad electrical components identified. In general, we'll try to
get you replacement machines too, so we can find the "root cause" of
malfunctioning machines. Please let us know of software problems you
see too; checking for duplicate entries in the trac system and adding
your report if you see a clearly matching report will also be
helpful. Including the version of your hardware, the firmware version
and the build number in your reports (both hardware and software) will
help us greatly in identifying problems.
We know battery problems have been a great pain and concern to you,
and are as relieved as you will be with their resolution. For those of
you with dead batteries with B2 systems, most, but not all of the dead
batteries can be recovered with the systems you now have with the new
firmware. Recovering batteries in the field with BTest-1 systems is
harder; thankfully there are far fewer BTest-1 systems deployed. Please
follow the directions in http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Battery_Charging.
Please read the release notes!
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Software_Release_Notes; they have been
extensively updated.
o New activities:
- Calculadora, A simple calculator activity
(Mauro Torres et. al. of the Tuquito Linux project in Argentina)
- Blockparty (aka Tetris) (Vadim Gerasimov, J5)
- Slideshow (Erik Blankinship, Marco)
- xbook as an activity
o Major Improvements in Activities:
- Web Browser (Firefox, Marco)
This version lays out pages well on our high resolution screen
for a vastly improved web experience. Unfortunately, we have not
had time to integrate a table of media types to a media player.
- TamTam major improvements
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/TamTam_Release_Notes (TamTam Team)
- Write (Abiword team)
Toolbar bar buttons for open,save,justity,insert image. Much
less flicker on context changes and startup. Speedups for scrolling.
Fixes for bugs 404,822,824,823,771,826. Other fixes.
- The News Reader now ships with new, more educational default feeds,
including BBC World News headlines, Wikipedia Picture of the Day, and
more. (Owen Williams)
Temporarily removed activities:
- Journal Preview, (Marco, Tomeu)
- Chat (needs tender loving care)
- Memosono (needs some work)
"Extras" activities
- Helix Media Activity http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Helix_Media_Activity
This is able to handle a huge number of common audio/video datatypes,
having codecs for almost anything you can think of. (Justin Gallardo,
Greg Wright, Jeff Dutchman, Martin Schwartz)
- Library activity http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Library_Release_Notes
Includes simple formats to neatly display directories of books and
other materials
o Latest Sugar is included with lots and lots of bug fixes and
improvements
- sugar-shell taking up 100% cpu after a while (believed fixed
based on testing marco/dan/johnp)
- Sugar crashes at boot fixed, by fixing Avahi and Sugar,
enabling discovery of other people and services on the mesh
(Dan Williams, Trent LLoyd, Chris Blizzard, Andres Salomon)
- initial screen works on qemu or without a camera (fixed in
298 by marco)
- nice scrollbars (fixed in 296 marco)
- focus issues in some activities (fixed in 296 marco/tomeu)
- not able to log in in qemu build (johnp fixed)
- sugar blocks on service startup (johnp fixed)
- sugar displays the battery status (marco, dcbw)
- UI tuning (marco, dcbw, eben...)
- New sugar API (Dan, Marco)
o Wireless
- New Marvell firmware - working mesh! Many bugs fixed since build 303
(Marvell, Cozybit, Marcelo, Michailis, Dan Williams, cjb)
- Note: there has so far been *no* significant tuning of the mesh yet
- GUI for associating with the mesh!
- Support for in-mesh multicast support
- Link-loss detection and route tear-down with RERR messages.
This improves route restoration time.
- Mesh transmission rate is done a the highest available rate for
each hop. The rate for each hop is determined when the route is
discovered.
- Deferred route discovery. Route discovery is now done by a lower
priority task, which reduces the variance of transmission time.
- WDS problem workaround. Wireless interface will accept WDS replies
from WDS-enabled access points. This will only work with APs that
have
a different MAC OUI than the xo's. (ticket #901)
- Fix to select the best MPP instead of the one with the highest
sequence number (internal bug #91).
- Fix for tickets #861, #914, #992.
o Base system fixes
- Much better wireless driver (Marcelo, Dan)
- Packet corruption with the wireless under heavy loads. TCP flow
control change for the mesh interface that fixes it.
- Tickless operation. (Thomas Gleixner, Salomon)
- New touch pad driver with fully working PT/GS mode switching.
(Hull, Salomon)
- New kernel; the old stable was 2.6.19, this has 2.6.21-rc5
(Linux community)
- Analog input mode on audio input (Kumar, Salomon)
o X Window System
- touch pad driver fix for jumping cursor: the touch pad should be
much more usable, and the tablet usable on B2 systems.
- Support for BTest-2-2 touchpads
- Disable autorepeat on most keys, bug #1201 (jg)
- Better X Window System performance
(X.org, Jordon Crouse, Adam Jackson, cjb)
o Firmware and embedded controller firmware (Quanta, Bradley, Smith,
Lilian)
- Much improved battery charging code and data reporting (Quanta),
Bug #611.
- Battery overcharging fixes (Quanta), Bug #667
- Low battery charging fixes; most, but not all dead batteries can
be recovered in the field with existing B2 systems, Bug #543
(Quanta (Lui), rsmith) See:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Battery_Charging
- Battery capacity reporting fixes (Quanta (Lin et. al.) Bug #596
On B2 systems, average NiMH lifetime in a test (backlight fully on,
wireless associated, all functional units on including GPU, but
processor idle) was approximately 2h40m, LiFePo batteries were
approximately 3h 10m.
This will improve as our power management improves
- System performance increase of >30% when network devices (e.g.
wireless) are running; this was due to cache snooping interference
by network USB devices.
- Update to Q2B85
- Fixed SD boot support
- Fixed problem booting from ext3 with extended attributes
- USB Kensington keyboard fix
- LED for battery is solid red instead of blinking
- Reset the wireless chip when the firmware boots to fix wireless
not showing up on boot
- Beginnings of support for wireless (not yet finished, Walter).
- EC now idles in very low power mode when it has nothing to do: this
means the EC no longer drains the battery quickly when the battery is
left in the system, but there is no power from the power adapter; this
was causing many batteries to go completely dead. (Quanta) Bug #533
o EToys activity (Bert, Diego, Ian, Scott, Takashi, Ted, Yoshiki)
- removed first-time startup delay by reusing Sugar's DSA key
(owner.key) rather than making our own
- we can now launch etoys projects directly from the web activity by
clicking on a project file link
- the etoys camera plugin saw major improvements, we can read video
at > 20 fps now
- big cursor support added to Squeak VM
- improved tutorial game (demon castle)
- better tutorial authoring system (Event Theatre)
- for developers: binary etoys content moved out of git, download
shrinked from > 200 MB to less than 20 MB
o Image customization procedure
only be available in firmware versions Q2B84 or higher:
see http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Customizing_NAND_images
Some important bugs not (yet) fixed but well underway:
o suspend/resume is next: we have working firmware for suspend/resume
and the systems are resuming (already faster than commercial
systems); much work remains here.
Thank you all for your help and support. Please note that an
increasingly large fraction of the software development is from the
larger OLPC community rather than OLPC staff or those of the companies
involved in its production. If we've overlooked anyone, our sincere
apologies.
The OLPC Software Community.
--
Jim Gettys
One Laptop Per Child
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