XO Special interest group at Sugar Labs

Thu Sep 24 13:22:50 UTC 2009

--- On Thu, 9/24/09, DancesWithCars <danceswithcars at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: DancesWithCars <danceswithcars at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: XO Special interest group at Sugar Labs
> To: "Yioryos Asprobounitis" <mavrothal at yahoo.com>
> Cc: fedora-olpc-list at redhat.com, "David Farning" <dfarning at sugarlabs.org>, "iaep" <iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org>
> Date: Thursday, September 24, 2009, 6:45 AM
> I'm not sure about the hardware
> issues
> mentioned below, as new to some of these lists,
> but if there is an installed base of XO-1 computers
> with special hardware like the touchpad
> with 2 extra areas that were never implemented,
> why not develop applications for those,
> even if the XO-1.5 and XO-2 plans don't
> include them?
> 
> What are you going to tell the kids
> with XO-1s when the XO-1.5 come out?
> What is the consolation prize?
> Knowing more about it, and
> being further up the learning curve?
> 
> Also, the battery issues will get worse,
> as the hardware gets older, so testing
> and determining when need new battery,
> as a computer without power isn't much
> fun.
> 
> Repairing hardware gets more crucial
> as machines get older.
> 
> Being more inventive with what you have
> instead of this is the shiny new machine,
> so going deeper into the system,
> maybe programming instead of just
> using.  Or more time with the learning
> content.
> 
> Even as a ebook reader, getting new
> content, creating new content,
> maybe more translating content?
> 
> I still think flossmanuals.net
> needs indexing and other layout stuff,
> under the hood, or however parallel,
> LyX makes some assumptions,
> and does some of that but not
> the wiki and social stuff up top,
> so [La]TeX classes and styles might be
> a good contribution, finding
> objavi and booki source code,
> etc...
> 

These are all very valid points. However, is not clear to me if you imply that they should be prioritized over the updating of the os/sugar or not. I hope not since some of these may even benefit from an updated OS (touchpad, battery, other hardware related patches) as opposed to an unsupported one (Fedora 9). 
On the other hand being a voluntary process is hard to tell to people "you do this instead of that". You can certainly try to convince them, and I think you do a good job on that :-) 

> The requirements for testing a new build
> is some extra XO-n hardware for testing,
> and a high speed connection, if giving
> new .isos builds out to the world,
> or access to some place that would,
> plus the time and knowledge to
> make the changes, find bugs,
> report them, etc.

Again I'm not sure what this means. That is trivial? That a "beta" quality OS should be delivered to the students/deployments and let them debug it? Other?

> 
> And if 'It's An Eduction Project"
> are we teaching self reliance
> and how to do builds, make your
> own constructionist style or
> whatever teaching paradigm fits
> the locals?  Or forcing dependence
> upon others?

Again trying to read between the lines... I'm sure that "locals" have their hands full trying to make the best of the available hardware/software, adapt it to their needs and build their own apps when needed. I would also guess that if the current Fedora 9-based OS is a blocker to paramount needs they may try to update it themselves.
However, providing a better option as the F11/Sugar0.84+ is, in no way is in contrast with the "educational project". For one is _not_ a "computer education" project. So "upgrade your OS", is by no means a priority. Is welcome, but in no way required. 
Expecting a 9-12 years old on the other hand to come up with the solutions is conceivable but nothing to depend on, either. 
Finally the fact that if you give someone a fishing pole will eat fish all his/her life, does not preclude that you can not give them a fishing boat to get bigger fish, nor it implies they should built one. 
They may as well build a boat by themselves but the goal here is to get as much and as good fish as possible given the needs. 
Finally self reliance is an important factor. However like everything else in teaching it must be build gradually, in the right order and by experience. Assigning tasks that will be never completed guaranties that you will build self depreciation rather than self reliance. 
And as you said "is an educational project".      

If I read your comments wrong, my apologies.

> 
> My $.02 USD - costs of ownership/
> && giving back.
> 
> On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 12:33 PM, Yioryos Asprobounitis
> <mavrothal at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> > Now, that's an excellent idea!
> > However, the crucial thing before any extensive
> building/testing starts is to address some major issues that
> would stop most people from using/testing F11/Sugar.84+.
> Namely the Xorg geode video driver, the camera and the
> battery monitor. These will primarily need developers.
> > Having these components in place then a daily build
> bug fixing/reporting system would be more valuable since
> more people may be willing to give it a try, identifying the
> "minor" issues that may eventually allow a
> deployment-quality release.
> > If this is going to be an OLPC, Fedora or SL project,
> I think is irrelevant. XO-1 is an EOL machine that runs an
> OS/UI developed by "some other" organization. Is literally
> orphan (besides these limited efforts) so any "adopter"
> should be welcome. Whoever sets it up should be good to go.
> With almost a million users is the biggest educational
> linux/sugar implementation and worths every attention.
> >
> > --- On Mon, 9/21/09, David Farning <dfarning at sugarlabs.org>
> wrote:
> >
> >> From: David Farning <dfarning at sugarlabs.org>
> >> Subject: Re: XO Special interest group at Sugar
> Labs
> >> To: fedora-olpc-list at redhat.com
> >> Cc: "iaep" <iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org>
> >> Date: Monday, September 21, 2009, 7:36 PM
> >> On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 3:41 PM,
> >> Peter Robinson <pbrobinson at gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >> > Hi David,
> >> >
> >> > On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 7:48 PM, David
> Farning <dfarning at sugarlabs.org>
> >> wrote:
> >> >> For the past several months the
> OLPC/Sugar Labs
> >> ecosystem has been
> >> >> getting requests to provide releases of
> more
> >> recent versions of Sugar
> >> >> on the XO.
> >> >>
> >> >> The leading effort in this direction
> seems to be
> >> the F11-XO1 project.
> >> >> I would like to like to invite F11-XO1 to
> become
> >> part of the XO SIG.
> >> >> I have been trying to articulate the
> project goals
> >> and gather momentum
> >> >> across several groups.
> >> >> 1.  OLPC as a downstream.
> >> >> 2. Sugar Labs as a focus point.
> >> >> 3. Various ecosystem leaders to do pilots
> with
> >> current versions of Sugar on XOs.
> >> >> 4. Various testers to provide user level
> testing.
> >> >>
> >> >> The goal of this groups is not to
> _fragment_ the
> >> existing efforts.
> >> >> The goal is bring the various efforts
> together to
> >> form a critical mass
> >> >> to help pull this propel forward.
> >> >
> >> > As far as I'm aware there is no F11-XO1
> project, I'm
> >> aware of a couple
> >> > of different projects to get the latest Sugar
> releases
> >> on the XO.
> >> > - The SoaS on XO which is being run my Martin
> Dengler
> >> in conjunction
> >> > with SoaS and SL (that's where its all
> hosted).
> >> > - The OLPC project to get Fedora 11 on both
> the XO-1.5
> >> and XO-1 which
> >> > is being handled by Steven M. Parrish (and
> Daniel
> >> Drake / Chris Ball)
> >>
> >> This confusion is part of what I am hoping to
> clear up by
> >> create a
> >> single clearly defined project.
> >>
> >> I have heard back from many of the people working
> on the
> >> various
> >> projects. the work flow seems to be:
> >> 1. Sugar development team creates platform.
> >> 2. Fedora packagers package Sugar... and
> everything else
> >> required to
> >> make a disto.
> >> 3a. SoaS takes packages and turns them into a Soas
> image.
> >> 3b. Soas is getting pretty well test via test days
> and
> >> deployments
> >> such as the GPA.
> >> 4a. Steven take the Fedora packages adds the XO
> specific
> >> bit and turns
> >> them into xo builds.
> >> 4b. limited testing for xo builds.
> >>
> >> Because of time restrictions, the F11 on XO effort
> seems to
> >> be
> >> reactive.  They take the output from cjb and the
> >> fedora packages and
> >> create builds.  I believe that the XO SIG could
> help
> >> generate interest
> >> and attract more developers and testers to the
> project.
> >>
> >> > Both projects are cross pollinated and use
> components
> >> of work done by
> >> > both as well as myself and other Fedora
> upstream
> >> people. I don't
> >> > believe there's much difference between them
> as where
> >> possible I
> >> > believe most stuff is pushed upsteam. There
> is no
> >> current Fedora based
> >> > project working on this directly due to the
> down
> >> stream projects.
> >> >
> >> > I have my own build that I use but that
> isn't
> >> generally published and
> >> > is mostly to test core fedora for dependency
> bloat and
> >> breakages.
> >>
> >> Would it be useful if we started by combining your
> work and
> >> Stevens
> >> into an automatic build system.  This could help
> >> identify breakages.
> >> Then we could create a release cycle of alpha and
> beta and
> >> final
> >> releases.
> >>
> >> By creating the daily builds and widely
> broadcasting the
> >> various
> >> releases, we can engage a larger community of
> testers.
> >>
> >> david
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Fedora-olpc-list mailing list
> >> Fedora-olpc-list at redhat.com
> >> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-olpc-list
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Fedora-olpc-list at redhat.com
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> >
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> DancesWithCars
> leave the wolves behind ;-)
> 