from:"Ed McNierney"

 Two questions:
 
 1.
 Here (under Tech Specs)
 http://bit.ly/bdr0Cz
 it specs the 10 tablet with an ARMADA 168. Why did not you go with that 
 processor? Would not that be cheaper?

That's a Marvell product platform page, not OLPC's. 

 
 2.
 What happened to the bigger display and the touch panel plan? As I see 
 on the pictures the machines have the old 7.5 display.

Again, those are Marvell pictures, not OLPC's, and Marvell has lots of other 
folks interested in building their tablets.  In fact, the world is full of 7 
16:9 tablet folks.

But the most pertinent answer is that we're talking about XO-1.75 right now, 
which is a laptop.  An OLPC-3 tablet is a long way away and it's not really 
useful to discuss/speculate on it now.  We're working on XO-1.75.

- Ed

 
 Thanks!
 
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Re: XO-1.75 progress

Bert -

No, not at all.  Our plans were, and are, to build XO-1.75 laptops with 
touchscreen support.  That's an essential step in our tablet development, we 
think.  That will essentially provide us with a 7.5 4:3 tablet inside a laptop 
case.  That's a little small for a tablet, but it allows useful software 
development for a tablet model quite early - with a keyboard and mouse as 
fallback tools.

But I think it's important to think about XO-1.75 more as a set of technologies 
than as a product right now.  We're still experimenting.  We're learning, for 
example, that while interested deployments like the idea of an XO laptop with a 
touchscreen, they're also very sensitive to price, and aren't likely to 
purchase machines with an optional piece of hardware that isn't necessary for 
the device's operation, especially when that hardware will add more than $10 to 
the cost of the machine.  So we're certainly going to produce XO-1.75 machines 
with touchscreens for software development, but it's entirely possible that no 
machines will be delivered to deployments with touchscreens installed.

- Ed


On Nov 11, 2010, at 7:32 AM, Bert Freudenberg wrote:

 On 11.11.2010, at 12:49, Ed McNierney wrote:
 
 [...] we're talking about XO-1.75 right now, which is a laptop.  An OLPC-3 
 tablet is a long way away and it's not really useful to discuss/speculate on 
 it now.  We're working on XO-1.75.
 
  - Ed
 
 Back in July there were plans to have a touchscreen in the XO-1.75:
 
   the XO-1.75 will have a touchscreen, as will future OLPC tablets based 
 on its design
 
   http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/sugar-devel/2010-July/025376.html
 
 So this has been tabled?
 
 - Bert -
 
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Re: XO-1.75 progress

Marvell's Armada SoC family is complicated. There are multiple product lines,
and multiple products in each product line, with new ones coming along all the
time. So it's hard to nail down just which device is the latest and greatest
at any time.

OLPC is (unsurprisingly) doing something a little unusual. We're trying to
create a laptop (first) and then a tablet, each of which is a really
full-function, general-purpose device. If you look at Marvell's ARM product
selector guide and try to figure out which SoC is recommended for a laptop, you
won't find one. And if you look for tablets you find either (a) SoCs for
e-book readers or (b) SoCs for entertainment devices.

Our decision path is based on the obvious criteria of power consumption and
cost, but we also need devices that support the interfaces we need as well.
There are a lot of devices to connect to an SoC, and the decision tree for
finding the SoC that fits well is tricky (mainly because a lot of interfaces
may be available, but muxed in a way that makes X unusable if you want to use
Y, etc.

In considering performance and cost, we want to look at processors that won't
be shiny new when we have a product available, and won't be at the top of the
performance curve then, either. The high-end SoC of last spring, when we got
started, won't be the high-end SoC when a product is available. All of that
led us to the Armada 610 product line.

I can't really comment much on the Marvell Mobylize product pages - the one you
linked to is one I've never seen before - and they're not really pertinent to
what OLPC is doing. Marvell wants to get a lot of vendors using their SoCs in
a variety of different ways, so they're motivated to have a variety of sample
offerings. In fact, the tablet you pointed to claims to use the Armada 168
SoC, but when you look at http://www.mobylize.org/about the last question says:

Which Marvell processors are being used with the Moby prototype?

The Moby concept is based on Marvell's high-performance, highly scalable and
low-power Marvell® ARMADA™ 610 application processor. Marvell is also making
available a reference design for developing and testing applications.

You can get Marvell's spec sheets on the Armada 168 and Armada 610 SoCs at:

http://www.marvell.com/products/processors/applications/armada_100/armada_168/pxa_168_pb.pdf
http://www.marvell.com/products/processors/applications/armada_600/armada610_pb.pdf

- Ed

P.S. I think I answered the touchscreen questions in my reply to Bert, but yes,
we're also using the XO-1 case because that's what we have now. That saves
many hundreds of thousands of dollars.

On Nov 11, 2010, at 8:42 AM, NoiseEHC wrote:

Okay, I will rephrase my questions maybe I will get a real answer to them:

1.
Is there any reason why do you use the latest and greatest Marvell SoC
instead of an old (and maybe cheaper) one? Like the tablets on the Marvell
product platform page do?

2.
There were plans for touch screen and bigger display for the XO 1.75. What
happened to those plans? Do you use the XO-1 case because there is what you
have now, or because those plans were scrapped?

Thanks!

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Re: XO-1.75 progress

Naz -

Thanks for the thoughts!

 IMHO it's better to delay the release of the 1.75 and force putting in
 a touchscreen.

It's not a matter of time, it's a matter of the price deployments are willing 
to pay for it.  The feedback we've heard so far is that since the XO-1.75 
without a touchscreen is every bit as functional as an XO-1.5 is, deployments 
cannot justify paying the noticeable additional cost for a touchscreen.  If 
that changes, fine, but I think it's unlikely.  Cost is more important than 
touch input functionality (again, to XO-1.75 end users, not tablet software 
developers).

 IMHO the next XO would be irrelevant to the public without it
 as it would offer no significant change outside the hood from the 1.5.

No, but an XO-1.75 that uses half the power and therefore provides twice the 
battery life is an XO that is now available to many children who don't have the 
electrons to use XO-1.5 machines, or for whom a 4-hour battery life is 
inadequate but an 8-hour battery life would be quite useful.

- Ed
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Re: XO-1.75 progress

2010-11-10 Thread Ed McNierney

Mikus -

Well, there's a reason Linus called them BogoMips, isn't there?

- Ed

On Nov 10, 2010, at 5:39 PM, Mikus Grinbergs wrote:

 I notice in the dmesg printout that the BogoMips for this initial
 XO-1.75 version is less than for the G1G1 XO-1.
 
 mikus
 
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Re: Mesh Dreams = OLSR

2010-08-25 Thread Ed McNierney

Folks -

Thanks for getting the discussion rolling.  Although it may be obvious, I want 
to point out one aspect of OLPC's mesh needs that has complicated matters.  
Our XO laptops are used at home, in a sparse network environment, and at 
school, in a dense network environment, and all levels of density in between.  
Mesh with relatively static nodes is easier and has been implemented a number 
of different ways worldwide.  One of OLPC's chief needs is a system that works 
as seamlessly as possible - for 8-year-old users in large groups.  It's not 
reasonable (IMHO) to tell our users to adjust their txpower manually to adapt 
to their current RF density.  To provide a good solution, we need to be able to 
figure out how to make that adjustment automatically.

- Ed


On Aug 24, 2010, at 1:32 PM, L. Aaron Kaplan wrote:

 
 On Aug 24, 2010, at 7:32 PM, Reuben K. Caron wrote:
 
 
 On Aug 24, 2010, at 1:29 PM, L. Aaron Kaplan wrote:
 
 Hm well, you at least got me thinking how we can make a small dense 
 indoor mesh working without APs interesting challenge. Like think about 
 replacing those smart APs by a distributed version. Interesting...
 
 a.
 
 Maybe a suitable challenge during a Wireless Mesh Battle(1).
 
 (1) http://battlemesh.org/
 
 
 
 sure :)
 Maybe the next one :) So far they were always outdoors.
 
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Re: SD/MMC cards, a year later

2010-08-20 Thread Ed McNierney

I have read that article before, and counterfeiting isn't the only explanation. 
 Vendors are free to do whatever they want in terms of modifying a product with 
the same labeling.

- Ed

On Aug 20, 2010, at 5:34 AM, Tiago Marques wrote:

 Have a look at the previous link I sent then. Counterfeiting may be your 
 problem.
 
 Best regards,
 Tiago
 
 On Fri, Aug 20, 2010 at 2:03 AM, Ed McNierney e...@laptop.org wrote:
 
 
  Directly from the OEM or on the open market?
 
 
 Both.
 
- Ed
 
 

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Re: SD/MMC cards, a year later

2010-08-19 Thread Ed McNierney

On Aug 19, 2010, at 4:21 PM, John Watlington wrote:

 Thanks for the update. Can you disclose the brands of the mentioned SD cards?
 It's always useful to know what not to buy.
 
 I probably could, but variations between models from one manufacturer
 may be greater than variations between manufacturer.

That variation works both ways.  You will find identically-branded SD cards 
that are different internally, and you will find SD cards that are identical 
internally but branded differently.

- Ed
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Re: SD/MMC cards, a year later

2010-08-19 Thread Ed McNierney


 
 Directly from the OEM or on the open market?
 

Both.

- Ed

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Re: OLPC 10.1.2 Release Candidate 1


On Aug 8, 2010, at 12:41 PM, Yioryos Asprobounitis wrote:

 (instructions for the olpcnews.com/forum/ kind of people would be 
 appreciated...:-) 

Instructions:

1. Report bugs at http://dev.laptop.org/newticket - if necessary, register 
first at http://dev.laptop.org/register (as mavrothal kindly points out)
2. If you have interesting experiences or user information to contribute, 
please do so at http://wiki.laptop.org
3. If you're unwilling to perform steps 1 and/or 2 as appropriate, please don't 
expect the bug to be fixed, or for anyone else to even know about it.

Thanks.

- Ed
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Re: OLPC 10.1.2 Release Candidate 1

Yioryos -

You asked for instructions for the olpcnews.com/forum/ kind of people, and 
that's the information I provided.  I wasn't dismissing or ignoring anything; 
if we widely disseminate those instructions and they are followed, bugs will be 
far less likely to be dismissed or ignored.  But a bug no one knows about is 
100% certain to be ignored.

- Ed

On Aug 8, 2010, at 5:06 PM, Yioryos Asprobounitis wrote:

 
 Well, I know due process  I followed it several times and I also point it 
 everywhere I can, however in this occasion we have the case: 
 Hey, I got a problem, what should I do to get the info needed to file a 
 proper ticket, 
 and: Is this feature supported in the OS or not?
 Thus the questions. 
 Answering outside a ticket should not be unthinkable, so if you have an 
 answer I would be grateful.
 
 The bigger issue however is who has the greatest interest to produce a better 
 build, the casual user that sees something strange and even mentions it 
 somewhere or the developer?
 Dismissing/ignoring real issues because they are inappropriate formulated 
 can only turn around and bite you in more than one ways, I believe. 

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Re: Making OLPC / Sugar Labs more approachable (was: Re: OLPC 10.1.2 Release Candidate 1)

Christoph -

(you're talking about OLPC and SugarLabs, of course, but I'm only responding 
from an OLPC perspective)

There's a difference between approachable and findable.  Every member of 
the OLPC technical staff is on the de...@laptop.org mailing list, and we all 
see bugs filed in trac.  I expect all of us to pay attention to both those 
channels.  I think we're all pretty approachable, and we try to be as findable 
as possible.  We do not all read OLPCNews, nor do I expect OLPC's technical 
staff to cruise OLPCNews' forums in search of bug reports.  I do not count 
proactively search for places people mention the word OLPC online as being 
findable.

I answered a specific question about how the olpcnews.com/forum/ kind of 
people should report problems.  It is in fact the same information mavrothal 
pointed out in the forum.  Maybe that's not a good answer, but other than 
mavrothal and I, I haven't seen another answer to that question.

As to your main topics, I would *love* it if we could all agree on a standard 
nomenclature for what we call deployments, because they're not all the same.  
OLPC has, I think, I pretty darn good feedback loop with the entities we 
consider deployments.  But a lot of people use that term to mean a lot of 
different things - every time more than two XO laptops are in one place (or 
perhaps when there are two SoaS machines), it's a deployment to someone.  
There's nothing wrong with that, but when you then say there's a problem with 
getting input from deployments, it's hard to understand exactly what you mean.  
Particularly with volunteer-led or -driven deployments, it can be hard for 
anyone at OLPC to know what's going on.  In your discussions with various 
teams, it would be great if you could emphasize the value of having a stable, 
findable, long-term technical contact that someone at OLPC knows about.  That's 
a big help to us in any situation.

More help is always welcome, although while you're doing all those things, 
please consider registering on trac and try filing one ticket.  It's really not 
hard, and if the problem at hand is an apparent software/hardware bug, that's 
the best way to communicate it.

- Ed

P.S. I just saw Walter's reply, and things in Uruguay do indeed seem to work 
well.  Those sorts of processes are what's needed in large deployments.

On Aug 8, 2010, at 5:09 PM, Christoph Derndorfer wrote:

 On Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 3:56 PM, Ed McNierney e...@laptop.org wrote:
 Instructions:
 
 1. Report bugs at http://dev.laptop.org/newticket - if necessary, register 
 first at http://dev.laptop.org/register (as mavrothal kindly points out)
 2. If you have interesting experiences or user information to contribute, 
 please do so at http://wiki.laptop.org
 3. If you're unwilling to perform steps 1 and/or 2 as appropriate, please 
 don't expect the bug to be fixed, or for anyone else to even know about it.
 
 I know I'm repeating myself here but I find the attitude expressed in these 
 instructions and particularly point 3 troublesome and a continued source of 
 frustration for me as well as other people I've talked to. Even more so I 
 think it's a very clear symptom of the much-discussed disconnect between 
 developers and end-users in the OLPC and Sugar Labs context.
 
 The core here is that software developers seem very reluctant to step out of 
 their own comfort zone when it comes to processes and tools (a.k.a. point 3 
 a.k.a. my way or the highway) yet consistently expect teachers and other XO 
 and Sugar users to do exactly that.
 
 This leads to the current situation in which crucial information and feedback 
 from these users does not make it back to developers and the broader 
 community. Therefore rather than working on things that users need or need to 
 work reliably (e.g. the Journal) resources are spent elsewhere.
 
 But that's all just basically a recap of the IRC discussion on #sugar earlier 
 in the week and many hours of discussions with Bernie and others in Paraguay 
 over the past 2 weeks.
 
 Now at this point I'd normally stop but seeing that I've been increasingly 
 frustrated about this and have subsequently complained a lot about it I'll 
 get off my ass and try something to improve the situation a bit.
 
 Over the next 6 weeks (can't make promises beyond that since university and 
 my job will then start again) I plan to:
 
 (a) Contact people at deployments asking for their input as to whether they 
 see a need for a closer feedback-loop between deployments and development 
 (because maybe I'm seeing issues when in fact there are none). For this I'll 
 rely on the people I know plus the contacts listed at 
 http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Deployment_Team/Places for starters but please 
 send along any suggestions on who else to get in touch with.
 (b) If it turns out to be a need then ask for input as to how these needs 
 could be best communicated so we can figure out an appropriate process.
 (c) Try to schedule

Re: OLPC 10.1.2 Release Candidate 1

 So if you please go back to the original mail and answer any question you 
 think you can so tickets can be filed.

No, no reflexes - the only other question in that email I can answer 
immediately is, no, there is planned printing support in 10.1.2 or later.  I 
have not heard of anyone interested in working on it, either.

- Ed
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Re: [Sugar-devel] Making OLPC / Sugar Labs more approachable (was: Re: OLPC 10.1.2 Release Candidate 1)

Brenda -

I'm assuming your teachers and education ministry decision makers don't 
normally interact with OLPC by asking questions on OLPCNews forums, which was 
the context and the specific question I was answering.  The topic of, what are 
all the ways all interested parties worldwide communicate with OLPC is 
obviously a far more complex one, and not one I was attempting to answer.  But 
people interested in communicating with OLPC and/or Sugar Labs should be able 
to find either of us - we usually try to point newcomers to our wiki at 
http://wiki.laptop.org.  It's not perfect, but it's a good way to find pointers.

But it is absolutely true that anyone who is volunteering (or getting paid) to 
test OLPC software and hardware should know how to submit a trac ticket.  That 
is the mechanism we use to track reported problems, so using trac should be an 
essential part of the training any volunteer tester should get.  While everyone 
likes nicely-researched and well-written problem reports, that shouldn't be an 
obstacle.  If there's information missing on a ticket, people working on it can 
ask for more.  But if the ticket's not there at all, we won't know there's a 
problem to fix.

- Ed

On Aug 8, 2010, at 6:00 PM, Brenda Wallace wrote:

 On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 9:36 AM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 5:09 PM, Christoph Derndorfer
 christoph.derndor...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 3:56 PM, Ed McNierney e...@laptop.org wrote:
 1. Report bugs at http://dev.laptop.org/newticket - if necessary, register
 first at http://dev.laptop.org/register (as mavrothal kindly points out)
 2. If you have interesting experiences or user information to contribute,
 please do so at http://wiki.laptop.org
 3. If you're unwilling to perform steps 1 and/or 2 as appropriate, please
 don't expect the bug to be fixed, or for anyone else to even know about it.
 
 snip
 The core here is that software developers seem very reluctant to step out of
 their own comfort zone when it comes to processes and tools (a.k.a. point 3
 a.k.a. my way or the highway) yet consistently expect teachers and other
 XO and Sugar users to do exactly that.
 
 What was the context for Ed's post? And who was his intended audience?
 Certainly not the end user. In .uy we have discussed various
 mechanisms for bug reporting by children and teachers. The current
 plan of record is to use some sort of web form where the bugs are
 aggregated by a technical liaison. The liaison might then be trained
 in filing the occasional ticket on Trac. As with any software (and
 hardware) project, different people in the support hierarchy utilize
 different tools.
 
 It will need re-wording if this it something seen by the volunteers
 who test sugar and activities in their own time each week - some of
 them are the our teachers or education ministry decision makers. Can
 the same be said without it sounding like do it our way or go away?
 -- Item 3 probably could be dropped completely. It's not welcoming,
 and makes the project seem unapproachable.
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Re: Making OLPC / Sugar Labs more approachable (was: Re: OLPC 10.1.2 Release Candidate 1)

Every member of the OLPC technical staff is on the de...@laptop.org mailing 
list, and we all see bugs filed in trac.

Sorry - that's not correct.  I forgot that Mitch Bradley unsubscribed from 
de...@laptop.org last December, as he found the noise level has gotten out of 
control.  He does, however, see and respond to bugs filed in trac.

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Re: Collection key vs Q2E44 (and Q3A41?)

2010-07-30 Thread Ed McNierney

Martin -

We've done some quick testing here in the office.  It appears that collection 
keys on Q3A40, Q3A42, and Q3A46 work, provided the laptop is secure-booting.  
If your machines are not secured, you need to hold down the x game key while 
booting.  Remember that with prettyboot enabled, an unsecured machine may look 
like it's secure at boot time.

Richard and I just tested a SKU99 XO-1.5 (Q3A40 and Q3A42) and a SKUC2 XO-1.5HS 
machine (Q3A46), all with security disabled.  Nothing happened on a normal 
boot with the collection key, and all worked (stored data on the collection 
key) if the x game key was held at powerup.

- Ed


On Jul 30, 2010, at 2:09 PM, Martin Langhoff wrote:

 Hi Mitch,
 
 wasn't aware you were on vacation.
 
 Techteam - I am hoping for independent confirmation -- the USB disks
 on my bench are pretty shit.
 
 Can anyone with a known to behave well usb get a collection key to
 work on XO-1.5 or on XO-1+Q2E44?
 
 cheers,
 
 
 m
 
 On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 10:28 PM, Mitch Bradley w...@firmworks.com wrote:
 You could try holding down the check key for several seconds - while the
 'release game buttons' message is displayed.  That might give more time for
 the USB key to get its act together after power on.
 
 Another possibility would be to modify the collector key script to write to
 an SD card instead of to a USB stick, then get someone at 1cc to sign the
 modified script.
 
 Still another possibility would be to put the existing signed script on an
 SD card, then insert both the SD card and the USB stick.  The script would
 be booted from the SD card, and might then write to the USB stick.  It's
 possible that the USB stick could be detected properly if it were accessed a
 little later than the initial boot step.
 
 If none of these work, then you will have to wait until I get back from
 vacation, unless someone else has a idea.
 
 On 07/29/2010 08:46 PM, Martin Langhoff wrote:
 
 On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 4:55 PM, Mitch Bradleyw...@firmworks.com  wrote:
 
 
 Have you tried the check button for more feedback?
 
 
 Yes, on all the machines. Where it fails, it never mentions trying
 anything on the usb disk.
 
 Skips straight to booting from nand.
 
 
 
 m
 
 
 
 
 
 
 -- 
  martin.langh...@gmail.com
  mar...@laptop.org -- School Server Architect
  - ask interesting questions
  - don't get distracted with shiny stuff  - working code first
  - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff
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Re: Collection key vs Q2E44 (and Q3A41?)

2010-07-30 Thread Ed McNierney

Martin -

Just another note of advice - I discovered a normal-looking USB key that 
*wasn't* working had a single FAT partition on it, but it had been erased on a 
Mac and had a GUID partition table.  Reformatting with an MBR fixed it.

- Ed


On Jul 30, 2010, at 2:09 PM, Martin Langhoff wrote:

 Hi Mitch,
 
 wasn't aware you were on vacation.
 
 Techteam - I am hoping for independent confirmation -- the USB disks
 on my bench are pretty shit.
 
 Can anyone with a known to behave well usb get a collection key to
 work on XO-1.5 or on XO-1+Q2E44?
 
 cheers,
 
 
 m
 
 On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 10:28 PM, Mitch Bradley w...@firmworks.com wrote:
 You could try holding down the check key for several seconds - while the
 'release game buttons' message is displayed.  That might give more time for
 the USB key to get its act together after power on.
 
 Another possibility would be to modify the collector key script to write to
 an SD card instead of to a USB stick, then get someone at 1cc to sign the
 modified script.
 
 Still another possibility would be to put the existing signed script on an
 SD card, then insert both the SD card and the USB stick.  The script would
 be booted from the SD card, and might then write to the USB stick.  It's
 possible that the USB stick could be detected properly if it were accessed a
 little later than the initial boot step.
 
 If none of these work, then you will have to wait until I get back from
 vacation, unless someone else has a idea.
 
 On 07/29/2010 08:46 PM, Martin Langhoff wrote:
 
 On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 4:55 PM, Mitch Bradleyw...@firmworks.com  wrote:
 
 
 Have you tried the check button for more feedback?
 
 
 Yes, on all the machines. Where it fails, it never mentions trying
 anything on the usb disk.
 
 Skips straight to booting from nand.
 
 
 
 m
 
 
 
 
 
 
 -- 
  martin.langh...@gmail.com
  mar...@laptop.org -- School Server Architect
  - ask interesting questions
  - don't get distracted with shiny stuff  - working code first
  - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff
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Re: Uruguay violates GPL by deleting root on OLPCs

2010-07-07 Thread Ed McNierney

Eben -

Hi; thanks.  Chris Ball and I had some correspondence with Brett Smith a few 
months ago in order to make some introductions and get the FSF and Plan Ceibal 
talking.  It seems that that didn't quite happen, and we've asked Martin 
Langhoff (who's responsible for OLPC technical work with Plan Ceibal) to pick 
up the ball and try again.  If Brett's not the right person to do that, just 
let Martin know.

- Ed

Ed McNierney
CTO / VP of Engineering
One Laptop per Child
e...@laptop.org
+1 (978) 761-0049

On Jul 7, 2010, at 12:47 PM, Eben Moglen wrote:

 I don't know what the technical details are, but it sounds as though
 the right people are present in the conversation.  For GPLv3
 programs-- which would include bash, tar, and Samba as well as the
 toolchain, to take some examples--the requirement is for installation
 information to be provided to anyone who requests or receives source
 code.  Installation information is defined as any methods,
 procedures, authorization keys, or other information required to
 install and execute modified versions of a covered work in [the
 laptop] from a modified version of its Corresponding Source.  That
 requirement can be satisfied, for some programs, by informing the user
 how to run a replacement copy, without root privilege, out of the
 primary user's home directory.  Some programs might require escalated
 privileges in order to install and run a modified version (of a
 daemon, for example).  Side-stepping the OS on the hard drive, booting
 a system on removable media, and then installing the new version on
 the fixed disk would be a method within the meaning of the license
 in those cases.
 
 Details are crucial.  Working with relevant parties to ensure
 compliance is SFLC's purpose in a situation such as this.  We'd be
 happy to help if there is interest.
 
 Regards,
 Eben
 
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Re: Uruguay violates GPL by deleting root on OLPCs

2010-07-07 Thread Ed McNierney

Jacob -

The Linux kernel question is easy, as it's largely GPL v2; the Fedora one is by 
no means easy.  The Fedora Project maintains a list of software licenses which 
are considered acceptable for software to be packaged in Fedora.  That doesn't 
mean *all* these licenses are in use in any particular Fedora release, but it 
does give you a sense of the possibilities.  You can find the list, with all 
206 good software license possibilities (26 of which are GPL variations) at 
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing#SoftwareLicenses - as well as the 
acceptable documentation licenses.

It's a fine list, but the 49th license listed stands out from a crowded pack, 
and rewards the modest effort required to count up to 49.

- Ed


On Jul 7, 2010, at 6:23 PM, Chris Ball wrote:

 Hi,
 
 forgive an honest question that may spark a philosophical debate:
 Since the Linux kernel and Fedora are both licensed under GPL.2,
 how would this violate an unrelated license? (which reading, it
 may or may not...)
 
 Because it's not true that Fedora is licensed under GPLv2 --
 it's licensed under a mix of licenses, including some GPLv3.
 
 - Chris.
 -- 
 Chris Ball   c...@laptop.org
 One Laptop Per Child
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Re: activation cert

2010-07-07 Thread Ed McNierney

Sameer -

Yes, tell your browser to trust it.  The activation server uses a self-signed 
certificate that your browser doesn't know to trust by default.  All XO laptops 
trust it.

- Ed

On Jul 7, 2010, at 8:41 PM, Sameer Verma wrote:

 activation.laptop.org is throwing a SSL error.
 
 activation.laptop.org uses an invalid security certificate.
 
 The certificate is not trusted because the issuer certificate is unknown.
 
 (Error code: sec_error_unknown_issuer)
 
 This makes getting the dev key problematic (wget part).
 
 Any ideas/fixes?
 
 cheers,
 Sameer
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Re: New keyboard layouts

2010-06-23 Thread Ed McNierney

Sridhar -

There are a few things happening at once here, and we should distinguish 
between the general case (what's been enabled in the design) and one particular 
instance of that case (machines for Spanish-speaking high-school students).  
From an engineering perspective, we have:

1. Redesigned the lower housing and keyboard assembly so the keyboard itself 
goes from being the hardest part of the laptop to replace to the easiest.  
Remove two screws, pop it out, pop in a new one, replace two screws.

2. A mechanical keyboard has been designed to fit this new removable-keyboard 
format.

3. Spanish and International English keyboard legends have been designed for 
this new mechanical keyboard.

We also plan to implement updated rubber-membrane keyboard units to also fit 
this new removable-keyboard format, but that hasn't happened yet.  By the fall 
we expect to be only producing XO-1.5 machines with this new lower housing and 
new keyboard format, for membrane and mechanical keyboards.  One of the things 
we need to work out before doing that is the continued availability of the 
spare parts that will be obsoleted by this change.

These changes allow considerably more flexibility in machines (e.g. it's now 
quite reasonable to swap one membrane keyboard for another, as it takes about a 
minute to do so).

 Are these keyboards the ones that are going into the XO-HS?

The new keyboard layout and the Spanish-language legend will be used on the 
mechanical keyboards going in to high school machines being ordered for 
Spanish-speaking users.

 Are they ruggedised?

By their very nature, mechanical keyboards are less rugged than membrane 
keyboards - that's why there's a membrane keyboard in the XO in the first 
place!  I expect that the mechanical keyboards will be more prone to keycap 
breakage and loss, but will obviously not be subject to membrane tearing.  
While the entire keyboard module will be easily replaceable, it is also 
possible to replace individual keycaps, something that cannot be done on the 
current keyboard.  In summary, I'd say it's less rugged and more repairable.  
It will be less water-resistant as there are spaces between the keycaps, but 
there is little in there to be damaged other than the (more easily replaced) 
keyboard itself.

 Will they replace the ones going into _all_ XO-1.5 models?

If they refers to new-format keyboard modules, yes.  If they refers to 
mechanical keyboards, no.  For our primary audience of younger children, we 
still think the more rugged membrane keyboard with smaller keycaps is a better 
choice.  We are making those keyboards more repairable, as the difficulty in 
replacing damaged keyboards is a real problem for deployments.

But once we switch over to the new lower housing format, it's simply a question 
of which keyboard you would like to order.  You can get a membrane keyboard or 
a mechanical keyboard for any key-legend graphic, and you can switch between 
one and the other in the field.  I think we'll still pretty strongly recommend 
the updated membrane keyboard for the vast majority of our deployments.

- Ed
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Re: Generating signed builds for Afghanistan

2010-06-14 Thread Ed McNierney

Javed -

The best way to get support for your efforts is to work through OLPC's country 
support team, since we have a working relationship with the Afghan MOE.  I will 
follow up with contact information so you can get the support you need.  Thanks!

- Ed

Ed McNierney
CTO
One Laptop per Child
e...@laptop.org
+1 (978) 761-0049

On Jun 14, 2010, at 8:11 AM, Bernie Innocenti wrote:

 [cc += de...@lists.laptop.org]
 
 El Mon, 14-06-2010 a las 15:07 +0430, javed khan escribió:
 i am working in Ministry of Education Kabul Afghanistan OLPC team as
 software developer and technical support officer.
 
 Say hello to Mike Dawson from me!
 
 
 which linux os is best for developing olpc custom images?
 
 I'm using Fedora 13 (x86_64) to create my images. Older versions of
 Fedora also work.
 
 If you also need to rebuild system RPM packages, you may also need to
 keep an old Fedora 11 box around. I use one of our servers for this
 purpose.
 
 
 how to sign a custom image for xo's in my country ?
 
 I thought that laptops in Afghanistan were being deployed unlocked.
 In which case, you don't need to sign your builds.
 
 If you need to implement the theft-deterrence system, you should
 generate a set of key-pairs for your deployment using the bios-crypto
 package, and load the public firmware key into the manufacturing data of
 all your laptops.
 
 Some info:
 
 http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Firmware_security#Multiple-Key_Support
 http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Bitfrost
 
 
 You will also have to setup a central activation server, or use the new
 delegation scheme developed for Peru, which enables schoolservers to
 generate activations autonomously. Martin Langhoff and Daniel Drake are
 the most up-to-date people on this topic.
 
 Some information here:
 
  http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Theft_deterrence_protocol
 
 
 Then, you can configure olpc-os-builder to create signed builds. This is
 the easiest part. All you have to do is add something like this to your
 configuration:
 
 [signing]
 bios_crypto_path=/home/bernie/src/olpc/bios-crypto
 skey=/home/bernie/src/olpc/keys/pys1
 okey=/home/bernie/src/olpc/keys/pyo1
 wkey=/home/bernie/src/olpc/keys/pyw1
 
 
 The entire anti-theft scheme is very complicated and requires a lot of
 expertise to implement. In Paraguay, we have to deal with it almost
 every day even after one year.
 
 In my opinion, the engineering effort to implement the anti-theft system
 is justified only if large quantities of laptops are being stolen every
 year.
 
 
 how to put custom image into school server so the xo's can update
 from ?
 
 This requires olpc-update. The server side is a python program which
 wraps rsync. Depending what version of the OS your laptops are running,
 they may or may not ask the schoolserver for updates. Try running
 olpc-update from the command line and spy what it is doing on the
 network.
 
 Another effective way to update many laptops consists in setting up a
 NANDblaster server in the school:
 
 http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Multicast_NAND_FLASH_Update
 
 
 This will wipe the flash, so children and teachers need to be warned
 ahead of time so they have time to backup important activities to a USB
 stick.
 
 
 
 PS: I suggest you change your subscription to non-digest mode, as it
 makes very hard to follow threads and reply to others. Usually email
 clients can filter incoming mailing-list mail into separate folders.
 
 -- 
   // Bernie Innocenti - http://codewiz.org/
 \X/  Sugar Labs   - http://sugarlabs.org/
 
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OLPC/Marvell Press Release

2010-05-27 Thread Ed McNierney

Folks -

Below is the text version of the press release OLPC and Marvell issued this
morning, announcing our agreement to work together on the tablet-based efforts
we've been calling XO-3.0 and Marvell has been calling Moby (both
previously announced). The link takes you to the same document with a few
pictures.

We're just starting this cooperation, so there are things we don't know yet,
but the release pretty well covers what we do know. I think it's important to
recognize that our goal with Marvell is to work with them to make a family of
tablet products possible, not all of which will be OLPC products. That's
something new, and potentially confusing, but we think it can really help us
both broaden the community working with us, and help drive our own product
costs down by increasing volumes.

In some of the press interviews around this release, there's discussion of the
goal of introducing something at CES 2011 (in January). That's important to
Marvell, but that device will certainly not be an XO-3.0 and probably won't
be an OLPC product at all. But it's one of the steps along the way. Remember
that this cooperation is intended to help our goals as well as Marvell's goals,
so some of the things announced from the partnership won't be things directly
pertinent to OLPC's product plans.

As we've previously announced, our XO-1.75 product, bringing a Marvell
ARM-based motherboard to the current XO-1 laptop platform, is the next product
release in our efforts to provide ARM-based, lower-power devices to achieve our
mission.

- Ed

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/one-laptop-per-child-and-marvell-join-forces-to-redefine-tablet-computing-for-students-around-the-world-95007559.html

One Laptop per Child and Marvell Join Students Around the World

Marvell and OLPC Empower Education Industry to Revolutionize the Classroom
Experience through Advanced, Affordably-Priced Tablets

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. and SANTA CLARA, Calif., May 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- One
Laptop per Child (OLPC), a global organization whose mission is to help provide
every child in the world access to a modern education, and Marvell, a worldwide
leader in integrated silicon solutions, have agreed to jointly develop a family
of next-generation OLPC XO tablet computers based on the Marvell® Moby
reference design. This new partnership will provide designs and technologies
to enable a range of new educational tablets, delivered by OLPC and other
education industry leaders, aimed at schools in both the U.S. and developing
markets. Marvell is also announcing today it has launched Mobylize, a campaign
aimed at improving technology adoption in America's classrooms.

The new family of XO tablets will incorporate elements and new capabilities
based on feedback from the nearly 2 million children and families around the
world who use the current XO laptop. The XO tablet, for example, will require
approximately one watt of power to operate (compared to about 5 watts necessary
for the current XO laptop). The XO tablet will also feature a multi-lingual
soft keyboard with touch feedback, enabling it to serve millions more children
who speak virtually any language anywhere in the world.

The device is also decidedly constructionist in nature. By design, it
combines hardware and software to deliver a platform that will enable
educators, students and families around the world to create their own content,
and learn to read, write, and create their own education programs and share all
of these experiences via a mesh network model. The device will also feature an
application to directly access more than 2 million free books available across
the Internet.

While devices like eReaders and current tablets are terrific literary, media
and entertainment platforms, they don't meet the needs of an educational model
based on making things, versus just consuming them. Today's learning
environments require robust platforms for computation, content creation and
experimentation – and all that at a very low cost, said Dr. Nicholas
Negroponte, Founder and Chairman of One Laptop per Child. Through our
partnership with Marvell, OLPC will continue our focus on designing computers
that enable children in the developing world to learn through collaboration, as
well as providing connectivity to the world's body of knowledge.

Marvell has made a long-term commitment to improving education and inspiring a
revolution in the application of technology in the classroom. The Moby tablet
platform – and our partnership with OLPC – represents our joint passion and
commitment to give students the power to learn, create, connect and collaborate
in entirely new ways, said Weili Dai, Marvell's Co-founder and Vice President
and General Manager of the Consumer and Computing Business Unit. Marvell's
cutting edge technology – including live content, high quality video (1080p
full-HD encode and decode), high

Cherrypal Africa $99 laptop

2010-05-05 Thread Ed McNierney

Folks -

I've acquired two of these machines - for those of you in or near 1CC, you can 
find them on my desk and are welcome to play with them.  I ordered one for $99 
with Linux and one for $119 with Windows CE (there is no difference in the 
hardware).  I removed the case from the Linux model and plugged in a USB 
keyboard and mouse, so you can use it while admiring the motherboard.

The machine I ordered is described at 
http://www.cherrypal.com/secure/product_info.php?products_id=9 and that seems 
to be a reasonably accurate description of what I received (the photo shows a 
silver case, but mine is black).  There are a few minor discrepancies but 
nothing of note.

The ARM SoC is an ARM9-based XBURST part from Ingenic, and the specs are at 
http://www.ingenic.cn/eng/productServ/AppPro/JZ4740/pfCustomPage.aspx - you'll 
notice the 400 MHz processor described by Cherrypal is described as 360 MHz 
by the manufacturer and the boot-time diagnostics report a 248 MHz speed 
while the Windows CE manual refers to the ARM920 266MHz Multimedia Processor.

The motherboard is labeled WISMILE NB0702_V1.6 090626 and the entire device 
closely resembles the WISMILE MyWSNB0706 mini-netbook described at 
http://www.wismile.com/en/detail.asp?ProID=393SortID=46 - the only difference 
seems to be the logo and cherrypal text attached to the upper display housing 
with stick-on letters.

The motherboard is mainly notable for the number of connectors with hot melt 
glue glommed on top of them after assembly.  The side of the motherboard 
connector for the battery is bent/broken a bit and appears to be slightly 
melted and browned.

The Linux distro is anonymous, and appears to offer no command-line access (at 
least, none easily found).  The File Explorer application shows a filesystem 
root described as C:/ but that appears to be the default user's home 
directory - there's no visibility outside.

I wouldn't drop the thing 1 foot onto a carpeted surface without expecting 
something to break, but it seems OK and not bad for $99.  The screen is 800x480 
(7 diagonal and looks pretty decent (indoors, of course).  The packaging is 
decent, which is good because it got pretty squished in transport; there's a 
lovely outline of Africa with motivational words (in English) written on the 
box.

- Ed


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Re: New keyboard layouts

2010-04-28 Thread Ed McNierney

Folks -

We should keep in mind that these keyboards were primarily intended for a 
particular audience (as pgf has mentioned) and that they're also designed to be 
usable by Sugar, GNOME, and Windows users (something that was not a design goal 
previously).  There's no guarantee that there will ever actually be any of the 
latter, but that community is likely to be relatively underrepresented on this 
list (as compared to the population actually receiving these machines).

- Ed

P.S. My bikeshed is gray, and that's the best color.
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Re: Sugar Labs logo in bottom-left corner of olpc-bootanim

2010-04-21 Thread Ed McNierney

Folks -

It's my impression that the boot animation in grayscale is an equally important 
part of the XO design.  IIRC, we went to some effort to use a non-standard 
Fedora badge in order to retain the grayscale color scheme.  So if we're going 
to add a Sugar Labs graphic we should keep to the same scheme.

- Ed


On Apr 21, 2010, at 7:12 AM, Sean DALY wrote:

 Colors (and different ones every time ;-) are an integral part of the
 Sugar Labs branding.
 
 And, we specifically chose to link boot logo colors to releases for
 SoaS precisely to aid everyone in identifying the versions :-)
 
 thanks
 
 Sean
 
 
 On Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 5:30 AM, Bernie Innocenti ber...@codewiz.org wrote:
 On Tue, 2010-04-20 at 12:00 +0200, Sean DALY wrote:
 Yay for imagemagick Bernie !
 
 can there be colors in the logo?
 
 Since everything else, including Fedora Remix logo, is rendered in a
 subtle grey scale, I thought that something colorful in the corner would
 have been a little too showy.
 
 If nobody is opposed, I'd also like a colorful logo to break the
 monotony of the boot sequence: the color pair would change on every
 release, helping users identify the version of Sugar running on their
 computer.
 
 --
   // Bernie Innocenti - http://codewiz.org/
  \X/  Sugar Labs   - http://sugarlabs.org/
 
 
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Re: tap-to-click feedback

Paul -

This issue has bubbled up from time to time over the last 18 months or so 
(judging from my email archives).  It is not at all clear to me that there is 
indeed a consensus from deployments; some like it, some don't.  We tend to 
(unsurprisingly) hear little or nothing from the people who think it's working 
just fine, and it is very easy for a local group in which a few folks think the 
behavior is wrong to quickly collectively conclude that it's wrong.  We've 
deployed hundreds of thousands of machines since this change, and I don't think 
we've seen hundreds of thousands of complaints.

I don't have a strong opinion and I don't know the answer, but we should be 
very careful about ignoring the silent majority, if there is one.

- Ed


On Apr 15, 2010, at 11:18 AM, Paul Fox wrote:

 daniel wrote:
 On 15 April 2010 11:40, Martin Langhoff martin.langh...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 11:34 AM, Sebastian Silva
 sebast...@fuentelibre.org wrote:
 BTW how do you disable it?
 
 Yeah -- can we disable it easily on F11 builds?
 
 (speaking only for XO) No. We would have to change mouse driver which
 introduces a handful of regressions, will need some real effort to
 resolve. See the discussions earlier in the thread.
 
 The most realistic quick-fix option I can think of is adding a small
 hack into the psmouse driver in the OLPC kernel, which sends the
 single command needed to disable tap-to-click. Last time I looked at
 this code I remember thinking that this would be quite easy, since the
 more-powerful synaptics driver doesn't actually change the mode of the
 mouse, it just takes advantage of a whole load of non-standard
 commands.
 
 that's a good idea.
 
 if such a thing were to be introduced, and if it could be made
 run-time or boot-time controllable, i take it the consensus from
 deployments is that tap-to-click is more confusing than helpful,
 and it should be disabled by default.  correct?
 
 (i know that i myself find it annoying.  the XO is annoying
 enough to type on, without having my windows flip out from under
 me because i have careless thumbs.)
 
 paul
 =-
 paul fox, p...@laptop.org
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Re: tap-to-click feedback

Richard -

I have a specific recollection of folks in Rwanda liking it.  But my bigger 
concern is that we've shipped an awful lot of these with very few reported 
complaints.  I just don't know what that means.  It may well be that most folks 
don't like it, but I don't think we know.  As they say in some courts of law, 
Not Proven.

We can certainly make an effort to inquire specifically about this and attempt 
to get good input from existing users.

- Ed

On Apr 15, 2010, at 11:35 AM, Richard Smith wrote:

 On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 11:24 AM, Ed McNierney e...@laptop.org wrote:
 Paul -
 
 This issue has bubbled up from time to time over the last 18 months or so 
 (judging from my email archives).  It is not at all clear to me that there 
 is indeed a consensus from deployments; some like it, some don't.
 
 Who are the ones that like it?  I don't remember any good feedback.
 
  We tend to (unsurprisingly) hear little or nothing from the people who 
 think it's working just fine, and it is very easy for a local group in which 
 a few folks think the behavior is wrong to quickly collectively conclude 
 that it's wrong.  We've deployed hundreds of thousands of machines since 
 this change, and I don't think we've seen hundreds of thousands of 
 complaints.
 
 When we first started testing the new pads this issues came up and
 because it was a change in behavior from the way ALPS worked.  I
 remember the end result was to disable it.  The problem is that its on
 by default in the hardware.  You have to turn it off.  To turn it off
 you have to run the synaptics driver.  Running the synaptics driver
 caused many regressions.   We had too many other things to work on
 rather than the synaptics driver so it shipped with it enabled.
 
 -- 
 Richard A. Smith

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Re: tap-to-click feedback

Sebastian -

No, you're quite right - it's hard.  And it's hard to tell whether most users 
are silent because they're happy with it, or they're silent because they don't 
even realize that they have a choice.

- Ed

On Apr 15, 2010, at 11:42 AM, Sebastian Silva wrote:

 Hi Ed,
 Our friends and volunteers Tuukka and Kaisa are currently in Pucallpa working
 with the teachers and kids. They probably havent seen this thread but this 
 issue
 has popped up often here too and I wonder what you might think constitutes
 consensus from deployments. 
 
 Also, the larger issue of how to get the silent majority to speak up is 
 something
 we are constantly working hard from the field to improve. Its hard, any 
 suggestions
 on where exactly to aggregate info from the field, in a way that is not merely
 anecdotal, is welcome.
 
 Sebastian 
 
 2010/4/15 Ed McNierney e...@laptop.org
 Paul -
 
 This issue has bubbled up from time to time over the last 18 months or so 
 (judging from my email archives).  It is not at all clear to me that there is 
 indeed a consensus from deployments; some like it, some don't.  We tend to 
 (unsurprisingly) hear little or nothing from the people who think it's 
 working just fine, and it is very easy for a local group in which a few folks 
 think the behavior is wrong to quickly collectively conclude that it's wrong. 
  We've deployed hundreds of thousands of machines since this change, and I 
 don't think we've seen hundreds of thousands of complaints.
 
 I don't have a strong opinion and I don't know the answer, but we should be 
 very careful about ignoring the silent majority, if there is one.
 
- Ed
 
 
 On Apr 15, 2010, at 11:18 AM, Paul Fox wrote:
 
  daniel wrote:
  On 15 April 2010 11:40, Martin Langhoff martin.langh...@gmail.com wrote:
  On Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 11:34 AM, Sebastian Silva
  sebast...@fuentelibre.org wrote:
  BTW how do you disable it?
 
  Yeah -- can we disable it easily on F11 builds?
 
  (speaking only for XO) No. We would have to change mouse driver which
  introduces a handful of regressions, will need some real effort to
  resolve. See the discussions earlier in the thread.
 
  The most realistic quick-fix option I can think of is adding a small
  hack into the psmouse driver in the OLPC kernel, which sends the
  single command needed to disable tap-to-click. Last time I looked at
  this code I remember thinking that this would be quite easy, since the
  more-powerful synaptics driver doesn't actually change the mode of the
  mouse, it just takes advantage of a whole load of non-standard
  commands.
 
  that's a good idea.
 
  if such a thing were to be introduced, and if it could be made
  run-time or boot-time controllable, i take it the consensus from
  deployments is that tap-to-click is more confusing than helpful,
  and it should be disabled by default.  correct?
 
  (i know that i myself find it annoying.  the XO is annoying
  enough to type on, without having my windows flip out from under
  me because i have careless thumbs.)
 
  paul
  =-
  paul fox, p...@laptop.org
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 -- 
 Sebastian Silva
 

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Re: tap-to-click feedback

Tuukaa -

I don't quite see how you can make statements like the OLPC project is not in 
close contact with the field.  How do you know that?  We *do* get many reports 
from deployment teams that represent hundreds of thousands of children, and try 
to collect and communicate that feedback effectively.  In fact, I'm going to 
meet with the head of one of them in 15 minutes.

There have actually been very few reports of problems with this touchpad 
behavior.  We don't know why that is, and I don't think you do, either - 
although we can both speculate all day and fill the list archives.  We do get 
plenty of reports of other problems, so I don't think there's a fundamental 
failure in our ability to get input from the field.  We can always hope to do 
better, of course.

Having a small number of users on the devel list report their own personal 
experiences and preferences just isn't helpful in determining what the best 
course would be.  Offering a configuration option would be nice, although we 
would still need to know how to advise deployments on which default to choose.

The device in question is a standard Synaptics touchpad, which comes configured 
in tap-to-click mode by default.  It's used in plenty of other laptop machines. 
 Surely that's at least circumstantial evidence that this behavior isn't 
universally despised.

As for your assertion that the problems with the old-style touchpad are less 
important than this problem, there are those in the field who would most firmly 
disagree with you.  That's one bit of evidence as to why I think a shouting 
match on the devel list is a rather unhelpful way to approach a solution.

We have a globally-accessible, open, trouble-reporting database at 
http://dev.laptop.org - have you reported this problem?  Has anyone else 
reported this problem?  Searches for tap-to-click and Synaptics return a 
few tickets reporting various items, and one from Martin Langhoff (#9775) 
mentioning the ability to disable tap-to-click.But please don't claim we're 
not listening if you aren't willing to use the public trouble-reporting system 
we rely on.

- Ed


On Apr 15, 2010, at 1:24 PM, Tuukka Hastrup wrote:

 
 Hi everyone,
 
 Ed McNierney escribió:
  No, you're quite right - it's hard.  And it's hard to tell whether most
  users are silent because they're happy with it, or they're silent
  because they don't even realize that they have a choice.
 
 It's very easy to tell: the OLPC project is not in close contact with the 
 field. In this thread, we can observe the illusion that the hundreds of 
 thousands of children would report to you if there was something suboptimal 
 with their laptops. And there have been multiple reports, and yet there is 
 no consensus.
 
 0. Of course the kids don't realise that they have a choice.
 1. They can't write (a letter).
 1. They don't have Internet.
 2. They don't speak English and the web sites are in English.
 3. Even western kids don't know their feedback counts or how to send it.
 4. Same applies to teachers and most other people on the field.
 
 We'd really like to see a *memo* about the *decision* that was made to change 
 the default functioning of the touchpad to tap-to-click! Someone recognized 
 the change in time, someone didn't assign enough importance to it to fix it 
 in time. Others haven't documented this problem so that it could be 
 evaluated, reassessed, and fixed at some point. Now, there is no consensus 
 even, although the issue is obvious.
 
 We didn't know about this before we assisted in a training week for the 
 teachers in Satipo, where we saw that some machines had the new-style 
 touchpads and the teachers were having problems with those. Despite all our 
 explanations, many weren't able to learn to avoid the unintended clicks 
 during the 40 hours of training. This means a lot of the only training they 
 got was wasted.
 
 To us it seems obvious that tap-to-click is a bad idea on the XO: It's a 
 complication. It's not very useful to anyone (as you can always click the 
 button instead...). It's very harmful to some (as it makes the functioning of 
 the mouse unpredictable). Did you first make sure that all mouse clicks in 
 all software and all web sites are well-visualised and undo-able ?-) In these 
 third-world conditions, reliability is far more important than small 
 performance tweaks.
 
 We all know there's big problems with the old-style touchpads as well, but 
 they are *less* important on the field. Why? Because the child with sweaty 
 hands (try to avoid that here in the tropics!) can keep trying to point the 
 mouse at the correct location until successful, *then* click the *button* and 
 be done. With tap-to-click they aren't able to do this,  and there's no 
 solution for them, is there? Without an Internet connection and the knowledge 
 on how and whom to contact, there's no-one listening to them.
 
 
 Greetings from Pucallpa,
 Tuukka and Kaisa
 
 - Ed
 On Apr 15, 2010, at 11

Fwd: Server and service downtime, Thursday, April 8

2010-04-07 Thread Ed McNierney

Folks -

Our data center space at MIT is being shut down and we need to move all our 
servers to a new server rack at the Media Lab.  Chris Ball and I are planning 
to make the move this Thursday morning, April 8 (i.e. about 12 hours from now). 
 This will take all our public-facing services - the Web site, wiki, mail 
forwarding, lists, RT, etc. - offline for a few hours while the equipment is 
being transported and set up again.  No IP addresses will change, so there 
should be no DNS propagation delays after we're back up.

I will send out another email to this list when the transition is complete.  
Please let me know if you have any questions about the move - thanks.

- Ed

P.S. The servers owl, swan, weka, crank(dev), and pedal are the ones affected 
by this move.  No other machines will be moved.

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Re: Adobe Flash 10.1 + AIR 2.0 on the XO

2010-03-24 Thread Ed McNierney

Folks -

OLPC already has a license from Adobe to redistribute Adobe Flash.  We can 
provide that to any deployment that requests it; if a deployment decides they 
need it, we don't need to force them to install it themselves.

However, Adobe pointed out that since OLPC's Linux distro (a Fedora Remix) is 
not a supported platform, they're not interested in bug reports unless they are 
reproduced on stock Fedora and reported as Fedora bugs.  Having spoken to Adobe 
about this, I found absolutely no evidence that anyone there's eager to do 
anything specific for OLPC XO laptops.

I also made no effort to sell them on the idea; I just wanted to be sure that 
if a deployment decided on their own that they needed to provide the Adobe 
Flash player, OLPC wasn't unreasonably making it harder than necessary for them.

- Ed

On Mar 24, 2010, at 8:53 AM, Reuben K. Caron wrote:

 
 On Mar 24, 2010, at 7:52 AM, Martin Langhoff wrote:
 
 On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 12:19 AM, Reuben K. Caron  
 reu...@laptop.org wrote:
 IMHO, OLPC would be able to provide deployments with the option of  
 including
 Adobe Flash, while continuing to include Gnash as default
 
 There are some aspects that are outside of OLPC control
 
 - We need RPMs from Adobe -- in the case if AIR, they are not
 available. Carlos and anyone else interested _must chase Adobe_, not
 OLPC.
 
 Yes and no. Anyone technically capable to rebuild our build system, as  
 you mention below, will be able to easily script the installation of  
 AIR.
 
 - Licensing issues need to be sorted out. Carlos and anyone
 interested _must chase Adobe_, not OLPC.
 
 No again, OLPC should have done the legwork so deployments don't have  
 to jump through the hurdles of obtaining licensing from Adobe.
 
 
 - If Adobe cares about running well on XOs, Adobe should ask for
 laptops through the contributors programme (like everyone else!).
 Carlos any anyone interested must chase Adobe on that.
 
 I'll work with Carlos on this.
 
 With those 2 sorted out, it's damned trivial to add it to an 8.2.x
 build (using my latest patches to install arbitrary rpms), and thanks
 to the more flexible build system for f11 builds it's trivial to add
 it to an XO-1.5 image.
 
 There is noone at OLPC blocking this. Go folks, go lobby Adobe.
 
 Agreed.
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Re: Adobe Flash 10.1 + AIR 2.0 on the XO

2010-03-24 Thread Ed McNierney

Reuben -

You're welcome, but it wasn't much of an effort - I filled out a form on 
Adobe's Web site and replied to one email message!

- Ed


On Mar 24, 2010, at 9:13 AM, Reuben K. Caron wrote:

 Ed,
 
 Great news. Thanks for letting us know and thank you for doing the legwork to 
 get that accomplished.
 
 Reuben
 
 On Mar 24, 2010, at 8:59 AM, Ed McNierney wrote:
 
 Folks -
 
 OLPC already has a license from Adobe to redistribute Adobe Flash.  We can 
 provide that to any deployment that requests it; if a deployment decides 
 they need it, we don't need to force them to install it themselves.
 
 However, Adobe pointed out that since OLPC's Linux distro (a Fedora Remix) 
 is not a supported platform, they're not interested in bug reports unless 
 they are reproduced on stock Fedora and reported as Fedora bugs.  Having 
 spoken to Adobe about this, I found absolutely no evidence that anyone 
 there's eager to do anything specific for OLPC XO laptops.
 
 I also made no effort to sell them on the idea; I just wanted to be sure 
 that if a deployment decided on their own that they needed to provide the 
 Adobe Flash player, OLPC wasn't unreasonably making it harder than necessary 
 for them.
 
  - Ed
 
 On Mar 24, 2010, at 8:53 AM, Reuben K. Caron wrote:
 
 
 On Mar 24, 2010, at 7:52 AM, Martin Langhoff wrote:
 
 On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 12:19 AM, Reuben K. Caron
 reu...@laptop.org wrote:
 IMHO, OLPC would be able to provide deployments with the option of
 including
 Adobe Flash, while continuing to include Gnash as default
 
 There are some aspects that are outside of OLPC control
 
 - We need RPMs from Adobe -- in the case if AIR, they are not
 available. Carlos and anyone else interested _must chase Adobe_, not
 OLPC.
 
 Yes and no. Anyone technically capable to rebuild our build system, as
 you mention below, will be able to easily script the installation of
 AIR.
 
 - Licensing issues need to be sorted out. Carlos and anyone
 interested _must chase Adobe_, not OLPC.
 
 No again, OLPC should have done the legwork so deployments don't have
 to jump through the hurdles of obtaining licensing from Adobe.
 
 
 - If Adobe cares about running well on XOs, Adobe should ask for
 laptops through the contributors programme (like everyone else!).
 Carlos any anyone interested must chase Adobe on that.
 
 I'll work with Carlos on this.
 
 With those 2 sorted out, it's damned trivial to add it to an 8.2.x
 build (using my latest patches to install arbitrary rpms), and thanks
 to the more flexible build system for f11 builds it's trivial to add
 it to an XO-1.5 image.
 
 There is noone at OLPC blocking this. Go folks, go lobby Adobe.
 
 Agreed.
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Re: q3a35 problem

2010-03-11 Thread Ed McNierney

(dropping Fedora list)

Yes, it worked for me, too, on an unmodified ramp unit.

- Ed

On Mar 11, 2010, at 9:06 AM, Reuben K. Caron wrote:

 The same procedure worked correctly for me on a ramp unit that has the  
 solar modification by Wad.
 
 On Mar 10, 2010, at 10:44 PM, Mikus Grinbergs wrote:
 
 XO-1.5 B2 (unmodified hardware).  At ok prompt did 'flash u: 
 \q3a35.rom';
 after restart did 'fs-update u:\os112.zd'.  That failed (with a  
 message
 about only 1 block being written).
 
 Repeated the above, but this time flashing q3a34.rom.  Now the install
 of os112.zd worked.
 
 mikus
 
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Re: [Sugar-devel] Running SWF files standalone in Sugar? Simple Activity wrapper?

2010-03-10 Thread Ed McNierney

On Mar 10, 2010, at 12:30 PM, Martin Langhoff wrote:

 You are clearly an Adobe licensee, which means Adobe has a
 responsibility to give you support so you can use their runtime on our
 platform.

Well, no.  Fedora 11 is a supported Adobe platform - the XO is not.  If you 
report a problem on the XO, they will ask you to reproduce it on a supported 
platform first and then report it.

- Ed

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Re: Testing OS64 on XO1.5

2009-12-20 Thread Ed McNierney

Milan -

 1) After reboot, or after a brief period of inactivity, the system
 sometimes does not connect to network, or disconnects from the
 network, and shows nothing on the network neigborhood screen (many
 dots button), only the middle xo symbol, while there are many wireless
 networks around  - this happened at least five times in 6 hours of
 testing, either aftrer reboot or after a brief inactivity. No such
 problem on the XO1.0 system tested in parallel. This seems the biggest
 issue.

Thanks for the testing.  All B2 XO-1.5 machines (virtually all of the ones 
distributed outside of OLPC) cannot resume properly after suspending.  The WLAN 
will disappear and won't come back until you reboot.  This sounds exactly like 
the symptom you're seeing.  It's been fixed on later hardware and will be fixed 
in the production version, but it will never work properly on a B2 machine.  If 
you need WLAN access after suspend/resume (which will indeed occur after a 
brief inactivity) use the Sugar Control Panel / Power settings to disable 
automatic power management - both checkboxes on that panel should be cleared).  
If you don't need WLAN operation, it is helpful if you don't clear this 
setting, so suspend/resume operation continues to be tested for more bugs.

- Ed
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Re: New F11 for XO-1.5 build 61

2009-12-15 Thread Ed McNierney

Franco -

Thank you for the testing!  All XO-1.5 B2 laptops (i.e. all of those out in the 
field) have a hardware problem that prevents wireless from recovering from a 
resume.  We've tried to make this widely known.  The problem has been fixed in 
B3 and later machines, but anyone who is testing on B2 machines and needs 
wireless to keep working needs to disable automatic power management as you 
suggest below.  If you do not need wireless, we suggest leaving the automatic 
power management option selected so suspend/resume behavior can still be tested.

- Ed


On Dec 15, 2009, at 10:31 AM, Franco Miceli wrote:

 Hi, 
 
 I'm running OS61 with ofw q3a24.
 
 I've found that with the automatic power management option the XO puts the 
 network down and then I can't reactivate it via the cli.
 
 Deactivating this option has fixed this issue for me in two XO 1.5.
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Re: http://dev.laptop.org/~cjb/f11-1.5/os58/

2009-12-11 Thread Ed McNierney

Mikus -

Chris is very good about emailing build announcements when they're ready.  If 
there hasn't been an announcement, and you happen to discover a few files lying 
about in an HTML-accessible place, please don't expect them to be of any 
particular use.

When OS 58 has been reasonably checked out and uploaded, there will be the 
usual email announcement.  In the meantime, feel free to keep testing OS 57!  
Thanks.

- Ed


On Dec 11, 2009, at 8:51 PM, Mikus Grinbergs wrote:

 Why no os58.zd ?
 
 I like to keep om hand an image I can install with 'fs-update'.
 Besides, 'olpc-update' gives the impression of taking longer.
 
 mikus
 
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Re: Wanted: List of Sugar activities for the XO-1.5

2009-12-03 Thread Ed McNierney

Bastien -

Yes.  I'm not sure how massive deployments are relevant, but we currently 
have one standard software image that is installed at the factory on all XOs.  
You are suggesting that we create unique software images, one for each SKU, to 
be managed and installed separately by OLPC and Quanta for each deployment.   
We currently have 60 different SKUs for XO laptops.

 This would also make it more difficult to create an inventory of XO laptops 
for small pilots that are readily repurposed for a new destination.

- Ed


On Dec 3, 2009, at 5:39 AM, Bastien wrote:

 Hi all,
 
 Reuben K. Caron reu...@laptop.org writes:
 
 The one question I have is in regards to localization. Can we have one bundle
 that supports localization, i.e. changes default language according sugar/OFW
 values, or would we need different bundles?
 
 Eric will confirm this, but selecting the language from one single
 bundle makes that bundle way too heavy.
 
 For now the plan is to one version per language on ASLO.
 
 Is that so inconvenient for massive deployments?
 
 Best,
 
 -- 
 Bastien
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Re: Camera saturation - image compression level

2009-12-03 Thread Ed McNierney

Bastien -

Moon photos are a problem for just about any kind of astrophotography.  In 
addition to anything else you might try in software, the best bet is to add 
some kind of neutral-density filter over the scope.  You might try some scrap 
anti-static wrap (the gray, translucent kind).  It might be too dark for when 
the moon is less than full.  Ideally you could find two pieces of cheap 
polarized material (inexpensive or broken polarized sunglass lenses) that you 
could put on top of one another while rotating one of them, making a 
serviceable circular polarizing filter.

- Ed


On Dec 3, 2009, at 5:32 AM, Bastien wrote:

 Hi,
 
 some people in France (from La main à la pâte) designed a telescope for
 the XO.  It's a cheap ad hoc device they stick close to the camera, and
 it can zoom by 10x -- useful for observing, say, the moon.
 
 At this stage of the project, they have two problems:
 
 - shots of the moon are often saturated: how to reduce the gain
  of the camera?  Ideally one would like to do this manually...
 
 - is there a way to take pictures with a higher resolution?  the 
  default compression level doesn't produce great pictures.
 
 Thanks for any feedback!
 
 -- 
 Bastien
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Re: About 8.2.2

2009-12-02 Thread Ed McNierney

Philipp -

I would prefer not to speculate about what is happening or not happening in 
various locations; if small XO situations want updates they can obtain 
developer keys for them.  I'm not aware of any requests from Cambodia for 
software updates they don't have, or for signed builds.  It's important to 
remember that we added considerable support for signing autonomy to the XO-1 
and OFW, in order to avoid the perpetual unfunded mandate of having OLPC 
provide signed builds and related signature tasks.

- Ed


On Dec 2, 2009, at 2:49 AM, Philipp Kocher wrote:

 Hi Ed, Martin
 
 What is the plan for the Fedora 11 build for XO-1, will OLPC sign such a 
 build or is 802 the last build signed by OLPC?
 
 I don't think one of the two options is a good solution for small deployments 
 without a tech team.
 
 I think for the case of Cambodia with many small deployments (educational 
 NGOs got XOs donated from G1G1/OLPC or other donors), no signed builds 
 probably means that the XOs don't get updated anymore.
 
 Best regards,
 Philipp
 
 On 12/01/2009 08:04 PM, Ed McNierney wrote:
 Philipp -
 
 An OS image signed by OLPC can be booted by any XO-1.0 laptop in the world, 
 except for those which have been reconfigured by a deployment to only 
 respect software signed by other security keys.  That implies a higher level 
 of testing and certification than an image that can be selectively adopted 
 by specific deployments who can do their own testing to decide whether that 
 release is suitable for their application.  As OLPC's deployments grow both 
 in number of total laptops deployed and in the number of different 
 localities supported, it becomes increasingly burdensome / difficult to 
 package and test One Image to Boot Them All worldwide.
 
 As Martin points out, we are continuing to try to move users toward either 
 (a) using machines with boot-image security disabled, so they can run any 
 software, or (b) using locally-developed and locally-maintained signature 
 authorities to sign OS images for secure boot in local deployments.
 
  - Ed
 
 
 On Dec 1, 2009, at 4:14 AM, Philipp Kocher wrote:
 
  - It won't be signed by OLPC. You have to be on an unlocked XO, or be
 a deployment signing your own builds.
 
 Is there a reason why 8.2.2 doesn't get signed by OLPC?
 I do understand that the main target group are big deployments which can
 sign the build, but why are others excluded?
 
 In the past even release candidates like build 800 got signed by OLPC.
 
 Cheers Philipp
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Re: About 8.2.2

2009-12-01 Thread Ed McNierney

Philipp -

An OS image signed by OLPC can be booted by any XO-1.0 laptop in the world, 
except for those which have been reconfigured by a deployment to only respect 
software signed by other security keys.  That implies a higher level of testing 
and certification than an image that can be selectively adopted by specific 
deployments who can do their own testing to decide whether that release is 
suitable for their application.  As OLPC's deployments grow both in number of 
total laptops deployed and in the number of different localities supported, it 
becomes increasingly burdensome / difficult to package and test One Image to 
Boot Them All worldwide.

As Martin points out, we are continuing to try to move users toward either (a) 
using machines with boot-image security disabled, so they can run any software, 
or (b) using locally-developed and locally-maintained signature authorities to 
sign OS images for secure boot in local deployments.

- Ed


On Dec 1, 2009, at 4:14 AM, Philipp Kocher wrote:

  - It won't be signed by OLPC. You have to be on an unlocked XO, or be
 a deployment signing your own builds.
 
 Is there a reason why 8.2.2 doesn't get signed by OLPC?
 I do understand that the main target group are big deployments which can 
 sign the build, but why are others excluded?
 
 In the past even release candidates like build 800 got signed by OLPC.
 
 Cheers Philipp
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Re: XO 1.5 hang on Type your name screen


Lionel -

Step 1 is to take Mitch's advice of earlier today and upgrade to q3a15:

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Firmware_q3a15

- Ed


On Oct 30, 2009, at 10:06 AM, LASKE, Lionel (C2S) wrote:



Oops, sorry.
Post to the wrong devel list :-(

Lionel.

De : LASKE, Lionel (C2S)
Envoyé : vendredi 30 octobre 2009 15:05
À : 'sugar-de...@lists.sugarlabs.org'
Objet : XO 1.5 hang on Type your name screen

Hi all,

I’ve just upgraded our XO 1.5 to q13a13 firmware and to os34.

By the way, I’ve got two issues:
-  First: the system “hang” (no response from mouse and  
keyboard) when displaying the “Type your name” screen.
-  Second: I can’t stop the booting process. Pressing the  
check mark then the Esc key don’t stop the process.  :-(


Any idea to leave solve this ?

Best regards from France.

Lionel.

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Re: open 80211s on XO 1.5

On Oct 30, 2009, at 3:32 PM, Sameer Verma wrote:

  scenarios of a handful of XOs in the under-a-tree model

Sameer -

Under a tree, using mesh networking is pointless (unless, I suppose,  
it is an extraordinarily large tree).  Mesh networking allows packet  
forwarding from node A to node B, where such nodes cannot normally  
communicate with one another directly.  Packets are forwarded through  
node C, visible to both A and B, or through multiple such intermediate  
nodes.  If A can communicate with B, mesh is neither helpful nor  
advisable.  It just confuses things, which is the problem we see with  
large numbers of children in a classroom.  The mesh efforts to keep  
track of how to get from A to B can quickly saturate the RF spectrum  
with a lot of unhelpful traffic.

I can't tell what it is you're doing at your meetings when your users  
all use mesh.  At a typical in-person meeting, you have a number of  
people using XOs all in the same room.  Any XO in the room can  
communicate over WiFi directly with every other machine in the room  
(except in extremely unusual circumstances, or too many attendees  
wearing their tinfoil hats).  There's no need for or value to mesh  
network - A doesn't need C to forward packets to B because A can see B  
directly as another ad hoc node.

If there's an AP providing routing to the Internet or other external  
networks, there's no mesh required there, either, presuming that each  
XO can communicate with the AP directly.

I can't answer your question about whether those scenarios use ad hoc  
networking because I don't quite see what it is the users are doing in  
those scenarios.  What (lowercase) activity are users engaged in when  
you say they all use mesh?  What do you think they would be unable  
to do if they all stopped using mesh?  Thanks for the info.

- Ed
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Re: XO 1.5 hang on Type your name screen

That's not correct.  Many of us have run into this problem and done  
the upgrade.  As Richard pointed out, removing all power (disconnect  
the AC adapter, remove the battery, count to 10, then reassemble) will  
reset the EC and fix the problem.  Power on the machine and press Esc  
immediately to get to the OFW prompt.  You can then use the OFW flash  
command as described in the instructions to upgrade the firmware.


- Ed


On Oct 30, 2009, at 4:08 PM, LASKE, Lionel (C2S) wrote:



Thanks Ed but I can’t upgrade to q3a15 due to the keyboard issue :-(

Lionel.


De : Ed McNierney [mailto:edmcnier...@gmail.com] De la part de Ed  
McNierney

Envoyé : vendredi 30 octobre 2009 15:12
À : LASKE, Lionel (C2S)
Cc : OLPC Devel
Objet : Re: XO 1.5 hang on Type your name screen

Lionel -

Step 1 is to take Mitch's advice of earlier today and upgrade to  
q3a15:


http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Firmware_q3a15

- Ed


On Oct 30, 2009, at 10:06 AM, LASKE, Lionel (C2S) wrote:



Oops, sorry.
Post to the wrong devel list :-(

Lionel.

De : LASKE, Lionel (C2S)
Envoyé : vendredi 30 octobre 2009 15:05
À : 'sugar-de...@lists.sugarlabs.org'
Objet : XO 1.5 hang on Type your name screen

Hi all,

I’ve just upgraded our XO 1.5 to q13a13 firmware and to os34.

By the way, I’ve got two issues:
-  First: the system “hang” (no response from mouse and  
keyboard) when displaying the “Type your name” screen.
-  Second: I can’t stop the booting process. Pressing the  
check mark then the Esc key don’t stop the process.  :-(


Any idea to leave solve this ?

Best regards from France.

Lionel.

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Re: open 80211s on XO 1.5