Re: [Server-devel] ext2 vs ext4 vs exFAT for XO content SD cards?

[Sameer Verma]

James,
Would it help to mark the content partition(s) as read only?

Sameer
On Aug 16, 2015 5:13 PM, "James Cameron"  wrote:

> Thanks, interesting questions.
>
> No, ext4 is not a slow journaled filesystem, and no, there are no
> obvious problems on SD when using ext4 given your use case.  But it
> isn't operating system portable, and as your content is static no need
> for a journal.  Other features of ext4 make mounting or filesystem
> check faster.
>
> Yes, wear-leveling is taken care of by the firmware in the card, put
> there by the manufacturers.  Wear-levelling also critical during
> reading, since a flash page can't be read repeatedly without
> disturbance eventually requiring it to be written to a freshly erased
> page.  This is all handled by the firmware.  Happens way more
> frequently than it does on a hard drive.
>
> Duplication time of SD cards won't be affected by your filesystem or
> partition decision.
>
> One partition is sufficient.  MBR partition type best, for
> compatibility across the operating systems.
>
> For filesystem, use FAT32, mounted read-only.  FAT32 works across most
> Windows and Mac computers, at media sizes up to 2 TB, for file sizes
> up to 4 GB.
>
> Where content cannot live on FAT32 due to file name character set or
> metadata, it can be placed in disk image bundles of ISO-9660,
> squashfs, or ext4 and loop mounted.  The content curation process for
> the end user might be easier if bundles can be added and removed as
> needed.
>
> What you might be overlooking; I/O bandwidth of the connection to the
> media, endurance impact of reading data from the card slowing
> performance one year on, backups, content bundle tamper checks, risk
> of filesystem format incompatibilities introduced by new versions of
> operating systems after your product is in the field, risk of cross
> system malware infections, electrostatic discharge damage to the card,
> and how modern cards can change performance behaviour as a result of a
> production state awareness flag stored by card firmware.
>
> On the other hand the alternatives have their own problems.
>
> --
> James Cameron
> http://quozl.linux.org.au/
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Re: networking scenarios

[Sameer Verma]

Dafydd Harries wrote:
> This is something which was not completely clear to me until I talked to Wad
> about it the other day, and I think other people might find it useful. It
> should probably go on the wiki (assuming it isn't already there somewhere). 
> I'd
> like some feedback about where it belongs. The closest thing I've found is 
> this
> page:
>
>   http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Scenario_taxonomy
>
>   

The wiki page you refer to was my attempt (at least the first cut) at 
getting some kind of a scenario taxonomy going. The idea was that if we 
could look at different combinations of grid availability and backhaul 
availability, we could look at the landscape of scenarios and solutions 
that may work for one or more scenarios. For example, a low powered (can 
run off a battery) server unit will work for all situations with 
unreliable or non-existent grid power, but for a school that has 
reliable power (say, Birmingham, AL), setting up a more powerful server 
would be possible. The same goes for backhaul. I didn't want to start 
with too fine grained a scale, so I didn't specify bandwidth, latency, 
etc. and leave the scales at a more qualitative low/medium/high level.

> Any errors are my own.
>
> There are four networking scenarios:
>
>  - simple mesh
>- no access point
>- no school server
>- we are currently aiming to support up to 15 laptops in this case
>  - simple WiFi
>- access points
>  - which tend not to handle multicast very well (1Mbit/s peak)
>- no school server
>- this is what G1G1 laptops will tend to encounter
>- typically in the developed world
>  - school mesh
>- no access point
>- school server with Jabber server
>  - school WiFi
>- access points
>- school server with Jabber server
>  - only one server at a time
>- this is what is deployed in Peru
>
>   

Assuming that a matrix such as the one at the bottom of the wiki page 
covers most of what we are looking for, each scenario would lead to a 
set of technologies (hardware, software, network) for that scenario. We 
briefly talked about this at the first phone conference for the server 
development.

> Our current priority in terms of collaboration is to improve supprt for the
> fourth case, as this is the situation most of our existing laptops are
> deployed in, and it's likely that upcoming deployments will be similar. Our
> secondary priority is improving support for the second case, as this is what
> will tend happen when laptops are taken home from school.
>
>   

Sameer

-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/

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Re: Airlink 101

[Sameer Verma]

wahida mansouri wrote:
> Is the Airlink 101 which is used to test
>  802.11s supported by OLPC ?
>
Can you provide a link for the product in question?

Sameer

-- 
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Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
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Re: Adding mpeg playback

[Sameer Verma]

Bernie Innocenti wrote:
> On Fri, 2008-04-18 at 14:51 +0100, Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves wrote:
>   
>> Out of curiosity, why are they not giving Theora a try?
>> 
>
> They gave me an mpeg video of the ministry of education
> speaking and asked me to make it play on the laptop.
>
> I said we'd have to convert it to theora.  They asked me how could
> they do it on Windows.  I said I was not sure such a converter
> existed for Windows.
>
> On Linux, I use ffmpeg2theora or just ffmpeg.
>
>   
VLC on Windows should be able to do this (note: I haven't verified this 
myself).

Sameer

-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
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Re: What about Sugar? (Was: Mtg with Nicholas at 3pm on Thursday)

[Sameer Verma]

John Watlington wrote:
> On Apr 18, 2008, at 2:27 PM, Tomeu Vizoso wrote:
>
>   
>> On Fri, Apr 18, 2008 at 5:48 PM, John Watlington <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  
>> wrote:
>> 
>>>  On Apr 18, 2008, at 6:24 AM, Tomeu Vizoso wrote:
>>>
>>>   
 On Fri, Apr 18, 2008 at 8:04 AM, John Watlington <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  
 wrote:

 
>  I'm personally pretty involved in Gen 2.  If Gen2 is going to  
> run Windows,
>  it seriously limits the choice of processors.  I can assure you  
> that I have
>  no such restrictions when making processor selections.
>   
 Thank you for this (albeit small) piece of information about what  
 OLPC
 is working on these days. You are telling us that we need to infer
 OLPC's commitment to Sugar because you are choosing a processor
 without taking in account Windows support? Do you call this clarity?
 
>>>  I'm sorry you don't understand.  Yes, this is as clear as it  
>>> gets.  If OLPC
>>>  is giving up on Sugar, and moving to Windows (or even contemplating
>>>  Windows as a viable replacement for Sugar) then I would have to
>>>  select an x86 processor for Gen2.
>>>   
>> Please read again what I wrote. I think that this issue is worth much
>> more than an indirect reference.
>>
>> And by the way, have you already selected a processor? Which are  
>> the favorites?
>> 
>
> Processor selection for Gen2 has been ongoing for six months, and is  
> expected to
> narrow down in the next few months.  Gen2 will probably be an SOC, so  
> "processor"
> is not the right term.
>
> We are favoring ARM and x86 right now, although the power consumption  
> of the
> x86 solutions are not ideal.   Multiple vendors support each.
> I personally wish PPC were more competitive, but IBM and Freescale  
> are going
> for different markets than ours.
>
>   

Sorry for jumping in the middle of this thread, but I is the 
consideration for different SoC types based on being able to run Windows 
at some point in time? What if Gen2 has an architecture that doesn't run 
Windows?

Sameer
> Just to reiterate (this frequently gets written on whiteboards around  
> 1CC, but rarely
> mailed), the goals of Gen2 (in order) are:
>
> 1 - Lower Power
> 2 - Lower Cost
> 3 - More Robust
> 4 - Better Performance
>
> wad
>
>
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Re: What about Sugar? (Was: Mtg with Nicholas at 3pm on Thursday)

[Sameer Verma]

Edward Cherlin wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 19, 2008 at 10:10 AM, Sameer Verma <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>   
>>  Sorry for jumping in the middle of this thread, but I is the
>>  consideration for different SoC types based on being able to run Windows
>>  at some point in time? What if Gen2 has an architecture that doesn't run
>>  Windows?
>>
>>  Sameer
>> 
>
> Surely that would be Microsoft's problem and not ours. Unless
> Microsoft would like to put up some money, GPL its own software, and
> take a seat on the board? *<{;-{P}}}
>   
It can very quickly become our problem. My concern was more along the 
lines of having to make compromises in architecture selection to 
accommodate the use of some form of Windows on Gen 2.

Sameer

-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/

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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Sameer Verma]

Mitch Bradley wrote:
> I know quite a few children in the US who benefit from laptops running a 
> proprietary stack.
>
> Web access is the core capability that transforms the computer from a 
> convenience to a near necessity.
>
> Before the web, most people in developed countries had computers at work 
> for doing "Office"
> stuff, but only a fraction of households had them.
>
> "activities" will hold children's attention for some time, but in the 
> long term, the desire to
> access all of the world's information will persist long after the 
> activities become boring.
>
> Suppose, as a thought experiment, that someone were to propose giving 
> every child in the world
> a device that could do nothing but access the web.  Would you consider 
> that a positive
> educational step?
>
> I would.
>
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None of what you have said above has anything to do with a proprietary 
stack. Why does the web experience have to be beneficial via a 
proprietary stack? The web is what it is because it conforms to open 
standards. HTML comes to mind...

Speaking of proprietary stack, remember AOL and Compuserve?

Sameer

-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
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Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.

[Sameer Verma]

e idea of being able to contribute to a public commons 
project, where the collective intellectual property will not be held 
captive by some constantly shifting EULA. It is the proportion of such 
groups that will either sustain this project or will drive it into the 
ground.

Perhaps OLPC does not appreciate the value proposition of FOSS in the 
long term. Based on early reports, OLPC had asked Microsoft and Apple 
for support, before turning to the masses for unencumbered software and 
content. If this is the case, then it was largely futile to have worked 
on this project *for* OLPC. However, the effort isn't wasted because 
Sugar can still possibly thrive, albeit outside of the scope of OLPC 
(via a fork as suggested elsewhere).

The news in the last couple of days feels like Star Wars Episode II :-) 
(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0121765/plotsummary).

Anyway, I'd like to thank you, Walter, for your excellent leadership and 
service to the project and in attempting to further its goal. I hope we 
can sustain it beyond this "glitch".

cheers,

Sameer

-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/


> -walter
>
> * Ironically, the majority of the system-level problems we had
> experienced are directly tied to the two proprietary code bases on the
> laptop: the wireless firmware and the embedded controller firmware.
> While there are efforts to replace these, OLPC itself has been
> diligently working with both Marvell and Quanta to make the best of
> the situation.To suggest that fundamentalism has impeded progress on
> those two subsystems is not correct.
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Re: Sugar on Windows

[Sameer Verma]

NoiseEHC wrote:
> You seem to miss this:
>
>   
>>> Depending how you define "Sugar"...
>>>   
> See?
>   
>>> I don't want to waste too much time discussing Sugar on Windows. But  
>>> stating this is a 1-man effort is ridiculous -  unless you are  
>>> speaking of emulating a whole Linux installation.
>>>
>>> 
>>>   
> I was talking about to port it so that anyone could run sugar activities 
> on windows. Porting the whole shell is totally pointless I think, and 
> replacing all the native windows apps would took years to implement.
>
>   
My understanding of what Nicholas said on the list is that if "Sugar" (I 
use quotes because its definition may vary) can be separated from the OS 
(Fedora, at this moment) then it can run on any platform that supports 
it execution. The advantage will be that if you have computers with 
Windows or MacOSX or [your favorite OS] you will not have to go and get 
an XO or Linux or any other significant dependencies to run "Sugar". 
Based on Nicholas'  "yolk + egg white" vs. "omelet" analogy if we manage 
to virtualize the yolk, then it can run on any egg white (hen, quail, 
ostrich, etc.).

So, here's a thought. If I want my nephew to use "Sugar" on his father's 
Windows Vista machine in Mountain View, CA, or my other nephew in India 
who has been given a hand-me-down Win 98 box or my neighbor's son who 
has a Mac, then what if they could run the whole darn thing in a virtual 
environment? A VM that is "Sugar" + Fedora. Its still the whole omelet 
that thinks its a yolk, and the users get to keep their egg whites.

Attempting to port Sugar onto a Windows shell-only environment is 
pointless because, the bread and butter for the Windows world is the 
look and feel. Without that look and feel, its just kinda like DOS. 
Those who are supposedly demanding Windows on the XO will not be 
satisfied with a Windows OS Shell only. They want their "Start" button 
and everything else. Therefore, I think the whole move to including 
Windows in the mix isn't about the OS (as in kernel+shell) but the UI as 
well.  If that is indeed true, then Sugar is really only an application 
running on top of Windows, and it might very well be virtualized 
(VMWare, VirtualBox, QEMU, VirtualPC, etc.) See more at 
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OS_images_for_emulation

This approach will not provide the benefits of power saving hardware, 
mesh, etc. (those issues will be between the host OS and its 
relationship with its hardware) but it will provide a consistent 
experience.

Thoughts?

Sameer

-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
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Re: what matters

[Sameer Verma]

Albert Cahalan wrote:
> It's clear that we aren't all here for the same thing.
> Some wish to help all kids, or poor kids, or non-Western
> kids. Some wish to advance freedom of speech, freedom from
> EULA slavery, or freedom to learn heretical ideas.
>
> Some of us are, assuming good intentions, extremely innocent
> regarding Microsoft. The historical record shows that those
> who partner with Microsoft will be betrayed in the worst way.
> Read "The Scorpion and the Frog" to understand Microsoft.
>
> To a very limited extent, I agree with the idea that we should
> not be pedantic about free software. This does not mean giving
> up the battle in any way. (example: my free wireless firmware)
> Of particular importance is never letting proprietary software
> hold your data hostage, run outside of a sandbox, or become a
> platform (API/ABI) upon which you build.
>
> The critical things I see for a kid's laptop are:
>
> 1. All security-related code is trustworthy. This of course
> means an open source OS, from kernel to web browser. It most
> likely means an open source firmware and boot loader as well.
> Of course, "trustworthy" is to be interpreted from the view
> of the user.
>
> 2. Storage of user data in open formats is easier than storage
> in closed formats. The system must not encourage lock-in.
>
> 3. The user's files are protected. Untrusted programs may
> be used, with the user being certain that they can not secretly
> steal or corrupt his files.
>
> 4. The browser provides strong isolation. A new security partition
> is created when a URL is typed or a bookmark is invoked. A web
> site in one security partition does not get any awareness of any
> other security partitions, EVEN IF THEY INVOLVE THE SAME SITE.
> (Maybe one wishes to have multiple accounts on a web site.)
>
> 5. The browser also strongly isolates plug-ins. It is not OK for
> any random browser plug-in to have full access to the memory or
> files that the browser would have access to. This sort of thing
> needs to be enforced at the kernel level, via the browser causing
> SE Linux to do various role transitions.
>
> 6. The user can use any normal Internet connection, anonymously.
>
> 7. The user can localize. This means more than adding language
> strings to an existing locale. It means creating whole new
> locales and fixing any locale-related bugs which may appear.
> This obviously requires open source software.
>
> 8. There are very few hardware platforms. Ideally there would be
> exactly one, but it must be expected that multiple hardware
> generations will be in use. Each hardware platform gets an optimized
> build that includes hardware-specific image and font sizes.
> It makes a huge difference to the overall experience when all
> the software can assume specific hardware. It's so many little
> things, like the Ruler activity knowing how big to draw itself
> and the Acoustic Measure activity having correct laptop pictures.
>
> In practice, the above pretty much requires GPL-like licensing
> and widespread hardware availability. It doesn't require flash,
> python, a mesh, or even sugar.
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For what its worth, here's something that might help in analyzing the 
situation some more. Its an analytical approach called "mission and core 
competencies (MCC) matrix".

I do not have rights to distribute a copy of the paper, so you'll have 
to look for one in your own libraries. Here's the abstract and a link to 
details.

The MCC decision matrix:: a tool for applying strategic logic to 
everyday activity

Abstract:

Proposes the MCC decision matrix as a modern equivalent of the original 
Boston Consulting Group (BCG) portfolio matrix. Focuses on the key 
questions of mission and core competences which define the axes of the 
matrix and give it its name. Unlike the BCG matrix, the MCC matrix can 
be used to assess the relative merits of any competing claims on 
resources, not just those associated with product/ market segments or 
strategic business units. Also the validity of the matrix itself can be 
challenged and its expression modified. Claims that the matrix can be 
applied to sub-units at any level of the organization and is therefore a 
powerful tool for applying strategic logic to all types of 
resource-allocation decisions throughout an organization, ensuring their 
optimal contribution to building competitive strength. Presents a 
nine-cell directional policy matrix as an alternative form.

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewContentItem.do;jsessionid=4C2BD0F55E3CB5F4C4F15AD390AB6E62?contentType=Article&

Re: what matters

[Sameer Verma]

Edward Cherlin wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 9:25 AM, Sameer Verma <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>   
>> Albert Cahalan wrote:
>>  > It's clear that we aren't all here for the same thing.
>>  > Some wish to help all kids, or poor kids, or non-Western
>>  > kids. Some wish to advance freedom of speech, freedom from
>>  > EULA slavery, or freedom to learn heretical ideas.
>>  >
>>  > Some of us are, assuming good intentions, extremely innocent
>>  > regarding Microsoft. The historical record shows that those
>>  > who partner with Microsoft will be betrayed in the worst way.
>>  > Read "The Scorpion and the Frog" to understand Microsoft.
>> 
>
> He who sups with the Devil must e'en have a long spoon.
>
>   
>>  > To a very limited extent, I agree with the idea that we should
>>  > not be pedantic about free software.
>> 
>
> The community seems to be agreed that Microsoft can spend as much
> money as it likes trying to get Sugar running on Windows, but OLPC
> shouldn't divert resources from Linux to Windows unless perhaps
> Microsoft chooses to pay whoever is willing, and fund the project more
> broadly. As if!
>
>   
>>  For what its worth, here's something that might help in analyzing the
>>  situation some more. Its an analytical approach called "mission and core
>>  competencies (MCC) matrix".
>> 
>
> Thanks. I don't think that we have such a complex problem. 

My main reason for providing a pointer to the Mission and Core 
Competencies matrix was not for addressing complexity, but to perhaps 
help in clarifying the issue at hand. Some decisions are strategic, 
while others are tactical. If you look at the mission of OLPC at 
http://laptop.org/vision/mission/ you'll notice that it talks about 
education, "learning learning" the XO, constructionism, but nowhere does 
it mention Free and Open Source Software.

In its early days (based on what I read in the media), the project went 
to Microsoft, Apple, Dell, etc. for assistance, only to be either turned 
down or ridiculed, or some promise of help without commitment. FOSS came 
in much later. So, my take on this timeline is that FOSS came into the 
picture later (perhaps Walter was instrumental in this) and 
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_on_free/open_source_software was added 
around early 2006.

So, going back to the MCC structure (a better picture is at 
http://www.cipher-sys.com/HofHelp/Mcc/subsequent_adaptations_improvements.htm), 
the mission of OLPC is to further the education agenda, learning 
learning, etc. via the XO, and the OS to do all this does not look like 
a strategic decision, but a tactical one. They did not have the core 
competency to write an entire software stack for this purpose, so they 
outsourced it, just like they outsourced the 802.11s stuff. The major 
difference is that the software stack got outsourced not to a private 
firm, but to the FOSS community, which contributed to the project as a 
public commons effort. The GPL provides an exit strategy for the 
"community" to take it and run if the ship sinks...minus the XO, of course.

Once you add the trojan horse angle, things start to look different. We 
now have many stakeholders and many different missions intersect. Ed 
Cherlin/Earth Treasury has its own mission for example, (as he stated 
below), and Earth Treasury has to align with OLPC for competencies that 
it does not have (such as the XO). We all have our reasons. I'd like to 
see the journal in my everyday computing platform some day. Its a 
terrific feature. I'd also like for villages in India to have computers 
for education.

The project has had its problems. Update.1 is way behind schedule. The 
layout of the zooming interfaces have changed significantly, and that to 
me (personally) is troubling. But, these are managerial issues, that can 
be addressed by good communication. Oh, and communication goes both 
ways, doesn't it?

I still think that the implementation of the ideas put forth by OLPC 
into Sugar running on top of a Linux platform is by far the best option. 
Apart from the public commons aspect, it provides tremendous  
technological value. However, for FOSS to become a strong undercurrent 
in this project, the decision to use FOSS will have to be strategic, and 
not a tactical one.


> The
> questions appear to be
>
> * Should we sell in developed countries? Nicholas--Doesn't contribute
> to mission; me--Of course, to build a political base for foreign
> educational aid, to address our own poor, and to finance our other
> work.
>
> * Should we ally with Microsoft? Nicholas--It's such a brilliant
> strategy, and so obvious when I point it out; me--no way.
>
> * Sho

Re: [Olpc-open] jumpy cursor problem and sugar issue

[Sameer Verma]

Steve Holton wrote:
> Do you have a way to accurately measure relative humidity?
>
> I saw pretty severe trackpad issues on one of my XO's on a single day 
> and haven't seen a re-occurrence yet.
> At the time, it looked clearly related to static fields.
>
> On the other hand, I have seen (and fixed) a very similar behavior on 
> a NintendoDS touchpad which was caused by dust or sand becoming 
> trapped under the frame along one edge.
>
>
> Just a theory (I have no data to indicate this works) but when you see 
> the touchpad problem on an XO could you try this and report back with 
> success/failure/experiences:
>
> On an XO showing jumpy trackpad problems:
>
>1. Raise the screen to full vertical / perpendicular.
>2. Rotate the screen 1/8 turn clockwise (reverse this for left-handers)
>3. With the right hand palm facing up, reach under the screen and
>   put a finger on the metal mounting bracket or screw of the
>   swivel hinge.
>4. With the finger still in contact with that (essentially a
>   chassis ground), lightly brush the trackpad with a finger of the
>   other hand to drain stray static charges into the chassis.
>5. Re-calibrate afterwards, if necessary.
>
>
> If you have an available earth ground, discharging to that as well 
> might make an interesting variation on the test.
>  
>

Most that touchpad issues arise from two distinct sources: driver and 
capacitance grounding. In touchpads, the finger acts as a virtual 
grounding device. Dust/dirt/grime may create problems with this 
grounding effect. So, cleaning the pad and grounding any extra static 
buildup (Steve's solution above) should help. I don't know much about 
touchpad driver issue(s) if any with the XO.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchpad#Theory_of_operation
http://www.synaptics.com/technology/cps.cfm
http://www.synaptics.com/products/touchpad_faq.cfm#Q2

Sameer
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 7:50 AM, Bryan Berry <[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> > wrote:
>
> Day 3 of the pilots at Bishwamitra and Bashuki and couple of
> issues have
> come up
>
> 1. We are having a lot of trouble w/ jumpy cursors. You know where the
> touchpad behaves erratically. Is there an easy fix to this problem?
>
> we are using build 703, MP machines, and firmware Q2d14. We have the
> kids hold down the 4 corner buttons as recommended in the XO user
> guide
> but that doesn't seem to consistently fix the problem.
>
> Dust is an issue at the schools but that can't explain the high
> rate of
> jumpy cursors. Please assist
>
> Suggestions?
>
> 2. For future reference: In general the kids and teachers find it
> quite
> confusing when they move the cursor to the corners of the screen
> and the
> Sugar frame pops up. The kids have learned the top row keys very
> quickly
> - faster than I thought - and they find the frame popping up quite
> confusing. They have learned to use the frame button already.
>
> pictures to come and a full write-up, I promise!
>
> Bryan W. Berry
> Systems Engineer
> OLE Nepal, http://www.olenepal.org
>
>
>
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>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Steve Holton
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> 
>
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Re: A small present. (PenTablet-support installation script for 656/703)

[Sameer Verma]

Michael Stone wrote:
> Friends,
>
> Over a month ago, Blake and I pieced together some software to turn on
> PenTablet support. At Kim's and SJ's urging, I have prepared
>
>   http://teach.laptop.org/~mstone/fix-tablet.sh
>
> which makes it a bit easier to install the relevant pieces. I believe it
> will enable the PT on both 656 and 703 and I'm not _aware_ of any side
> effects, but it's definitely experimental software.
>
> Enjoy, unless you prefer to help out further by testing Andres' 2.6.25
> kernels.
>
> Michael
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Hi Michael,

I ran your script without a hitch, but I am unable to see it work in 
Paint. Which activity will support its use?

Sameer

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Re: A small present. (PenTablet-support installation script for 656/703)

[Sameer Verma]

Sameer Verma wrote:
> Michael Stone wrote:
>> Friends,
>>
>> Over a month ago, Blake and I pieced together some software to turn on
>> PenTablet support. At Kim's and SJ's urging, I have prepared
>>
>>   http://teach.laptop.org/~mstone/fix-tablet.sh
>>
>> which makes it a bit easier to install the relevant pieces. I believe it
>> will enable the PT on both 656 and 703 and I'm not _aware_ of any side
>> effects, but it's definitely experimental software.
>>
>> Enjoy, unless you prefer to help out further by testing Andres' 2.6.25
>> kernels.
>>
>> Michael
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>>   
> Hi Michael,
>
> I ran your script without a hitch, but I am unable to see it work in
> Paint. Which activity will support its use?
>
> Sameer
>

Following up on my post...I upgraded my G1G1 from 656/Q2D07 to 703/Q2D14
and updated the activities using Bert's script. I re-ran Michael's 
pen-tablet script. I still didn't see the pen-tablet feature working in
Paint, until...I applied a lot more pressure than I had anticipated. The
cursor moved! So, I guess the pen-tablet script makes it work, but the
amount of pressure needed is a lot more than what I would apply to my
Nokia 770 or 810.

Is this expected?

Sameer

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Re: Sugar on the EEE PC

[Sameer Verma]

Bert Freudenberg wrote:
> The Windows-based EEE PC is going to be cheaper than the Linux-based  
> in Australia:
>
> http://apcmag.com/windowsbased_eeepc_cheaper_than_linux_one.htm
>
> I'd say this shows how scared M$ is ...
>
> - Bert -
>   

It isn't Microsoft that sets the price (as opposed to cost) of the EeePC
laptop...its Asus or is VARs. The same goes for how Dell prices its
machines with Ubuntu or Vista on them. This game is played by the entire
supply chain. Yes, Microsoft does have a very significant influence in
that industry,  but it would be naïve to credit them for all the
shenanigans.

Sameer

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Re: [sugar] Microsoft

[Sameer Verma]

Morgan Collett wrote:
> 2008/5/16 Nicholas Negroponte <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: (word document attached)
>
> For those who can't or won't open the word document, it contains simply this:
>
> Mission statement of OLPC
>
> To eliminate poverty and create world peace by providing education to
> the poorest and most remote children on the planet by making them more
> active in their own learning, through collaborative and creative
> activities, connected to the Internet, with their own laptop, as a
> human right and cost free to them.
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Its nothing like what I see at http://laptop.org/vision/mission/

Sameer

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[Fwd: [OLPC-SF] Configuring the XO for the Framebuffer console]

[Sameer Verma]

Forwarding this from the OLPC-SF list. Some of you may find this useful.

Sameer

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Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
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http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/

--- Begin Message ---

I finally posted my notes on setting up the XO to work in text-mode.
Apologies for being so late with getting this out... I was planning to
refine it into a more proper HowTo, but other priorities came along
and... well, I figured something rough is better than nothing at all:

http://B79.net/code/xo_textmode.txt

Some additional related scripts I've written are here:

http://B79.net/code/

If anyone has questions, feel free to email me -- onlist or offlist
as you feel is appropriate.

Regards,

John



* John Magolske <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [080326 22:16]:
> 
> I boot my XO straight into the Linux framebuffer console (changed a
> setting in /etc/inittab so Xwindows doesn't even start up) and run a
> screen session. GNU screen could be considered a sort of text mode
> "window manager", it can multiplex multiple terminals in one Linux tty
> or one Xterm. Each screen terminal can then run a different text-mode
> application like elinks (web browser), irssi (IRC client), mutt (email
> client) or vim (text editor).
>
> I've found running screen in the framebuffer console is the fastest,
> least memory-intensive set-up. Not without its limitations -- but
> surprisingly capable with some tweaking. You can listen to music, view
> images and even movies without starting up X.
>
> But to run Firefox does require X and some sort of graphical window
> manager. For that I use Fluxbox, which is very lightweight. IceWM is
> another lightweight window manager (roughly equivalent to Fluxbox in
> my experience), but these days I'm leaning towards Fluxbox. I left
> Sugar installed, so when booting up X I can choose between Fluxbox or
> Sugar.
>
> At the moment my notes are a bit scattered, but by the end of the week
> I hope to pull together and post a HowTo describing how I set up the
> framebuffer-console/screen and X/Fluxbox configurations. There were
> lots of little details to sort out along the way...
>
> Regards,
>
> John
>


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Re: XP on OLPC - a contrarian view

[Sameer Verma]

Albert Cahalan wrote:
> Robert Myers writes:
>
>   
>> The folks that are buying them, Ministries of Education, governments,
>> charities all have their own agendas. They do not necessarily line up
>> with the agendas of our real customers - children and educators, or our
>> own. If we have to give them some of what they want, so that we can get
>> some of what we want to to the children, it's a fact of life.
>>
>> Selling constructionism is hard. The theory is attractive, but the data
>> is _not_ compelling. The buyers are probably not convinced going in that
>> it's something they want or need. OLPC would probably have an easier
>> time selling $100 Apple ][ clones with drill and practice software than
>> the XO as it stands. If the buyers demand a machine that can run
>> Windows, tell them that the XO can run Windows.
>> 
>
> You don't need computers for constructionism. If pushing educational
> theories of questionable value is your thing, spending $0 on a laptop
> is the obvious solution for you.
>
> Seriously, forget the laptop. You don't need it.
>
> I'd rather give the gift of software freedom. Unlike your theories,
> software isn't much good without hardware. XP is of no help at all.
> Because of network effects (economic theory, not computer networks),
> shipping XP (rather than nothing) is a net loss.
>
>   
>> The buyer gets to tick Windows off his must have list. OLPC sells a
>> machine with XP on a card, a crippled and storage limited XP that still
>> doesn't run current first world productivity applications well. XOs get
>> out, still loaded with Sugar. Children get them. OLPC gets revenue that
>> can help its educational mission. What have we lost but some innocence?
>> 
>
> Watch the video. XP boots fast, 

What does a fast boot up have to do with the overall usability and
productivity of a system? You can always show a boot screen early in the
process and say its boots fast. Its not so much the boot speed that
bothers me, but the impression it creates that if it boots fast, it must
be fast overall.

> handles video very nicely,
> runs Microsoft Office just fine (spreadsheet!), and in general
> looks to be highly usable.
>   

What bothered me most about the video is that it was all XP and no
Sugar. Yes, we have yet another OS. Where's Sugar? If we are comparing
OS only, how does Xubuntu stack up against XP's performance on the XO?
The other thing that was strange was that when he captures video, the
camera light did not come on. Isn't the camera wired in series with the
LED? If that's the case then the LED should be on...or the video was
edited post production.

> http://mediadl.microsoft.com/MediaDL/WWW/U/unlimitedpotential/WindowsXP_XOLaptop.wmv
> (works OK in mplayer)
>
> Don't bet for a moment that Linux will get to stay. That is
> simply not how Microsoft operates.
>
>   

Based on my impression from the video clip, its all talk about XP,
Office, etc. and native XP apps, so at this point, I would be surprised
if Sugar ships at all.

Sameer
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Re: XP on OLPC - a contrarian view

[Sameer Verma]

Martin Langhoff wrote:
> On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 4:08 PM, Albert Cahalan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>   
>> You don't need computers for constructionism. If pushing educational
>> theories of questionable value is your thing,
>> 
>
> Can we stop beating constructionism for no reason, and without any facts?
>
> First, a bit of debunking of the concept: constructionism is the
> strategy used in all those courses at university that are called
> "seminars". 

Indeed, most courses in a business school are a mix of instructionism
and constructionism. We typically have a lecture session followed by a
group project for a case study or some such group activity. The
professor acts as a lecturer in the first part and a facilitator in the
second part. This combination has been used for many years.

In my 14 years of teaching, the "instruction only" approach gets pretty
boring very quickly. You hit a wall when their eyes glaze over and their
behinds hurt from sitting for too long. Similarly, whenever I've given
them a topic and asked them to break into groups without any prelude of
a lecture, it gets hard to get the critical mass for coherent activity.
A combination of both works really well.

I am expressing this as anecdotal observation but there is good
statistical research on this.

Sameer

-- 
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Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/


> It is well recognised as a valuable teaching strategy. And
> in general terms, if you've ever figured something out with a friend,
> rather than being taught (as I figured out my first C=64 with my best
> friend at age 9), you've engaged in social constructionism. When kids
> "figure out" the vcr, and show someone else how to do it, that's also
> SC.
>
> Formal research is widespread into this, and seems to consistently
> show that it works, as can be seen in the work of Martin Dougiamas
> (he's the guy I'm most familiar with, definitely not the only one):
> http://scholar.google.co.nz/scholar?q=dougiamas+constructionism
>
> In any case, the discussion these days seems to be "how early can
> social constructionism be useful?", and as far as I can see, it is not
> hard to show that fairly young kids respond amazingly well to sc
> approaches. The hole in the wall experiments are part of a long trail
> of work in that direction.
>
>   
>> I'd rather give the gift of software freedom. Unlike your theories,
>> 
>
> This project has people with different focus from yours Albert. We
> need them all. _You_ care mainly about the sw freedom, others care
> mainly about education. But the overall goal needs both as they are
> complementary.
>
> cheers,
>
>
>
> m
>   


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Re: XP on OLPC - a contrarian view

[Sameer Verma]

Martin Langhoff wrote:
> On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 4:08 PM, Albert Cahalan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>   
>> You don't need computers for constructionism. If pushing educational
>> theories of questionable value is your thing,
>> 
>
> Can we stop beating constructionism for no reason, and without any facts?
>
> First, a bit of debunking of the concept: constructionism is the
> strategy used in all those courses at university that are called
> "seminars". It is well recognised as a valuable teaching strategy. And
> in general terms, if you've ever figured something out with a friend,
> rather than being taught (as I figured out my first C=64 with my best
> friend at age 9), you've engaged in social constructionism. When kids
> "figure out" the vcr, and show someone else how to do it, that's also
> SC.
>
> Formal research is widespread into this, and seems to consistently
> show that it works, as can be seen in the work of Martin Dougiamas
> (he's the guy I'm most familiar with, definitely not the only one):
> http://scholar.google.co.nz/scholar?q=dougiamas+constructionism
>
> In any case, the discussion these days seems to be "how early can
> social constructionism be useful?", and as far as I can see, it is not
> hard to show that fairly young kids respond amazingly well to sc
> approaches. The hole in the wall experiments are part of a long trail
> of work in that direction.
>
>   
>> I'd rather give the gift of software freedom. Unlike your theories,
>> 
>
> This project has people with different focus from yours Albert. We
> need them all. _You_ care mainly about the sw freedom, others care
> mainly about education. But the overall goal needs both as they are
> complementary.
>
> cheers,
>
>
>
> m
>   

I think Martin has hit the nail on its head. We have two parts to this
problem: the message (education) and the medium (the XO). What we need
to do is to make the two distinct. Keep the medium free of the message
(like the net neutrality issue). There will be those who would like to
study about the medium and that's fine. I hope that proportion grows
over the years. But there will be those who simply care about the
message only. When we read a paper-based book, many readers don't care
about the book-binding process, printing inks, typesetting, etc. They
just read the story. Moving to a digital domain affords us that
peek-ability under the covers to see the code in action and that needs
to stay - I would be very disappointed if Sugar goes away. However,
there are many cases where that isn't the priority.

Sameer

-- 
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Re: XP on OLPC - a contrarian view

[Sameer Verma]

Albert Cahalan wrote:
> On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 2:24 AM, Sameer Verma <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>   
>> Albert Cahalan wrote:
>> 
>
>   
>>> Watch the video. XP boots fast,
>>>   
>> What does a fast boot up have to do with the overall usability and
>> productivity of a system? You can always show a boot screen early in the
>> process and say its boots fast. Its not so much the boot speed that
>> bothers me, but the impression it creates that if it boots fast, it must
>> be fast overall.
>> 
>
> True, but the rest didn't look bad at all.
>
>   
>>> handles video very nicely,
>>> runs Microsoft Office just fine (spreadsheet!), and in general
>>> looks to be highly usable.
>>>   
>> What bothered me most about the video is that it was all XP and no
>> Sugar. Yes, we have yet another OS. Where's Sugar?
>> 
>
> Ever wonder why Microsoft fought Java, Netscape, Borland, and ODF
> so viciously? (purposely making their Java incompatible, attacking
> Netscape's revenue stream by making IE and IIS free, hiring away
> Borland's employees, buying the OOXML ratification)
>
> Microsoft is all about controlling the platform. They want you to
> depend on a Microsoft platform, and especially not a portable platform.
>
> Sugar qualifies as a 3rd-party portable platform. Forget it.
>
>   
>> If we are comparing
>> OS only, how does Xubuntu stack up against XP's performance on the XO?
>> 
>
> That is an excellent question. I suspect that the Xubuntu stack
> has far more potential than sugar.
>
>   

My point for bringing that up wasn't to disparage Sugar. It was to point
out that if Xubuntu can boot fast and respond fast on the XO, it simply
means that Sugar needs optimization. Throwing Sugar away and running
Xubuntu would be no different than throwing out Sugar and running XP. In
fact, John Magolske (who's on the OLPC-SF list) just put up instructions
for running things in a frame buffer console.
http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/olpc-sf/2008-May/000117.html Its fast,
but no Sugar.

> http://wiki.eeeuser.com/ubuntu:eeexubuntu:home
>
> Unfortunately, sugar got blessed.
>
>   
>> The other thing that was strange was that when he captures video, the
>> camera light did not come on. Isn't the camera wired in series with the
>> LED? If that's the case then the LED should be on...or the video was
>> edited post production.
>> 
>
> Probably it is old hardware.
>   

It looks very much like an MP machine. The video is processed
post-production for sure...just like those ads on TV for cleaning drains
where it shows "5 seconds" and a small font disclaimer reads "5 minutes
elapsed" :-) I think its called dramatization.

>   
>>> http://mediadl.microsoft.com/MediaDL/WWW/U/unlimitedpotential/WindowsXP_XOLaptop.wmv
>>> (works OK in mplayer)
>>>
>>> Don't bet for a moment that Linux will get to stay. That is
>>> simply not how Microsoft operates.
>>>   
>> Based on my impression from the video clip, its all talk about XP,
>> Office, etc. and native XP apps, so at this point, I would be surprised
>> if Sugar ships at all.
>> 
>
> Of course. Remember: it's about controlling the platform
>
> BTW, though sugar-free XP is a certainty for business reasons,
> it's not as if giving up the XP experience would be desired by
> any of the buyers. Sugar has that frame getting in the way,
> a look that is some adult's wrong idea of what kids see best,
> a spam-filled journal that is **planned** to lose your data,
> and incompatibility with everything. XP can at least run lots
> of free software like Thunderbird, Audacity, Pidgin, and gimp!
> (even Open Office, but that counts as a platform)
>   

Sameer

-- 
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Re: XP on OLPC - a contrarian view

[Sameer Verma]

Richard A. Smith wrote:
> Sameer Verma wrote:
>
>>>> The other thing that was strange was that when he captures video, the
>>>> camera light did not come on. Isn't the camera wired in series with
>>>> the
>>>> LED? If that's the case then the LED should be on...or the video was
>>>> edited post production.
>>>> 
>>> Probably it is old hardware.
>>>   
>>
>> It looks very much like an MP machine. The video is processed
>
> As best I can tell from the video it is an MP machine.  All versions
> of  XO's that had LED indicators for mic and camera had them
> functional. So if that LED was not on then one of the following is true:
>
> 1) They were not really capturing video at that moment.
> 2) The LED is broke
> 3) They somehow discovered a (software) way to capture without the
> LED.   Something we tried hard to prevent.
>
> The moment he starts the recorder program you will see the LED light
> but in later shots its not lit.
>

Yeah, its probably #1. Boot up times become moot if children simply rely
on suspend and resume with topping up the battery whenever possible. Its
the actual performance of the environment that really matters.

Sameer

-- 
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Re: Reminder: Tuesday Release & Wednesday Software Meetings -- 2:00 PM EDT, #olpc-meeting on irc.freenode.org

[Sameer Verma]

Martin Langhoff wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 2:14 AM, Chris Ball <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>   
>> We'd like to try out using Gobby¹ to record the agenda and minutes for
>> Tuesday's release meeting.
>> 
>
> Yeah. apt-cache show says
>
> Package: gobby
> (...)
> Description: collaborative text editor
>
> Gobby is an editor which helps your meeting stay on agenda, define
> action points, and a generally hold a short, sharp and effective
> meeting. Gobby with deliver swings of cluebat to anyone straying from
> the agenda, nitpicking pointlessly or being contrarian for the fun of
> it.
>
> What's not to like? :-)
>
>
>
>   

Ubuntu uses Gobby for its UDS (Ubuntu Developer Summit) meetings and it 
works quite well.

Sameer

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Re: Reminder: Tuesday Release & Wednesday Software Meetings -- 2:00 PM EDT, #olpc-meeting on irc.freenode.org

[Sameer Verma]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> sameer wrote:
>  > 
>  > Ubuntu uses Gobby for its UDS (Ubuntu Developer Summit) meetings and it 
>  > works quite well.
>
> perhaps they have a usage model (guidelines) that would be
> interesting to look at.
>
> paul
> =-
>  paul fox, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Overall UDS participation instructions from the Sevilla UDS at 
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UDS-Sevilla/Participate and Boston UDS at 
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UDS-Boston/Participate

Sameer

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Re: Reminder: Tuesday Release & Wednesday Software Meetings -- 2:00 PM EDT, #olpc-meeting on irc.freenode.org

[Sameer Verma]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> sameer wrote:
>  > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>  > > sameer wrote:
>  > >  > 
>  > >  > Ubuntu uses Gobby for its UDS (Ubuntu Developer Summit) meetings and 
> it 
>  > >  > works quite well.
>  > >
>  > > perhaps they have a usage model (guidelines) that would be
>  > > interesting to look at.
>  > >
>  > Overall UDS participation instructions from the Sevilla UDS at 
>  > https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UDS-Sevilla/Participate and Boston UDS at 
>  > https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UDS-Boston/Participate
>  > 
>
> it's not clear from those pages, but it looks like they may use
> gobby only for the doc editing feature.  VOIP and IRC are used
> for chat.
>
>   

Yes, Gobby is used for taking notes. Each topic discussed ends up into a 
document. Someone (probably pre-assigned) has to save it locally. Gobby 
does support chat, but UDS uses IRC and VoIP (as far as I know).

Gobby screenshot http://gobby.0x539.de/screenshots/gobby-0.4.5-linux.png

Sameer

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Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/

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Re: Tuesday Release Meeting - Notes

[Sameer Verma]

Greg Smith wrote:
> Hi Chris,
>
> Great notes! Short and informative. I don't you or Gobby gets the 
> credit, but thanks regardless.
>
> Two suggestions for next week's meeting.
>
> 1 - Let's take agenda items in advance and set the agenda in advance. We 
> can do a brief agenda review but I hope we can spend most of the meeting 
> on substantive work and not setting the agenda.
>
> 2 - Let's roll over AI status as the first item each week. Once they are 
> done, you can put a brief note in the minutes saying done and adding a 
> link as needed. If they are still open they go on the open AI list until 
> t hey are closed one way or another.
>
> I have one big one for next weeks agenda:
> Backward compatibility of activities.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Greg S
>
> **
> Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:35:49 -0400
> From: Chris Ball <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Re: Reminder: Tuesday Release & Wednesday Software Meetings
>   -- 2:00 PM EDT, #olpc-meeting on irc.freenode.org
> To: Michael Stone <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Cc: devel@lists.laptop.org
> Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> Hi,
>
> > We'd like to try out using Gobby to record the agenda and minutes
> > for Tuesday's release meeting.  If you have an XO and will be
> > joining the meeting, please run "yum install gobby" beforehand, or
> > "apt-get install gobby" on an Ubuntu laptop.  The server will be at
> > pullcord.laptop.org.
>
> And here are our minutes and action items:
>
> Attendance:
>
> cjb cscott erikg dsd pgf dsaxena tomeu ypod dgilmore bemasc bert
> Charlie (Celkan) Kim mstone Gregorio unmadindu walter martin_xsa
> eben
>
>
> Minutes:
>
> * Ypod mentioned that it's hard to get the hang of Koji.  We agreed,
>and offered to sit down with him to explain.  Cjb asserted that a
>package being outside of Koji should not impede that package making
>it into a build for testing via the dropbox system.
>
>AI: cjb and mstone to meet with ypod.
>
>
> * Trac process: In response to ticket workflow questions (specifically:
>when should tickets get closed), Michael suggested the following
>process through Trac "next action" states:
>
>  code -> package -> add to build -> developer test in build
>
>After testing, the developer tags the bug with the results, e.g.:
>  joyride-2126:-or   joyride-2126:+
>
>if +, the developer moves the ticket's "next action" to "finalize"
>QA will then close the ticket at some later stage, perhaps after
>making relevant additions to the release notes.
>
>AI: Joe will call a Trac meeting to discuss this later this week.
>
>
> * The changelog tools we have aren't very good.  We should improve them.
>
>AI: Chris, Michael and Dennis to meet to work on changelog tools.
>
>
> * Which build should be used for testing?  Joyride-2128 -- earlier
>builds lost olpc-netlog, which is required for testing.
>
>
> * Metrics for "release readiness".  cscott sent mail to devel recapping
>the "state of the update.1" email
>
>AI: Chris to help with finding a metric we can use to define
>release-readiness, such as (but better than) number of
>blocker bugs open.
>
>   
Hi,

If the "release readiness" metric is a composite of multiple attributes 
such as blocker bugs, documentation, integration, etc. then a weighted 
scoring approach will be more comprehensive. This approach is used by 
Open Source Maturity Model (http://www.navicasoft.com/pages/osmm.htm) 
and Business Readiness Rating (http://www.openbrr.org).

Of course, either of these models may not be suitable "as-is" for our 
purposes. In that case, we can define our own attributes (or modify 
existing ones) and build our own model. The hardest part in using such 
scoring models is in determining the weights for each attribute. Weight 
implies importance and contribution to the composite metric. In case of 
attributes such as blocker bugs, we have a number to plug in. In case of 
others such as documentation, the assessment may be a bit more difficult.

We have used OSMM at SF State University in our "Managing Open Source" 
class (http://opensource.sfsu.edu/node/40) quite successfully. Its 
fairly comprehensive and at the same time not too detail oriented.

cheers,

Sameer

-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/


> * Better user

Re: Tuesday Release Meeting - Notes

[Sameer Verma]

Greg Smith wrote:
> Hi Chris,
>
> Great notes! Short and informative. I don't you or Gobby gets the 
> credit, but thanks regardless.
>
> Two suggestions for next week's meeting.
>
> 1 - Let's take agenda items in advance and set the agenda in advance. We 
> can do a brief agenda review but I hope we can spend most of the meeting 
> on substantive work and not setting the agenda.
>
> 2 - Let's roll over AI status as the first item each week. Once they are 
> done, you can put a brief note in the minutes saying done and adding a 
> link as needed. If they are still open they go on the open AI list until 
> t hey are closed one way or another.
>
> I have one big one for next weeks agenda:
> Backward compatibility of activities.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Greg S
>
> **
> Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:35:49 -0400
> From: Chris Ball <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Re: Reminder: Tuesday Release & Wednesday Software Meetings
>   -- 2:00 PM EDT, #olpc-meeting on irc.freenode.org
> To: Michael Stone <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Cc: devel@lists.laptop.org
> Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> Hi,
>
> > We'd like to try out using Gobby to record the agenda and minutes
> > for Tuesday's release meeting.  If you have an XO and will be
> > joining the meeting, please run "yum install gobby" beforehand, or
> > "apt-get install gobby" on an Ubuntu laptop.  The server will be at
> > pullcord.laptop.org.
>
> And here are our minutes and action items:
>
> Attendance:
>
> cjb cscott erikg dsd pgf dsaxena tomeu ypod dgilmore bemasc bert
> Charlie (Celkan) Kim mstone Gregorio unmadindu walter martin_xsa
> eben
>
>
> Minutes:
>
> * Ypod mentioned that it's hard to get the hang of Koji.  We agreed,
>and offered to sit down with him to explain.  Cjb asserted that a
>package being outside of Koji should not impede that package making
>it into a build for testing via the dropbox system.
>
>AI: cjb and mstone to meet with ypod.
>
>
> * Trac process: In response to ticket workflow questions (specifically:
>when should tickets get closed), Michael suggested the following
>process through Trac "next action" states:
>
>  code -> package -> add to build -> developer test in build
>
>After testing, the developer tags the bug with the results, e.g.:
>  joyride-2126:-or   joyride-2126:+
>
>if +, the developer moves the ticket's "next action" to "finalize"
>QA will then close the ticket at some later stage, perhaps after
>making relevant additions to the release notes.
>
>AI: Joe will call a Trac meeting to discuss this later this week.
>
>
> * The changelog tools we have aren't very good.  We should improve them.
>
>AI: Chris, Michael and Dennis to meet to work on changelog tools.
>
>
> * Which build should be used for testing?  Joyride-2128 -- earlier
>builds lost olpc-netlog, which is required for testing.
>
>
> * Metrics for "release readiness".  cscott sent mail to devel recapping
>the "state of the update.1" email
>
>AI: Chris to help with finding a metric we can use to define
>release-readiness, such as (but better than) number of
>blocker bugs open.
>
>
> * Better user feedback from the field?  David Cavallo wants to talk
>to us about what the learning team is up to later this week.
>
>   

Hi,

This feedback will be *very* important. Thus far, majority of the focus 
has been on the development perspective (bugs, code, patches, etc) but 
not as much on the use perspective. Use perspective typically involves 
Usability (UI centric), Productivity (task centric) and Satisfaction 
(user centric) models. In most enterprise environments one can float a 
survey instrument with Likert scales to gather quantitative data for 
analysis, but in our case, we cannot expect 5 year olds to answer on a 
scale of 1 to 7. So, the methodologies will have to be more qualitative 
and interview driven.

Additionally, if we can come up with a consistent methodology (or a 
combination of methodologies) for gathering such feedback, we will have 
strong referential basis for comparing implementations across different 
countries.

Sameer

-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/


> * Greg brought up there not being a release contract for touchpad
>improvements.  The touchpad driver change is now present i

Re: Definition of "Stable Enough To Release" for 8.2.0

[Sameer Verma]

Richard A. Smith wrote:
> Greg Smith wrote:
>
>   
>> 3 - Cursor control the same, including number of XOs where it moves
>> without input or moves without correlation to finger on touchpad
>> 
>
>   
>> 13 - No new cases where the cursor stops responding (AKA hangs) for more
>> than 30 seconds.
>> 
>
> These 2 are going to be really hard to quantify in hard yes or no terms. 
>   We can't reproduce the problem with any regularity.  Without a 
> repeatable method of causing the various failure modes the best we can 
> get is the overall feeling of "goodness" from the testers.
>
>   
This is why its important to use a scoring method to assess "Stable 
enough to release". Many variables that influence the readiness of the 
release will not be binary (0/1 or yes/no). Its better to score on a 
wider scale (1 to 10 or 1 to 100) and then weight it so that different 
variables weigh in differently and give us a composite score.


Sameer

-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/

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Re: [sugar] Please help test our new 8.2.0 weekly beta, joyride-2263!

[Sameer Verma]

Martin Langhoff wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 8:37 AM, Kevin Cole <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>   
>> want to update them.  I tell it to install/upgrade them all.  It says
>> "Downloading" but the progress bar never progresses, and it appears to
>> be doing a whole lot of nothing.
>> 
>
> FWIW, it worked for me. One of the activity downloads (TamTam Edit?)
> takes *ages* to complete, with little feedback, so I did think it was
> jammed. Eventually it completed.
>
> cheers,
>
>
>
>
> m
>   
I had no trouble updating the activities *except* that it would keep 
looping back to "Scratch" telling me that I have version 2 and it needs 
to update to 5. After proceeding to update, it would continue to loop. 
Reboots don't fix it. I'm on 2263.

Sameer

-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/

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Re: Project Management Tools meeting in #olpc

[Sameer Verma]

Seth Woodworth wrote:
> The ProjectDB + Other-tools meeting will be taking place in the #olpc
> channel of freenode in ~20 minutes.  We will be discussing project
> management tools for pilots and deployments.
>
> Possible Participants (as of now):
>
> * Seth
> * SJ
> * Pia Waugh
> * Jeff Waugh
> * Sameer Verma
>
Sorry, but I couldn't make it. Meeting conflict on campus. Does anyone
have notes/irc logs?

Sameer
> --Seth
>
> On Thu, Aug 14, 2008 at 9:18 PM, Mel Chua <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote:
>
> I'm interested in the meeting but won't be able to access the
> internet at that time - may I request an IRC meeting and
> transcripts of such?
>
> I'm also copying Mia, who wrote
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Developers_program_review_process (it's
> a start, but needs fleshing-in).
>
> -Mel
>
> Seth Woodworth wrote:
>
> SJ, Pia Waugh, and I had a very interesting conversation
> tonight about organizing projects and proposals via a web
> interface such as Austria's ProjectDB
> (http://projectdb.olpc.at).  While I think that there are
> several more things that the wiki can and should be doing via
> Semantic MediaWiki, there are several things that wiki will
> never be able to do.
>
> There is a growing need for some project/proposal management
> tools that are a little smarter about keeping private
> information private, which is the current use of the
> ProjectDB.  There are several ways that ProjectDB could be
> expanded and used by individual OLPC groups (like olpc.org.au
> <http://olpc.org.au> <http://olpc.org.au>).
>
>
> We're going to have an open meeting on the subject at:
>
> * 23:00 Friday, August 15th, UTC
> **9:00AM Sat .au
> **6:00PM Fri .us
>
> Reply to this thread if you would prefer IRC or Phone and some
> brief thoughts on the subject.
>
> All the best,
> Seth Woodworth
>
>
> 
> 
>
>
>
> ___
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> [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/grassroots
>
>

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Re: Request: Jabber server for developers

[Sameer Verma]

Seth Woodworth wrote:
> I cleaned up some of the Jabber pages on the wiki last night:
>
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Jabber
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Community_Jabber_Servers
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Run_a_Jabber_Server
>
> I also added a wiki navigation header in a template: {{jabber}}
>
> My plan/goal was to provide ''Running a Jabber Server'' as an open
> task to the Volunteer Infrastructure-Gang.  I think that running a
> really solid vmware (or zen) instance of ejabbered would be a really
> simple and useful task for volunteers to work on.
>

I second this. Having a good VM with ejabberd preconfigured (plus
instructions, of course) would be great! For example, grandma's LAMP
(http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/581) is a Ubuntu 6.06.1
based LAMP development environment. I use it all the time to stage sites
that need maintenance or tweaking. Having a canned solution reduces the
barrier to entry for running servers.

Sameer

-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/


> The best first step (IMO) would be to recruit for the
> Infrastructure-Gang to better support public tools created and
> maintained by the community.
>
> --S
>
>
> On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 4:32 AM, Morgan Collett
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote:
>
> The default jabber server in jhbuild, olpc.collabora.co.uk
> <http://olpc.collabora.co.uk>, isn't
> usable at the moment since it is being used to test Gadget - so it
> doesn't have a shared roster.
>
> Many of the community servers aren't working. The issue is that their
> databases become overloaded once too many people register, and so they
> need to periodically have their databases cleaned (see
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Ejabberd_Configuration#Tips)
>
> We need a machine that developers can use, with someone taking an
> interest in its uptime. jabber.laptop.org
> <http://jabber.laptop.org>'s been hosed for a long
> time.
>
> I'm happy to set up a machine and run it, and provide instructions for
> others to poke it when I'm asleep, if someone can arrange a VM for me
> with hardy. I have the jabber server running on my laptop, but that's
> behind NAT and a very long thin (expensive) pipe.
>
> Regards
> Morgan
> ___
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>
>
> 
>
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Re: Speech to Text Support in OLPC

[Sameer Verma]

On Sat, Sep 13, 2008 at 3:09 AM, satya komaragiri
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi
> @ Assim and Chris: Thank you for your response :)
>
> I'll be really grateful if you could tell me what the current scenario
> for Speech to text on XO is. And whether the OLPC cmmunity would be
> interested in having a speech to text support

Speech to Text would be of immense use IMO. I'm thinking of family
members who cannot read or write. Imagine them being able to speak
into the XO to send e-mails. This reminds me of a time when village
folk would come to my grandmother's to get a [snail mail] letter read
because they couldn't read or to write a reply by dictating it to
someone.

Or, imagine speaking into the XO and seeing the letters appear as you
speak and being able to recognize the shape and form of basic and
commonly words.

Speech to text would be awesome!

Sameer
-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/
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Re: [Grassroots-l] G1G1 Pre-installed Activities Request for Help Testing

[Sameer Verma]

On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 5:33 PM, Seth Woodworth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> What are your criteria?  Are you ranking things by supportability and size?
> If so Ruler is a no-brainer.  It's 20kb and is unlikely to break easily.
>
> On the other hand SimCity is hard to make drastic changes and still be
> called SimCity.  It's currently buggy and has no active maintainer.


I am curious about the criteria as well. This thread is expressive of
a select few who bothered to reply (self selection bias) and as you
can see each list is myopic from the poster's point of view. I've seen
a lot of younger kids like tamtam mini mostly because of the cow,
sheep, cat dog, duck etc. This is my opinion only though. I'd love to
see if there is any data from the field on this.

Sameer

> On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 6:27 PM, Greg Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>> Hi All,
>>
>> Thanks a lot for the input on which activities to ship!
>>
>> Here is the list of activities I will to management as my suggestion on
>> what we ship.
>>
>> Please help test these! See the end of the e-mail for instructions.
>>
>> The list I recommend is essentially the G1G1 activities (kudos to the
>> team who chose the first set!). In addition to those I list a few which
>> got repeated votes (except Chess and Sudoku which are a concession to SJ
>> ;-)
>>
>> Original G1G1 activities:
>> Browse
>> Read
>> Write
>> Paint
>> Record
>> TamTam Jam, Mini, on fence: Synthlab,  Edit,
>> Chat
>> Pippy
>> Etoys
>> Turtle Art
>> Calculate
>> Measure
>> Distance
>> Memorize
>> Terminal
>> Log
>> Analyze
>>
>> New ones:
>> Help
>> Implode
>> Speak
>> Maze
>> SimCity
>> Scratch
>> Xaos
>> StarChart
>> Moon
>> GCompris Chess
>> GCompris Sudoku
>>
>> The only significant change from the original G1G1 set is the TamTam. I
>> think we should include 2 not 4 so as not to over weight them against
>> other activities.
>>
>> Let me know if anyone has comments on that (Jean can you live with that?).
>>
>> Not all of these are sure to make it. On the other hand it's very
>> unlikely that anything else will make it. So if you have an urgent
>> request or a specific concern please speak up now.
>>
>> Of course, anyone can download additional activities so even if an
>> activity is not on this list, it still attracts a lot of users.
>>
>> We need help testing these with the latest 8.2 image. We plan to make a
>> release candidate today and if it passes smoke test we will add the
>> activities and content to create a signed release candidate on Monday!
>>
>> Developers,
>>
>> Please reply with the final version and URL of each activity which we
>> should include in the image. Each one must pass final test and have an
>> active and reachable developer to make the final list.
>>
>> Morgan,
>>
>> can you make sure we have a contact e-mail and name on each of these?
>> Also, let me know if you any of them are orphaned or not well maintained.
>>
>> All,
>>
>> Please test them all one more time let us know how it goes.
>>
>> I want to know if each of these passes the tests described here:
>> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Test_cases_8.2.0#Activities
>>
>> Please create a new test case for any activity that needs one.
>>
>> To do that, go to this page: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Form:Test_case
>> and entering Tests/Activities/nameofactivity to create a new test case.
>> Then choose activity from the drop down and you can just paste in the
>> steps test from above for a start.
>>
>> Then you can add a test result by clicking on the "+" sign next to the
>> test case (it takes a little while for them to show up after creation).
>>
>> You can also e-mail comments or test results back to this list.
>>
>> Thanks a lot for your help.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Greg S
>>
>>
>> ___
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>
>
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Re: [sugar] [Grassroots-l] G1G1 Pre-installed Activities Request for Help Testing

[Sameer Verma]

On Sat, Sep 20, 2008 at 11:46 AM, Walter Bender <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> In fact, there is a great deal of data from the field in the form of
> the activity packs that Peru, Uruguay, et al. developed. These
> collections have been vetted and tested extensively and have a
> built-in community of support. They are learning-centric collections,
> but presumably, those G1G1 purchasers who are interested in other
> pursuits will run Fedora/GNOME or XP.
>

That makes sense. Do we have any data on G1G1 favorites?

Sameer

> -walter
>
> On Sat, Sep 20, 2008 at 12:30 PM, Sameer Verma <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 5:33 PM, Seth Woodworth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>> What are your criteria?  Are you ranking things by supportability and size?
>>> If so Ruler is a no-brainer.  It's 20kb and is unlikely to break easily.
>>>
>>> On the other hand SimCity is hard to make drastic changes and still be
>>> called SimCity.  It's currently buggy and has no active maintainer.
>>
>>
>> I am curious about the criteria as well. This thread is expressive of
>> a select few who bothered to reply (self selection bias) and as you
>> can see each list is myopic from the poster's point of view. I've seen
>> a lot of younger kids like tamtam mini mostly because of the cow,
>> sheep, cat dog, duck etc. This is my opinion only though. I'd love to
>> see if there is any data from the field on this.
>>
>> Sameer
>>
>>> On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 6:27 PM, Greg Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi All,
>>>>
>>>> Thanks a lot for the input on which activities to ship!
>>>>
>>>> Here is the list of activities I will to management as my suggestion on
>>>> what we ship.
>>>>
>>>> Please help test these! See the end of the e-mail for instructions.
>>>>
>>>> The list I recommend is essentially the G1G1 activities (kudos to the
>>>> team who chose the first set!). In addition to those I list a few which
>>>> got repeated votes (except Chess and Sudoku which are a concession to SJ
>>>> ;-)
>>>>
>>>> Original G1G1 activities:
>>>> Browse
>>>> Read
>>>> Write
>>>> Paint
>>>> Record
>>>> TamTam Jam, Mini, on fence: Synthlab,  Edit,
>>>> Chat
>>>> Pippy
>>>> Etoys
>>>> Turtle Art
>>>> Calculate
>>>> Measure
>>>> Distance
>>>> Memorize
>>>> Terminal
>>>> Log
>>>> Analyze
>>>>
>>>> New ones:
>>>> Help
>>>> Implode
>>>> Speak
>>>> Maze
>>>> SimCity
>>>> Scratch
>>>> Xaos
>>>> StarChart
>>>> Moon
>>>> GCompris Chess
>>>> GCompris Sudoku
>>>>
>>>> The only significant change from the original G1G1 set is the TamTam. I
>>>> think we should include 2 not 4 so as not to over weight them against
>>>> other activities.
>>>>
>>>> Let me know if anyone has comments on that (Jean can you live with that?).
>>>>
>>>> Not all of these are sure to make it. On the other hand it's very
>>>> unlikely that anything else will make it. So if you have an urgent
>>>> request or a specific concern please speak up now.
>>>>
>>>> Of course, anyone can download additional activities so even if an
>>>> activity is not on this list, it still attracts a lot of users.
>>>>
>>>> We need help testing these with the latest 8.2 image. We plan to make a
>>>> release candidate today and if it passes smoke test we will add the
>>>> activities and content to create a signed release candidate on Monday!
>>>>
>>>> Developers,
>>>>
>>>> Please reply with the final version and URL of each activity which we
>>>> should include in the image. Each one must pass final test and have an
>>>> active and reachable developer to make the final list.
>>>>
>>>> Morgan,
>>>>
>>>> can you make sure we have a contact e-mail and name on each of these?
>>>> Also, let me know if you any of them are orphaned or not well maintained.
>>>>
>>>> All,
>>>>
>>>> Please test them all one more time let us know how it goes.
>>>>
>>>> I

Re: [sugar] [Grassroots-l] G1G1 Pre-installed Activities Request for Help Testing

[Sameer Verma]

On Sat, Sep 20, 2008 at 6:00 PM, Seth Woodworth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> On Sat, Sep 20, 2008 at 12:46 PM, Walter Bender <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
>>
>> In fact, there is a great deal of data from the field in the form of
>> the activity packs that Peru, Uruguay, et al. developed. These
>> collections have been vetted and tested extensively and have a
>> built-in community of support. They are learning-centric collections,
>> but presumably, those G1G1 purchasers who are interested in other
>> pursuits will run Fedora/GNOME or XP.
>>
>> -walter
>
>
> I'm not convinced that they are well-tested.  They included News Reader,
> which hasn't worked for the last several releases.  That doesn't suggest to
> me that their activities went through any kind of extensive testing before
> deployment.   They have since been tested in the field by children.  I
> *haven't* seen much feedback from kids yet.  At least not from South
> American and not any broad spectrum.
>
> ---Seth
>
>

In an attempt to make the decision-making process more unbiased (or at
least more multi-criteria) I've put up a basic spreadsheet for a
scoring matrix at
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=p_Xhb6KcXLyEViA50CnCaDg&hl=en

In the spreadsheet, there are three main components. Column B has
factors such as stability, performance, etc to assess against. I just
made these up, but feel free to make your own. The weights (column C)
essentially defines the importance of each factor as a percentage of a
total of 100%. The rest of the columns are for each activity. Feel
free to add your own. Score them on a scale of 1 to 10. Each score
gets weighted and you'll see totals at the bottom. Sort for the totals
in Descending order and skim off the top 10.

There you have it. Multi-criteria decision-making made simple.

Sameer
-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/
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Re: [sugar] [Grassroots-l] G1G1 Pre-installed Activities Request for Help Testing

[Sameer Verma]

On Sun, Sep 21, 2008 at 1:59 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sep 21, 2008, at 11:12 AM, Sameer Verma wrote:
>
>> On Sat, Sep 20, 2008 at 6:00 PM, Seth Woodworth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, Sep 20, 2008 at 12:46 PM, Walter Bender <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> In fact, there is a great deal of data from the field in the form of
>>>> the activity packs that Peru, Uruguay, et al. developed. These
>>>> collections have been vetted and tested extensively and have a
>>>> built-in community of support. They are learning-centric collections,
>>>> but presumably, those G1G1 purchasers who are interested in other
>>>> pursuits will run Fedora/GNOME or XP.
>>>>
>>>> -walter
>>>
>>>
>>> I'm not convinced that they are well-tested.  They included News Reader,
>>> which hasn't worked for the last several releases.  That doesn't suggest
>>> to
>>> me that their activities went through any kind of extensive testing
>>> before
>>> deployment.   They have since been tested in the field by children.  I
>>> *haven't* seen much feedback from kids yet.  At least not from South
>>> American and not any broad spectrum.
>>>
>>> ---Seth
>>>
>>>
>>
>> In an attempt to make the decision-making process more unbiased (or at
>> least more multi-criteria) I've put up a basic spreadsheet for a
>> scoring matrix at
>> http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=p_Xhb6KcXLyEViA50CnCaDg&hl=en
>
> Well I logged in to google docs, but I cannot edit this spreadsheet.  I
> wanted to add Chat to the matrix as this activity is an extremely useful
> communication tool for both children and adults.  I know G1G1 users that
> spend at least 80% of their XO usage  with Chat and they have reported to me
> that they have observed children having a wonderful time using Chat to
> communicate with their friends even when their friends  were in the same
> room.

I've made it world-editable. Alternatively, you can download the
spreadsheet and play with it in Excel or OpenOffice.

>
> Gmail activity seems redundant as Gmail is reachable from Browse.
>

Yes, but it exists. Feel free to add as many activities as needed.

Sameer
>> In the spreadsheet, there are three main components. Column B has
>> factors such as stability, performance, etc to assess against. I just
>> made these up, but feel free to make your own. The weights (column C)
>> essentially defines the importance of each factor as a percentage of a
>> total of 100%. The rest of the columns are for each activity. Feel
>> free to add your own. Score them on a scale of 1 to 10. Each score
>> gets weighted and you'll see totals at the bottom. Sort for the totals
>> in Descending order and skim off the top 10.
>>
>> There you have it. Multi-criteria decision-making made simple.
>>
>> Sameer
>> --
>> Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
>> Associate Professor of Information Systems
>> San Francisco State University
>> San Francisco CA 94132 USA
>> http://verma.sfsu.edu/
>> http://opensource.sfsu.edu/
>> ___
>> Devel mailing list
>> Devel@lists.laptop.org
>> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
>
>
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Re: [sugar] [Grassroots-l] G1G1 Pre-installed Activities Request for Help Testing

[Sameer Verma]

On Sun, Sep 21, 2008 at 3:06 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Sameer thanks for making the spreadsheet world  editable
> By the way how are you defining the following terms:-
>
> Stability
> Performance
> Child Utility
> Technical Utility
> Grown-up utility
> Lines of code


I'm not. I just pulled out a few items that came to me. Ideally, the
Sugar team should be making this list.


>
> Good definitions of these terms noted in the spreadsheet will reduce
> ambiguity.

Agreed. Like a good data dictionary.

Sameer
-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/


> Nothing like ambiguity to cause misunderstanding.
>
>
>
> On Sep 21, 2008, at 12:11 PM, Sameer Verma wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Sep 21, 2008 at 1:59 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sep 21, 2008, at 11:12 AM, Sameer Verma wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Sat, Sep 20, 2008 at 6:00 PM, Seth Woodworth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sat, Sep 20, 2008 at 12:46 PM, Walter Bender
>>>>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In fact, there is a great deal of data from the field in the form of
>>>>>> the activity packs that Peru, Uruguay, et al. developed. These
>>>>>> collections have been vetted and tested extensively and have a
>>>>>> built-in community of support. They are learning-centric collections,
>>>>>> but presumably, those G1G1 purchasers who are interested in other
>>>>>> pursuits will run Fedora/GNOME or XP.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -walter
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm not convinced that they are well-tested.  They included News
>>>>> Reader,
>>>>> which hasn't worked for the last several releases.  That doesn't
>>>>> suggest
>>>>> to
>>>>> me that their activities went through any kind of extensive testing
>>>>> before
>>>>> deployment.   They have since been tested in the field by children.  I
>>>>> *haven't* seen much feedback from kids yet.  At least not from South
>>>>> American and not any broad spectrum.
>>>>>
>>>>> ---Seth
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> In an attempt to make the decision-making process more unbiased (or at
>>>> least more multi-criteria) I've put up a basic spreadsheet for a
>>>> scoring matrix at
>>>> http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=p_Xhb6KcXLyEViA50CnCaDg&hl=en
>>>
>>> Well I logged in to google docs, but I cannot edit this spreadsheet.  I
>>> wanted to add Chat to the matrix as this activity is an extremely useful
>>> communication tool for both children and adults.  I know G1G1 users that
>>> spend at least 80% of their XO usage  with Chat and they have reported to
>>> me
>>> that they have observed children having a wonderful time using Chat to
>>> communicate with their friends even when their friends  were in the same
>>> room.
>>
>> I've made it world-editable. Alternatively, you can download the
>> spreadsheet and play with it in Excel or OpenOffice.
>>
>>>
>>> Gmail activity seems redundant as Gmail is reachable from Browse.
>>>
>>
>> Yes, but it exists. Feel free to add as many activities as needed.
>>
>> Sameer
>>>>
>>>> In the spreadsheet, there are three main components. Column B has
>>>> factors such as stability, performance, etc to assess against. I just
>>>> made these up, but feel free to make your own. The weights (column C)
>>>> essentially defines the importance of each factor as a percentage of a
>>>> total of 100%. The rest of the columns are for each activity. Feel
>>>> free to add your own. Score them on a scale of 1 to 10. Each score
>>>> gets weighted and you'll see totals at the bottom. Sort for the totals
>>>> in Descending order and skim off the top 10.
>>>>
>>>> There you have it. Multi-criteria decision-making made simple.
>>>>
>>>> Sameer
>>>> --
>>>> Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
>>>> Associate Professor of Information Systems
>>>> San Francisco State University
>>>> San Francisco CA 94132 USA
>>>> http://verma.sfsu.edu/
>>>> http://opensource.sfsu.edu/
>>>> ___
>>>> Devel mailing list
>>>> Devel@lists.laptop.org
>>>> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
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suspend resume strangeness...

[Sameer Verma]

I have two XOs, both from G1G1. They are both running Stable build
711. When I close the laptops they go into suspend. However, one of
them will resume after opening the lid, while with the other one I
have to press the power button to bring it back. Both are running
Q2E12

Any ideas?

Sameer
-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/
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Re: [sugar] [Grassroots-l] G1G1 Pre-installed Activities Request for Help Testing

[Sameer Verma]

On Sun, Sep 21, 2008 at 6:54 PM, Walter Bender <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 21, 2008 at 4:41 PM, Sameer Verma <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> On Sun, Sep 21, 2008 at 3:06 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>> Sameer thanks for making the spreadsheet world  editable
>>> By the way how are you defining the following terms:-
>>>
>>> Stability
>>> Performance
>>> Child Utility
>>> Technical Utility
>>> Grown-up utility
>>> Lines of code
>>
>>
>> I'm not. I just pulled out a few items that came to me. Ideally, the
>> Sugar team should be making this list.
>>
>>
>>>
>>> Good definitions of these terms noted in the spreadsheet will reduce
>>> ambiguity.
>>
>> Agreed. Like a good data dictionary.
>>
>> Sameer
>> --
>> Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
>> Associate Professor of Information Systems
>> San Francisco State University
>> San Francisco CA 94132 USA
>> http://verma.sfsu.edu/
>> http://opensource.sfsu.edu/
>>
>>
>>> Nothing like ambiguity to cause misunderstanding.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sep 21, 2008, at 12:11 PM, Sameer Verma wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Sun, Sep 21, 2008 at 1:59 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sep 21, 2008, at 11:12 AM, Sameer Verma wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On Sat, Sep 20, 2008 at 6:00 PM, Seth Woodworth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Sat, Sep 20, 2008 at 12:46 PM, Walter Bender
>>>>>>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> In fact, there is a great deal of data from the field in the form of
>>>>>>>> the activity packs that Peru, Uruguay, et al. developed. These
>>>>>>>> collections have been vetted and tested extensively and have a
>>>>>>>> built-in community of support. They are learning-centric collections,
>>>>>>>> but presumably, those G1G1 purchasers who are interested in other
>>>>>>>> pursuits will run Fedora/GNOME or XP.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> -walter
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I'm not convinced that they are well-tested.  They included News
>>>>>>> Reader,
>>>>>>> which hasn't worked for the last several releases.  That doesn't
>>>>>>> suggest
>>>>>>> to
>>>>>>> me that their activities went through any kind of extensive testing
>>>>>>> before
>>>>>>> deployment.   They have since been tested in the field by children.  I
>>>>>>> *haven't* seen much feedback from kids yet.  At least not from South
>>>>>>> American and not any broad spectrum.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> ---Seth
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In an attempt to make the decision-making process more unbiased (or at
>>>>>> least more multi-criteria) I've put up a basic spreadsheet for a
>>>>>> scoring matrix at
>>>>>> http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=p_Xhb6KcXLyEViA50CnCaDg&hl=en
>>>>>
>>>>> Well I logged in to google docs, but I cannot edit this spreadsheet.  I
>>>>> wanted to add Chat to the matrix as this activity is an extremely useful
>>>>> communication tool for both children and adults.  I know G1G1 users that
>>>>> spend at least 80% of their XO usage  with Chat and they have reported to
>>>>> me
>>>>> that they have observed children having a wonderful time using Chat to
>>>>> communicate with their friends even when their friends  were in the same
>>>>> room.
>>>>
>>>> I've made it world-editable. Alternatively, you can download the
>>>> spreadsheet and play with it in Excel or OpenOffice.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Gmail activity seems redundant as Gmail is reachable from Browse.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Yes, but it exists. Feel free to add as many activities as needed.

Re: no color in the Neighborhood

[Sameer Verma]

2008/9/21  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> I had my 8.2-760 XO closed in suspend for some
> hours.  When I opened up the Neighborhood the
> AP icons did not have color. See attached screenshot.
>
> --Chris
>
> ___
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> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
>
>

>From the screenshot it looks like you have a space or some character
in the search box. The neighborhood screen is trying to match APs with
that "character" and is greying out all that don't match. Clear the
search box and they should all reappear.

Sameer
-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/
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Re: [sugar] [Grassroots-l] G1G1 Pre-installed Activities Request for Help Testing

[Sameer Verma]

On Sun, Sep 21, 2008 at 1:12 PM, Sameer Verma <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 20, 2008 at 6:00 PM, Seth Woodworth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Sep 20, 2008 at 12:46 PM, Walter Bender <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> In fact, there is a great deal of data from the field in the form of
>>> the activity packs that Peru, Uruguay, et al. developed. These
>>> collections have been vetted and tested extensively and have a
>>> built-in community of support. They are learning-centric collections,
>>> but presumably, those G1G1 purchasers who are interested in other
>>> pursuits will run Fedora/GNOME or XP.
>>>
>>> -walter
>>
>>
>> I'm not convinced that they are well-tested.  They included News Reader,
>> which hasn't worked for the last several releases.  That doesn't suggest to
>> me that their activities went through any kind of extensive testing before
>> deployment.   They have since been tested in the field by children.  I
>> *haven't* seen much feedback from kids yet.  At least not from South
>> American and not any broad spectrum.
>>
>> ---Seth
>>
>>
>
> In an attempt to make the decision-making process more unbiased (or at
> least more multi-criteria) I've put up a basic spreadsheet for a
> scoring matrix at
> http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=p_Xhb6KcXLyEViA50CnCaDg&hl=en
>
> In the spreadsheet, there are three main components. Column B has
> factors such as stability, performance, etc to assess against. I just
> made these up, but feel free to make your own. The weights (column C)
> essentially defines the importance of each factor as a percentage of a
> total of 100%. The rest of the columns are for each activity. Feel
> free to add your own. Score them on a scale of 1 to 10. Each score
> gets weighted and you'll see totals at the bottom. Sort for the totals
> in Descending order and skim off the top 10.
>
> There you have it. Multi-criteria decision-making made simple.
>
> Sameer
> --
> Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor of Information Systems
> San Francisco State University
> San Francisco CA 94132 USA
> http://verma.sfsu.edu/
> http://opensource.sfsu.edu/
>

I've added a new set of factors to the spreadsheet which now reflects
the list from 
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Creating_an_activity#Include_your_Activity_in_the_core.3F

This list is row 41 and below.

Before I go on and add more to it, is anyone interested in building
this further?

Sameer
-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/
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Re: [sugar] [Grassroots-l] G1G1 Pre-installed Activities Request for Help Testing

[Sameer Verma]

On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 12:04 PM, Sameer Verma <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 21, 2008 at 1:12 PM, Sameer Verma <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> On Sat, Sep 20, 2008 at 6:00 PM, Seth Woodworth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, Sep 20, 2008 at 12:46 PM, Walter Bender <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> In fact, there is a great deal of data from the field in the form of
>>>> the activity packs that Peru, Uruguay, et al. developed. These
>>>> collections have been vetted and tested extensively and have a
>>>> built-in community of support. They are learning-centric collections,
>>>> but presumably, those G1G1 purchasers who are interested in other
>>>> pursuits will run Fedora/GNOME or XP.
>>>>
>>>> -walter
>>>
>>>
>>> I'm not convinced that they are well-tested.  They included News Reader,
>>> which hasn't worked for the last several releases.  That doesn't suggest to
>>> me that their activities went through any kind of extensive testing before
>>> deployment.   They have since been tested in the field by children.  I
>>> *haven't* seen much feedback from kids yet.  At least not from South
>>> American and not any broad spectrum.
>>>
>>> ---Seth
>>>
>>>
>>
>> In an attempt to make the decision-making process more unbiased (or at
>> least more multi-criteria) I've put up a basic spreadsheet for a
>> scoring matrix at
>> http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=p_Xhb6KcXLyEViA50CnCaDg&hl=en
>>
>> In the spreadsheet, there are three main components. Column B has
>> factors such as stability, performance, etc to assess against. I just
>> made these up, but feel free to make your own. The weights (column C)
>> essentially defines the importance of each factor as a percentage of a
>> total of 100%. The rest of the columns are for each activity. Feel
>> free to add your own. Score them on a scale of 1 to 10. Each score
>> gets weighted and you'll see totals at the bottom. Sort for the totals
>> in Descending order and skim off the top 10.
>>
>> There you have it. Multi-criteria decision-making made simple.
>>
>> Sameer
>> --
>> Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
>> Associate Professor of Information Systems
>> San Francisco State University
>> San Francisco CA 94132 USA
>> http://verma.sfsu.edu/
>> http://opensource.sfsu.edu/
>>
>
> I've added a new set of factors to the spreadsheet which now reflects
> the list from 
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Creating_an_activity#Include_your_Activity_in_the_core.3F
>
> This list is row 41 and below.
>
> Before I go on and add more to it, is anyone interested in building
> this further?
>
BTW, the spreadsheet is at
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=p_Xhb6KcXLyEViA50CnCaDg&hl=en

Sameer
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Re: [sugar] G1G1 Pre-installed Activities Request for Help Testing

[Sameer Verma]

On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 12:39 PM, Yoshiki Ohshima <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> > BTW, the spreadsheet is at
>> > http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=p_Xhb6KcXLyEViA50CnCaDg&hl=en
>>
>> So by that metric, Terminal is the best activity. Huh?
>
>  Yeah.  Do these numbers mean anything?  What is the point of
> averaging unrelated numbers?  Averaging lines of code score and
> usability score almost looks like an idea of an innumerate.
>
> Teaching kids how to treat these scores properly would be a great
> lesson.
>
> -- Yoshiki
> ___
> Sugar mailing list
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
>

The numbers are just fillers. They don't mean anything. The idea is
for you guys to fill in numbers based on a metric and not because its
popular on the list. Feel free to edit as needed.

Sameer
-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/
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Re: [sugar] G1G1 Pre-installed Activities Request for Help Testing

[Sameer Verma]

On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 2:37 PM, Sameer Verma <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 12:39 PM, Yoshiki Ohshima <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>> > BTW, the spreadsheet is at
>>> > http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=p_Xhb6KcXLyEViA50CnCaDg&hl=en
>>>
>>> So by that metric, Terminal is the best activity. Huh?
>>
>>  Yeah.  Do these numbers mean anything?  What is the point of
>> averaging unrelated numbers?  Averaging lines of code score and
>> usability score almost looks like an idea of an innumerate.
>>
>> Teaching kids how to treat these scores properly would be a great
>> lesson.
>>
>> -- Yoshiki
>> ___
>> Sugar mailing list
>> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
>>
>
> The numbers are just fillers. They don't mean anything. The idea is
> for you guys to fill in numbers based on a metric and not because its
> popular on the list. Feel free to edit as needed.
>
> Sameer


Additionally, the list of factors on that spreadsheet were also "out
of thin air". If you look at Row 41, you'll see the list of factors
from G1G1. The weights can be adjusted as long as they add up to 100%

I hope this is making sense.

Sameer
-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/
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Re: [sugar] G1G1 Pre-installed Activities Request for Help Testing

[Sameer Verma]

On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 5:31 PM, Yoshiki Ohshima <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> At Thu, 25 Sep 2008 14:37:09 -0500,
> Sameer Verma wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 12:39 PM, Yoshiki Ohshima <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> >> > BTW, the spreadsheet is at
>> >> > http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=p_Xhb6KcXLyEViA50CnCaDg&hl=en
>> >>
>> >> So by that metric, Terminal is the best activity. Huh?
>> >
>> >  Yeah.  Do these numbers mean anything?  What is the point of
>> > averaging unrelated numbers?  Averaging lines of code score and
>> > usability score almost looks like an idea of an innumerate.
>> >
>> The numbers are just fillers. They don't mean anything. The idea is
>> for you guys to fill in numbers based on a metric and not because its
>> popular on the list. Feel free to edit as needed.
>
>  I still don't get it...  Even if people edit the spreadsheet "as
> needed", at what point is it going to start "making sense"?  The
> question is whether things can be put on one dimentional axis in this
> way.  As you also know, using numbers doesn't necessarily make it
> "unbiased".
>
> -- Yoshiki
> ___
> Sugar mailing list
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
>

Hi Yoshiki,

So, let's see this from the way it first started. There was a call for
for a list of favorites, and the list came in. Everyone has their
favorite list. If I say "I want terminal" that's a binary decision.
Yes/No. If I say "Terminal is Cool/OK/Sucks" it has three levels
inputs. Why I say "Cool" is of course based on my own intuitive
assessment, but its not explicit.

Instead, if we say the qualification of Terminal is based on
attributes such as Epistemiologocal impact, quality, etc. now we have
something more explanatory for "Cool". Additionally, by factoring in
weights for each item, we can say that they are not all equally
important. Epistemological impact is the most important, so we assign
it 25%.

By scoring each activity on 9 attributes, we spread the bias across
the attributes. The weighted score of an activity is its attribute
score factored by its weight.

As for the biased/unbiased part, yes, you can score all attributes at
10 and get the max possible score, but we are all doing this for a
reason, so I assume we'll all be prudent about scoring. Additionally,
the scale of 1 to 10 for each attribute provides more variation than a
binary yes/no type answer. In the end it all depends on how subjective
your scoring was. For example, I really don't know how to rate "Fun"
for terminal on a scale of 1 to 10. But, maybe we can collectively say
that Terminal scores 7 for "Fun". Now, if Fun wasn't weighted highly
for G1G1, it wouldn't make much of a difference anyway. In fact, if we
had time, you could also use Monte Carlo
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Carlo_method) to improve the
inputs. Most spreadsheets can do this easily.

The weighted scoring approach isn't new. Its used quite commonly in
many multi-criteria assessment situations. Given that we are on a time
crunch, this may not be the way to go. Maybe flip the coin and be done
with it :-)

Hopefully next time we can spend more time on a more multi-criteria
approach instead of "Cool".

cheers,

Sameer
-- 
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Associate Professor of Information Systems
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Re: Greg Smith's Weekly Report

[Sameer Verma]

On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 5:41 AM, Greg Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> Here's my weekly report for week ending 9/26.
>
> ***
> Status against last week goals:
> 1 - Hound engineers to close all 8.2.0 blockers (see
> http://dev.laptop.org/report/28) and get a firm date for the Release
> Candidate build. Triage bugs and keep the release on schedule.
>
> GS - Done! In the end, no hounding was needed :-) Triaged bugs but fell
> a little behind the incoming rate this week. Also picked and tested
> a set of additional activities to add to the G1G1 default install.
>
> 2 - Clean up open bugs section of 8.2. release notes. Get release notes
> ready for final review.
>
> GS - Mostly done. Top section finished and ready for final review. Human
> readable explanation and categorization of key bugs started. Final edits
> and comments welcome: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Release_notes/8.2.0
>
> 3 - Write 8.2 launch plan and technical overview presentation.
>
> GS - Not done. Wrote brief blurb on the release for re-use in promoting
> it. Still need to list communication vehicles, choose the right landing
> page (Release notes?) and refine the high level message for the release.
>
> First pass release message:
> 8.2 has major enhancements including:
> - A flexible Home view and Journal with several options for searching
> and organizing activities.
> - An enhanced Frame for accessing other XOs and peripherals and for
> switching between running activities.
> - A Graphical Control Panel for setting language, network, power and
> other defaults.
> - An automated Software Update tool which finds the latest version of
> activities and updates them over the Internet.
> - Capability to backup XOs to a school server and restore files to the
> Journal as needed.
> - A new manual shipped with the XO as an activity.
> - Many other bug fixes and enhancements.
>
> For more details, see the final draft of the Release Notes at:
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Release_notes/8.2.0
>
> 4 - Share and post 8.2.1 time frame and operating procedure (e.g. Trac
> queries). Start planning for Early Field Trial/Beta of 8.2.1. Keep
> pushing for an engineering leader/owner of 8.2.1.
>
> GS - Not done. Pushed for an engineering owner a little but not too hard
> until 8.2 is done.
>
> 5 - Review and finalize short 9.1 strategy description. Restructure
> requirements section to align with strategy. Fold in more deployment
> requirements. Keep pushing for an engineering leader/owner of 9.1.
> Stretch goal: prepare to write detailed requirements sections and start
> scrubbing bugs to create working Trac queries.
>
> GS - Mostly not done. Added a few more details, discussed strategy and
> country demands. Added some more detailed requirements for deployability
>  at:
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/9.1.0#Security.2C_Activation_and_Deployability
>
> 6 - Update deployments page. Update releases page and start using new
> semantic format (thanks to S Page for laying out the structure). Also
> update XS sections of releases page.
>
> GS - Not done but did get approval to repost statistics on XOs
> "Delivered, shipped and ordered" by country. See also this URL for new
> deployment and XO information:
>
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Learning_Workshops
> Some of this will be integrated in my next update of the Deployments page.
>
> **
> Goals for next week in priority order:
>
> 1 - Get 8.2 to manufacturing. Catch up on bug triage.
>
> 2 - Finish 8.2 Release notes and get final review of them from engineering.
>
> 3 - Finalize blurb used to promote the release and start sending it out
> to internal lists. Write more generally usable Release message.
>
> 4 - Update deployments page and releases page.
>
> 5 - Post more detailed 8.2.1 page and restructure 9.1 page.
>
> 6 - Once 8.2 ships, open a bottle of Champagne. One glass then start
> work on the next release :-)

One glass is inefficient. You'll lose all the fizz if you don't finish
the rest. Or, just share! :-)
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GentooXO

[Sameer Verma]

Had to happen sooner or later. Gentoo for the XO.
http://www.gentooxo.org/ Its a Stage 4 build, so don't worry. You
won't have to actually compile/build it on your XO ;-)

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
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Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
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Re: GentooXO

[Sameer Verma]

On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 8:47 AM, Guy Sheffer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> It says that GoogleEarth is a feature there, does that run on the XO?!
> I did not see direct acceleration in the other 3ed party distros.
>

I still haven't tried GentooXO, so I can't say for sure. I plan on
trying it out later today.
--
Sameer
>
> BTW, I am working on a debian-live cd. So I guess I am none the better :-S
>
> Guy
>
> On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 7:45 PM, Sameer Verma <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>> Had to happen sooner or later. Gentoo for the XO.
>> http://www.gentooxo.org/ Its a Stage 4 build, so don't worry. You
>> won't have to actually compile/build it on your XO ;-)
>>
>> cheers,
>> Sameer
>> --
>> Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
>> Associate Professor of Information Systems
>> San Francisco State University
>> San Francisco CA 94132 USA
>> http://verma.sfsu.edu/
>> http://opensource.sfsu.edu/
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Re: POPEYE open source project

[Sameer Verma]

On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 8:25 PM, Gary C Martin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi folks, was just reading about POPEYE today, sounds real familiar to
> a certain collaboration model:
>
>http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081003123244.htm
>
> The article even ends with the quote:
>
> "In the EU, where the ultimate aim is a laptop for every child, the
> potential for small interest groups and neighbourhood groups to
> network is enormous."
>
> Could be interesting to see what problems, and how, they have solved.
>
> --Gary
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This is the project (I think)...http://www.ist-popeye.eu/

Sameer
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[Server-devel] physical security issue

[Sameer Verma]

As if discussions on this list aren't lively enough, here's another
issue to look at.

While I was in Jamaica, I met with several people who work with their
school districts, and many pointed out that if a server was to stay
physically resident at the school, it will need a lot of physical
security. The most common problem is theft. The other problem will be
physical damage (just because somebody can). It is not uncommon in
some of these

If the school server is hosted at an ISP upstream, we need something
small (maybe an XO?) at the school that can VLAN or VPN over to the
school server at the ISP/Data Center.

Any ideas?

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
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Re: [Server-devel] physical security issue

[Sameer Verma]

On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 8:42 PM, John Watlington <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Actually, Walter, we still hold hope for XOs as school servers
> for very small schools.The problem with this is insufficient
> memory and insufficient disk space.   While an external disk
> may alleviate the second problem, it has poor reliability and
> is a very attractive item for theft.
>
> But there is nothing stopping a regular laptop from serving
> as a school server.   An external network interface may be
> needed for the upstream connection.
>
> wad
>

We do have a laptop (Fujitsu P2120@ approx. 900MHz Crusoe + 384 MB
RAM) that works as a school server (XS 0.4) for OLPC-SF meetings, but
it doesn't see more than 20~30 laptops via one AA, so scalability
isn't something we've tested on it. Of course, if the laptop were more
powerful and had more RAM, it should scale up.

A couple of people at OLPC-SF have suggested alternatives like the one
I mentioned for places that can afford to have a lot of bandwidth
dropped in (donated) by a provider. I just wanted to ping the list and
see if anyone else has thought along this route. If/when anything
develops on our end, I'll post it here.

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/

> On Oct 7, 2008, at 11:25 PM, Walter Bender wrote:
>
>> Clarification: the XO is not the laptop I am proposing for the server.
>> Wad can speak to this.
>>
>> -walter
>>
>> On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 11:24 PM, Walter Bender <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> One idealet (not worthy of being called an idea): What if the server
>>> were a laptop that the teacher could take with him/her? Pros: The
>>> school need not be secure. Cons: Price, and of course, laptops can be
>>> stolen. But it does put the server in the hands of a presumably
>>> trusted individual in the community.
>>>
>>> -walter
>>>
>>> On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 11:20 PM, Sameer Verma <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 8:00 PM, John Watlington <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> You keep pushing for centrally hosted school servers.
>>>>> Are you sure you don't work for the phone company ?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Last time I checked, San Francisco State University wasn't in the
>>>> telco business.
>>>>
>>>>> Again, unless you have a 100 Mbit connection from the
>>>>> school to the upstream ISP, you will need something with
>>>>> a disk and a significant amount of memory present in the
>>>>> school.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> OK.
>>>>
>>>>> I don't disagree about the need for physical security of
>>>>> the machine, just the proposed solution.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> OK. Any other solutions? I'm all ears.
>>>>
>>>> Sameer
>>>>
>>>>> wad
>>>>>
>>>>> On Oct 7, 2008, at 10:47 PM, Sameer Verma wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> As if discussions on this list aren't lively enough, here's another
>>>>>> issue to look at.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> While I was in Jamaica, I met with several people who work with their
>>>>>> school districts, and many pointed out that if a server was to stay
>>>>>> physically resident at the school, it will need a lot of physical
>>>>>> security. The most common problem is theft. The other problem will be
>>>>>> physical damage (just because somebody can). It is not uncommon in
>>>>>> some of these
>>>>>>
>>>>>> If the school server is hosted at an ISP upstream, we need something
>>>>>> small (maybe an XO?) at the school that can VLAN or VPN over to the
>>>>>> school server at the ISP/Data Center.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Any ideas?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> cheers,
>>>>>> Sameer
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
>>>>>> Associate Professor of Information Systems
>>>>>> San Francisco State University
>>>>>> San Francisco CA 94132 USA
>>>>>> http://verma.sfsu.edu/
>>>>>> http://opensource.sfsu.edu/
>>>>>> ___
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>>>>
>>>> ___
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>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Walter Bender
>>> Sugar Labs
>>> http://www.sugarlabs.org
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Walter Bender
>> Sugar Labs
>> http://www.sugarlabs.org
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Re: OLPC Sugar-Fedora OS name

[Sameer Verma]

On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 11:25 AM, Carlos Nazareno <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hey all!  Quick question:
>
> What's the official name/branding of the OS that ships with the OLPC?
>
> It's not Sugar as that's the GUI, and neither is it Fedora 9 anymore
> as it's been forked.
>
> Can we clarify this as I find it really clunky in conversations
> whenever I try to discuss it.
>
> Does it have any other name than "The Build"?
>

Just call it Candy (Sugar + something) and be done with it!
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Re: [Server-devel] physical security issue

[Sameer Verma]

On Thu, Oct 9, 2008 at 2:59 PM, Pia Waugh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> 
>
>> We currently do not recommend that an AA be used in schools.
>> Scalability with AAs is a problem, due to problems with the mesh
>> protocols.   Hence my comment about likely needing an external
>> USB/network interface for the upstream connection.
>>
>> This might make the physical security problem easier to solve,
>> as now the server can be located anywhere in the school, and
>> only the AP needs to be positioned for optimum wireless coverage.
>
> I'm doing a reasonable AA trial and I'll post how it goes to the list soon.
> It seems to be working quite well though in initial tests.
>

How many XOs?

--
Sameer

> Cheers,
> Pia
>
> --
> OLPC Australia   http://olpc.org.au/
> Linux Australia http://linux.org.au/
> Open Source Industry Australia   http://osia.net.au/
> Software Freedom Day  http://softwarefreedomday.org/
>
> "I dig your vibe." - Rove McManus to Ice T
>
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Re: using synergy

[Sameer Verma]

On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 10:32 AM, Ed McNierney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Paul -
>
> Thanks very much for this help.  I've been wanting to be a "real user" of my
> XO more and this all helps me get pointed in the right direction.  I'm also
> hoping the two hours I spend each day working on my XO on the commuter train
> will be a tiny little marketing pitch prior to G1G1 Day on November 17!
>
>- Ed
>

Hi Ed,

I am impressed that you are making an effort for getting familiar with
the XO as a *user*. Before you get offended at my comment, let me
point out that it isn't uncommon (especially in IT) for people to sell
something that they themselves haven't used :-)

It take a bit of adaptation to use the XO, but it works for most
things. Most importantly though, it gives one a real view of things as
opposed to second hand opinions.

The marketing bit in public places goes well, although you
occasionally have to look at the stares around you and initiate the
conversation. :-) In Jamaica, we made information slips for onlookers
and curious bystanders. A short elevator (or commuter) pitch and an
info slip does the trick!

There's also talk about doing minimoo cards for G1G1 this year...

Jamaica info slip: http://wiki.laptop.org/images/0/03/Infocard.pdf
Minimoo cards: http://www.moo.com/products/minicards.php

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/

>
> On 10/8/08 12:41 PM, "Paul Fox" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> as a follow-on to my "use your XO more" thread, here's a useful
>> way of sharing your "main" system's keyboard and mouse (including
>> copy and paste) with your XO, in a fairly natural way.  these
>> instructions assume a linux desktop machine, but you can do this
>> with a mac or windows as well.  see http://synergy2.sourceforge.net)
>> (caveat:  i haven't used this very much, but it sure seems promising.)
>>
>>
>>1) on both your desktop, and your XO, install "synergy":
>> "yum install synergy" and/or "apt-get install synergy"
>>
>>1a) on the XO, edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf, and comment out this
>>   line in the Extensions session, in order to enable the XTEST
>>   extension:
>>  #Option  "XTEST" "Disable" # Mostly a debugging tool
>>   after doing this, restart X with ctrl-alt-erase.
>>
>>2) on _both_ systems, create the following configuration file.
>>   you can use the following text verbatim in both places --
>>   the names are placeholders:
>>
>> $ cat $HOME/.synergy.conf
>> section: screens
>>  my_desktop:
>>  my_xo:
>> end
>> section: links
>>  my_desktop:
>>  right = my_xo
>>  my_xo:
>>  left = my_desktop
>> end
>>
>>3) from the XO, create a synergy tunnel from the XO to your
>>   desktop.  this avoids DNS issues, and avoids needing to
>>   tinker with your desktop's firewall:
>>
>>   $ ssh -f -N -L 24800:localhost:24800 
>>
>>4) on the desktop, start the synergy server:
>>
>>   $ synergys -n my_desktop
>>
>>5) on the XO, start the synergy client.  the command connects
>>   to the server at "localhost", which causes the ssh tunnel
>>   to be used.
>>
>>   $ synergyc -n my_xo localhost
>>
>>
>> now, when you move your desktop machine's mouse off of the right
>> edge of your screen, control will switch to the XO screen.  i see
>> latency when using the mouse, but it's not too bad.  (note that
>> the touchpad or mouse that's local to the XO still functions, so
>> you can use synergy just to export your keyboard and cut/paste
>> buffers.)
>>
>> paul
>> =-
>>  paul fox, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: VideoChat is working now - hooray!

[Sameer Verma]

On Sun, Oct 12, 2008 at 1:11 AM, Pia Waugh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> We now have Videochat v9 which works. This is a great thing that will help
> children connect, and in particular help with remote support for children.
> It could assist with eHealth, remote education, speech therapy and any
> number of useful functions.
>
> Anyway, it also needs more hacking, so anyone interested in helping should
> have a play and get involved. Currently it only does basic video
> conferencing between 2 laptops but the vision (as it states on the webpage)
> is for whiteboard functionality and more.
>
> Anyway, thought there would probably be a few of you for whom this would be
> useful :)
>
> Download and information:
>
>  http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Video_Chat
>
> Cheers,
> Pia
>
> --
> OLPC Australia   http://olpc.org.au/
> Linux Australia http://linux.org.au/
> Open Source Industry Australia   http://osia.net.au/
> Software Freedom Day  http://softwarefreedomday.org/
>
>"We all pay for life with death, so everything in between should be
>free." - Bill Hicks
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Hi Pia,

Does this still require a jabber server, or will it work over the mesh?

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
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Fwd: [vox] Tux Paint code_swarm'd

[Sameer Verma]

This is interesting. Bill Kendrick ran code_swarm against CVS logs of
TuxPaint. Wonder what code_swarm of Sugar will look like...

Code Swarm: http://vis.cs.ucdavis.edu/~ogawa/codeswarm/

Sameer

-- 
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Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/




-- Forwarded message --
From: Bill Kendrick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 12:42 AM
Subject: [vox] Tux Paint code_swarm'd
To: LUGOD <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>



I ran code_swarm agains the ~6yr worth of CVS logs for Tux Paint, and
posted it to YouTube (so the quality's not so good, and it scaled up a bit
from the 320x240 that I had code_swarm render it at):

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dahUFdiago4

Enjoy! :)

--
-bill!
"Tux Paint" - free children's drawing software for Windows / Mac OS X / Linux!
Download it today!  http://www.tuxpaint.org/
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MPP with two XOs and a pppd via GPRS

[Sameer Verma]

I have two XOs (XO#1 and XO#2) with build 767. XO#1 is connected using
wvdial (pppd) over GPRS. I am using Vodafone's service in India. By
itself, XO#1 gets online. I do have to add the nameserver to
/etc/resolv.conf but other than that, it works. When I try to set XO#1
as a MPP using the mpp.py script from
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Modem#How_to_share_internet_among_other_XOs
I get an error related to iptables the first time. On a second
attempt, I get no errors and the mpp.py script seems to do its magic.
olpc-netstatus reveals that XO#1 is in MPP mode.

XO#2 cycles through the 3 channels and finally settles at mesh 1 (same
as the MPP XO#1) but does not say "XO Mesh". XO#2 says "Simple mesh"
and fails to get online via XO#1. Adding the nameserver t0 XO#2 does
not help.

Any pointers?

Sameer
-- 
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Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
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Re: G1G1-2008 US machines delivered with 8.1 build 708, not with 8.2 build 767

[Sameer Verma]

On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 6:48 PM, Ed McNierney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Ton -
>
> Thanks for supporting the G1G1 program with your purchases!  This year it
> was extremely important for us to have Amazon stocked with inventory so
> orders could be fulfilled and delivered right away, the first day of the
> program.  That meant that manufacturing actually had to begin before 8.2 was
> released; the machines being manufactured now have 8.2 built in, but the
> first G1G1 buyers will be receiving the first manufactured machines.
>
> You can find instructions on upgrading and information about the 8.2 release
> on our wiki at http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Release_notes/8.2.0
>
> This mailing list is for XO software development discussion, so it's not the
> best place to get help for G1G1 purchasers.  You can find information about
> G1G1 support with lots of great info at http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Support
>
> Thanks again for being an "early adopter" this year - we really appreciate
> it.
>
>- Ed
>

Hi Ed,

Will there be a way to communicate with G1G1 v2 purchasers/donors that
they can (and should) update to 8.2 with either a link to instructions
or an automated push of the newer build?

Sameer
-- 
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Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/


>
> On 11/19/08 9:41 PM, "Ton van Overbeek" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> Received my 2 XOs ordered last Monday today.
>> I was surprised they were booting up in 8.1 with the old sugar
>> interface and not with 8.2.
>> I was under the impression 8.2.0 was targeted for G1G1-2008, but this
>> does not seem to be the case,
>> at least not for the US machines currently in stock at Amazon.
>> Just curious to know if this was the intention.
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Re: x11vnc and vncviewer for classroom

[Sameer Verma]

On Sun, Nov 23, 2008 at 4:24 PM,  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi Peter,
>
> On Mon, 24 Nov 2008, Peter Robinson wrote:
>
>> > Hi All,
>> >
>> > Pardon my lack of experience with the XO... was supposed to get 2 of them
>> > with the original G1G1 program, but that apparently did not work out.
>> >
>> > Does the XO have a standard ethernet interface?  If so, and if that
>> > interface does PXE, it would make an admirable LTSP terminal when
>> > connected to a wired network also.
>>
>> No wired ethernet onboard, although I think it supports some usb
>> ethernet adapters.
>
> Doubtful that would work then, although it could do an X -query $X11SERVER
> where the X11 server is broadcasting XDMCP.  Could probably also use
> LTSP's ldm to connect to a standard LTSP server instead of running a local
> GUI.  That is essentially X compressed and encrypted over a
> ssh tunnel.  Either of these methods would work over either a usb NIC or
> the wifi.
>
> Enjoy,
> Scott


The XO does have 3 USB 2.0 ports and a whole bunch of USB to ethernet
adapters work (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/USB_ethernet_adaptors).
However, the XO does not have a traditional BIOS, so no PXE boot
option. 
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Ask_OLPC_a_Question_about_the_Network#XO_and_PXE.2FEtherboot

I remember talking to Oliver Grawert (copied here) of Ubuntu/LTSP fame
at the first (and only) UbuntuLive and he said he had an XO in the mix
of things that ran LTSP terminals. How he was doing this wasn't clear
though.

cheers,
Sameer
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Associate Professor of Information Systems
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Re: "Yay!, Bee, See" (ABC) software

[Sameer Verma]

On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 4:31 PM, Ben Wiley Sittler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> yeah, i added a 1200x900 version with more agressive JPEG compression
> which looks good both in color mode and in monochrome mode and is only
> 4 MiB or so:
>
> http://xent.com/~bsittler/yay-bee-see-olpc.zip
>
> hosted version:
>
> http://xent.com/~bsittler/yay-bee-see-olpc/index.html
>
> does that seem any faster?

Correct URL: http://xent.com/~bsittler/yay-bee-see-olpc/yay-bee-see.html

Sameer

>
> On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 3:26 PM, Gary C Martin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> On 24 Nov 2008, at 17:21, Ben Wiley Sittler wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I have just joined this list and read through the archives, but could
>>> not find anything similar. I also didn't find mention of anything
>>> similar on the OLPC Wiki.
>>>
>>> I recently wrote some software for use by my daughter on her OLPC. It
>>> runs inside the Browse activity, either locally using a "file:" URI or
>>> over the network. I don't know whether it will be of interest to
>>> anyone else, but I have released the software to the public domain and
>>> packaged it along with scaled-down (1600x1200 or less) copies of some
>>> public-domain images and some copyrighted-but-free-to-redistribute
>>> images under GFDL, and various Creative Commons Attribution-Share
>>> Alike, Attribution, and Share Alike licenses. Individual attribution
>>> for each image is included in the application source code.
>>
>> Seems a great addition for the younger age range :-)
>>
>> I did notice that even on a high specced laptop (1.5Ghz, 2Gb ram, broadband
>> connection) the background image was very slow to display (until it had been
>> cached locally).
>>
>> One suggestion, 1600x1200 seems a bit large (even as a max size). For the
>> XO, 800x600 (max!) would seem to be a fair max image size to save nand space
>> and keep image quality. The XO screen is capable of 1200x900 in black/white,
>> and 800x600 seems a reasonable number for it's colour resolution abilities:
>>
>>http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Display
>>
>> --Gary
>>
>>> overview:
>>>
>>> I wrote some software using DHTML (JavaScript, HTML and CSS.) It's to
>>> help learn letters and numbers, and is intended to be used with adult
>>> supervision and involvement. It is fairly easy to customize it to use
>>> different images and support different alphabets simply by editing the
>>> contents of the 

Re: Fedora 10 on XO

[Sameer Verma]

On Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 4:22 AM, Ed McNierney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Chris -
>
> Thanks; I think your thoughts are rather similar to mine and I am trying to
> get information on what the actual user need (or perceived need) is.

This is a very important point from the adoption perspective. User
adoption is largely driven by perception, as tied to their
environment.  This is the demand side of the equation. GNOME, XFCE,
Fluxbox, etc are on the supply side and RAM disk space, processor etc.
are our constraints. I'm going with the assumptions that 1) most G1G1
users already have a primary computer and 2) given that Windows has a
large market share, G1G1'ers are Windows users.

The problem is to assess the needs of G1G1 users and *then* try to fit
GNOME, XFCE etc. all within the constraints mentioned above. IMO
starting with the supply side will be problematic.

Sameer
-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/

> While
> there are obvious storage and RAM constraints involved, we need to be sure
> we're providing what most users will want (users of this desktop, of
> course).
>
> Thanks to everyone else, too, who is contributing to this discussion, as
> it's very important to move this topic into the real world of "what is
> possible, what would it look like, and what compromises would we have to
> make?"
>
>- Ed
>
>
> On 12/4/08 10:08 PM, "Chris Ball" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>> I agree that the choice is yet to be made and isn't totally obvious.
>>
>> I prefer using GNOME, but our current answer for "How much disk space
>> does it require to run Fedora 10 and GNOME and apps?" is "a 4GB SD card
>> and 256M of swap", so it seems hard to get there from here.  Maybe we
>> can run GNOME and some tiny set of apps without blowing the NAND budget,
>> though..
>>
>> - Chris.
>
>
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Re: [Server-devel] stability of XS 0.5

[Sameer Verma]

On Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 3:42 AM, Martin Langhoff
 wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 4:48 AM, Sameer Verma  wrote:
>> Given that we still have issues cropping up with XS 0.5, are we still
>> going to call it "stable"?
>
> It's great news that you care about this. Do you have a spare
> (standard modernish x86) you can use to join the testing efforts?

Sure! I have a Fujitsu P2120 (Transmeta Crusoe ~900MHz proc, 384MB
RAM) that I've been using for testing. We use it at all the OLPC-SF
meetings. XS 0.4 works fine on it "right out of the box", but no such
love with 0.5, hence the concern. I've been following your thread on
the built-in wireless card confusion and it looks like I may have the
same issue.

>  It's
> much easier than with the XO, which requires special HW. If you get
> involved, I can organise shipping additional hw that'll be useful.

We can always dig up a relatively modern P4 for testing. What
additional hw would this be?

>
> I'll soon push a new 0.5.1 "candidate" build. You'll be CC'd so you
> can lend a hand.
>

OK. I'll wait for it.

> OTOH, all the reported issues have been diagnosed, and all but one
> fixed. Not bad for a milestone release in what is a fast development
> schedule towards 1.0.

Don't get me wrong. I really appreciate your efforts. On my recent
trip to India (http://opensource.sfsu.edu/node/593), I realized the
immense importance of the school server in environs with no Internet
backhaul. Khairat, India's first pilot, has a server, but its an old
build (160 or 161, I think) and they recently lost their backhaul, so
they don't use it anymore. The teacher asked for a lot of things that
could be fixed easily with the current XS feature set. In other
schools where they might consider getting XOs, the immense cost of
backhaul will kill the effort before it gets off the ground. The XS
fills that gap. This reminds me: We should explore sneakernet-like
e-mail at some point, but I digress.

The offline nature of content and software (wikislice, moodle, etc.)
is going to be instrumental in getting XOs to poorer school districts
that cannot afford backhaul connectivity.. In fact, I think the role
of the school server is undersold and overshadowed by the XO's
capabilities and eye candy.

I'm just concerned that folks like Manoocher
(http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/grassroots/2008-December/000953.html)
might get misled by the "stable" monkier only to find out that the 0.5
ISO has issues.

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
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Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
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What keeps me going...

[Sameer Verma]

 of hope that is rare in projects. Netbooks, while
an offshoot of what OLPC has done, still fail to address key issues.
They still have embedded Wi-Fi antennas with poor range, they still
are not sunlight readable and I don't think any of these are fanless
(no moving parts). All these in my view are failures, and I think
these companies have failed to address these items because their
constraints and goals are very different. They are not thinking of
Rahul and Manisha in Khairat, or Garima in Bhagmalpur, who does not
have a classroom and has to sit under a tree outdoors. They are very
much thinking of Lawrence and Raj (two of my students) in San
Francisco, who will sit inside a well light room, next to a power
outlet. So, yes netbooks are cheap and many of us flock to it, but its
still no answer to the original problem. Nothing revolutionary there.
Its just "Honey, I shrunk the laptop".

In Bhagmalpur (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Bhagmalpur), my maternal
village, I saw what passes for education. Its more along the lines of
going through the motions of going to school. The children are sent
there so that they don't pester the folks at home. They also go to
school because the government provides a free meal. But, as far as
learning is concerned, there is none. At least none that happens in
class. The school has rooms too small to house children, so they sit
outside. Many don't have books, or have books that are torn and need
TLC. The teacher can barely corral 100 students per class, let alone
teach from a book or the board. They are more like shepherds than
teachers. The children know this well, and have resigned to it as a
way of life. Will XOs make a difference in their lives? The enthusiast
in me says "Yes!" The researcher in me says "If the null hypothesis is
'no, it won't', then there is only one way to find out."

Times are difficult. We are facing severe cuts in our own system here
at SF State and we have to start thinking creatively. In light of a
weak budget, some are starting to look to FOSS for cheap software -
something good is coming off of this downturn :-) If the OLPC project
were to shut down, I think some of us will still live in denial and
hang on to our XOs like a worn blanket, but let's hope that day does
not come. Please keep plugging away. Karma is a terrific attribute. I
hope you all earn lots of it.

OLPC-SF will meet on Jan 17, 2009 and celebrate our first anniversary
(http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_SanFranciscoBayArea)

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
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Re: HTML-based/Browser apps (was Re: anti-cheating)

[Sameer Verma]

On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 2:15 AM, S Page  wrote:
> Carlos Nazareno wrote:
>
>> - I'd also like to see more work done on a method to easily bundle
>> Gnash or HTML-based/Browser applications as stand-alone activities, or
>> at least launch the browser with the wrapped activity loaded upon
>> startup.
>
> See the Help activity in 8.2.0, it instantiates the WebView from hulahop
> that underlies Browse and points it at help/XO_Introduction.html.
>
> But is it so bad to make your "HTML-based application" an installable
> collection that shows up in the "OLPC Library" navigation on the Browse
> home page?  See <http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Creating_a_collection>.  Just
> because most library content is static non-interactive ebook material is
> no reason really cool browser apps shouldn't go in the OLPC Library.
>
> One thing that might make collections more appealing and feel like
> applications is if the collection's library.info icon (which seems
> otherwise unused?!) or the web site's favicon would appear in the
> Journal instead or as well as the generic globe icon of Browse.  I filed
> a confused ticket #9188 for this enhancement.
>
>> - Using a local daemon or service of some sort, the method I
>> previously outlined can also be used here for "standalone" mode of the
>> tests. This way, the learner can also practice with them and learn
>> outside of class hours.
>
> The WikiBrowse activity (WikipediaEN.activity on G1G1 8.2 laptops)
> starts a local python Web server and fires up a WebActivity (Browse)
> instance pointing at it.
>
> Better, Browse's engine is XULRunner 1.9 and it has support for most of
> the HTML 5 offline application spec
> <http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-html5-20080122/#offline>.
> E.g. http://starkravingfinkle.org/projects/offline/todo.html is an
> expanding form you can fill out while offline that will update the web
> server when next online.  It should work on an XO (I can't try it, my
> wireless router is bust! :-( ).
>
> I concur with where you're going.  *Never* ever bet against the browser.
>  Browse or a custom WebView activity can do everything that Firefox 3
> can do, without worrying about compatibility with abysmal MS Internet
> Explorer that's keeping the web stuck in 2004.
> E.g. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/FindTheCountry -- why bother with crappy
> static PDF atlases when interactive technology like that is available?
> And you can View > Source it!
>

This is one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time!!! This is
definitely going down in the SVG examples section for my class in
Spring.

Sameer
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Re: AMD to stop working on Geodes (Carlos Nazareno)

[Sameer Verma]

On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 5:14 PM, Mitch Bradley  wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 12:04 PM, Carlos Nazareno  wrote:
>
>> > AMD sees no Geode chip replacement in sight
>> > AMD on Monday said it has no replacement for the aging Geode low-power
>> > chips that are used in netbooks and set-top boxes.
>> > http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/274414/amd_sees_no_geode_chip_replacement_sight
>>
>
> The cost of developing and supporting a processor family is staggering.
>
> AMD bought the Geode business from another company.  Often, when a company 
> buys a business unit, that unit withers on the vine.  The "new kids on the 
> block" have a difficult time establishing a strong place within the 
> established "pecking order", so in the competition for resources, the new 
> group often comes up short.  When there is an economic downturn, the new 
> group is often the first to go.
>
> AMD barely has the resources to maintain a competitive stance in the part of 
> the market that has traditionally been their core, especially now that the 
> economy is bad.
>
> I'm sure that AMD would be very happy if they had enough money to go after 
> the low power market, but they just don't.
>
>
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Somebody on Slashdot (yeah!) has a good write-up pointing to the fact
that AMD isn't halting production. Its just not going to develop Geode
further. http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1105799&cid=26623857

>From the comment:




AMD is NOT halting production of the Geode. They are not leaving the
market (RTFM!). They have decided that it serves it's niche AS IS and
will be kept AS IS. That's a very different statement. They're saying
that it is a mature product (a rare thing in IT).

Currently, the Geode is good enough for many applications and would be
a step up for others. The embedded world tends away from the shiny
object model of upgrades. If it worked last year, it works this year,
and it'll work next year. Changes in the product are considered
undesirable.

AMD's statement doesn't even mean there won't be a die shrink or even
a faster Geode in the future, just that they won't be updating it's
architecture.

It's not a bad decision either. There is a significant niche for the
Geode between the Atom (too hot, too power hungry) and things like the
Dragon Ball and mips (not enough power).

Geode isn't in trouble until Intel comes out with an x86 that doesn't
need a heatsink (or at least doesn't need a fan).



I've seen the Geode in action in Soekris boards
(http://www.soekris.com/) when I was doing fun Wi-Fi stuff, and used
to wonder what it would be like if we had a Geode machine running a
laptop...well that wish came true with the XO :-)

I'll also point out (peripherally) to a comment made by Jeff Bezos in
a BusinessWeek article
(http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_17/b4081064880218.htm),
where he says that frugality leads to innovation (necessity being the
mother of invention, etc.) and I think the frugality of XO's design
has definitely lead to many innovations. I for one would *not* have
thought that I would be using a 433MHz x86 laptop with 256MB RAM as my
favorite machine :-)

Hats off to the Geode!

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
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Associate Professor of Information Systems
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Re: [support-gang] Uruguay: Using the XO with Developmentally Challenged Kids

[Sameer Verma]

On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 12:03 PM, Caryl Bigenho  wrote:
> Hi...
>
> Here is more good stuff from Uruguay.  These anecdotes were collected from
> teachers at a school for developmentally challenged children in Uruguay at a
> fair they had for a number of schools participating in Project Ceibal (OLPC
> in Uruguay).  They were originally posted on a blog in Spanish which I will
> list below, but here is where you can find a machine translation into
> English on the Project Ceibal blog site:
>
> http://olpc-ceibal.blogspot.com/2009/01/anecdotes-of-plan-ceibal-in-durazno.html
>
> Caryl
>
> The original blog in Spanish can be found at:
>
> http://www.blogedu-rosamel.blogspot.com/
>
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>

Wow! These anecdotes are terrific! Very encouraging. Thanks for the link, Caryl!

cheers,
Sameer
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booting from ext2 formatted SD card

[Sameer Verma]

Is it possible to boot an XO from an SD card with an Ext2 filesystem?
This is an XO with a dev key. I've followed instructions from
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Ubuntu_On_OLPC_XO but it sits at the OFW
prompt saying "Unrecognized program format"

Any pointers would be great.

Sameer
-- 
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Associate Professor of Information Systems
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Re: booting from ext2 formatted SD card

[Sameer Verma]

On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 12:29 AM,   wrote:
> On Sun, 8 Feb 2009, Sameer Verma wrote:
>
>> Is it possible to boot an XO from an SD card with an Ext2 filesystem?
>> This is an XO with a dev key. I've followed instructions from
>> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Ubuntu_On_OLPC_XO but it sits at the OFW
>> prompt saying "Unrecognized program format"
>>
>> Any pointers would be great.
>
> did you disable security at the OFW prompt after getting the dev key?
>
> David Lang
>

Yes. I'm going to try a known image on FAT32 and make sure that works
before mucking around with Ext2...

cheers,
Sameer
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Re: booting from ext2 formatted SD card

[Sameer Verma]

On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 11:37 PM, Sameer Verma  wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 12:29 AM,   wrote:
>> On Sun, 8 Feb 2009, Sameer Verma wrote:
>>
>>> Is it possible to boot an XO from an SD card with an Ext2 filesystem?
>>> This is an XO with a dev key. I've followed instructions from
>>> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Ubuntu_On_OLPC_XO but it sits at the OFW
>>> prompt saying "Unrecognized program format"
>>>
>>> Any pointers would be great.
>>
>> did you disable security at the OFW prompt after getting the dev key?
>>
>> David Lang
>>
>
> Yes. I'm going to try a known image on FAT32 and make sure that works
> before mucking around with Ext2...
>
> cheers,
> Sameer
> --

Never mind. Just a bad olpc.fth file. Its getting late :-)

Sameer
-- 
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Re: booting from ext2 formatted SD card

[Sameer Verma]

On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 8:44 AM, Robert Howard  wrote:
> Sameer,
>
> Sure I do it all the time.  If you can wait until the next OLPC-SF meeting I
> will help you then.
>
> regards,
>
> /Robert H.
>

Figured out the glitch. On to the next step...

Sameer

> On Feb 8, 2009, at 11:09 PM, Sameer Verma wrote:
>
>> Is it possible to boot an XO from an SD card with an Ext2 filesystem?
>> This is an XO with a dev key. I've followed instructions from
>> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Ubuntu_On_OLPC_XO but it sits at the OFW
>> prompt saying "Unrecognized program format"
>>
>> Any pointers would be great.
>>
>> Sameer
>> --
>> Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
>> Associate Professor of Information Systems
>> San Francisco State University
>> San Francisco CA 94132 USA
>> http://verma.sfsu.edu/
>> http://opensource.sfsu.edu/
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Re: [Server-devel] XS 0.5.1 RC - Last round of testing...

[Sameer Verma]

On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 2:06 PM, Martin Langhoff
 wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 8:26 PM, Dave Bauer  wrote:
>>>  http://xs-dev.laptop.org/xs/other/OLPC-School-Server-0.5.1-i386.iso
>>
>> I checked and the ISO does not appear to be available yet. Should it be
>> there now?
>
> the rsync completed not long ago, so it's there now. Get it while it's hot...
>
> cheers,
>
>
> 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
>

Hi all,

I've been caught up in a new semester, teaching, etc. [paid
employment, so can't complain :-)] so I'm running behind testing 0.5.1
I've been running it for a few nights now, and the main frustration
was with eth0 not showing up. It looks like I am the victim of the
dreaded Realtek 8139 bug. It worked in XS 0.4 but in 0.5.1 it refuses
to show up.

Some references:

http://myy.helia.fi/~karte/realtek_8139.html
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=189165
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/fedora-35/problems-with-fedora-9-live-cd-no-network-using-dhcp-realtek-nic-how-to-copy2ram-648094/
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r21127353-SOLVED-Just-installed-Fedora-9-major-networking-issues

I'm looking into it, but as a result of no eth0, nothing else actually works.

This is on a Fujitsu P2120 sub-notebook with a 900MHz Crusoe proc and 384MB RAM.

Sameer
-- 
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Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
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Re: [Server-devel] XS 0.5.1 RC - Last round of testing...

[Sameer Verma]

On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 8:42 PM, Martin Langhoff
 wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 2:41 PM, Sameer Verma  wrote:
>> was with eth0 not showing up. It looks like I am the victim of the
>> dreaded Realtek 8139 bug. It worked in XS 0.4 but in 0.5.1 it refuses
>> to show up.
>
> Strange, but it does look like a driver problem.
>
> The links you provide show various different problems with that NIC.
> In some cases, irqpoll in the kernel boot line fixes, in others some
> fiddling with ethtool was needed...
>
> It'll be good to know which of the fixes helps you :-)

appending irqpoll has fixed that problem. Now, I've hit another bug.
This is yum broken with _sha256 as stated here.
http://fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=193507

I'm going to try the workaround.

>
> BTW, if you upgraded from XS-0.4, it might be a good idea to rm
> /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules

No, this was a clean install. I'm running the server for testing only,
so I can afford to wipe it clean.

Sameer
-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
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Re: [Server-devel] XS 0.5.1 RC - Last round of testing...

[Sameer Verma]

On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 10:37 PM, Sameer Verma  wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 8:42 PM, Martin Langhoff
>  wrote:
>> On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 2:41 PM, Sameer Verma  wrote:
>>> was with eth0 not showing up. It looks like I am the victim of the
>>> dreaded Realtek 8139 bug. It worked in XS 0.4 but in 0.5.1 it refuses
>>> to show up.
>>
>> Strange, but it does look like a driver problem.
>>
>> The links you provide show various different problems with that NIC.
>> In some cases, irqpoll in the kernel boot line fixes, in others some
>> fiddling with ethtool was needed...
>>
>> It'll be good to know which of the fixes helps you :-)
>
> appending irqpoll has fixed that problem. Now, I've hit another bug.
> This is yum broken with _sha256 as stated here.
> http://fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=193507
>
> I'm going to try the workaround.
>
>>
>> BTW, if you upgraded from XS-0.4, it might be a good idea to rm
>> /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules
>
> No, this was a clean install. I'm running the server for testing only,
> so I can afford to wipe it clean.
>
> Sameer
> --
> Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor of Information Systems
> San Francisco State University
> San Francisco CA 94132 USA
> http://verma.sfsu.edu/
> http://opensource.sfsu.edu/
>


So, after mucking around last night and today, I wiped my XS box and
reformatted it to remove ALL traces of 0.4  I have a clean 0.5.1
install on it. md5sum of the ISO is c0fde10b93cab3cb1a3bc3a42ceb5408

I've circumvented the realtek 8139 problem by appending irqpoll in
grub.conf That seems to work, although I have to bring up eth0
manually and issuing dhcient eth0

I still hit the bug of _sha256 as mentioned here:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=454179

Note that I am not upgrading anything. Its a clean install. I believe
the appropriate word for this is: AARGH!

I wish Fedora had  LTS or "Stable" branch (it does...kinda...in
RHEL...are we allowed to say CentOS here?) but that's another thread
and another rant. It does remind me of why I don't run anything on
Fedora anymore.

Anyway, this is getting in the way. Is anyone seeing this too? If so,
then its a significant barrier for 0.5.1

Suggestions?

Sameer
-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/
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Re: [Server-devel] XS 0.5.1 RC - Last round of testing...

[Sameer Verma]

On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 2:56 AM, Martin Langhoff
 wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 8:30 PM, Sameer Verma  wrote:
>> I've circumvented the realtek 8139 problem by appending irqpoll in
>> grub.conf That seems to work, although I have to bring up eth0
>> manually and issuing dhcient eth0
>
> Good to hear irqpoll works. Strange that dhclient doesn't work on
> network start...
>

Yeah. I'm going to have to figure out how to get eth0 to come up
automatically (its been a while since I did anything RH).

>> I still hit the bug of _sha256 as mentioned here:
>> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=454179
>
> That bug is bizarre. I've installed 0.5.1 on several machines without
> hitting this at all. No idea whatcould it be - package that reportedly
> caused that bug has long been fixed... what versions of those pkgs
> does rpm -qa say you have?
>

I'm attaching the output of rpm -qa

Sameer
-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/


rpmqa
Description: Binary data
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Re: [Server-devel] XS 0.5.1 RC - Last round of testing...

[Sameer Verma]

On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 11:30 PM, Sameer Verma  wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 10:37 PM, Sameer Verma  wrote:
>> On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 8:42 PM, Martin Langhoff
>>  wrote:
>>> On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 2:41 PM, Sameer Verma  wrote:
>>>> was with eth0 not showing up. It looks like I am the victim of the
>>>> dreaded Realtek 8139 bug. It worked in XS 0.4 but in 0.5.1 it refuses
>>>> to show up.
>>>
>>> Strange, but it does look like a driver problem.
>>>
>>> The links you provide show various different problems with that NIC.
>>> In some cases, irqpoll in the kernel boot line fixes, in others some
>>> fiddling with ethtool was needed...
>>>
>>> It'll be good to know which of the fixes helps you :-)
>>
>> appending irqpoll has fixed that problem. Now, I've hit another bug.
>> This is yum broken with _sha256 as stated here.
>> http://fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=193507
>>
>> I'm going to try the workaround.
>>
>>>
>>> BTW, if you upgraded from XS-0.4, it might be a good idea to rm
>>> /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules
>>
>> No, this was a clean install. I'm running the server for testing only,
>> so I can afford to wipe it clean.
>>
>> Sameer
>> --
>> Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
>> Associate Professor of Information Systems
>> San Francisco State University
>> San Francisco CA 94132 USA
>> http://verma.sfsu.edu/
>> http://opensource.sfsu.edu/
>>
>
>
> So, after mucking around last night and today, I wiped my XS box and
> reformatted it to remove ALL traces of 0.4  I have a clean 0.5.1
> install on it. md5sum of the ISO is c0fde10b93cab3cb1a3bc3a42ceb5408
>
> I've circumvented the realtek 8139 problem by appending irqpoll in
> grub.conf That seems to work, although I have to bring up eth0
> manually and issuing dhcient eth0
>
> I still hit the bug of _sha256 as mentioned here:
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=454179
>
> Note that I am not upgrading anything. Its a clean install. I believe
> the appropriate word for this is: AARGH!
>
> I wish Fedora had  LTS or "Stable" branch (it does...kinda...in
> RHEL...are we allowed to say CentOS here?) but that's another thread
> and another rant. It does remind me of why I don't run anything on
> Fedora anymore.
>
> Anyway, this is getting in the way. Is anyone seeing this too? If so,
> then its a significant barrier for 0.5.1
>
> Suggestions?
>
> Sameer
> --
> Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor of Information Systems
> San Francisco State University
> San Francisco CA 94132 USA
> http://verma.sfsu.edu/
> http://opensource.sfsu.edu/
>

Some more snooping around. I took the same CD and installed it on a
desktop with one NIC. This time everything went as per plan.
Everything!

I have a XS-0.5.1 running in my office with one AA plugged into it and
working as advertised. It works great, except that I don't want to lug
desktops around to OLPC-SF meetings :-) We have a local school showing
up tomorrow. I'm glad that i am able to get 0.5.1 running, so I can
recommend it to them. Thanks for all the hard labor, Martin! I'll buy
you a few beers if/when you come to SF for moodlemoot.

I *strongly* suspect that the Fujitsu P2120 laptop problems as stated
in this thread are related to Realtek 8139 driver not working properly
during installation. Maybe I should append irqpoll to the grub lines
*before* the install CD boots and see how that goes.

Sameer
-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/
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Re: [Server-devel] XS 0.5.1 RC - Last round of testing...

[Sameer Verma]

On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 3:31 PM, Jerry Vonau  wrote:
> On Fri, 2009-02-13 at 10:19 -0800, Sameer Verma wrote:
>> On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 2:57 AM, Jerry Vonau  wrote:
>> > On Thu, 2009-02-12 at 23:30 -0800, Sameer Verma wrote:
>> >> On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 10:37 PM, Sameer Verma  wrote:
>> >> > On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 8:42 PM, Martin Langhoff
>> >> >  wrote:
>> >> >> On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 2:41 PM, Sameer Verma  wrote:
>> >> >>> was with eth0 not showing up. It looks like I am the victim of the
>> >> >>> dreaded Realtek 8139 bug. It worked in XS 0.4 but in 0.5.1 it refuses
>> >> >>> to show up.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> Strange, but it does look like a driver problem.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> The links you provide show various different problems with that NIC.
>> >> >> In some cases, irqpoll in the kernel boot line fixes, in others some
>> >> >> fiddling with ethtool was needed...
>> >> >>
>> >> >> It'll be good to know which of the fixes helps you :-)
>> >> >
>> >> > appending irqpoll has fixed that problem. Now, I've hit another bug.
>> >> > This is yum broken with _sha256 as stated here.
>> >> > http://fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=193507
>> >> >
>> >> > I'm going to try the workaround.
>> >> >
>> >> >>
>> >> >> BTW, if you upgraded from XS-0.4, it might be a good idea to rm
>> >> >> /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules
>> >> >
>> >> > No, this was a clean install. I'm running the server for testing only,
>> >> > so I can afford to wipe it clean.
>> >> >
>> >> > Sameer
>> >> > --
>> >> > Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
>> >> > Associate Professor of Information Systems
>> >> > San Francisco State University
>> >> > San Francisco CA 94132 USA
>> >> > http://verma.sfsu.edu/
>> >> > http://opensource.sfsu.edu/
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> So, after mucking around last night and today, I wiped my XS box and
>> >> reformatted it to remove ALL traces of 0.4  I have a clean 0.5.1
>> >> install on it. md5sum of the ISO is c0fde10b93cab3cb1a3bc3a42ceb5408
>> >>
>> >> I've circumvented the realtek 8139 problem by appending irqpoll in
>> >> grub.conf That seems to work, although I have to bring up eth0
>> >> manually and issuing dhcient eth0
>> >>
>> >> I still hit the bug of _sha256 as mentioned here:
>> >> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=454179
>> >>
>> >> Note that I am not upgrading anything. Its a clean install. I believe
>> >> the appropriate word for this is: AARGH!
>> >>
>> >> I wish Fedora had  LTS or "Stable" branch (it does...kinda...in
>> >> RHEL...are we allowed to say CentOS here?) but that's another thread
>> >> and another rant. It does remind me of why I don't run anything on
>> >> Fedora anymore.
>> >>
>> >> Anyway, this is getting in the way. Is anyone seeing this too? If so,
>> >> then its a significant barrier for 0.5.1
>> >>
>> >> Suggestions?
>> >
>> > Can you post the /root/install.log and /root/anaconda.log or just send
>> > them to me.
>> >
>> > Jerry
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>>
>> I've attached both. Note: anaconda.log was in /var/log/ and not in /root
>>
>> Sameer
>
> Martin:
>
> I'm seeing the same errors in the install log as Sameer while installing
> on an XO. openssl does not get installed, because uname returns as an
> i586 while there is no openssl.586 in the repo just .686. Just to backup
> my hunch note that a 586 kernel gets installed as recorded in the
> install log. "yum repolist" returns the same error as mentioned in the
> BZ on the XO.
>
> Sameer:
> What does "uname -a" return on this laptop?
>
>
> Jerry
>
>
>
>

uname -a on the fujitsu laptop returns:

Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.27.9-73.fc9.i586 #1 SMP Tue Dec 16
14:34:16 EST 2008 i586 i586 i386 GNU/Linux

Sameer
-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/
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Re: [Server-devel] Please test - XS-0.5.2-dev01

[Sameer Verma]

On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 3:46 PM, Martin Langhoff
 wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 3:44 PM, Sameer Verma  wrote:
>> dev02 is at 291 M while dev01 is at 547 M. Is it all there? Do you
>> have checksums?
>
> dev02 is there now. And also at
>
> http://eduforge.eduforge.org/olpcxs/
>
> cheers,
>

checksum?

>
> martin
> --
>  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: [Server-devel] Wireless Cards in the School Server

[Sameer Verma]

On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 11:41 AM, Xavier Ziemba
 wrote:
> I've been working on configuring an XS server for the Cambridge Friends 
> School in Massachusetts and have a couple of questions regarding wireless 
> networking and the XS server. Does the XS software support automatic 
> configuration of PCI wireless cards within the server itself? The 
> documentation on the OLPC wiki seems to suggest that using separate wireless 
> access points through a wired interface is supported; would this be a better 
> solution for this deployment? Also, how would I go about configuring the 
> appropriate links between network interfaces if I used wireless cards within 
> the server?
>
> Thanks,
> Xavier Ziemba
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>

You should be able to run PCI wireless cards with XS as long as Fedora
supports the drivers. The only thing that may get in the way is the
way wireless cards get their labels allocated (wlan0 instead of eth0,
etc) in which case the interface bonding will break (IIRC, the labels
on the XS are eth0, eth1, etc).

I haven't tried it, but its worth a shot. Can you report back and tell
us if it worked?

Sameer
-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
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Re: Announcing GuruFest: Come hear from OLPC experts, kicking off this Friday with Mel Chua

[Sameer Verma]

2009/3/9 Mel Chua :
> Good point, David. In this particular case, there'll be opportunities for
> remote participation for people who aren't in the Boston area - I almost
> never give a talk these days without some sort of IRC backchannel. In this
> case, I'll make sure a computer is open and on #olpc-meeting so that (my
> nick is mchua).
>
> I'm hoping to make as many of the other Gurufests as possible - if I'm
> there, there'll be an IRC backchannel. ;) If I'm not there, I hope there'll
> be one anyway.
>
> --Mel
>

How about also putting it up on a justin.tv channel?

Sameer
-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
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Active Antennas...

[Sameer Verma]

What's the status on the moratorium on active antennas? Can we request
these for small deployments (<40) ?

Sameer
-- 
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Associate Professor of Information Systems
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Re: Active Antennas...

[Sameer Verma]

On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 6:23 AM, Ed McNierney  wrote:
> Right - the Contributors' Program is not intended to provide equipment for
> pilots or small deployments.
>
> Sameer, which small deployments are you talking about?
>
>        - Ed
>

Hi Ed,

We have a group in SF that's collecting XOs (12 is the current target.
We have 8 thus far via e-bay/donations/g1g1) for a school in
Maroantsetra, Madagascar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maroantsetra).
Chris Golden (http://nature.berkeley.edu/kremenlab/chris.html), a grad
student from UC Berkeley works with a school there and travels between
SF and Madagascar. His PhD work is based on field studies in
Maroantsetra. The current plan is that he is going to take upto 12 XOs
in his luggage.

He travels back and forth every four to six months. We were thinking
of adding a school server to this mix based on this box
(http://www.fit-pc.com/new/whats-new.html) and preload it with content
because there is no Internet access in Maroantsetra. If the first
phase takes off (he leaves in May) we'll follow up with another dozen.
Transporting XOs is an issue. No roads go to Maroantsetra. Chris has
to fly into Madagascar, take a bus/taxi, and finally fly a small
single engine charter, which lands in a cow pasture.

We were thinking of plugging in an AA into the schoolserver and go
from there. I wasn't thinking of getting AAs for testing. I already
have those. I was curious about the plan with AAs going forth, given
that if the numbers are appropriate, it allows for a mesh
architecture.

If the AA option doesn't work, we'll either ship an additional AP or
swap the internal miniPCI on this schoolserver with a radio (engenius
probably) that can become an AP and go from there.

Any help+ideas would be great.

cheers,
Sameer

-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/

>
> On Mar 16, 2009, at 12:01 AM, Martin Langhoff wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 3:44 PM, Sameer Verma  wrote:
>>>
>>> What's the status on the moratorium on active antennas? Can we request
>>> these for small deployments (<40) ?
>>
>> it's ok to request them for development & testing, but for deployments...
>> hmmm
>>
>> Depending on kernel & firmware versions, they are reliable or
>> unreliable. It's hit and miss. And RF usage is still high I think, so
>> I'm not sure we can cope with 40 users in a stable, usable shape.
>>
>> For anything resembling field usage, get a cheap AP instead and live
>> longer.
>>
>> cheers,
>>
>>
>>
>> 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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>
>
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Re: Active Antennas...

[Sameer Verma]

On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 7:52 PM, Holt  wrote:
> Please apply here: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Contributors_program
> If you are approved, delivery generally occurs within about a week.
>
> Full paragraph responses are not required since you are not applying for
> laptops -- one clear single sentence or two should suffice for most of
> the 8 questions here:
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Contributors_program/Project_proposal_form
>
> Thanks Sameer.
>
>
>> What's the status on the moratorium on active antennas? Can we request
>> these for small deployments (<40) ?
>>
>> Sameer
>>
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We'll go ahead and do this anyway so that the deployment is visible on
the contrib. projects list.

Sameer
-- 
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Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
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Re: Active Antennas...

[Sameer Verma]

On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 9:01 PM, Martin Langhoff
 wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 3:44 PM, Sameer Verma  wrote:
>> What's the status on the moratorium on active antennas? Can we request
>> these for small deployments (<40) ?
>
> it's ok to request them for development & testing, but for deployments... hmmm
>
> Depending on kernel & firmware versions, they are reliable or
> unreliable. It's hit and miss. And RF usage is still high I think, so
> I'm not sure we can cope with 40 users in a stable, usable shape.
>

This worries me a bit. I realize that the testing AAs are not
certified, etc. but is the RF high enough to worry? I hope its still
within 802.11 spec.

Sameer
-- 
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Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
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Re: [support-gang] you volunteers are nuts :)

[Sameer Verma]

On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 5:44 PM, Adam Holt  wrote:
> I didn't even call a meeting, and 10+ ppl still showed up 4PM Sunday--
> your Loyalty to the cause is insane^h^h^h^h^h^hWONDERFUL :))
>
> Topics discussed -- also posted to
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Support_meetings :
>
>    * Sameer's researching how we might start a VoIP-on-XO project--I
> strongly favor this prjct--keep recruiting!
>       http://iaxclient.sourceforge.net/iaxcomm/
>       http://www.astlinux.org/
>       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter-Asterisk_eXchange
>       http://iaxclient.wiki.sourceforge.net/
>
> http://www.slideshare.net/sverma/voice-over-internet-protocol-voip-using-asterisk
>       http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-IAX+versus+SIP
>

Just added a (somewhat incomplete) page on the wiki about IAX.
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/IAX

Haven't tried an IAX client on Sugar/XO as yet. Please jump in! I do
have a Asterisk server set up, so let me know if I can help.

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
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mesh only

[Sameer Verma]

Hello everyone,

Is there a way to run an XO in mesh configuration only (say Simple
mesh) and disable AP association? The parents at a Montessori school
I'm working with have raised this question. They are ok with the XOs
associating via mesh, but are wary of several open APs in the
neighborhood. They don't want the children accidentally (or curiously)
clicking on an open AP icon and getting online. Another local school
that has 22 XOs has expressed the same concern.

cheers,
Sameer
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format for lessons/content

[Sameer Verma]

Hi,
Forgive me if this has been discussed and resolved before - it perhaps
skipped my radar.

I ran into Jason Cole (http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596529185/)
today at OSBC (http://www.infoworld.com/event/osbc/) and mentioned the
problem of creating content/lessons for Moodle. IIRC, Bryan Berry had
raised this issue - what should teachers author lessons in? HTML,
Flash, PDF, etc.

Jason's suggestion for teachers building content on their own was to
use Moodle-on-a-usb stick
(http://docs.moodle.org/en/Student_projects/SQLite#Moodle.2FSQLite_on_a_stick).
Plug the stick into a computer, fire up Moodle on a stick, create a
course, backup the course to a zip file and restore it on Moodle on
the school server.

Has anyone tried this? I haven't yet using Moodle on a stick (although
I have backed up and restored Moodle courses several times...in fact
every semester) but will do so once I wrap up with OSBC. Thought I'd
pass this along for comments.

cheers,
Sameer
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San Francisco State University
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I hear you

[Sameer Verma]

Just came across ihu or I Hear You (http://ihu.sourceforge.net/), a
peer-to-peer audio app. As compared to Asterisk, it takes the PBX
dependency out of the picture. You do need to know the end point's IP.
I haven't tried it on the XO as yet, but sounds like a good fit (no
pun intended).

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
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Re: What`s going on with OLPC WIKI home page ?

[Sameer Verma]

On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 11:40 PM, Rafael Enrique Ortiz Guerrero
 wrote:
> Thanks to Mitch,
>
> he restore back the gallery and blocked the vandal.
>
>
>
> Rafael Ortiz
>

Speaking of images on the wiki, the resizing/thumbnailing mechanism
(imagemagick?) is still broken.

http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/olpc-sysadmin/2009-February/000172.html

Are there any plans of fixing that? We (those who see it all the time)
are perhaps used to malformed resizing, but newcomers and visitors are
not. It looks terrible.

Also, if the main page is subject to trivial vandalism, then maybe it
should be locked?

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
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Re: Debugging booting problems with F9 on SD card...

[Sameer Verma]

On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 2:41 AM, Martin Langhoff
 wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 11:08 AM, Peter Robinson  wrote:
>> What would it take to move the next XS Server release to either F10 or
>> F11 as F9 will be EOL as soon as F11 comes out in a month or so (one
>> month after F11 is out F9 will be EOL).
>
> It's a bit of a recurring question. I am swamped with feature
> development for a while. My hope is to port to F11 or even F12 when I
> can. Help is welcome and Jerry is doing a lot of work on F10/11.
>
> But qualifiying something as an XS release is a sizable workload t is
> to do all the testing to ensure it is stable, installs/upgrades and
> works as desired. It takes quite a bit of effort and gear. And I want
> to limit how many Fedora releases I have to support. (My plan is to
> transition to a stable RHEL/Centos asap, hence my F11/F12 targets.)
>

+1

Fedora releases are too fast a moving target. I personally use Ubuntu
LTS or Debian Stable for my servers for this very reason.

Sameer

> But that for the future.
>
> At this stage, people are needing to boot our F9 based XS-0.5.x and
> upcoming 0.6, and that's what I am asking for help with.
>
> Can you help me with that? :-) There's an odd issue with booting when
> an initrd is involved.
>
> cheers,
>
>
> martin
> --
>  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: plz test Build 802 + Firmware Q2E41 = Candidate Release 8.2.1

[Sameer Verma]

On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 6:28 PM, Gary C Martin  wrote:
> Clean installed on 2 XOs here (Peru/Spanish 1xB4, and US/English
> 1xXO-1). All went fine, no new issues to report. Working fine with WEP
> AP connections (full activity update via control panel), but haven't
> re-tested on WPA or WPA2 yet. Have a 3rd XO-1 that I'll run an upgrade
> on to test that path.
>
> --Gary
>

Clean install works. Boots up a wee bit faster than build767 (about 5
seconds...) "Feels" quicker.

Wi-Fi:
Checked with Linksys WRT54G V1 running dd-wrt DD-WRT v24 (05/20/08) std

Wi-Fi with WPA2 (TKIP setting on AP and auto on XO) works.
Wi-Fi with WPA (TKIP setting on AP and auto on XO) does not work. It
loops. Works in build 767
Wi-Fi with WEP works
Wi-Fi with no encryption works.
Wi-Fi simple mesh works. (802-XO to 767-XO)
Wi-Fi with Active Antenna (802-XO to school portal to 767-XO) works.

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
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Associate Professor of Information Systems
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Re: [support-gang] 2PM EDT Friday: BRIEF Contributors Program Mtg (#olpc-meeting)

[Sameer Verma]

On Fri, May 1, 2009 at 11:22 AM, Aaron Hull  wrote:
> Sorry also not able to keep up recently.  Had a baby boy (7 lbs. 14 oz.)
> last week and have been wanting to get re-connected. But have been following
> the emails while catching up at work. Keep up the good work!
> Aaron
>

Congratulations! Finally, something productive :-) Just kidding. Post
some pics. Make him pose with an XO!

I couldn't make it to the meeting either...faculty meetings :-(

Sameer
-- 
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Re: [Server-devel] RIT XS Teacher Reporting Project

[Sameer Verma]

On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 6:38 AM, Tim Moody  wrote:
> You may be reinventing work already done, or at least started.  Moodle
> integration into the XS has already begun and is expected to go further in
> the next XS release 0.6,  though, admittedly, changes at OLPC could derail
> this.


Derail? What changes at OLPC would derail the Moodle integration?

Sameer
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dumping datastore to another filesystem

[Sameer Verma]

Is there a script that will dump all objects from the sugar datastore
to another filesystem (FAT or ext2)? Dragging and dropping objects one
at a time from the journal onto the USB icon is painfully slow.

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
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Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
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Re: [Sugar-devel] dumping datastore to another filesystem

[Sameer Verma]

On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 9:52 PM, torello  wrote:
> Sameer Verma ha scritto:
>>
>> Is there a script that will dump all objects from the sugar datastore
>> to another filesystem (FAT or ext2)? Dragging and dropping objects one
>> at a time from the journal onto the USB icon is painfully slow.
>>
>> cheers,
>> Sameer
>>
>
> Hi,
>
> there is a fuse modules that allow to see the datastore object like a
> filesystem. You can so copy the datastore object out of datastore.
> Actually this way can be done only in a environment where normal linux
> desktop is present. Actually this way is not  suitable from Soas or real XO.
> The code about this will be release in the next days.
>
> Cheers, Torello.
>

Wow! a fuse module would be terrific! Can't wait to see it.

cheers,
Sameer
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error uploading to wiki

[Sameer Verma]

I'm seeing an error on the wiki while uploading an image (png).

Error creating thumbnail: Invalid thumbnail parameters

Not sure where to post this, so here it is. does this have any thing
to do with imagemagick?

Sameer
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Re: error uploading to wiki

[Sameer Verma]

On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 12:18 PM, Sameer Verma  wrote:
> I'm seeing an error on the wiki while uploading an image (png).
>
> Error creating thumbnail: Invalid thumbnail parameters
>

Here's the problematic link.
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Image:SFSU_ISAD_mindmap.png any ideas?

Sameer
> Not sure where to post this, so here it is. does this have any thing
> to do with imagemagick?
>
> Sameer
> --
> Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor of Information Systems
> San Francisco State University
> San Francisco CA 94132 USA
> http://verma.sfsu.edu/
> http://opensource.sfsu.edu/
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Re: [Sugar-devel] dumping datastore to another filesystem

[Sameer Verma]

On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 5:14 AM, Carol Farlow Lerche  wrote:
> Martin, the last disk we bought, a few days ago, was $100 and half a
> terabyte.  I understand that you are trying to fit the XS into the
> preexisting XO hardware, but realistically it is unlikely to be a
> configuration a real school could use by itself.  The deployments we know
> about so far have large numbers of kids.  It seems inconsistent to plan for
> huge numbers of users on the wireless and yet hypothesize that the disk
> space will be limited to the tiny amount on a flash card.
>

I am not so sure that I agree. I suppose it all depends on what we
call "tiny". I have a 64 GB drive on my laptop and I am using only 36%
of it. Prices of SD are dropping rapidly. USB Flash is also quite
cheap. Of course, spinning drives are cheaper. I just bought a
external USB 1TB drive for $119.

Even if XS on XO is unlikely, I see no reason for increasing the
footprint of a system if it can be avoided.

I myself was looking for the fuse module so that I can transfer the
datastore to my Ubuntu laptop and grab objects there. So, the mono
dependencies will not be on the XO, but on my Ubuntu laptop, which I
am not too worried about.

> On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 1:21 AM, Martin Langhoff 
> wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 10:52 PM, torello  wrote:
>> > the fuse module is published.
>> > You can find it here:
>> > http://git.sugarlabs.org/projects/fsgateway/repos/mainline
>>
>> Surprise! It's written in Mono!
>>
>> I was wondering about whether I could use it on the XS to replace my
>> PHP implementation of the DS reader (which already handles version "0"
>> and 1 of the DS :-) ) but Mono is a bit of a monster of a dependency
>> to bring in.
>>
>> C or Python would have been much better :-(
>>
>> Leaving all the language wars aside (as neither C nor Python are
>> particular favourites of mine), my pragmatic head says: We are already
>> paying the price for a huge runtime in Python. Let's make good on that
>> "investment".
>>
>> Large runtimes are generally not a good match for a fast, snappy and
>> modern desktop, but as long as we keep it down to one runtime, we pay
>> once and collect the benefits (in much faster development) so I hope
>> we can stick to one runtime.
>>
>> This is a cool project, and I am sure it is interesting and useful
>> outside the Sugar stack itself. But somewhat ill-suited for building
>> Sugar and XS tools -- maybe I had my hopes up on something it wasn't
>> meant to be :-(
>>
>> cheers,
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> 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: [Sugar-devel] dumping datastore to another filesystem

[Sameer Verma]

On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 5:54 AM, Martin Langhoff
 wrote:
> On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 2:41 PM, Carol Farlow Lerche  wrote:
>> Since you grant my premise, the corollary is that it wouldn't hurt to have
>> mono installed.  See here about the mono footprint on disk and in memory.
>
> That's so simplified that is stupid. Let's avoid such simplifications here.
>
> I'll introduce a new major runtime if there is a major "killer app" it
> brings. I am trying to add high-value functionality while _removing_
> memory footprint so XS-on-XO is viable.
>

+1

Sameer

> So 2 examples to compare:
>
>  - The mono code we're looking at would replace 40 lines of PHP, and
> add the burden on me of maintaining a bit of the XS in yet another
> language and toolkit.
>
>  - ejabberd has been an incredible timesink, every time we want to do
> something with it, it takes a very long time because few people know
> erlang, and while I've learned a lot about it, I'm slow with it. But
> it's worth it: no other jabber server is as efficient (memory/cpu) as
> ejabberd.
>
> Overall, I am painfully working to reduce the mem footprint so that
> XS-on-XO is viable. Similar efforts are needed on the Sugar side to
> keep it viable on low-power platforms.
>
>
>
> 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: [Sugar-devel] Sharing to Groups

[Sameer Verma]

On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 6:30 AM, David Van Assche  wrote:
> ah great, would be nice to be able to take care of everything, but
> think we have enough work on our hands, if we could get some other
> people on board that are experienced moodle admins, that would be
> great. thanks Martin... pasteing an invitation for help now to
> forum...
>
> kind regards,
> David (Nubae) Van Assche
>

Putting up some "starter courses" on Moodle would be great. I was
going to test out our XS installs with some of my own courses from
SFSU (we use moodle, but my course have no material relevance to
Sugar/OLPC) but I'd rather use something more relevant. If we can set
up courses on a central site, that would be great. That way, I can
backup on the site and restore on the XS and go from there.

Sameer
-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/
> On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 3:11 PM, Martin Langhoff
>  wrote:
>> On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 1:53 PM, David Van Assche  
>> wrote:
>>> Talking about moodle, we really should decide what to enable on the
>>
>> Not only stop scaring people, but provide content about Sugar + sample
>> content for deployments, so there's a reason to use it. (How to
>> complement the wiki and avoid overlaps is an area to think about.)
>>
>> My suggestion: post something in the comparisons & advocacy forum,
>> asking for help from experienced moodle hands ;-) If you post there,
>> I'll show that post in my presentation next wednesday at the Amsterdam
>> moot...
>>
>> cheers,
>>
>>
>> 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: slow wiki?

[Sameer Verma]

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 6:47 AM,   wrote:
> anyone know why the olpc wiki is responding so slowly?
> every new page i load is taking a really long time.
>
> paul
> =-
>  paul fox, p...@laptop.org
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It gets really slow on pages with several images...maybe because the
wiki isn't thumbnailing anymore?

Sameer
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