As I noted in the wiki page about this: http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_on_a_Stick/TODO#Sticks_are_dieing_a_lot_-_Make_sticks_more_robust 2GB Sticks are $0.60 more then 1GB sticks.
If it improves reliability its definitely worth it from a sheer TCO point of view. A full install also makes it possible to browse the files from other operating systems and allows the possiblity of a VM boot helper. On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 9:00 AM, Sebastian Dziallas <sebast...@when.com>wrote: > Caroline Meeks wrote: > >> On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 9:14 PM, Gary C Martin <g...@garycmartin.com >> <mailto:g...@garycmartin.com>> wrote: >> >> On 29 Jul 2009, at 21:35, Walter Bender wrote: >> >> Begin handwaving. >> >> LiveUSB came from the world of LiveCD and with it came an "overlay" >> concept to enable writing in what had been a read-only world. It is >> not clear that the approach was intended for more than >> demonstration >> purposes, in order to show off the power of Fedora Linux. That >> would >> suggest that in the long run, we may need to revisit the way in >> which >> we manage user data on our images. >> >> End handwaving. >> >> >> +1 >> >> My gut feeling is we don't want a LiveUSB, we want a bootable USB >> with a regular install on it. Ideally being installed from a LiveCD, >> that can either directly boot and demo Sugar, install to a USB >> stick, or install to a hard-disk. Once booted we'd want the minimum >> of file writes to maximise a stick lifetime, and reduce the chance >> of a write landing as a child unplugs. >> >> Regards, >> --Gary >> >> >> +1 except I think that we need it sooner not later. >> >> It is the most likely suspect on most of our stick failures. We will >> have upset teachers and kids if its not more reliable plus added expense >> and time costs. >> >> It is a blocker on: >> >> * Reading things you've created on your Sugar Stick on a Windows or >> Mac machine. >> * Createing a VM that can switch stick based users without rebooting >> out of the native OS- This will help usability quite a bit on the >> Mac Laptops the GPA will be using next year. >> >> I'm going to try to create a spec and publicize our need for help to my >> network. I'd love help with both parts of that. >> > > I'll throw my two cents in here, too. > > I agree with Walter that we might need to revisit the whole concept in the > long term. However, it's probably the best we can get right now. > > Let me put it this way: Looking at my recent composes for SoaS, those were > around 390 MB. This contains the compressed squashfs image. Because of this > compression, it's read-only, but it's also that small. > > Now in comparison, we could obviously place the whole file tree on a USB > key and hack up some magic to make it boot. In fact, that's from what I see > already the somehow preferred way used for the XO. > > But for this, we'd also need to have the file tree uncompressed (since > otherwise it would be read-only again). And that could become a problem. The > compression works rather well for us, so if we'd try to go this way, we'd > definitely need to move the USB key size requirement up (at least 2 GB, if > not even more). > > And then, I'm not really sure if this solves the data corruption issue > (which I haven't experienced myself, so far) - because files could get > destroyed if the USB key is improperly removed anyway. > > Caroline, maybe you could explain the way you're using to make these keys, > because I've lost track about what the current way is. > > Regarding reading contents one created in Sugar on Windows / Mac, I think > this is still quite some time away. In fact, I'm wondering whether this > isn't a datastore related feature. /me thinks about this... > > Cheers, > --Sebastian > -- Caroline Meeks Solution Grove carol...@solutiongrove.com 617-500-3488 - Office 505-213-3268 - Fax
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