Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

2008-01-18 Thread Antoine van Gelder
Albert Cahalan wrote:
 Sorry to hear about your war.


Attitudes such as this sir, is the reason that America is viewed by many 
nations as a belligerent and imperialistic monster.

It is not whether you can argue for the case that America is NOT a 
monster. It is the fact that she is _seen_ as such which should cause 
you pause to think.

  - a

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Re: Classroom tools

2008-01-18 Thread Edward Cherlin
2008/1/16 Jameson Chema Quinn [EMAIL PROTECTED]:

 Let's keep our feet on the ground here.

 Just because teaching is a field where mediocrity (or worse) often goes
 unpunished, does not mean that expertise is irrelevant. It is possible for a
 bunch of non-teachers on a mailing list to have good ideas, or to discuss
 good ideas they've heard elsewhere. But some of the worst disasters in
 education come from good ideas that turn into trendy dogma. Success comes
 from thoughtful, flexible application and evaluation by experienced teachers
 who believe, and then divulgation that respects the ideas and inclinations
 of those who do not at first believe.

There is a strong tendency for experienced teachers to reject anything
new, just as in every other human endeavor. And we need far more than
divulgation, we need entrainment. Teachers need to discover discovery
themselves before we can divulgate the rest to them. They need to Get
It [TM].

 Most of us on this list are probably similar in our learning styles -
 naturally oriented towards understanding and discovery, resistant to
 repetition. I remember hating many of the most traditional aspects of
 schooling, most particularly the emphasis on formulaic recipes.

Yes, I nearly failed third grade because I could spell, and wouldn't
do spelling homework.

 But when I
 became a teacher and tried socratically to get my students to construct
 their own recipes, refusing to tell them 'step 1 step 2' for anything, I had
 some spectacular failures. One or two students would love it and figure out
 what I was trying to teach in 5 minutes - then get even more bored than they
 would have been from the formula, as I spent the rest of the period getting
 frustrated with students who were frustrated with me because they didn't get
 it and I wouldn't just tell them how. It is a hard balance to strike.

Socratic teaching was devised for a one-on-one situation by a master.
It was never meant for the classroom.

I recommend looking at Caleb Gattegno's work on discovery using
Cuisenaire rods. But you can't improvise this stuff in the clasroom
until you have mastered what others have discovered how to do.

 I've made constructivism work in the classroom a few times, too, and it is
 great. But let me tell you: the less fired up and prepared I am, the more
 likely I am to choose something more traditional. Because when things don't
 go well, constructivism is much worse.

I believe that the actual idea is to get children so interested in
discovery that they will carry it forward, even on your off days. But
yes, you still have to know your material, the children's
capabilities, the likely paths of discovery, and the likely
impediments to discovery backwards and forwards.

However, as Maria Montessori amply demonstrated (and her followers
have almost entirely forgotten) we know very little about what
children are really capable of. We need a serious set of research
programs, and a means of sharing the resulting knowledge. That means
that we need to get a lot of teachers to catch the discovery bug, so
that they will join in collaborative discovery of collaborative
discovery itself.

 Luckily, we here do not actually have control of any schools. If we ossify
 into dogmatic constructivists, we will just hurt our own project, not
 students. If we do not make the tools teachers need, as well as the ones
 kids need, nobody will pay any attention to us, and OLPC will just dry up
 and blow away. I do not want that.

Yes, indeed, control is not what we need, and certainly not what I
want. I want teachers and parents, as well as children, to have the
advantages of discovery.

 And there's another constituency besides teachers and students:
 researchers/administrators/bureaucrats.

Them, too.

 It's easy to paint these guys as the
 enemy. For instance, in the US, standardized testing companies, with their
 seductive call of 'cheap, clean data', have seduced these guys into imposing
 the nightmare of No Child Left Behind, where the test is king. But if, as I
 said above, there are right ways and wrong ways to teach, who is going to
 sort it out if not the researchers?

Researchers have done excellent work that is utterly dismissed by
administrators, teachers, and governments in disasters such as New
Math and the continuing war between the linguistics profession and the
language teaching profession (local and foreign language, both). Even
the controversy between Whole Word and Phonics, which is utter
nonsense. It is impossible to read English without using both methods,
and in addition referring to a dictionary from time to time. I defy
anybody to figure out, unaided, the pronunciation of the astronomical
term aphelion. (I have already given you a major clue, so you can't
count yourselves. But I do congratulate you if you get it from just
that clue.) Phonics can't handle once, the 'ough' words, and a
multitude of others, and Whole Word can't hope to handle words like

Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

2008-01-18 Thread Edward Cherlin
On Jan 18, 2008 1:06 AM, Antoine van Gelder [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Edward Cherlin wrote:
  I was in the hills north of Seoul, Korea, in 1968


 Mr Cherlin - with much respect to your service in Korea (I have friends
 who also served) but may I ask you to please consider the possibility
 that your experience as an armed, trained and well-supplied soldier was
 not the same experience as that had by civilians caught in the crossfire
 of armies ?

Mr. van Gelder, I respectfully request that you read my message, over
and over if necessary, until you understand the severity of your
egregious and insulting error. Then apologize, not just to me, but to
the others on this list who have had it far worse, and are even more
fed up than I am with those whose ignorance and lack of imagination
causes them such pain.

The rest of you, no spoilers. He has to make this discovery himself
for it to take.

And to think that hummingbirds are the messengers of the Gods in Mayan
mythology.

   - antoine




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How to? School server implementation

2008-01-18 Thread sulochan acharya
Hello everyone,
I have some general questions regarding school server implementation. I was
hoping someone with development experience or someone with pilot experience
might have some knowledge on this matter. I am working to implement the OLPC
pilot program in Nepal, and would really appreciate some feedback on these
questions

1. What is the best way to publish/collaborate/save etc  with school server?
Meaning what is the best way for kids to save, retrieve,  and share files
through  a school server? I know moodle is an  option , but is there
anything  else?  Has  anyone tried  a different way to do so? something like
web folders maybe ?

2. Is the active antenna  the same as any wireless router working as an
access point? I should be able to use the same networking features if i use
a wireless router right?

3. What is the range of the antenna by itself? (discarding the fact that the
XO's can relay)

best,
-sulo
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

2008-01-18 Thread Antoine van Gelder
Jeffrey Kesselman wrote:
 My personal suggestion to the self-appointed censors is, if you don't
 like the content it ships with, go create some you DONT find
 objectionable to offer as an alternative.


The fundamental flaw in this line of reasoning Jeffrey... and this is a 
flaw which any sophomore would have been able to spot in the days when 
they still taught logic and critical reasoning skills at American 
universities is this:


- Putting violent arcade games in an educational resource violates the 
right to spiritual and emotional recovery for nations that are in the 
process of recovering from war.

- Making lists of whatever entertainment resources you wish _OFF-SITE_ 
does not violate anyone's freedom of speech nor their right to choose 
whatever type of drivel they wish to waste their time on.


What part of this do you not understand ?


  - antoine
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

2008-01-18 Thread Antoine van Gelder
Edward Cherlin wrote:
 I was in the hills north of Seoul, Korea, in 1968 


Mr Cherlin - with much respect to your service in Korea (I have friends 
who also served) but may I ask you to please consider the possibility 
that your experience as an armed, trained and well-supplied soldier was 
not the same experience as that had by civilians caught in the crossfire 
of armies ?

  - antoine
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

2008-01-18 Thread Albert Cahalan
On Jan 18, 2008 4:06 AM, Antoine van Gelder [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Albert Cahalan wrote:
  Sorry to hear about your war.

 Attitudes such as this sir, is the reason that America is viewed by many
 nations as a belligerent and imperialistic monster.

I'm sure you misinterpreted me. Maybe you thought
I was being sarcastic; I was not.

I do however mean to suggest that a problem in one
part of the world should not be used to justify restricting
things elsewhere. I have sympathy for the pain, but I
don't agree that this should impact those outside of
the region in question.

I also don't believe that all people affected by war
will be unable to enjoy DOOM. In any case, they
certainly won't be forced to install and run it.
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

2008-01-18 Thread Antoine van Gelder
Edward Cherlin wrote:
 On Jan 18, 2008 1:06 AM, Antoine van Gelder [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Edward Cherlin wrote:
 I was in the hills north of Seoul, Korea, in 1968

 Mr Cherlin - with much respect to your service in Korea (I have friends
 who also served) but may I ask you to please consider the possibility
 that your experience as an armed, trained and well-supplied soldier was
 not the same experience as that had by civilians caught in the crossfire
 of armies ?
 
 Mr. van Gelder, I respectfully request that you read my message, over
 and over if necessary, until you understand the severity of your
 egregious and insulting error. Then apologize, not just to me, but to
 the others on this list who have had it far worse, and are even more
 fed up than I am with those whose ignorance and lack of imagination
 causes them such pain.
 
 The rest of you, no spoilers. He has to make this discovery himself
 for it to take.
 
 And to think that hummingbirds are the messengers of the Gods in Mayan
 mythology.



Ed - look...

Unless I'm completely misreading you, you are arguing on the basis of 
your experience as a soldier that Children need to be exposed to 
violence lest their naivety be taken advantage of by monsters.

This is a valid point of view.

I let my own children play the Harry Potter games and Starcraft etc. 
etc. (and yes, when they are older Quake or whatever other waste of GPU 
cycles Id has come up with by then) to their heart's content because of 
that very reason.

BUT

The thing which I am trying to point out is that on the continent on 
which I live children are _already_ on the receiving end of violence 
with the result that their needs are different to the needs of my children.

Or to put it yet another way:

South Africa is still deeply fractured along racial and economic lines.

Less than ten minutes from my children's school is a predominantly poor 
community. The children in this community have daily experiences of 
drive-by shootings, sexual abuse, rampant crystal meth and alcohol 
addiction, gang warfare and other such pleasantly formative experiences.

Now in my children's school, there are a small amount of children from 
that community.

With a result, that I can guarantee you that if ANY parent at my kid's 
school were to start arguing that the school should install Doom on the 
media center's computers that I would oppose them in any way I can.

Sure - if we were to make these kinds of decisions on the basis of a 
majority then _clearly_ there are more kids at the school who would 
learn from Doom than kids who would be traumatized by Doom.

I would hope however that such a decision would rather be made on the 
basis of common sense.

  - the messenger of the gods



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Re: New joyride build 1544 [unable to olpc-update]

2008-01-18 Thread Reinier Heeres
Hi,

I can't seem to olpc-update to this build or joyride-1543. The images 
seem to be available. Also, rsync rsync://updates.laptop.org doesn't 
list these builds, but 1542 as the latest (although I'm not sure what 
this exactly means :-)

Cheers,
Reinier


Build Announcer v2 wrote:
 http://xs-dev.laptop.org/~cscott/olpc/streams/joyride/build1544

 Changes in build 1544 from build: 1543

 Size delta: 6M

 -olpc-library-common 1-18
 +olpc-library-common 1-19
 -olpc-library-core 1-19
 +olpc-library-core 1-20

 --- Changes for olpc-library-common 1-19 from 1-18 ---
   + selection/index fixes; removing unused subdirs
   + Improved reusability of older bundles, fixed index pages
   + rm xo-guide, fixed es translation

 --- Changes for olpc-library-core 1-20 from 1-19 ---
   + selection/index fixes; removing unused subdirs
   + Improved reusability of older bundles, fixed index pages
   + rm xo-guide, fixed es translation

 --
 This mail was automatically generated
 See http://dev.laptop.org/~rwh/announcer/joyride-pkgs.html for aggregate logs
 See http://dev.laptop.org/~rwh/announcer/joyride_vs_update1.html for a 
 comparison
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

2008-01-18 Thread Edward Cherlin
On Jan 18, 2008 1:06 AM, Antoine van Gelder [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Jeffrey Kesselman wrote:
  My personal suggestion to the self-appointed censors is, if you don't
  like the content it ships with, go create some you DONT find
  objectionable to offer as an alternative.

Hear, hear.

 The fundamental flaw in this line of reasoning Jeffrey... and this is a
 flaw which any sophomore would have been able to spot in the days when
 they still taught logic and critical reasoning skills at American
 universities is this:

Antoine, you are turning this into an rwar. This is an ad hominem
attack, as I'm sure they taught you. Stop it.

 - Putting violent arcade games in an educational resource

Which nobody here has suggested doing. We're talking about a list of
what exists, not about what anybody recommends, and certainly not
about what ships with the XO.

 violates the
 right to spiritual and emotional recovery for nations that are in the
 process of recovering from war.

Utterly false, just as in the case of violent movies such as Hotel Rwanda.

Treatment for PTSD requires gradually easing the stress to the point
where the victim can stand to think about what happened without
bringing it back. And about every other kind of violence, real or
fictitious. They have to get to the point where they could play these
games.

 - Making lists of whatever entertainment resources you wish _OFF-SITE_
 does not violate anyone's freedom of speech nor their right to choose
 whatever type of drivel they wish to waste their time on.

I reject your motion to censor.

 What part of this do you not understand ?

You, sir. I fail to understand what bee you have in your bonnet.

   - antoine

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http://www.EarthTreasury.org/
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

2008-01-18 Thread Hal Murray
 What part of this do you not understand ?

Why we are still painting this bike shed.



-- 
These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's.  I hate spam.



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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

2008-01-18 Thread Chris Hager
Chris Hager wrote:
 Noah Kantrowitz wrote:
   
 I don't see why breaking this up by tags (some of which can be things like 
 PG13) isn't a good enough solution. We all know kids will seek this stuff 
 out no matter what, lets at least do it in a controlled way.
   
 
 The MPAA uses those ratings: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PG13#Ratings)

 - G (General Audience - all ages admitted)
 - PG(Parental guidance suggested - might not be suitable for children))
 - PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned - might be inappropriate for  13 years)
 - R (Restricted -  17 years requires parent or adult guardian)
 - NC-17 (No children under 17)

 Basically, we could introduce this ratings as tags on [[Activities]]. 
 Xo-get could list only 'G'-rated Activities by default, and users can 
 then 'enable' all other somewhere in the application (preferences, ...).
   

Or perhaps a bit lighther version:

- G  (General Audience) (without tag)
- M  (Mature material, not recommendet for people under ... years of age)

Is there a need for more than those two ratings right now?

For xo-get, it would be nice to make it into a tag like R:[Rating], for 
example R:M for M-rated Activities. And we might suppose, Activities 
without rating-tags are 'G'-rated.

Chris
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

2008-01-18 Thread Chris Hager
Noah Kantrowitz wrote:
 I don't see why breaking this up by tags (some of which can be things like 
 PG13) isn't a good enough solution. We all know kids will seek this stuff 
 out no matter what, lets at least do it in a controlled way.
   
The MPAA uses those ratings: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PG13#Ratings)

- G (General Audience - all ages admitted)
- PG(Parental guidance suggested - might not be suitable for children))
- PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned - might be inappropriate for  13 years)
- R (Restricted -  17 years requires parent or adult guardian)
- NC-17 (No children under 17)

Basically, we could introduce this ratings as tags on [[Activities]]. 
Xo-get could list only 'G'-rated Activities by default, and users can 
then 'enable' all other somewhere in the application (preferences, ...).

Chris

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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

2008-01-18 Thread Antoine van Gelder
Jameson Chema Quinn wrote:
 Wasn't it the Nazi's who first used censorship? On the other hand, 
 people who died in Nazi concentration camps have unanimously refused to 
 play Doom.


/me invokes Godwin's law.


  - antoine
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

2008-01-18 Thread Antoine van Gelder
Jameson Chema Quinn wrote:
 Wasn't it the Nazi's who first used censorship? On the other hand, 
 people who died in Nazi concentration camps have unanimously refused to 
 play Doom.


/me invokes Godwin's law.

Good call.

  - antoine
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

2008-01-18 Thread Antoine van Gelder
Edward Cherlin wrote:
 Mr. van Gelder, I respectfully request that you read my message, over
 and over if necessary, until you understand the severity of your
 egregious and insulting error. Then apologize, not just to me, but to
 the others on this list who have had it far worse, and are even more
 fed up than I am with those whose ignorance and lack of imagination
 causes them such pain.


My apologies Mr Cherlin and to the others on this list.

I jumped to a conclusion regarding the purpose of Mr Cherlin's presence 
in South Korea which was entirely and completely erroneous.

  - antoine


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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

2008-01-18 Thread Jameson Chema Quinn
Wasn't it the Nazi's who first used censorship? On the other hand, people
who died in Nazi concentration camps have unanimously refused to play Doom.

New thread please?
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

2008-01-18 Thread Noah Kantrowitz

On Jan 18, 2008, at 4:58 AM, Antoine van Gelder wrote:


 With a result, that I can guarantee you that if ANY parent at my kid's
 school were to start arguing that the school should install Doom on  
 the
 media center's computers that I would oppose them in any way I can.

No one is coming even remotely close to saying that these kind of  
potentially offensive or harmful activities/content should be there by  
default, what is being said is we shouldn't pretend it doesn't exist.  
If someone wants it, it will be right there in the list, with a nice  
little description that makes no false projections as to what is  
contained.

It comes down to what OLPC's job in this is. Are we simply chronicling  
what content is out there, or are we actively pushing certain content  
and curtailing others. I think both have a place, and a wiki page with  
links to a small collection of high-quality educational content would  
be a great addition to the wiki. However a page called Activities  
should contain all activities, or needs to be renamed.

--Noah
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

2008-01-18 Thread Antoine van Gelder
I wrote:

  The fundamental flaw in this line of reasoning Jeffrey... and this is a
  flaw which any sophomore would have been able to spot in the days when
  they still taught logic and critical reasoning skills at American
  universities is this:


Edward Cherlin wrote:

 Antoine, you are turning this into an rwar. This is an ad hominem
 attack, as I'm sure they taught you. Stop it.


My apologies Jeffrey, Edward is correct.

It makes me angry to hear a person throw around words like 'censor' or 
'freedom of speech' when those rights are not being threatened.

Censorship is the suppression or deletion of material, which may be 
considered objectionable, harmful or sensitive, as determined by a censor.

Asking for material which could be traumatic to kids  communities who 
have not have the good fortune to be born in a country that has 
experienced unparalleled levels of peace and economic prosperity to be 
kept off-site is neither suppression nor deletion.


 Treatment for PTSD requires gradually easing the stress to the point
 where the victim can stand to think about what happened without
 bringing it back. And about every other kind of violence, real or
 fictitious. They have to get to the point where they could play these
 games.


Yes, they _do_ have to get to that point.

But surely in a therapeutic setting ?


 You, sir. I fail to understand what bee you have in your bonnet.


I see the river of dreams running red with the blood of children.

  - antoine
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

2008-01-18 Thread Antoine van Gelder
Albert Cahalan wrote:
 On Jan 18, 2008 4:06 AM, Antoine van Gelder [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Albert Cahalan wrote:
 Sorry to hear about your war.
 Attitudes such as this sir, is the reason that America is viewed by many
 nations as a belligerent and imperialistic monster.
 
 I'm sure you misinterpreted me. Maybe you thought
 I was being sarcastic; I was not.


My apologies Albert.

I was upset and jumped to conclusions.

  - antoine
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pyglet

2008-01-18 Thread Cesare Marilungo
http://www.pyglet.org/

Just installed and tested (not on the XO yet). It seems a good 
alternative to pygame.

-c.

-- 
www.cesaremarilungo.com 

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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

2008-01-18 Thread Jameson Chema Quinn

 Finally, any suggestions about how to extent, augment, or replace
 Media Wiki with tools to make these sorts of things easier for the
 community to manage would be appreciated.


There are several mediaWiki extensions that might help:
1. You could do an evil hack using the well-tested PageFunctions (for
variables declared at the top of an including page) and ParserFunctions (for
using in templates that can hide themselves depending on the variable
values). This would involve significant, hard-to-maintain work for each new
slice view you wanted to implement. However, if all views were just a series
of subsets of the 'all' view (all, unproblematic, core), this would not be
too hard, and populating it could be done by anyone able to copy and edit
wiki templates.
2. The WikiDB extension [1] appears to be precisely, exactly what is wanted
here. From quickly browsing its homesite, it appears to be working, but
possibly too buggy to slap onto a wiki as large as the OLPC one.
Significantly, it does not guarantee that the databases it creates will stay
in sync under rarer operations (restoring deleted pages...), nor does it
appear at first to have a way to regenerate its databases if they do get
hosed. Go have a look if you're interested and tell us what you think.
3. Semantic mediawiki is a heavyweight replacement version of Mediawiki with
some tools that, while they are not precisely what we want, would work for
this issue. Probably overkill.

[1] http://www.kennel17.co.uk/testwiki/WikiDB
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Re: Classroom tools

2008-01-18 Thread Thomas Tuttle
There's nothing preventing Johnny from doing this without a laptop. 
It's just easier with the laptop, but then again, so are legitimate
tasks.  I don't think OLPC should be getting into the business of
creating anti-cheat provisions.  I do think that tagging objects with
the people who have worked on them might be a good idea, though, for
this and for other purposes.

--Thomas Tuttle

On Fri, 18 Jan 2008 10:46:14 -0500, Mikus Grinbergs [EMAIL PROTECTED]
said:
 When I showed my G1G1 to a teacher friend, just about his first 
 thought was: this is an opportunity for surreptitious assistance. 
 Suppose Tommy needs to do something for school, but is stumped.
 He contacts Johnny on the mesh, who (for a suitable future pay-off) 
 feeds Tommy the answer.  How is the teacher to know that Tommy did 
 not do the task himself ?
 
 mikus
 
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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-18 Thread Dan Williams
On Fri, 2008-01-18 at 10:33 -0500, Michail Bletsas wrote:
 Dan Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 01/18/2008 10:08:09 AM:
 
  On Fri, 2008-01-18 at 08:36 +0800, David Woodhouse wrote:
   On Thu, 2008-01-17 at 19:16 -0500, Giannis Galanis wrote:
It must be noted that the important issue of this discussion is 
  how to have
the radio blocked from BEFORE the XO boots, so as not to be 
  conflicting with
the airline regulations.
   
   We should change the firmware so that it isn't active automatically as
   soon as it's loaded -- let the driver activate it when it's 
 appropriate.
   Then the decision as to whether the radio is blocked can properly be
   handled in userspace, and the device can be left quiescent if
   appropriate.
  
  Yes.  The active antennas firmware would need to be slightly altered to
  start on firmware boot, but the normal XO firmware should certainly be
  radio-off-until-driver-enabled (by setting IFF_UP or device open).
  
 So let's alter a fundamental design principle so that the XO doesn't 
 transmit a single frame when riding an airplane... ??
 
 I don't think so. If people feel so strong about this they can always 
 block firmware loading.
 Mesh forwarding will go on when you initialize the adapter and it is up to 
 the user to turn it off if they feel that they have too.

We're not really arguing here, we agree.  Everyone agrees that wireless
+mesh should start automatically by default after bootup.  What David
(and I in like 3 mails yesterday in this thread already) had proposed
was that the XO firmware should disable the radio _until_Linux_loads_
and the driver tells it to enable the radio.  When Linux loads, the
driver (or NetworkManager, or whatever) starts the radio.  That way, the
user at least has a change to at some point say no, don't turn on the
radio by default if they want to.

_Nothing_ would change for users who do not want/care/need to touch the
radio in this scenario, everything would continue to work as it
currently does.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that we're saying it should all be
in airplane mode all the time unless the child explicitly turns the
radio on.  We're saying exactly the opposite of that.

Dan

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Re: font size in console

2008-01-18 Thread Emiliano Pastorino
15x30pc rocks!

2008/1/18, Bernardo Innocenti [EMAIL PROTECTED]:

 Albert Cahalan wrote:

  Yes. It got buried in my inbox while I had to make up
  some hours for work. Also, you asked for a copy of
  the full thing, but I need to regenerate that and I might
  as well throw in the new characters while I'm at it.
 
  BTW, I was mistaken. It's about 1000 characters.

 As long as it's not too big (remember that the font
 lives in precious non-swappable kernel memory), the
 more glyphs we have, the better.


  I'm fine with the wording that Wikipedia uses for
  public domain. (disclaiming the weird nonsense
  which hopefully wouldn't apply to me anyway)

 Oh, I didn't get you were the original author of
 this font.  I thought you had converted it or something.


  Since you're in contact with him, feel free to let him
  know that he is welcome to have it.

 Good.

 --
 \___/
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   \___\  One Laptop Per Child - http://www.laptop.org/
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LATU - Plan Ceibal
Av. Italia 6201 CP: 11500, Montevideo, Uruguay
Tel: (598 2) 601 3724 int.: 467
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Re: pyglet

2008-01-18 Thread NoiseEHC
The XO does not have hardware OpenGL support and has a very slow 
processor so OpenGL is disabled in X. It means that 70% of pyglet will 
not be too useful.

Cesare Marilungo wrote:
 http://www.pyglet.org/

 Just installed and tested (not on the XO yet). It seems a good 
 alternative to pygame.

 -c.

   
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

2008-01-18 Thread Walter Bender
It seems that there are three ideas that have so far emerged form this
discussion: tags, favorites lists, and need for a better back end
than the wiki currently supplies to support search, sort, etc.

As SJ pointed out very early on in the thread, there is a page in the
wiki (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Activity_guidelines) that is dedicated
to the definition of criteria by which activities can be assessed.
Please help us expand/refine the list and perhaps cross reference the
list with existing tag systems.

It'd be great to generate some pages in the Activities page hierarchy
that include slices through the activity list that are appropriate to
different contexts, e.g., my favorites, etc.

Finally, any suggestions about how to extent, augment, or replace
Media Wiki with tools to make these sorts of things easier for the
community to manage would be appreciated.

-walter
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

2008-01-18 Thread Jeffrey Kesselman
On Jan 18, 2008 4:06 AM, Antoine van Gelder [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Jeffrey Kesselman wrote:

 The fundamental flaw in this line of reasoning Jeffrey... and this is a
 flaw which any sophomore would have been able to spot in the days when
 they still taught logic and critical reasoning skills at American
 universities is this:


 - Putting violent arcade games in an educational resource violates the
 right to spiritual and emotional recovery for nations that are in the
 process of recovering from war.

JFHC.

I;m sorry... but your accusing the folks whoa re against censorship of
talking in abstracts?

What IS the the right to spiritual and emotional recovery for nations
that are in the
 process of recovering from war ??

Part of the geneva coinvention I missed somewhere?

Can we PLEASE lay off the empty propaganda phrases and discuss this
like adults??

Censorship denies others the spiritual and emotional right to chose
what they experience,
how and why, for themselves.

See?  I can do it to.  Doesn't mean anything at all, but I can do it.

I'm going to go take a stress pill now.  Propaganda does that to me.

JK
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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-18 Thread David Woodhouse

On Fri, 2008-01-18 at 10:08 -0500, Dan Williams wrote:
 Yes.  The active antennas firmware would need to be slightly altered to
 start on firmware boot, but the normal XO firmware should certainly be
 radio-off-until-driver-enabled (by setting IFF_UP or device open).

Let us make a clear distinction between the two types of 'active
antenna' here. The ones which are actually attached to servers and
acting as wireless devices for a computer, we want to act like in the
XO. When they come up automatically into mesh repeater mode, that's
actually a complete PITA -- and it means we can't reboot the servers
because then the driver can't initialise the wireless because it's in
mesh repeater mode and doesn't respond properly to being reset.

Only for the standalone devices which we're going to hang in a corridor
and feed 5v do we want _any_ kind of automatic network operation. And
then it needs to be configurable -- we have to set the channel.

Since we need a way to configure the channel on the active antennae,
let's use channel zero to indicate 'no automatic mesh'. And please can
we have that firmware by tomorrow, Ulan Bator time -- so that I can
actually set up the school server so that it's rebootable without
subsequently having to disconnect and reconnect the firmware? 

I'd do it myself, but bug #429 bites again...

-- 
dwmw2

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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

2008-01-18 Thread Jeffrey Kesselman
On Jan 18, 2008 6:17 AM, Chris Hager [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Chris Hager wrote:
  Noah Kantrowitz wrote:
 
  I don't see why breaking this up by tags (some of which can be things like 
  PG13) isn't a good enough solution. We all know kids will seek this 
  stuff out no matter what, lets at least do it in a controlled way.
 
 
  The MPAA uses those ratings: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PG13#Ratings)
 
  - G (General Audience - all ages admitted)
  - PG(Parental guidance suggested - might not be suitable for children))
  - PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned - might be inappropriate for  13 years)
  - R (Restricted -  17 years requires parent or adult guardian)
  - NC-17 (No children under 17)
 
  Basically, we could introduce this ratings as tags on [[Activities]].
  Xo-get could list only 'G'-rated Activities by default, and users can
  then 'enable' all other somewhere in the application (preferences, ...).
 

 Or perhaps a bit lighther version:

 - G  (General Audience) (without tag)
 - M  (Mature material, not recommendet for people under ... years of age)

Coming up with ratings is relatively easy.  The ESRB already has a
system you can use if
you want.

http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp

Deciding who gets to decide how they are assigned... thats harder.

JK
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New joyride build 1549

2008-01-18 Thread Build Announcer v2
http://xs-dev.laptop.org/~cscott/olpc/streams/joyride/build1549

Changes in build 1549 from build: 1548

Size delta: 0M

-kernel 2.6.22-20080117.1.olpc.a0ca568e912c1c5
+kernel 2.6.22-20080118.2.olpc.a985ba6d19d39cc

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Re: Choosing a correct working-dir for upgrade-server

2008-01-18 Thread Noah Kantrowitz
On Jan 18, 2008, at 6:49 PM, Michael Stone wrote:

 When inetd runs upgrade-server/upserv.py, it does so with in the  
 working dir /.

 Since the upgrade-server's python modules are not installed in  
 PYTHONPATH, this
 choice of working-dir interferes with the module loading that occurs  
 when
 re-running python inside fakeroot.

 Hardcoding the correct choice of working-dir fixes the observed  
 failure of the
 upgrade-server's 'on-demand build download' feature; however, it's  
 probably
 worth fixing this for real by either:

 a) packaging upgrade-server so that it properly installs its modules  
 in
PYTHONPATH or

 b) calculating an appropriate working dir at run time based on a  
 command-line
argument, environment variable, or based on the location of the  
 python
script being executed.

c) Use 2.5 new relative import stuffs.

--Noah
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Choosing a correct working-dir for upgrade-server

2008-01-18 Thread Michael Stone
When inetd runs upgrade-server/upserv.py, it does so with in the working dir /.

Since the upgrade-server's python modules are not installed in PYTHONPATH, this
choice of working-dir interferes with the module loading that occurs when
re-running python inside fakeroot.

Hardcoding the correct choice of working-dir fixes the observed failure of the
upgrade-server's 'on-demand build download' feature; however, it's probably
worth fixing this for real by either:

 a) packaging upgrade-server so that it properly installs its modules in
PYTHONPATH or

 b) calculating an appropriate working dir at run time based on a command-line
argument, environment variable, or based on the location of the python
script being executed.


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Suggestion for Terms of Use for content

2008-01-18 Thread Bryan Berry
I immensely admire the Scratch website as a space for collaboration for
kids and adults. I suggest OLPC seriously consider adopting these same
terms of use.


Scratch Terms of Use  http://scratch.mit.edu/terms

As part of the Scratch community, you are sharing projects and ideas
with people:
• from many different countries and cultures
• of all ages (from young children to teens and grandparents)
• with all levels of experience

We need your help to make this community a supportive place for every
member. Here's how you can help:

Be respectful. When sharing projects, remember that people of many
different ages and backgrounds will see your creations.

Offer constructive comments. Instead of just criticizing a project, say
what you like about it and offer suggestions on how to make it better.

Give credit. Feel free to make modified versions of other people's
projects - just make sure to give them credit. One place to give credit
is in your Project Notes.

Help keep the site safe. If you feel others would find a project mean,
insulting, too violent, or otherwise inappropriate, click the link from
that page: Flag as inappropriate. (The Scratch team will review, and
may remove any project or comments.)


---

I think it would be great for OLPC to put together a team to
periodically review content tagged as inappropriate. This group should
include teachers and women (who could be teachers :) not be solely
composed of male software developers or pseudo-developers like myself. 

Perhaps it would be good to set up a site like www.xohacker.org where
people could post their free clones of Grand Theft Auto or Leisure Suit
Larry. This would give people the freedom to do what they want and
maintain a safe environment for kids w/in the OLPC activities pages.
Frankly, I myself like violent games but I respect that they bother a
lot of people, particularly teachers and parents I work w/.

I will try to contact John Maloney of the Scratch team and find out what
particular procedures they have for reviewing content.

BTW, I really like ScratchR community site and think it is a great
option for hosting the activities. 
http://scratch.mit.edu/scratchr


I hope this doesn't start another rewar :) 

-- 
Bryan W. Berry
External Relations Manager
OLE Nepal, http://www.olenepal.org

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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

2008-01-18 Thread Edward Cherlin
On Jan 18, 2008 12:58 PM, Jeffrey Kesselman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 On Jan 18, 2008 6:17 AM, Chris Hager [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  Chris Hager wrote:
   Noah Kantrowitz wrote:
  
   I don't see why breaking this up by tags (some of which can be things 
   like PG13) isn't a good enough solution. We all know kids will seek 
   this stuff out no matter what, lets at least do it in a controlled way.

None of these rating systems is any good. Where's the category for
stuff that is suitable for children but not for adults? I'm quite
serious about this. (Adults in this context means those who cannot
remember or imagine how it is for children. It has nothing to do with
age.)

   The MPAA uses those ratings: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PG13#Ratings)
  
   - G (General Audience - all ages admitted)
   - PG(Parental guidance suggested - might not be suitable for 
   children))
   - PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned - might be inappropriate for  13 
   years)
   - R (Restricted -  17 years requires parent or adult guardian)
   - NC-17 (No children under 17)
  
   Basically, we could introduce this ratings as tags on [[Activities]].
   Xo-get could list only 'G'-rated Activities by default, and users can
   then 'enable' all other somewhere in the application (preferences, ...).
  
 
  Or perhaps a bit lighther version:
 
  - G  (General Audience) (without tag)
  - M  (Mature material, not recommendet for people under ... years of age)

 Coming up with ratings is relatively easy.  The ESRB already has a
 system you can use if
 you want.

 http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp

 Deciding who gets to decide how they are assigned... thats harder.

 JK

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End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business
http://www.EarthTreasury.org/
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.--Alan Kay
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

2008-01-18 Thread Edward Cherlin
On Jan 18, 2008 1:58 AM, Antoine van Gelder [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Edward Cherlin wrote:
  On Jan 18, 2008 1:06 AM, Antoine van Gelder [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  Edward Cherlin wrote:
  I was in the hills north of Seoul, Korea, in 1968
 
  Mr Cherlin - with much respect to your service in Korea (I have friends
  who also served) but may I ask you to please consider the possibility
  that your experience as an armed, trained and well-supplied soldier was
  not the same experience as that had by civilians caught in the crossfire
  of armies ?
 
  Mr. van Gelder, I respectfully request that you read my message, over
  and over if necessary, until you understand the severity of your
  egregious and insulting error. Then apologize, not just to me, but to
  the others on this list who have had it far worse, and are even more
  fed up than I am with those whose ignorance and lack of imagination
  causes them such pain.
 
  The rest of you, no spoilers. He has to make this discovery himself
  for it to take.
 
  And to think that hummingbirds are the messengers of the Gods in Mayan
  mythology.



 Ed - look...

 Unless I'm completely misreading you, you are arguing on the basis of
 your experience as a soldier that Children need to be exposed to
 violence lest their naivety be taken advantage of by monsters.

Yes, you completely misread me. I have never been a soldier. Now go
back to the message you replied to, and find the clues. They aren't
hidden.

 This is a valid point of view.

 I let my own children play the Harry Potter games and Starcraft etc.
 etc. (and yes, when they are older Quake or whatever other waste of GPU
 cycles Id has come up with by then) to their heart's content because of
 that very reason.

Excellent. We agree completely on this principle.

 BUT

 The thing which I am trying to point out is that on the continent on
 which I live children are _already_ on the receiving end of violence
 with the result that their needs are different to the needs of my children.

I simply propose that we put it to them, and hear what *they* have to
say about the matter. We have no business trying to arrogate to
ourselves the right to make decisions for them.

 Or to put it yet another way:

 South Africa is still deeply fractured along racial and economic lines.

 Less than ten minutes from my children's school is a predominantly poor
 community. The children in this community have daily experiences of
 drive-by shootings, sexual abuse, rampant crystal meth and alcohol
 addiction, gang warfare and other such pleasantly formative experiences.

 Now in my children's school, there are a small amount of children from
 that community.

 With a result, that I can guarantee you that if ANY parent at my kid's
 school were to start arguing that the school should install Doom on the
 media center's computers that I would oppose them in any way I can.

To my knowledge, nobody here has argued for putting Doom on school
servers. That is a strawman argument, as I am sure you have been
taught. We are talking about how to list entirely optional software on
the OLPC site.

 Sure - if we were to make these kinds of decisions on the basis of a
 majority then _clearly_ there are more kids at the school who would
 learn from Doom than kids who would be traumatized by Doom.

Majority? Where does that nonsense come from? These are *individual* decisions.

 I would hope however that such a decision would rather be made on the
 basis of common sense.

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age
eighteen.--Albert Einstein

Common sense, if it existed, would be the sense which we hold in
common. We don't. Certainly not you and I.

   - the messenger of the gods

If you are going to start with us on that track, you can go back to
the Mayan Hell where you came from and tell your Demon Snake Lord
Hapikorn I said so. %-[

-- 
Edward Cherlin
End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business
http://www.EarthTreasury.org/
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.--Alan Kay
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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

2008-01-18 Thread Brad Paulsen
Beg Disclaimer

Jeffrey, I'm replying to your message because it was the latest one in the 
thread when I retrieved my 120 OLPC mailing list message today (actually, 
that comes from several OLPC mailing lists, but devel seems to have the most 
traffic on any given day).  So, what I say here is not a reply to you 
personally.

End Disclaimer

I think the direction this thread is taking is completely the wrong way to 
go about things.  OLPC should be in the business of delivering a platform 
and productivity tools (e.g., word processor, paint program, etc.).  It 
should NOT be in the business of distributing content.  ANY content.  Tools 
to build content, definitely (EToys, pyGames, et al.).  But NOT the content 
itself.

If you folks think this little dust-up over violent games is a big deal, 
just wait until the creationists, the scientologists and the new-Nazis 
discover the XO.  If you take a look at some of the stuff on YouTube 
criticizing the very purpose and legitimacy of the OLPC project itself, you 
will know that we are going to have enough trouble just defending the 
platform and the tools.  $200 USD can by a lot of rice for starving children 
and there is no shortage of people out there right now trying to brand the 
OLPC project as another elitist wet dream.

My advice to OLPC is to get out of the content business in any way, shape or 
form as quickly as your little green computer can carry you.  You don't have 
to worry about the XO not having enough educational content.  Many people 
not affiliated with OLPC will be developing content for this platform. 
Then, let the recipients of the machines make the content decisions using 
their own, local standards.

Cheers,

Brad

- Original Message - 
From: Jeffrey Kesselman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Chris Hager [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: OLPC Development devel@lists.laptop.org
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2008 2:58 PM
Subject: Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page


 On Jan 18, 2008 6:17 AM, Chris Hager [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Chris Hager wrote:
  Noah Kantrowitz wrote:
 
  I don't see why breaking this up by tags (some of which can be things 
  like PG13) isn't a good enough solution. We all know kids will seek 
  this stuff out no matter what, lets at least do it in a controlled 
  way.
 
 
  The MPAA uses those ratings: 
  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PG13#Ratings)
 
  - G (General Audience - all ages admitted)
  - PG(Parental guidance suggested - might not be suitable for 
  children))
  - PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned - might be inappropriate for  13 
  years)
  - R (Restricted -  17 years requires parent or adult guardian)
  - NC-17 (No children under 17)
 
  Basically, we could introduce this ratings as tags on [[Activities]].
  Xo-get could list only 'G'-rated Activities by default, and users can
  then 'enable' all other somewhere in the application (preferences, 
  ...).
 

 Or perhaps a bit lighther version:

 - G  (General Audience) (without tag)
 - M  (Mature material, not recommendet for people under ... years of age)

 Coming up with ratings is relatively easy.  The ESRB already has a
 system you can use if
 you want.

 http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp

 Deciding who gets to decide how they are assigned... thats harder.

 JK
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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-18 Thread John Watlington

Michail,
This would be 3107, right ?
3109 is when we started seeing the auto-update mode.

John

On Jan 18, 2008, at 4:22 PM, David Woodhouse wrote:


 On Fri, 2008-01-18 at 15:50 -0500, Michail Bletsas wrote:
 Ideally, we want to just kill the auto-mesh-repeater mode, where  
 boot2
 times out after 5 seconds and loads the firmware from the  
 internal flash
 (which is obviously larger on these devices than on the XO). Can we
 achieve that just by updating to a 'normal' Boot2 version from  
 the XO?

 Yes, that is all that is needed to disable autoboot on the active
 antennas.

 OK, that's the plan for the Mongolia deployment then. Wad, please can
 you confirm (with libertas-flash.py) and forward me the current (XO)
 version of Boot2, so I can do that?

 Thanks.

 -- 
 dwmw2


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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-18 Thread Michail Bletsas
John Watlington [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 01/18/2008 04:56:26 PM:

 
 Michail,
 This would be 3107, right ?
 3109 is when we started seeing the auto-update mode.
 

Yes,

M.
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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-18 Thread David Woodhouse

On Fri, 2008-01-18 at 16:56 -0500, John Watlington wrote:
 
 Michail,
 This would be 3107, right ?
 3109 is when we started seeing the auto-update mode.

OK, so can we go between 3109 and 3107 in both directions using
libertas-flash.py or did the protocol get changed without telling us?

We never did get Marvell's 'firmware update' patch for the driver to
apply to the kernel they claim it applies to, did we?

-- 
dwmw2

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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-18 Thread David Woodhouse

On Fri, 2008-01-18 at 15:50 -0500, Michail Bletsas wrote:
  Ideally, we want to just kill the auto-mesh-repeater mode, where boot2
  times out after 5 seconds and loads the firmware from the internal flash
  (which is obviously larger on these devices than on the XO). Can we
  achieve that just by updating to a 'normal' Boot2 version from the XO?
  
 Yes, that is all that is needed to disable autoboot on the active 
 antennas.

OK, that's the plan for the Mongolia deployment then. Wad, please can
you confirm (with libertas-flash.py) and forward me the current (XO)
version of Boot2, so I can do that?

Thanks.

-- 
dwmw2

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Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO

2008-01-18 Thread Bill Nottingham
Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) said: 
 As far as I understand this is due to the use of ALSA without OSS
 emulation.  It's also what affects one of the three Speex bugs
 affecting the XO, as the CLI tool speexdec is unable to use /dev/dsp.
 
 For the sake of improving the state of audio in the XO; I'd really
 like to put to vote the idea of replacing ALSA with OSS 4.

I can't imagine why intentionally divorcing from the upstream sound
model to a driver stack that is never going to the upstream kernel
would be a *good* thing.

Bill
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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-18 Thread Michail Bletsas
David Woodhouse [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 01/18/2008 03:31:08 PM:


 
 Ideally, we want to just kill the auto-mesh-repeater mode, where boot2
 times out after 5 seconds and loads the firmware from the internal flash
 (which is obviously larger on these devices than on the XO). Can we
 achieve that just by updating to a 'normal' Boot2 version from the XO?
 
Yes, that is all that is needed to disable autoboot on the active 
antennas.

M.


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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-18 Thread Benjamin M. Schwartz
On Fri, 2008-01-18 at 14:47 -0500, Dan Williams wrote:
 So wait, what's going on here?  I thought the devices attached to school
 servers were just run-of-the-mill USB 8388 devices like the 8388
 daughterboard of the XO, but different connector, right?
 
 What is the post-boot firmware flash functionality supposed to apply to,
 the host-less active antenna? (which is what I heretofore had
 understood).

These two are the same device (active antenna).  The device behaves
differently depending on whether it detects a USB link on startup.

--Ben

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Re: Openfirmware customisation problem - booting from USB

2008-01-18 Thread Mitch Bradley



Mr frÿffe9dÿffe9ric pouchal wrote:
 Hello
 I would like to boot OpenFirmware from an USB key

On a conventional PC or an OLPC XO?

The former is supported; the latter could be made to work but will 
probably require some changes.

 so I
 changed the file

 /openfirmware/cpu/x86/pc/olpc/config.fth

 I commented 
 \ create rom-loaded

 I uncommented 
 create syslinux-loaded
   

The syslinux-loaded variant in the olpc build directory is obsolete (it 
dated back to the time when A-test OLPC boards briefly had a 
conventional BIOS) and I have no plans to ever make it work again.

The syslinux-loaded variant in biosload build directory should work.

 but when I do make clean  make I have this error

 make[1]: Leaving directory
 `/home/firm/openfirmware/clients/memtest86'

 ./build olpc.rom
 --- Rebuilding ec.img
 --- Cmd: ${HOSTDIR}/forth
 ${HOSTDIR}/../build/builder.dic ../ec.bth
 --- Rebuilding romreset.di
 --- Cmd: ${HOSTDIR}/forth
 ${HOSTDIR}/../build/builder.dic ../romreset.bth

 ${BP}/cpu/x86/pc/resetend.fth:35: ResetBase ?
 make: *** [olpc.rom] Error 1

 Can anyone help me ?

 Thanks

 Frederic Pouchal


   
 
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 know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile.  Try it now.  
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Openfirmware customisation problem - booting from USB

2008-01-18 Thread fr�ffffffffffe9d�ffffffffffe9ric
Hello
I would like to boot OpenFirmware from an USB key so I
changed the file

/openfirmware/cpu/x86/pc/olpc/config.fth

I commented 
\ create rom-loaded

I uncommented 
create syslinux-loaded

but when I do make clean  make I have this error

make[1]: Leaving directory
`/home/firm/openfirmware/clients/memtest86'

./build olpc.rom
--- Rebuilding ec.img
--- Cmd: ${HOSTDIR}/forth
${HOSTDIR}/../build/builder.dic ../ec.bth
--- Rebuilding romreset.di
--- Cmd: ${HOSTDIR}/forth
${HOSTDIR}/../build/builder.dic ../romreset.bth

${BP}/cpu/x86/pc/resetend.fth:35: ResetBase ?
make: *** [olpc.rom] Error 1

Can anyone help me ?

Thanks

Frederic Pouchal


  

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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

2008-01-18 Thread Edward Cherlin
On Jan 18, 2008 10:45 AM, Antoine van Gelder [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Jeffrey Kesselman wrote:
  I;m sorry... but your accusing the folks whoa re against censorship of
  talking in abstracts?


 Straw man. [1]

Aha! You do know what that means. Sort of. You just don't understand
it. Ask me offline if you want clarification.

 You accuse me of accusing folk who are against censorship of talking
 abstract and then because censorship is bad you claim that my point is
 invalid.

 I am not advocating censorship.

   - antoine



 [1] http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html

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[PATCH] Hack an os.chdir('~/upgrade-server') so that we can correctly download builds.

2008-01-18 Thread Michael Stone
This should probably become a command-line option (or even an inference based
on the path to the python script being executed).
---
 upserv.py |3 ++-
 1 files changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)

diff --git a/upserv.py b/upserv.py
index fa4fb17..216104f 100755
--- a/upserv.py
+++ b/upserv.py
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 Upgrade Server.
 from __future__ import with_statement
 from subprocess import call, check_call, Popen, PIPE
-import os.path, random, re, select, socket, sys, tempfile, time, urllib, 
traceback
+import os.path, random, re, select, socket, sys, tempfile, time, urllib, 
traceback, os
 from string import Template
 
 # CONFIGURATION.  override these settings in config.py if you like.
@@ -176,6 +176,7 @@ def try_to_install_build(build):
 return str(sys.exc_value)
 
 def main ():
+os.chdir('/home/upserv/upgrade-server')
 from optparse import OptionParser
 parser = OptionParser(usage='%prog [options] server|install buildno')
 (options, args) = parser.parse_args()
-- 
1.5.3.3

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Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO

2008-01-18 Thread Andres Cabrera
How about just reenabling OSS emulation? It's included in alsa, so it
should be no problem, maybe it's just a case of modifying
modprobe.conf.
I second Victor's suggestion for the csound api, though. I wonder if
there is a major impact on performance by using it?

Cheers,
Andrés


On Jan 18, 2008 5:24 PM, victor [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 What exactly is the problem with the alsa driver? Csound works
 OK with it. Replacing it with OSS will require us to write a new
 IO module for Csound. Without Csound, audio and music on
 the XO will have to be completely re-written.

 IMHO, developers wanting to use audio on the XO should ideally
 use Csound and its Python API. That's why it's there.

 As far as I am concerned, having developed audio apps for
 Linux for several years, Alsa is much better and more reliable
 than OSS.

 Victor


 - Original Message -
 From: Jordan Crouse [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 To: Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Cc: Arjun Sarwal [EMAIL PROTECTED]; devel@lists.laptop.org
 Sent: Friday, January 18, 2008 9:02 PM
 Subject: Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO


 On 18/01/08 20:57 +, Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves wrote:
  As far as I understand this is due to the use of ALSA without OSS
  emulation.  It's also what affects one of the three Speex bugs
  affecting the XO, as the CLI tool speexdec is unable to use /dev/dsp.
 
  For the sake of improving the state of audio in the XO; I'd really
  like to put to vote the idea of replacing ALSA with OSS 4.

 If thats the case, then we need somebody to volunteer to write the AC97
 driver for the CS5536.  I don't think we would consider any sort of
 change until the appropriate hardware controls are in place.

 Jordan

 --
 Jordan Crouse
 Systems Software Development Engineer
 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.


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Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO

2008-01-18 Thread Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves
On 1/18/08, Bill Nottingham [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 I can't imagine why intentionally divorcing from the upstream sound
 model to a driver stack that is never going to the upstream kernel
 would be a *good* thing.

ALSA is a kernel driver and should never have been anything more.  A
decent audio system should always be built in userspace.

Does it not strike you as odd that most audio applications work better
with ALSA when they are using OSS emulation?  Emulation.  Of a
different sound system.

-Ivo
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Fwd: Activity search/browse on wiki (was violent activities)

2008-01-18 Thread Jameson Chema Quinn
I'm rescuing this concrete suggestion, since most people probably have the
'violent activities' thread in their killfile by now. (Sorry about that, I'm
as guilty as any of adding personal anecdotes instead of productive
contributions).

The problem: have a community-maintained list of activities that is viewable
and/or searchable in different cross-sections based on need. It should
integrate well with the wiki, so probably the first place to look is for
mediawiki extensions.

There are several that might help:
1. You could do an evil hack by combining page inclusion with the
well-tested PageFunctions (for variables declared at the top of an including
page) and ParserFunctions (for using in templates that can hide themselves
depending on the variable values). This would involve hacktastic,
hard-to-maintain work for each new slice view you wanted to implement.
However, if you keep things simple (all, unproblematic, core), this would
not be too hard, and populating it could be done by anyone able to copy and
edit wiki templates.
2. The WikiDB extension [1] appears to be a beta version of precisely what
is wanted here. From quickly browsing its homesite, it appears to be
working, but possibly too buggy to slap onto a wiki as large as the OLPC
one. Significantly, it does not guarantee that the databases it creates will
stay in sync under rarer operations (restoring deleted pages...), nor does
it appear at first to have a way to regenerate its databases if they do get
hosed. Go have a look if you're interested and tell us what you think.
3. Semantic mediawiki is a heavyweight replacement version of Mediawiki with
some tools that, while they are not precisely what we want, would work for
this issue. The focus is more on browse than on preconstructed views
integrated with a wiki page - I think that for us the latter would probably
be better. Probably overkill.

[1] http://www.kennel17.co.uk/testwiki/WikiDB



(sorry if you get this twice, I first sent it to devel@lists.laptop.org and
since I did't get a copy I'm assuming the address doesn't work with lists
in it.)
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Activity search/browse on wiki (was violent activities)

2008-01-18 Thread Jameson Chema Quinn
I'm rescuing this concrete suggestion, since most people probably have the
'violent activities' thread in their killfile by now. (Sorry about that, I'm
as guilty as any of adding personal anecdotes instead of productive
contributions).

The problem: have a community-maintained list of activities that is viewable
and/or searchable in different cross-sections based on need. It should
integrate well with the wiki, so probably the first place to look is for
mediawiki extensions.

There are several that might help:
1. You could do an evil hack by combining page inclusion with the
well-tested PageFunctions (for variables declared at the top of an including
page) and ParserFunctions (for using in templates that can hide themselves
depending on the variable values). This would involve hacktastic,
hard-to-maintain work for each new slice view you wanted to implement.
However, if you keep things simple (all, unproblematic, core), this would
not be too hard, and populating it could be done by anyone able to copy and
edit wiki templates.
2. The WikiDB extension [1] appears to be a beta version of precisely what
is wanted here. From quickly browsing its homesite, it appears to be
working, but possibly too buggy to slap onto a wiki as large as the OLPC
one. Significantly, it does not guarantee that the databases it creates will
stay in sync under rarer operations (restoring deleted pages...), nor does
it appear at first to have a way to regenerate its databases if they do get
hosed. Go have a look if you're interested and tell us what you think.
3. Semantic mediawiki is a heavyweight replacement version of Mediawiki with
some tools that, while they are not precisely what we want, would work for
this issue. The focus is more on browse than on preconstructed views
integrated with a wiki page - I think that for us the latter would probably
be better. Probably overkill.

[1] http://www.kennel17.co.uk/testwiki/WikiDB
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OFW hello.elf

2008-01-18 Thread Robert Millan

Hi

It appears that the sample hello world program [1] provided with OFW is not
working on latest stable revision.  At least, it didn't work for my G1G1 unit
with Q2D07.  When running it with boot command, I just get:

ok boot disk:\hello.elf
Boot device: /usb/disk:\hello.elf  Arguments:
[ nothing printed, no prompt ]

It works fine when using latest SVN in qemu / pc-serial build, though.  I
find this really strange, because I got reports [2] that ELF images are
indeed working on XO, although I don't know which hardware/firmware versions.

Also, I'm not sure if this is a loading problem with ELF format or with the
OFW callback interface, since Linux images seem to differ in both things with
hello.elf.

Perhaps someone else can try hello.elf and see if it works?

TIA

[1] svn co svn://openbios.org/openfirmware/clients  make -C clients/lib/x86/

[2] http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/grub-devel/2008-01/msg00227.html

-- 
Robert Millan

GPLv2 I know my rights; I want my phone call!
DRM What use is a phone call… if you are unable to speak?
(as seen on /.)
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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-18 Thread David Woodhouse
On Fri, 2008-01-18 at 14:47 -0500, Dan Williams wrote:
 What is the post-boot firmware flash functionality supposed to apply to,
 the host-less active antenna? (which is what I heretofore had
 understood).

As Ben says, they're the same thing. If you don't load the firmware
within 5 seconds of the boot2 code starting up, the thing loads its own
firmware from the internal flash.

Yes, it's horrid. It doesn't even preserve the boot2 version, because we
did some stupid hack to preserve that in the _driver_ rather than
keeping it internal, so when we send the CMD_802_11_RESET command to
kick the device back into boot2, we get 'device firmware changed' from
the kernel and it appears as a completely new device...

Ideally, we want to just kill the auto-mesh-repeater mode, where boot2
times out after 5 seconds and loads the firmware from the internal flash
(which is obviously larger on these devices than on the XO). Can we
achieve that just by updating to a 'normal' Boot2 version from the XO?

(Yes, I should be sleeping. No, I have no idea what timezone I'm in).

-- 
dwmw2

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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-18 Thread Dan Williams
On Fri, 2008-01-18 at 08:36 +0800, David Woodhouse wrote:
 On Thu, 2008-01-17 at 19:16 -0500, Giannis Galanis wrote:
  It must be noted that the important issue of this discussion is how to have
  the radio blocked from BEFORE the XO boots, so as not to be conflicting with
  the airline regulations.
 
 We should change the firmware so that it isn't active automatically as
 soon as it's loaded -- let the driver activate it when it's appropriate.
 Then the decision as to whether the radio is blocked can properly be
 handled in userspace, and the device can be left quiescent if
 appropriate.

Yes.  The active antennas firmware would need to be slightly altered to
start on firmware boot, but the normal XO firmware should certainly be
radio-off-until-driver-enabled (by setting IFF_UP or device open).

Dan

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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-18 Thread Michail Bletsas
Dan Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 01/18/2008 10:08:09 AM:

 On Fri, 2008-01-18 at 08:36 +0800, David Woodhouse wrote:
  On Thu, 2008-01-17 at 19:16 -0500, Giannis Galanis wrote:
   It must be noted that the important issue of this discussion is 
 how to have
   the radio blocked from BEFORE the XO boots, so as not to be 
 conflicting with
   the airline regulations.
  
  We should change the firmware so that it isn't active automatically as
  soon as it's loaded -- let the driver activate it when it's 
appropriate.
  Then the decision as to whether the radio is blocked can properly be
  handled in userspace, and the device can be left quiescent if
  appropriate.
 
 Yes.  The active antennas firmware would need to be slightly altered to
 start on firmware boot, but the normal XO firmware should certainly be
 radio-off-until-driver-enabled (by setting IFF_UP or device open).
 
So let's alter a fundamental design principle so that the XO doesn't 
transmit a single frame when riding an airplane... ??

I don't think so. If people feel so strong about this they can always 
block firmware loading.
Mesh forwarding will go on when you initialize the adapter and it is up to 
the user to turn it off if they feel that they have too.

M.
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New joyride build 1546

2008-01-18 Thread Build Announcer v2
http://xs-dev.laptop.org/~cscott/olpc/streams/joyride/build1546

Changes in build 1546 from build: 1544

Size delta: 0M

-olpc-utils 0.63-2.olpc2
+olpc-utils 0.65-1.olpc2

--- Changes for olpc-utils 0.65-1.olpc2 from 0.63-2.olpc2 ---
  + Use GPLv2+ license tag as nothing in this package is GPLv2-only.
  + Make preview cleaner robust in the case of a missing datastore
  + Do not bother running journal cleaner on fresh installations (saves time on 
first boot)
  + Add a silly TODO list
  + Bump revision to 0.65
  + Import olpc-netlog-0.3 and olpc-netstatus-0.3
  + Add 'clean-previews' and incorporate it into olpc-configure.
  + 'become_root' script merged upstream.
  + Update License field to GPLv2 in order to match the COPYING file.

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Re: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page

2008-01-18 Thread Antoine van Gelder
Jeffrey Kesselman wrote:
 I;m sorry... but your accusing the folks whoa re against censorship of
 talking in abstracts?


Straw man. [1]

You accuse me of accusing folk who are against censorship of talking 
abstract and then because censorship is bad you claim that my point is 
invalid.

I am not advocating censorship.

  - antoine



[1] http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html
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Re: Suggestion for Terms of Use for content

2008-01-18 Thread Bennett Todd
2008-01-19T02:55:50 Bryan Berry:
 I hope this doesn't start another rewar :) 

So do I; that sounded beautiful to me in every way.

But, though I hope I didn't fan the flames too hard when my hot
button got mashed, I did see a good bit of evolving, productive
thoughts float to the top out of the occasionally edgy discussion.

I don't know what a rewar is, but I've seen a ton of flamewars, and
I've never, ever seen apologies in one before. This seems to have
quenched itself somehow. Where do these people _come_from_? How can
we increase their proportions in other venues?

-Bennett

[ P.S. I'm trying to proofread carefully, but all my participation
has been from my utterly delightful G1G1 xo, and my huge fingers are
still getting accustomed to the keyboard. ]


pgpuRkWZ2aZCF.pgp
Description: PGP signature
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Downtime tonight Jan18 6PM EST

2008-01-18 Thread Ivan Krstić
Development services (git, trac) will be going down for 6-12 hours  
tonight, Jan 18, starting around 6PM EST. Later in the evening, a  
smorgasbord of services might experience interruption, including RT,  
updates.laptop.org, and the translation system (Pootle). As usual, we  
hope to minimize downtime.

--
Ivan Krstić [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://radian.org

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Re: Classroom tools

2008-01-18 Thread Edward Cherlin
I wrote a piece about this for OLPC News, on how the Collaborative
Discovery that the laptop promotes is defined in many classrooms as
cheating.  For a contrary view, you could talk to the faculty of
Presidio School of Management, where team projects are the essence of
the curriculum, and teams are diligent in calling delinquent members
to account.

On Jan 18, 2008 7:46 AM, Mikus Grinbergs [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 When I showed my G1G1 to a teacher friend, just about his first
 thought was: this is an opportunity for surreptitious assistance.
 Suppose Tommy needs to do something for school, but is stumped.
 He contacts Johnny on the mesh, who (for a suitable future pay-off)
 feeds Tommy the answer.  How is the teacher to know that Tommy did
 not do the task himself ?

Monitoring wireless traffic in the XO environment is not at all
difficult. Get a student to put something together for you. You don't
even need to read the packet contents. Just the addresses are
sufficient.

 mikus


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The best way to predict the future is to invent it.--Alan Kay
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Re: Testing the Wireless driver changes

2008-01-18 Thread Dan Williams
On Sat, 2008-01-19 at 01:38 +0800, David Woodhouse wrote:
 On Fri, 2008-01-18 at 10:08 -0500, Dan Williams wrote:
  Yes.  The active antennas firmware would need to be slightly altered to
  start on firmware boot, but the normal XO firmware should certainly be
  radio-off-until-driver-enabled (by setting IFF_UP or device open).
 
 Let us make a clear distinction between the two types of 'active
 antenna' here. The ones which are actually attached to servers and
 acting as wireless devices for a computer, we want to act like in the
 XO. When they come up automatically into mesh repeater mode, that's
 actually a complete PITA -- and it means we can't reboot the servers
 because then the driver can't initialise the wireless because it's in
 mesh repeater mode and doesn't respond properly to being reset.

So wait, what's going on here?  I thought the devices attached to school
servers were just run-of-the-mill USB 8388 devices like the 8388
daughterboard of the XO, but different connector, right?

What is the post-boot firmware flash functionality supposed to apply to,
the host-less active antenna? (which is what I heretofore had
understood).

Dan

 Only for the standalone devices which we're going to hang in a corridor
 and feed 5v do we want _any_ kind of automatic network operation. And
 then it needs to be configurable -- we have to set the channel.
 
 Since we need a way to configure the channel on the active antennae,
 let's use channel zero to indicate 'no automatic mesh'. And please can
 we have that firmware by tomorrow, Ulan Bator time -- so that I can
 actually set up the school server so that it's rebootable without
 subsequently having to disconnect and reconnect the firmware? 
 
 I'd do it myself, but bug #429 bites again...
 

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Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO

2008-01-18 Thread victor
What exactly is the problem with the alsa driver? Csound works
OK with it. Replacing it with OSS will require us to write a new
IO module for Csound. Without Csound, audio and music on
the XO will have to be completely re-written.

IMHO, developers wanting to use audio on the XO should ideally
use Csound and its Python API. That's why it's there.

As far as I am concerned, having developed audio apps for
Linux for several years, Alsa is much better and more reliable
than OSS.

Victor

- Original Message - 
From: Jordan Crouse [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: Arjun Sarwal [EMAIL PROTECTED]; devel@lists.laptop.org
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2008 9:02 PM
Subject: Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO


On 18/01/08 20:57 +, Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves wrote:
 As far as I understand this is due to the use of ALSA without OSS
 emulation.  It's also what affects one of the three Speex bugs
 affecting the XO, as the CLI tool speexdec is unable to use /dev/dsp.

 For the sake of improving the state of audio in the XO; I'd really
 like to put to vote the idea of replacing ALSA with OSS 4.

If thats the case, then we need somebody to volunteer to write the AC97
driver for the CS5536.  I don't think we would consider any sort of
change until the appropriate hardware controls are in place.

Jordan

-- 
Jordan Crouse
Systems Software Development Engineer
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.


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New joyride build 1550

2008-01-18 Thread Build Announcer v2
http://xs-dev.laptop.org/~cscott/olpc/streams/joyride/build1550

Changes in build 1550 from build: 1549

Size delta: 0M

-sugar 0.75.8-2.olpc2
+sugar 0.75.10-1.olpc2

--- Changes for sugar 0.75.10-1.olpc2 from 0.75.8-2.olpc2 ---
  + Fix #1406 #5944 #6051

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Re: How to? School server implementation

2008-01-18 Thread Edward Cherlin
On Jan 18, 2008 2:50 AM, James Cameron [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 G'day,

 I've tested the XO and the active antenna devices in the desert in
 Australia.

Good on you.

 On Fri, Jan 18, 2008 at 02:51:57PM +0545, sulochan acharya wrote:
  2. Is the active antenna  the same as any wireless router working as
  an access point?

 No.  A typical access point consists of a radio and a small computer
 which runs an embedded operating system from flash memory.  Such
 wireless routers will lack the mesh interoperability.  Without a mesh
 gateway, the mesh will not work ... an XO that is outside the access
 point range will not be able to get to the internet through other XOs.

  3. What is the range of the antenna by itself? (discarding the fact
  that the XO's can relay)

 The prototype active antenna that I've tested (2007-11-10) easily
 achieved 1km between each when held at 3m above ground.  Range is
 decreased as height is reduced, or when obstructions are in a path, or
 when other 2.4GHz radio traffic is nearby.

Many of us have been waiting to hear of a replication of the previous
50-unit test, this time over 50 km rather than 10,000 ft (3 km). In
some suitably flat and barren desert or dry lake bed. Then, of course,
we need tests in cities, rain forest, savannah, hills, high mountains,
and tundra. Are any of these planned?

 It is very difficult to predict how a location will operate.  I would
 expect a range of about 200m in an area with moderate building density,
 if the antenna is mounted above the buildings.  Plan for ranges between
 50m and 500m.

 (Those with more knowledge please correct me.)

 --
 James Cameronmailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://quozl.netrek.org/
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-- 
Edward Cherlin
End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business
http://www.EarthTreasury.org/
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.--Alan Kay
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joyride build - versus - yum update

2008-01-18 Thread Mikus Grinbergs
 Changes in build 1544 from build: 1543
 -olpc-library-common 1-18
 +olpc-library-common 1-19
 -olpc-library-core 1-19
 +olpc-library-core 1-20

Because I apply customizations, it takes me considerable time to do 
an install of a new build.  Instead, I prefer to run 'yum update' -- 
that lets me keep my existing customized os, and simply put in the 
newest modules.

But NOT all new modules that show up in new builds are being found 
by 'yum update'.  For example, 'rpm -q ___' shows the two modules 
quoted above to still be at their previous levels on my system.

How come the new levels of these two modules were put into a build, 
but not into the repository which 'yum update' looks at ?

mikus

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Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO

2008-01-18 Thread Albert Cahalan
On Jan 18, 2008 11:27 PM, Bill Nottingham [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Albert Cahalan ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) said:
  You can read Hannu's take on the matter in his blog. This
  entry is particularly informative, but note that the code
  has since been released under the GPL.
  http://4front-tech.com/hannublog/?p=5

 It must be informative and unbiased. After all, he refers to
 people who disagree with him as Borgs.

Pay no attention to form. His arguments are solid.

There really shouldn't be any doubt anymore that ALSA
was a very bad path to go down. It's been a horrible mess
since day one.
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Re: Why can't i access /dev/dsp or /dev/snd on my XO

2008-01-18 Thread Bill Nottingham
Albert Cahalan ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) said: 
 You can read Hannu's take on the matter in his blog. This
 entry is particularly informative, but note that the code
 has since been released under the GPL.
 http://4front-tech.com/hannublog/?p=5

It must be informative and unbiased. After all, he refers to
people who disagree with him as Borgs.

Frankly, if you want to ship ALSA's OSS emulation, it's
just a few modules. But swapping out the entire driver stack
to something that's not used anywhere else at the moment
just seems silly.

Bill
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[ADMIN] end of thread (was: Violent games on the OLPC Activities page)

2008-01-18 Thread Ivan Krstić
This thread is _entirely_ inappropriate for the development list,  
should never have been started on the development list, and in general  
makes me want to slam my head against the wall until it goes away (the  
thread, the wall, or the head). Please respect the Reply-To header and  
move all followup discussion to the open list; devel@ has a well- 
defined purpose, and this thread does not fit.

Lovingly,
your devel@ list admin.

--
Ivan Krstić [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://radian.org

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Re: How to? School server implementation

2008-01-18 Thread John Watlington

On Jan 18, 2008, at 4:06 AM, sulochan acharya wrote:

 Hello everyone,
 I have some general questions regarding school server  
 implementation. I was hoping someone with development experience or  
 someone with pilot experience might have some knowledge on this  
 matter. I am working to implement the OLPC pilot program in Nepal,  
 and would really appreciate some feedback on these questions

 1. What is the best way to publish/collaborate/save etc  with  
 school server? Meaning what is the best way for kids to save,  
 retrieve,  and share files  through  a school server? I know moodle  
 is an  option , but is there anything  else?  Has  anyone tried  a  
 different way to do so? something like web folders maybe ?

We are working on such through the journal, but have been working on  
it for too long to wait.
An rsync based solution has been used in the past, and most of the  
infrastructure is in the laptop
build now.

A laptop is registered with a school server.  This provides the  
laptop with globally defined names for it's presence
and backup services (defined in /etc/idmgr.conf on the schoolserver),  
as well as creating an account on the school
server.  The username is the laptop's serial number, the password the  
UUID, and its public key is placed on the school
server for future authentication.

The user interface has a register command in the menu associated  
with the XO figure in the home screen which triggers
the above process (with port 8080 on DNS name schoolserver in the  
local domain).  It goes away once a laptop is registered.

All that is missing for backup is a cron script on the laptop doing  
the rsync (I have examples, but the servers are down right now...),
and a tweak of the schoolserver HTTP server to make the backups  
accessible.  The result will be files that use names meaningless
to the users, limiting any collaboration or sharing.   But it will  
make disaster recovery possible!

The correct way to do this is to work with the Journal to treat the  
laptop as a cache of a larger Journal datastore located on the
Schoolserver (and beyond, in the cloud).  Perhaps Ivan can detail  
his vision and we can get other people to help implement it.

 2. Is the active antenna  the same as any wireless router working  
 as an access point? I should be able to use the same networking  
 features if i use a wireless router right?

No.  You will need active antenna's to have a mesh.
You can use multiple conventional access points to provide a school  
wireless network,
(the school server software http://wiki.laptop.org/go/ 
XS_Server_Software supports them
on the wired LAN interface).
We hope to make Active Antennas available through an online store  
sometime in the short
term future and are working with a commercial vendor to make it  
happen.  They are also
available in small quantities through our developer program.

 3. What is the range of the antenna by itself? (discarding the fact  
 that the XO's can relay)

 best,
 -sulo
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