Re: [sugar] Landing patches about the network devices UI
I don't agree with adding #4 at this time (changing how/where we see the mesh icons). One of the many work-arounds that we have been telling people in field is that they may need to choose mesh ch 6 or 11 if they want a small group to collaborate in a school setting without any other infrastructure. If the mesh icon doesn't show up in the neighborhood view, that will be a problem. I'd like to see this UI change well before it is implemented. Is there a url, Eben? I'm less concerned about 1 and 3 because they don't seem invasive from the one line summary... if they get in this week as polish that would be ok. I don't know the depth of 5 or 2... and I'm most worried about 4. If all these fixes come in one patch, then I would ask that we do NOT take this patch. If we can pick and choose from this list to get some polish things into 8.2, then let's pick a few based on the invasiveness. Thanks, Kim 1 Adds IP address to the mesh wireless palettes, with associated changes to their model classes. 2 Removes the Disconnect or Turn On/off entries from the wireless/mesh palettes. 3 Makes both frame icons pulse. 4 Don't show the mesh icons in the mesh view, instead show them in the frame. 5 Fix some iconsistency in the icon states by cleaning up the code. On Aug 25, 2008, at 10:01 AM, Marco Pesenti Gritti wrote: Eben Eliason wrote: On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 8:19 AM, Marco Pesenti Gritti 4 would be nice to have but I don't consider it essential. Actually, I think this is the most important aspect of the design, and I strongly suggest we try to land it. This has been confusing to many, and when we change it I think we need to commit to going the whole way, instead of leaving it in limbo which will only confuse people more down the road. Personally I think it's way too late for invasive UI changes. I'm fine to be overridden by Kim/Greg decision in that direction, though. Marco ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Landing patches about the network devices UI
Just spoke with Ricardo and he stated that the wireless firmware we added to this build was for test purposes only and not the firmware that we want to ship. It has other test code in it and the simple mesh feature was specifically turned off; so we can't use this firmware for system testing and we need to revert until we have a better firmware release with the bug fix on top of what was otherwise working well. The issue I pointed out to him (and he will work with Marvell) is that we are only a few weeks away from our desired release date and the blocking bug in the firmware needs to be addressed in the next day or two. We really need a version of wireless firmware that we can be using in large scale testing by the end of the week. Thanks for your help in driving this, Ricardo! Kim On Aug 25, 2008, at 9:13 AM, Walter Bender wrote: I agree with your assessment. Note that right now (8.2-756), the mesh icons don't show up on either the Neighborhood view or the Frame; that is clearly not a satisfactory situation. regards. -walter On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 8:19 AM, Marco Pesenti Gritti [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello, we have a couple of patches that should be ready to be reviewed by tomorrow, which solves several issues with the UI of network devices. #6944 UI confuses which AP you are connected to #3993 The color of network icon in Home view becomes white after restarting Sugar. #2866 Network Manager GUI doesn't report success or failure #6995 Add a mesh device to the frame and remove mesh devices from Neighborhood view The tickets are a little confusing, so let me summarize what the patches does: 1 Adds IP address to the mesh wireless palettes, with associated changes to their model classes. 2 Removes the Disconnect or Turn On/off entries from the wireless/mesh palettes. 3 Makes both frame icons pulse. 4 Don't show the mesh icons in the mesh view, instead show them in the frame. 5 Fix some iconsistency in the icon states by cleaning up the code. mtd did quite a bit of testing on them already, but they are pretty invasive and there is some risk of regressions. My opinion is: 2 is controversial and should be left as is for 8.2 1, 5 are important and we should try to get them in. 4 would be nice to have but I don't consider it essential. 3 should be delayed unless it's small and it's easier to take it then to refactor patches. 1,3,5 has been submitted for review as patch A. 2, 4 will be submitted today as patch B. My suggestion would be: * Rip off 3 from patch A if it's worth it and land it for 8.2.0 (before Friday) * Do *not* land patch B for 8.2.0 mtd has some free time today, so if we can let him know what we want and don't want to land soon it would be great. Thanks, Marco ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] patch for a first boot launch of a Help activity
I don't think we want it to auto launch, but perhaps it should be the first icon on the left. Thoughts on that? Kim On Jul 29, 2008, at 10:30 AM, Eben Eliason wrote: My personal opinion on the matter is that we shouldn't be doing the launch automatically, but others are welcome to disagree. =) I think the presence of a nice, clean, question mark icon on the Home screen after boot will be plenty for those that want to jump into help right away, and instilling the Home zoom level as just what it is -- Home -- is equally important. Particularly because of the fullscreen nature of the activities (and the new launcher itself), I actually think it would be more disorienting to be driven directly into the help activity. I'm not sure the decision was finalized, as the ticket you worked from didn't make it clear one way or the other. Thanks for your hard work, either way! - Eben On Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 10:12 AM, Bobby Powers [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 5:42 AM, Marco Pesenti Gritti [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think the agreement when we met about this was to *not* autolaunch the activity. Eben? that could certainly be. it was a fun little project for an hour, and I wasn't aware a decision was reached on whether or not to autolaunch it. bobby Marco On Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 5:57 AM, Bobby Powers [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello, after talking with Seth this evening, I whipped together a small patch (against the current git heads of sugar and sugar-toolkit) to launch an activity with the service name of org.laptop.Help on the first boot of the XO. It checks the user profile for a field called 'ShowHelp' in a category 'FirstBoot', which doesn't exist on the first launch. I know this has been talked about for G1G1, does anyone have any better ideas of how to do this? yours, Bobby ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Congratulations! but Sugar sucks
Ben, I think many people will agree with much of what you have identified in your rant; and we have been working on making the most progress we can given the constraints of the 'real' world: 1 - 350,000 laptops in the hands of kids today. This alone takes most of the resources away from your identified big issues and forces us to focus on the serious bugs that are currently shipping. This is not an excuse... just reality. We identified all the items you have written down as being 'not good enough' pretty much from the day we shipped. But the problems of real world take precedent over the next features. At the same time, we have been hiring so we can try to tackle both: support what we've shipped AND make progress on the next features. Hiring and coming up to speed take many months. 2 - OLPC never had enough resources to deliver all 6 of these new technologies with 'developed world' quality from day 1. This has been identified well before we even shipped the first laptop... and we decided it was still better to have something in the hands of kids rather than nothing. We've heard it from others who have visited schools in Mongolia, Rwanda, Haiti, Uruguay, etc. and I will add my voice to that group as I just got back from visiting a school in Peru. The students and teachers are all learning so quickly with the laptops, and they are all excited and appreciative to have this opportunity in their school. It really is better to continuing shipping these laptops where they can help children, then to stop and 'get it right' for the developed world market. Yes, sometimes progress is slow; and I (for one) appreciate the time and thought you put into this list as it DOES represent the areas where we want to make progress and can most use help. Now, maybe we can turn this list into a real request for how people can help! Kim On Jul 24, 2008, at 2:25 PM, Benjamin M. Schwartz wrote: (Foreword: I originally intended to send this e-mail after the release of 8.2.0, but I have been convinced to send it earlier in order to prompt discussion) Dear OLPC developers, Congratulations on your work so far towards 8.2.0, with its new UI, new underpinnings, and thousands of individual improvements. It took years of effort to get this far, and a tremendous amount has been done to reinvent the entire notion of a software stack to better serve the educational needs of children. This release will be a triumph. Unfortunately, it is also an abysmal failure. There is hardly a worse operating environment available than Sugar as it currently stands. In addition to an amazing variety of terrible bugs, this failure is due to a handful of major missing features. I list here six major missing features, and what can be done about them to ensure a 9.1.0 that moves Sugar from mediocre to outstanding. 1. The datastore Sugar's design calls for a centralized rich data storage system, the datastore. The datastore provides secure, limited file access to Activities, manages file metadata, maintains a differentially compressed history of all work, ensures reliable backups to a trusted server, and mediates the connection to removable media. Every one of these features is crucial to Sugar's functioning, and almost none are really working at this time. We cannot afford another release based on the present datastore, as it fails to implement the features we require, and is unreliable even in the features it supposedly implements. Solution: There have, at this point, been at least five distinct proposals for a next-generation datastore design, all differing in underlying implementation and user-facing functionality. We need to have a Once And For All datastore summit, draw up a compromise datastore design, and implement it. We can do this by 9.1.0, if we are willing to make it a priority. 2. OS Updates We now have hundreds of thousands of laptops deployed in the field, running a variety of OS versions. OLPC cannot afford to support a multitude of decrepit versions, and children cannot afford to suffer defects that have long since been fixed. We need a reliable, fast, update system that does not rely on the network, so that children everywhere can move to the latest version of Sugar without losing their data. The update system must support tremendously invasive upgrades, like repartitioning the NAND and replacing JFFS2, because we expect to do this in short order. Solution: A secure usb autoreinstallation stick is required. It is not technically challenging to implement, but it must be made a priority, and then be made widely available and idiot-proof. 3. File Sharing Students and teachers have no good way to distribute files directly from one person's Journal to another. If all Activities that open a file do not implement Collaboration, then there is simply no way to transfer
