OLPC + Fedora = ???

[Andy Green]

David Zeuthen wrote:

>>Well glad to hear it, I hope these rather fundamental questions will
>>still be in scope by then.

> Our current thinking (and code) revolves partly around making it easier
> to build derived lean distributions based on Fedora Core. All this
> includes fixing a few obvious and not-so-obvious things in Core; it
> includes lots of thinking about distribution and updates in scenarios
> that the OLPC project targets (e.g. millions of users, extremely low
> admin/user ratios, think appliance); it includes thoughts about how lock
> down and provide a secure OS out of the box; it includes thinking about
> how to fit this in almost no space with very limited RAM and worse.. no
> swap; it includes thinking about how to easily enable application
> developers and other stake holders to participate... and a whole bunch
> of other stuff too..

These are the preoccupations daily dealt with by embedded developers.
I'm sure there are plenty of capable embedded devs in Redhat still, but
I take from your answer that this is going to stay Redhat internal until
it is set in stone.  That's probably not so bad generally except that my
suggestions are about the fundamentals of it that will be decided by
then.  I guess I did the suggestion action.

Core as it is implies quite a heavy demand on RAM, flash and CPU
horsepower.  I really do think what I said before about triage modifying
the machine spec stands a good chance to happen (given that commitment
is apparently being requested for money for a machine at a specific
price point, and the easiest fat to trim is the CPU and memory), or, if
not, the machine may grossly fail to meet its price point[1].  And that
has a lot of ramifications on how to come at it that start to diverge
from a vision of Fedora Tiny or whatever still looking much like what
you get with today's minimal Fedora resolved packageset (especially in
installed storage footprint).

> It's also useful to keep in mind that the software side of the OLPC
> project is larger than the bits Red Hat will provide - there's a bunch

Well I can't usefully comment on the usermode stuff.

> Anyway, it's probably not useful to start a huge thread here about these
> high-level thoughts (read: no need to reply)... First of all we need a

I will be interested to see what you come up with.

-Andy

[1] Reality check: how much would a PDA cost with those features, CPU
and Memory in today's prices, minus say 60% for manufacturer and
retailer margin and extra goodwill?  An HP IPAQ hx4700 with 64MB SDRAM
and 128MB flash, wifi etc, is GBP337 ($586.38)

http://www.dabs.com/ProductView.aspx?Quicklinx=380L&CategorySelectedId=11107&PageMode=1&NavigationKey=11107,41689&v=2#infoarea

If we accept that base price despite no meeting the featureset then we
still reach $234 with our -60% modifier.  -70% gives $175.  They need a
-83% modifier to reach $100.
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