On Fri, Nov 27, 2009 at 09:50, Danny Kodicek <da...@sunflowerlearning.com> wrote: > Hi, Tomeu, thanks for your reply > >> > 1) Screen resolution >> > The biggest problem we have is that the screen res of the XO seems >> > unnecessarily high and can't be changed. This leads to two >> big problems, one >> > of readibility (which we can fix with a bit of work) and >> one of performance. >> > Given the low spec of the machines, running full-screen >> animations, some of >> > them in 3d, is pretty hard work for them at that >> resolution. Does anyone >> > have any suggestions for ways to get round this issue? For >> example, I've >> > been thinking about whether we could run the software at >> half-res and then >> > use a screen magnifier app to bring it back to fullscreen >> >> That approach has been discussed and I think that someone got it to >> work up to some point, I recommend you to search in the >> de...@lists.laptop.org archives for the keyword "scaling", "zoom", >> etc. I'm cc'ing that list in the hope that someone will reply. > > Thanks for that, it's very helpful. I did some searching as you suggested > and it seems that this is a very commonly recognised issue, with lots of > discussion but no real solutions. It did seem that several people have been > calling for the XO to have a screen resolution switch option, which would > certainly be the simplest solution from our point of view. There was a > mention of a particular driver which apparently fixes the issue but hasn't > been included in any Sugar builds - anyone know anything about that?
There is no such thing as Sugar builds. Sugar is a set of software components that people such as OLPC and Sugar on a Stick take and distribute on top of a linux distribution. Questions specific to the XO are better asked to the OLPC community. > On the same subject, we've also found that running in 16bit display mode is > a serious issue for any of our content that uses 3d. Is there any way to > cheat the display to think it's 32bit instead? I think you can draw to either 16bit or 32bit surfaces, then the X system will convert them to whatever it's using internally. But I have no idea how you would do that in win32 and/or wine. >> I recommend you to make an .xo that contains both wine and you binary, >> when the activity is launched, wine would be called with your binary >> as an argument. I think there was a good example running around some >> time ago, which did just that with an excel viewer or similar. > > That's kind of what I was aiming for, yes - if anyone could point me to that > example or any others that would be a big help. Maybe this could help? http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/sugar-devel/2008-April/005128.html Regards, Tomeu >> >> > I'm afraid I'm a total Linux novice, so any advice would be >> welcome, but if >> > you could talk to me like a small child that would be very >> helpful :) >> >> Sorry I cannot give you more precise instructions, I'm really short of >> time these days. I would suggest you to google around, patiently ask >> here and in other fora, and go step by step towards your goal, >> learning on the way. That's what small children do, right? :p > > Unfortunately I don't have quite as much time as the average small child to > build up my muscles - there's a chance we might be piloting the software in > a number of schools very soon and so I'm really trying to get up to speed > quickly! I'm a fast learner, but I find learning about Linux in general and > Sugar in particular to be like picking up sand - it's very hard to find info > that doesn't already assume a lot of prior knowledge. > > But as I say, even little bits of help are very gratefully received! In > particular, just nods in the right direction make a big difference - your > tip above was very helpful indeed. > > Thanks > Danny > > -- «Sugar Labs is anyone who participates in improving and using Sugar. What Sugar Labs does is determined by the participants.» - David Farning _______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep