[sage-combinat-devel] Re: Sage Days in Bobo-Dioulasso debriefing; Sage in developping countries
Wow! Nicolas fantastic report. That was a challenge to do. I hope you managed a convert or two in Africa. My experience with computer classes as part of a summer school (in Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and Madagascar) is similar except I never had a wifi network and most of my students didn't have regular computer access. Most of my students were complete novices to the computer, but willing to learn. Installing sage was several steps beyond what we tried. I would say that most of the infrastructure that we had access to would not support sage (most computers were dated pre-python, though I did not have the expertise to make this work). I think to break the barrier and make a true sage days really productive, I think that you would need to partner with some organization like OLPC (one laptop per child) or arrange to minimize the problems with your hardware. -Mike On Sunday, 11 November 2012 04:00:34 UTC-5, Nicolas M. Thiery wrote: > > Dear Sage devs, > > The fall school on Discrete Mathematics in Bobo Dioulasso, Burkina > Faso, aka Sage Days 43, just finished. For two weeks we had courses > (combinatorics of words, dynamics, tilings, ...) interspersed with > on-hands tutorials using Sage. The public consisted mostly from > graduate students, from subsaharian Africa and some further away > countries. > > That was a good occasion for a real-life evaluation of a claim I have > been desiring to make for a long time: �Sage, being open-source, is > well adapted for universities in developing countries�. > > Let's see about this. > > A couple words of context: > -- > > - 70 participants total; in average 40-50 were there. > - Most participants had a laptop (or netbook for a few of them): > - 90%: windows, 5% mac, 5% Linux Ubuntu (usually in double-boot with > Windows) > - Laptop age ranging from 2003 to 2012; 4 years on average > - RAM: 500k-6Gb; 1Gb on average? > - Network: one ADSL line for 60 persons in the conference center > Well, when it actually worked, which was not that often. > We finished using a cell-phone shared over wifi. > The local wireless network itself was down quite often. > No network at the university itself or nearby > - Among the organizers were Sage devs with good experience on running > Sage workshops and doing system/network administration, ... > - Sam had brought a big bunch of power cables. I screwed up not > bringing my own wireless router to at least guarantee a reliable > local network. > > Strategies we tried or considered: > -- > > (a) Installing Sage on Linux/Mac with the binaries from Sagemath.org > (b) Installing Sage on Linux/Mac from sources > (c) Installing Sage on Linux from a custom built fat binary > (d) Installing Sage on Windows with the virtual machine > (e) Running a Sage server on my laptop (8 cores, 8Gb) > (f) Using a remote Sage server > (g) Installing Linux and reducing the problem to (a-c) > (h) Booting on a live Debian USB key, custom-build by Thierry Monteil > with Sage, self-cloning and persistence. > (i) Using a local PC lab after installing Sage on them > > I would like to use the occasion to send my kudos to all those who > strive hard at making Sage easier to use one way or the other. > > How it went: > > > (a) Went smoothly on Mac when appropriate binaries were available. We > had to recompile a few of those binaries. > > (a) failed most of the time on Linux by lack of gfortran. Since we did > not have a reasonable network, apt-get install was not an option. > We did not have iso's of all the Ubuntu versions that were in use. > 3D plotting was usually not available (by lack of appropriate Java > plug-ins). > > (b) Compiling from source was not a viable option on Linux for the > same reason as above: build-essentials was usually not there. On > Mac that was ok, provided we had under hand the appropriate > version of XCode. > > (c) This fat binary was built by Thierry Monteil on an old pentium 3 > (!) with a minimal Debian install. Installation and usage went > smoothly, except that 3D plotting was usually not available. > > (d) Virtual machine: Installation went smoothly on about 20 machines > (with close guidance). It failed on 2-3 machines due to resource > limitations (disk, ...). > > However, except for about five recent machines, the memory > footprint was just too high: any non trivial calculation or plot > made the laptop swap and become simply too slow to use. > > The french keyboard was not properly self-detected. Due to the > network, we could not look up on the web for help. We ended up > finding how to configure it from a shell. I'll create a ticket. > > The Sage version available was a bit old (5.1) though that was not > an issue for us this time (but it could have been). > > The
[sage-combinat-devel] Re: Sage Days in Bobo-Dioulasso debriefing; Sage in developping countries
Dear Nicolas, Thanks a lot for such a detailed report! Is it possible to have step-by-step instructions for self-replicating USB sticks posted somewhere? I think these may be a great way to use Sage even in developed countries. Last summer I used USB sticks for our summer school, with a hope that students may use them in the lab (I got our IT guys to open USB boot) and then on their own computers. To make sure that results are preserved between sessions, I've installed Linux on a USB partition together with Sage and LaTeX, tinkered with GRUB to mount only the stick by label rather than UUID, and then used Clonezilla for duplication (which fortunately support 1-to-many image restoration and I had a computer with 8 ports available). I also hit the problem that Macs don't boot from USB, which IMHO is completely retarded, but that's just life. It also seems to me that memory consumption is the main bottleneck of running Sage servers - when users are playing with basic calculus/ linear algebra, there isn't much demand on CPU, but every open worksheet or interact worker consumes quite a bit of virtual and resident memory. I hope to run a class with ~2k students next year and it is conceivable that most of them will do something a few hours before the homework deadline. We'll see how it goes (if it goes at all, of course). Thank you! Andrey -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sage-combinat-devel" group. To post to this group, send email to sage-combinat-devel@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sage-combinat-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-combinat-devel?hl=en.
[sage-combinat-devel] Re: Sage Days in Bobo-Dioulasso debriefing; Sage in developping countries
On Sun, Nov 11, 2012 at 08:07:06PM -0800, Mike Zabrocki wrote: >Wow! Nicolas fantastic report. That was a challenge to do. Thanks :-) > I hope you managed a convert or two in Africa. My experience with > computer classes as part of a summer school (in Ghana, Kenya, > Tanzania and Madagascar) is similar except I never had a wifi > network and most of my students didn't have regular computer access. > Most of my students were complete novices to the computer, but > willing to learn. Installing sage was several steps beyond what we > tried. I would say that most of the infrastructure that we had > access to would not support sage (most computers were dated > pre-python, though I did not have the expertise to make this work). I could hope for 4-5 that will use Sage in the long run, and 20 that definitely see the point but will get stuck by lack of infrastructure and expertise. But as you said: «if our problem was only network, we were in pretty good shape to start with». We had a selection of students that were definitely computer-literate (somehow, the main difficulty was to prevent them from running to facebook&all and eat up all the bandwidth whenever the network was working :-) ), even though most did not have programming experience. >I think to break the barrier and make a true sage days really >productive, I think that you would need to partner with some >organization like OLPC (one laptop per child) or arrange to >minimize the problems with your hardware. Well, I have a good contact for that: dad :-) We actually already used Sage on our home OLPC, although only through a remote Sage server. I doubt the old models can support running Sage locally, but for the upcoming models we certainly will have a shot (at least running in a terminal). Of course, the real thing would be to integrate a resource-optimized version of Sage within the Sugar activities. This probably won't be a priority for OLPC, since their main target population is children of age 6-12, but as you say we could explore other organizations as well. Cheers, Nicolas -- Nicolas M. Thiéry "Isil" http://Nicolas.Thiery.name/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sage-combinat-devel" group. To post to this group, send email to sage-combinat-devel@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sage-combinat-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-combinat-devel?hl=en.
[sage-combinat-devel] Re: Sage Days in Bobo-Dioulasso debriefing; Sage in developping countries
>I could hope for 4-5 that will use Sage in the long run, and 20 that > definitely see the point but will get stuck by lack of infrastructure > and expertise. These sound like great numbers. >>I think to break the barrier and make a true sage days really >>productive, I think that you would need to partner with some >>organization like OLPC (one laptop per child) or arrange to >>minimize the problems with your hardware. > Well, I have a good contact for that: dad :-) We actually already used > Sage on our home OLPC, although only through a remote Sage server. I I just mentioned OLPC because that was an organization I had heard of. I didn't know your dad was associated, but what an awesome contact to have. I don't yet see how to overcome infrastructure problems. I would summarize my experience as: 1. don't use the internet (you can't count on it anyway) 2. most computers have some old version of Windows 3. a few students will have their own laptops 4. Most students will have little or no computer experience 5. Most want to learn computers and see the point, a few choose to be luddites and can afford to because the infrastructure is so unreliable > Of course, the real thing would be to integrate a resource-optimized > version of Sage within the Sugar activities. This probably won't be a > priority for OLPC, since their main target population is children of > age 6-12, but as you say we could explore other organizations as well. At the events I have been involved with, our highest priority was to minimize the infrastructure difficulties. AIMS in South Africa sounds like it might be a good place to organize an event since you could potentially rely on computer access. -Mike On Monday, 12 November 2012 04:52:27 UTC-5, Nicolas M. Thiery wrote: > > On Sun, Nov 11, 2012 at 08:07:06PM -0800, Mike Zabrocki wrote: > >Wow! Nicolas fantastic report. That was a challenge to do. > > Thanks :-) > > > I hope you managed a convert or two in Africa. My experience with > > computer classes as part of a summer school (in Ghana, Kenya, > > Tanzania and Madagascar) is similar except I never had a wifi > > network and most of my students didn't have regular computer access. > > Most of my students were complete novices to the computer, but > > willing to learn. Installing sage was several steps beyond what we > > tried. I would say that most of the infrastructure that we had > > access to would not support sage (most computers were dated > > pre-python, though I did not have the expertise to make this work). > > I could hope for 4-5 that will use Sage in the long run, and 20 that > definitely see the point but will get stuck by lack of infrastructure > and expertise. > > But as you said: �if our problem was only network, we were in pretty > good shape to start with�. We had a selection of students that were > definitely computer-literate (somehow, the main difficulty was to > prevent them from running to facebook&all and eat up all the bandwidth > whenever the network was working :-) ), even though most did not have > programming experience. > > >I think to break the barrier and make a true sage days really > >productive, I think that you would need to partner with some > >organization like OLPC (one laptop per child) or arrange to > >minimize the problems with your hardware. > > Well, I have a good contact for that: dad :-) We actually already used > Sage on our home OLPC, although only through a remote Sage server. I > doubt the old models can support running Sage locally, but for the > upcoming models we certainly will have a shot (at least running in a > terminal). > > Of course, the real thing would be to integrate a resource-optimized > version of Sage within the Sugar activities. This probably won't be a > priority for OLPC, since their main target population is children of > age 6-12, but as you say we could explore other organizations as well. > > Cheers, > Nicolas > -- > Nicolas M. Thi�ry "Isil" > > http://Nicolas.Thiery.name/ > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sage-combinat-devel" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/sage-combinat-devel/-/lGugmQ_bVsUJ. To post to this group, send email to sage-combinat-devel@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sage-combinat-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-combinat-devel?hl=en.
[sage-combinat-devel] Re: Sage Days in Bobo-Dioulasso debriefing; Sage in developping countries
On Sunday, November 11, 2012 10:00:42 AM UTC+1, Nicolas M. Thiéry wrote: > > - Having more Sage mirrors in Africa (although the network issues were > more in the last kilometer). > Hi, thank's for this detailed report and the discussion. I'm somewhat responsible for the mirror network, and I have heard reports about those bad network conditions from several places for some time now. I've tried to find more mirrors, but it's usually hard to get in contact with the right persons or even find a suitable institution. For example, to day I've added a second mirror for south america, which is probably an equally important continent. Does anyone have contacts to some suitable institutions in, let's say, Argentina, Uruguay, Ecuador, Ghana, ... ? Also, I try to make downloads work better by essentially to techniques: * torrent/metalink files. they basically tell a download-helper or web-browser to check for all sources in parallel and they also allow to resume partially downloaded files and checking them when they have finished. E.g. "transmission" is pre-installed on ubuntu and should be the #1 option for downloading sage tarballs or disk images. * compressing with lzma for those linux distributions where lzma/7z is installed by default. In the beginning, I got some reports that it is confusing, but for one reason or another this stopped. Probably, because "right-click > extract" just works. Also, it would be possible - on more modern distributions - to squeeze out even more bytes by using lrztar + lzma/zpaq. Has anyone objections or some experience with that? H -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sage-combinat-devel" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/sage-combinat-devel/-/LThu8KrPLoQJ. To post to this group, send email to sage-combinat-devel@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sage-combinat-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-combinat-devel?hl=en.
[sage-combinat-devel] Re: Sage Days in Bobo-Dioulasso debriefing; Sage in developping countries
Hey, all! Thanks for running this, Nicolas, and providing the detailed report! For converting people to linux: I'm working with a computer lab in Maseno, where we've now got linux dual-booting on all of the machines (about 40). Over the last couple months, we've gained a number of linux converts: windows in the developing world tends to be pirated and without regularly updating anti-virus software. So the machines 'gunk up' over the course of just a week or two of use to the point of being nigh-unusable. Providing an easily-accessible linux desktop as an option lets people decide for themselves, and once they've tried it, they're overwhelmingly preferring linux. Of course, live-usb's are a perfectly good way to provide such an experience as well. I just got a pile of 8gb usb sticks for $5 each from Canada; setting aside $250 and a bit of time could then provide live usb sticks for up to 50 participants at a sage-days event (with leftovers going towards the next event, of course). 4gb is probably a bit tight for a full installation plus sage, but could cut cost a bit. And with 8gb, we could also include open-office and a couple good text editors, making a good case for general linux use. As a last note, there's an algebraic geometry workshop happening in Mombasa, Kenya, sometime between May and June next year; I'm trying to figure out what the dates are now! We could potentially try some things out there, as well! Best, -tom On Sunday, November 11, 2012 12:00:34 PM UTC+3, Nicolas M. Thiery wrote: > > Dear Sage devs, > > The fall school on Discrete Mathematics in Bobo Dioulasso, Burkina > Faso, aka Sage Days 43, just finished. For two weeks we had courses > (combinatorics of words, dynamics, tilings, ...) interspersed with > on-hands tutorials using Sage. The public consisted mostly from > graduate students, from subsaharian Africa and some further away > countries. > > That was a good occasion for a real-life evaluation of a claim I have > been desiring to make for a long time: �Sage, being open-source, is > well adapted for universities in developing countries�. > > Let's see about this. > > A couple words of context: > -- > > - 70 participants total; in average 40-50 were there. > - Most participants had a laptop (or netbook for a few of them): > - 90%: windows, 5% mac, 5% Linux Ubuntu (usually in double-boot with > Windows) > - Laptop age ranging from 2003 to 2012; 4 years on average > - RAM: 500k-6Gb; 1Gb on average? > - Network: one ADSL line for 60 persons in the conference center > Well, when it actually worked, which was not that often. > We finished using a cell-phone shared over wifi. > The local wireless network itself was down quite often. > No network at the university itself or nearby > - Among the organizers were Sage devs with good experience on running > Sage workshops and doing system/network administration, ... > - Sam had brought a big bunch of power cables. I screwed up not > bringing my own wireless router to at least guarantee a reliable > local network. > > Strategies we tried or considered: > -- > > (a) Installing Sage on Linux/Mac with the binaries from Sagemath.org > (b) Installing Sage on Linux/Mac from sources > (c) Installing Sage on Linux from a custom built fat binary > (d) Installing Sage on Windows with the virtual machine > (e) Running a Sage server on my laptop (8 cores, 8Gb) > (f) Using a remote Sage server > (g) Installing Linux and reducing the problem to (a-c) > (h) Booting on a live Debian USB key, custom-build by Thierry Monteil > with Sage, self-cloning and persistence. > (i) Using a local PC lab after installing Sage on them > > I would like to use the occasion to send my kudos to all those who > strive hard at making Sage easier to use one way or the other. > > How it went: > > > (a) Went smoothly on Mac when appropriate binaries were available. We > had to recompile a few of those binaries. > > (a) failed most of the time on Linux by lack of gfortran. Since we did > not have a reasonable network, apt-get install was not an option. > We did not have iso's of all the Ubuntu versions that were in use. > 3D plotting was usually not available (by lack of appropriate Java > plug-ins). > > (b) Compiling from source was not a viable option on Linux for the > same reason as above: build-essentials was usually not there. On > Mac that was ok, provided we had under hand the appropriate > version of XCode. > > (c) This fat binary was built by Thierry Monteil on an old pentium 3 > (!) with a minimal Debian install. Installation and usage went > smoothly, except that 3D plotting was usually not available. > > (d) Virtual machine: Installation went smoothly on about 20 machines > (with close guidance). It failed on 2-3 machines due to r
[sage-combinat-devel] Re: Sage Days in Bobo-Dioulasso debriefing; Sage in developping countries
Hey, all; So the Mombasa algebraic geometry workshop is set for 6-28 July, 2013. Which is really long! They're interested in having some sage sessions; if anyone's interested in coming out I can plan to be there for an overlapping time and co-hosting the Sage sessions. (However, the first week I'll be in Ethiopia.) Basically, drop me a line and we can talk about scope and further details that should be nailed down. Best, -tom On Sunday, November 11, 2012 12:00:34 PM UTC+3, Nicolas M. Thiery wrote: > > Dear Sage devs, > > The fall school on Discrete Mathematics in Bobo Dioulasso, Burkina > Faso, aka Sage Days 43, just finished. For two weeks we had courses > (combinatorics of words, dynamics, tilings, ...) interspersed with > on-hands tutorials using Sage. The public consisted mostly from > graduate students, from subsaharian Africa and some further away > countries. > > That was a good occasion for a real-life evaluation of a claim I have > been desiring to make for a long time: �Sage, being open-source, is > well adapted for universities in developing countries�. > > Let's see about this. > > A couple words of context: > -- > > - 70 participants total; in average 40-50 were there. > - Most participants had a laptop (or netbook for a few of them): > - 90%: windows, 5% mac, 5% Linux Ubuntu (usually in double-boot with > Windows) > - Laptop age ranging from 2003 to 2012; 4 years on average > - RAM: 500k-6Gb; 1Gb on average? > - Network: one ADSL line for 60 persons in the conference center > Well, when it actually worked, which was not that often. > We finished using a cell-phone shared over wifi. > The local wireless network itself was down quite often. > No network at the university itself or nearby > - Among the organizers were Sage devs with good experience on running > Sage workshops and doing system/network administration, ... > - Sam had brought a big bunch of power cables. I screwed up not > bringing my own wireless router to at least guarantee a reliable > local network. > > Strategies we tried or considered: > -- > > (a) Installing Sage on Linux/Mac with the binaries from Sagemath.org > (b) Installing Sage on Linux/Mac from sources > (c) Installing Sage on Linux from a custom built fat binary > (d) Installing Sage on Windows with the virtual machine > (e) Running a Sage server on my laptop (8 cores, 8Gb) > (f) Using a remote Sage server > (g) Installing Linux and reducing the problem to (a-c) > (h) Booting on a live Debian USB key, custom-build by Thierry Monteil > with Sage, self-cloning and persistence. > (i) Using a local PC lab after installing Sage on them > > I would like to use the occasion to send my kudos to all those who > strive hard at making Sage easier to use one way or the other. > > How it went: > > > (a) Went smoothly on Mac when appropriate binaries were available. We > had to recompile a few of those binaries. > > (a) failed most of the time on Linux by lack of gfortran. Since we did > not have a reasonable network, apt-get install was not an option. > We did not have iso's of all the Ubuntu versions that were in use. > 3D plotting was usually not available (by lack of appropriate Java > plug-ins). > > (b) Compiling from source was not a viable option on Linux for the > same reason as above: build-essentials was usually not there. On > Mac that was ok, provided we had under hand the appropriate > version of XCode. > > (c) This fat binary was built by Thierry Monteil on an old pentium 3 > (!) with a minimal Debian install. Installation and usage went > smoothly, except that 3D plotting was usually not available. > > (d) Virtual machine: Installation went smoothly on about 20 machines > (with close guidance). It failed on 2-3 machines due to resource > limitations (disk, ...). > > However, except for about five recent machines, the memory > footprint was just too high: any non trivial calculation or plot > made the laptop swap and become simply too slow to use. > > The french keyboard was not properly self-detected. Due to the > network, we could not look up on the web for help. We ended up > finding how to configure it from a shell. I'll create a ticket. > > The Sage version available was a bit old (5.1) though that was not > an issue for us this time (but it could have been). > > The usage was on the complex side for most participants. They > typically tended to reclick on the ova, creating a new virtual > machine each time. Also uploading worksheets was tricky; it would > be much simpler if the virtual machine was setup to access the > user directory on the host machine or if the web client was > running on the host. > > (e) Running a local Sage server: This is a priori good short term
[sage-combinat-devel] Re: Sage Days in Bobo-Dioulasso debriefing; Sage in developping countries
On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 12:07:50AM -0800, tom d wrote: >Thanks for running this, Nicolas, and providing the detailed report! Well, for the running all the kudos should really go to the organizers. And all those who helped for the Sage sessions. All I had to do was to teach Sage to *motivated* students (ok, and fight some technical details); other than this it was vacations: lodging and food was provided. And entertainment as well with my fellow's classes! Congrats on all your ongoing work in Kenya! If I was not already going to be away from home for quite some time this Spring, I would have jumped on the occasion to come help for the workshop. Cheers, Nicolas -- Nicolas M. Thiéry "Isil" http://Nicolas.Thiery.name/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sage-combinat-devel" group. To post to this group, send email to sage-combinat-devel@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sage-combinat-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-combinat-devel?hl=en.
