overly agressive sleeping (and other requests/suggestions)
I've been trying to use the XO as my primary machine at home, but there are a few significant problems I've been running into. First, power management. in recent builds thr XO is very eager to go to sleep (although build 1633 did change it to 60 seconds from 30) unfortunantly with the slow wakeup (1-2 seonds) and the screen dimming when it goes to sleep, this can be very annoying when trying to do a lot of reading. the dimming is distracting, and the wakeup delay is just frustrating. in addition, the only thing that keeps it awake is keyboard input (or a very busy cpu), I see this when it goes to sleep on me in spite of alpine checking for new mail every 15 seconds, others will see it at other times. I would like to suggest a few changes 1. make screen and/or network activity keep the machine awake (for network activity you may want to exclude some housekeeping traffic) 2. don't dim the screen when going into the first level sleep 3. until the wakeup is spead up significantly, don't go to sleep as quickly. as the wake time improves the sleepyness can be increased, but the current state of things is lousy. 4. when plugged into external power, be even less sleepy. I realize people are working on power management, and I understand that you can't know if the external power is from a power plant or from a hand crank, but you have no other way to tell the machine that it's not running on battery power, so you need to use it. The second major problem is performance. I realize this is only a 433 mhz cpu, but it's only been a year since I switched from using a 333 mhz laptop (with 192M ram) and it was significantly more useable. I ran slackware with windowmaker on that machine for years. on the XO the startup time for applications is miserable. starting a terminal takes about 6 seconds, but running xterm takes less than one second. 5 seconds of computer time is an etermity. the browser works, as long as you only have one thing you are interested in. I haven't been able to get your substatute for bookmarks to survive across sessions, and the journal has been useless as a history mechanism. the lack of both tabs and opening additional windows makes it almost impossible to follow a tangent without completely loosing where you started. the journal is so cluttered that it's almost impossible to find things in it. to address these issues I would suggest a few things 1. split the journal, today it's a log of activity and a file system. split these two functions. this will help the clutter and should also help the speed as there is less to setup when applications start. 2. allow things to open new windows, but make opening a new window start a new screen (avoiding overlapping windows) 3. allow tabs in the browser (use the right half of the toolbar) chasing tangents is very important in learning, but so is being able to recover and go down a different path. I've been useing my XO daily for the last month, and I think the idea is great, but I've been getting frustrated by some of the software, and hit one too many network disconnects becouse of the agressive power savings, which promted meto finally vent these frustrtions David Lang ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: WPA networking status?
We'd certainly love the additional testing help, but if you are desparate to get a working WPA, perhaps consider downgrading to 656. -walter On 2/3/08, Gary Oberbrunner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi folks. I'm running Update.1 690 and WPA is still almost always broken (known issues I think, e.g. #6191?). My question is whether I should just update to current joyride, or wait for Update.1 RC2? Are there WPA connectivity issues fixed in joyride (and could my updating to it help with testing)? Hard to tell from the trac ticket logs. thanks, -- Gary Oberbrunner ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel -- Walter Bender One Laptop per Child http://laptop.org ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
WPA networking status?
Hi folks. I'm running Update.1 690 and WPA is still almost always broken (known issues I think, e.g. #6191?). My question is whether I should just update to current joyride, or wait for Update.1 RC2? Are there WPA connectivity issues fixed in joyride (and could my updating to it help with testing)? Hard to tell from the trac ticket logs. thanks, -- Gary Oberbrunner ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Setting up Fedora 7 on a ex-Windows machine (Ottawa)
G'day Suggestion: Try installing the OLPC_XS_LATEST and see what happens. If the installation goes through smoothly then install a GUI of your liking on top of it. The XS built is a fedora core. Its hard to replicate problems like this, but you might be able find something in fedora and linux question forums for simillar problems. best, Sulochan On Feb 3, 2008 6:02 AM, Brad Paulsen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: - Original Message - From: Aaron Konstam [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: M. Edward (Ed) Borasky [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: devel@lists.laptop.org Sent: Saturday, February 02, 2008 3:25 PM Subject: Re: Setting up Fedora 7 on a ex-Windows machine (Ottawa) On Sat, 2008-02-02 at 10:39 -0800, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote: James wrote: Hello OLPC people! I am working on a Snakes and Ladders game for the XO, to help young children learn to count. You can find my first draft of the game here: http://olpc-dev.fuelindustries.com/snakes_080116.zip. I'm looking for help in getting Fedora 7 to run on a Sony Vaio PCG- GRT796HP laptop that used to run Windows. It's a Pentium 4, running at 2.67 GHz, with 512 MB of RAM. I've spent several hours trying various approaches and distributions, without success. This is my first excursion into Linux territory, and I'm still finding my feet with Python. I'm more at ease with development on Macintosh, and have only scraped the surface of using the Terminal. Please don't hesitate to spoonfeed me in all things Linux and Python. What I can do - I'd almost given up hope of getting the Vaio to run Fedora when I tried using the XO LiveCD from http://dev.laptop.org/pub/ livebackupcd. This worked perfectly, which encourages me to believe that the issue is not with the machine but with what I am doing to it. Where I get stuck - I've downloaded the F-7-i386-DVD.iso file from http://torrent.fedoraproject.org/torrents//Fedora-7-i386.torrent , and burnt it to a DVD-ROM. The initial menu screen appears. If I choose the default (graphic) installation, eventually the screen starts to display vibrant pulsing graphics which I do not believe are intended. If I choose the text mode for installation, and step through the various screens, I eventually run into a bug in the installer script. Rodney Smith entered a description of the bug into the RedHat bugbase on 2007-07-08, but there seems to have been no movement on it since then. This leads me to believe that there must be an obvious workaround, so others have just side-stepped the bug and moved on. The original bug report was marked as NEEDINFO, so I supplied that info on 2008-01-21. You can read the complete report here: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=247399 First I assuume that you did a sucessfule media check. What I'm hoping to do - My aim is to install a version of Linux as close to the XO version as possible. This will make it easier for me to get into the correct mindset and best practices for developing for the XO. I'm not married to the idea of getting Fedora 7 to run if the line of least resistance is to install something similar. In his bug report, Rodney Smith notes that System previously had fc5 that was installed using a dvd and the graphical interface without a hitch and that ran fine. I've looked for a downloadable version of Fedora Core 5 or 6 for a x86 machine, but all the links that I have found end up at the Get Fedora page, which now limits itself to downloads of Fedora 7 and 8 http://fedoraproject.org/get-fedora . I get a similar bug when I try installing Fedora 8. I've also tried installing Ubuntu 6, but run into the graphic-interface-shows-vibrant- pulsing-graphics issue. If it hadn't been for XO-LiveCD_080130.iso performing perfectly on the machine, I'd have written off my Sony Vaio as being incompatible with Linux. If anyone can help me get some version of Linux installed on the machine, I'd be most grateful. If there are any Python developers on this list in the Ottawa area, I'd be interested to hear from them too. Thanks in advance, James Second, I hope you did not do what the bug poster did, that is , allow the machine to set up a default partitioning. If you understand how fdisk works, at the point that patitioning is asked for, type ctl-alt-F2 which willget you to a termineal then remove all partitioning at partition from scratch. Have a swap partition = to 1 of 2x Ram size and the rest make into /. Then type ctl-alt-f7 to tqake you back to anaconda and continue. This is in tex installation. You cna then use the gui partitioning tool to make any final editing of the partitions. It may still fail to install but you have started out without mysterious partitioning
New joyride build 1634
http://xs-dev.laptop.org/~cscott/olpc/streams/joyride/build1634 Changes in build 1634 from build: 1633 Size delta: 0.00M -xkeyboard-config 1.1-9.20071130cvs.olpc2 +xkeyboard-config 1.1-10.20071130cvs.olpc2 --- Changes for xkeyboard-config 1.1-10.20071130cvs.olpc2 from 1.1-9.20071130cvs.olpc2 --- + Add xkeyboard-config-olpc-mn.patch + Add xkeyboard-config-olpc-af.patch + Add xkeyboard-config-olpc-af-updated-changes.patch -- This mail was automatically generated See http://dev.laptop.org/~rwh/announcer/joyride-pkgs.html for aggregate logs See http://dev.laptop.org/~rwh/announcer/joyride_vs_update1.html for a comparison ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
CSound server questions
Greetings, all. I am porting Scratch to the XO. (Scratch is an easy-to-learn programming environment designed to help young people create interactive multimedia. See scratch.mit.edu.) Scratch includes commands to play notes and trigger drum sounds. On Windows and Mac OS, these commands use the underlying OS MIDI synthesizer. On the XO, I've been told that the best way to implement these commands is to send messages to the CSound Server (http:// rhythmicdesign.com/CsoundXO/). I tried some of the Python examples on that page, but they did not work on my XO under build 653. (It appears that the path to the CSound Server was wrong.) Here are my questions: a. Is the CSound server pre-installed? b. Is the CSound server started up automatically at boot time? If not, how do I start it? c. Is there a complete General MIDI soundbank/orchestra available for the XO? If so, how do I use it? I am new to the OLPC developer's list. If this is not the right forum for these questions, perhaps someone could tell me where I should ask them. Thank you! -- John ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: WPA networking status?
Walter Bender wrote: We'd certainly love the additional testing help, but if you are desparate to get a working WPA, perhaps consider downgrading to 656. I'd rather help test fix WPA. Email me off-list if there's anything I can contribute (as long as it doesn't brick the machine -- my son would kill me! :-)) - Gary ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
olpc-logbat data collector(s)? (was: Re: OLPC News 2008-02-02)
On Sat, Feb 02, 2008 at 01:30:19PM -0500, Walter Bender wrote: 6. Power profiling: . . . We can use much more data—please run the script yourself and send us the CSV files that it generates. I've made a load of logs available at http://www.xades.com/proj/xo_logbat . I'm not sure to whom I should be emailing the logs. Martin pgpAQb2yNrUpm.pgp Description: PGP signature ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Setting up Fedora 7 on a ex-Windows machine (Ottawa)
On 2 Feb 2008, at 19:17, Brad Paulsen wrote: On Sat, 2008-02-02 at 10:39 -0800, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote: James wrote: I'm looking for help in getting Fedora 7 to run on a Sony Vaio PCG- GRT796HP laptop that used to run Windows. Have you tried installing from the LiveCD? Hi Brad, Thanks for your suggestion. What LiveCD do you recommend that I should use? I've found these two: http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/8/Live/i686/Fedora-8-Live-i686.iso http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/8/Live/i686/Fedora-8-Live-KDE-i686.iso What is the difference between the KDE and the non-KDE versions? 1) Using Fedora-8-Live-i686.iso, after a certain amount of text feedback, I get a screen full of red columns divided by green lines, with two black boxes. This remains for a while; I then get a brief glimpse of more text including the word Werewolf. The screen then changes to a cross between an alert in the Matrix and a neon advertisement for pickled Chinese jellyfish. We then move on to a micro-budget sequence from 2001: a Space Oddity. By the time the disk activity has stopped, I get a flashing apricot and saturated blue screen. Pressing the Tab or Enter keys has no observable effect. My 8-year-old daughter finds all these digital pyrotechnics pretty, but they don't help install Linux. 2) Using Fedora-8-Live-KDE-i686.iso, I get the following output: ..MP-BIOS bug: 8254 timer not connected to I0-APIC Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 3622 ... (more in the same vein) Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 3627 Bug in intramfs /init detected. Dropping to a shell. Good luck! bash: no job control in this shell bash-3.2# _ 3) Trying again with Fedora-8-Live-KDE-i686.iso, I get: ..MP-BIOS bug: 8254 timer not connected to I0-APIC Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block numbers between 178736 and 178756 -- WARNING: Cannot find root file system! -- Create symlink /dev/root and then exit this shell to continue the boot sequence. bash: no job control in this shell bash-3.2# _ I've found this page: http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php? pid=100014 where a similar issue is discussed, and a solution is proposed. The difference is that the solution expects the source to be on a usb key rather than a CD-ROM. How can I find where the CD is mounted? I've tried using the find command to locate a file which I know exists on the CD-ROM, but bash responds: bash: find: command not found Thanks in advance, James ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Python 3.0 will be backward incompatible
For planning purposes, since OLPC uses so much Python: Python 3.0 changes a bunch of things. E.g. ordinary strings will be Unicode, not ASCII. Metaclasses are used with a different syntax. Raising and catching exceptions uses different syntax. There are lots of other little improvements. They figured Python 3.0 was the time to do all the incompatible stuff. http://www.itnews.com.au/News/69326,python-30-to-be-backwards-incompatible.aspx http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-3000/ http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-3099/ Any PEP (Python Enhancement Proposal) with number 3000 is a Python 3.0 feature discussion. Some are already done, some are accepted but not yet done, some are under consideration: http://www.python.org/dev/peps/ John PS: Personally I see this as a good thing on several levels. Python programmers are notorious for writing programs that *only* work on one particular version of Python, even without major language changes. This will force many of them to learn the joys of writing portable code. And perhaps Python facilities for specifying what version of the interpreter your code expects (and getting such an interpreter to execute it, regardless of which interpreter version is the default called python) will come into being. After major Python programs use those facilities, it'll be safe to upgrade the version of Python in your system, without breaking every existing installed Python program. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Activity hosting application: Time
At Thu, 31 Jan 2008 18:16:04 -0600, Jason Rock wrote: 1. Project name : Time Sounds good! 5. URLs of similar projects : None that I know of You might have looked at Clock and concluded that these are substantially different, but you know the Clock activity, right? (It doesn't matter, but just to make sure.) I filed a ticket sometime ago (http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/5255). I sure wish something like this will be incorporated. Another ticket that seems to inspire you (http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/2778) discusses timezones and collaboration. But I'd say that these are secondary issue. Who believes that it is worth to pay the effort to have kids in Nigeria and Brazil look at each other's clock and discuss something (Could they discuss something worthwhile?) If you can move hands at will, that would be much better. Actually, I'd say that adding the built-in game would be secondary as well. If kids can interact with the clock in very easy and simple way, they sure will invent their own games; such as puzzles, timer, etc., etc. (not everything may not be on the laptop, but that is ok). -- Yoshiki Yes, that reminds me of the idea of scriptable clock; http://dev.laptop.org/~yoshiki/etoys/Clock.004.pr It would be nice if kids make their own Clock to understand it better. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: olpc-logbat data collector(s)?
Martin Dengler wrote: On Sat, Feb 02, 2008 at 01:30:19PM -0500, Walter Bender wrote: 6. Power profiling: . . . We can use much more data—please run the script yourself and send us the CSV files that it generates. I've made a load of logs available at http://www.xades.com/proj/xo_logbat . I'm not sure to whom I should be emailing the logs. That would be me. I've grabbed your logs. Thanks for the info. Where are you running olpc-logbat from? You machine never seems to go into suspend during normal running. Are you running it from a VT or from a terminal activity in sugar? When run from a VT the activity will keep ohm from trying to suspend the laptop. I see times when there are large gaps where I think you have closed the lid but no shorted gaps that indicate a suspend. I haven't looked at all the logs though. Perhaps you just never have a period of 30 seconds of inactivity? Oh and be sure to grab the latest build with new firmware. q2d10 is doing doing quite badly in a few of those logs. The OLPC News post wasn't quite specific enough about the type of data I need. The data I would like to see is the data while on battery during normal operation when the XO has a chance to suspend. olpc-logbat does not produce any useful info when the battery is full and on ext power. So the procedure would be: Charge up the battery. run the sugar terminal activity run olpc-logbat in the activity unplug from ext power. use the laptop normally. You can stop olpc-logbat when you plug back up to charge. I don't need the charge data for power profile stuff. Don't worry if you forget and leave it running. Its easy to cut out when I analyze. The dat I prefer to get is long continuous runs from full to empty rather than shorter runs with a charge in the middle of them. Those are easier to process and help show exactly what our current battery life is. Thanks for helping to collect this info. -- Richard Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] One Laptop Per Child ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Activity hosting application: Time
On Feb 3, 2008 11:50 PM, Yoshiki Ohshima [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 5. URLs of similar projects : None that I know of You might have looked at Clock and concluded that these are substantially different, but you know the Clock activity, right? (It doesn't matter, but just to make sure.) Yeah. I knew about it, but I figured this was a *very* different project (actually it is mentioned in [time]) I filed a ticket sometime ago (http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/5255). I sure wish something like this will be incorporated. I think this should be covered in the dragability of each individual hand. Another ticket that seems to inspire you (http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/2778) This was the main basis for the project, and we believe we addressed all the issues raised in the comments. discusses timezones and collaboration. But I'd say that these are secondary issue. Who believes that it is worth to pay the effort to have kids in Nigeria and Brazil look at each other's clock and discuss something (Could they discuss something worthwhile?) If you can move hands at will, that would be much better. The time game would allow for collaboration, and also for (perhaps) meaningful discussions between two children Actually, I'd say that adding the built-in game would be secondary as well. If kids can interact with the clock in very easy and simple way, they sure will invent their own games; such as puzzles, timer, etc., etc. (not everything may not be on the laptop, but that is ok). -- Yoshiki Yes, that reminds me of the idea of scriptable clock; http://dev.laptop.org/~yoshiki/etoys/Clock.004.prhttp://dev.laptop.org/%7Eyoshiki/etoys/Clock.004.pr It would be nice if kids make their own Clock to understand it better. As a child you can't understand time(in the form of a clock) until it is explained to you. Which is where this activity will (hopefully) come in. --Jason Rock ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Activity hosting application: Time
Hi, Jason, I filed a ticket sometime ago (http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/5255). I sure wish something like this will be incorporated. I think this should be covered in the dragability of each individual hand. Very good! Another ticket that seems to inspire you (http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/2778) This was the main basis for the project, and we believe we addressed all the issues raised in the comments. Some say that designing is completed when nothing cannot be removed. In other words, trying to address all the issues raised by random people is not always a good idea. (It includes the issues raised by me as well!) discusses timezones and collaboration. But I'd say that these are secondary issue. Who believes that it is worth to pay the effort to have kids in Nigeria and Brazil look at each other's clock and discuss something (Could they discuss something worthwhile?) If you can move hands at will, that would be much better. The time game would allow for collaboration, and also for (perhaps) meaningful discussions between two children I was talking more about practical issues like the language difference and (yes) time difference, 12 hours vs. 24 hours notation difference, etc. As you wrote below, kids won't discover these concepts by their own. Do you envision that these two kids connect to each other when they don't understand what the other's language and find a good time of the day when they can connect, and discuss about an artificial and abstract concept like time? As a child you can't understand time(in the form of a clock) until it is explained to you. Which is where this activity will (hopefully) come in. I wasn't saying that kids can make stuff before understanding it. There needs to be good guidance that leads them to the deeper understanding. (For some more background, refer to some discussion around http://squeakland.org/pipermail/squeakland/2007-August/003719.html and hopefully the video linked from the email.) You wrote that your Time activity have analog, digital and natural display of time but with these, you have to explain it to kids. What kind of supporting material do you think is needed? Can the explanation be on the laptop as well? Can it be interactive? Can the explanation and the real thing be seen on the same screen at the same time? It appears that you are a high-school student... That is really great! Please don't take above as discouragement. I'm really trying to encourage people who are trying to make educational activity (as you know, there aren't many for XO.) It is really valuable to see that somebody (who is young and close to the target age group!) think about making activity. -- Yoshiki Do you know Kathleen Harness? ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [OLPC library] OLPC-health
On Feb 3, 2008 9:51 PM, Seth Woodworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I've looked at Scribus. And it's very beta still. It has some potential to be great software eventually, but it is nowhere near InDesign. I haven't used InDesign, but in my many years using FrameMaker I considered it fairly beta the whole time. Basic design errors, memory leaks, missing functions, display bugs,... And it can't read the source files at all. I will likely be using Scribus for the printed XO manual later on this month, so I hope it isn't as bad as it seems. :S We may need to send a few volunteers to clean up Scribus, then. Has anybody on the devel list looked at what needs to be done for Scribus? They could start exploring here. http://bugs.scribus.net/roadmap_page.php Maybe we should start a Wiki page for Free Software projects that are needed for laptop work, even if they won't go on the laptops. It'd be really nice if we had a way to dish out work like that. Doing a single chapter is a manageable chunk of work, and the result is visible right away. I think it's fun to do, except for the part where it takes 100 hours to do the whole book if you have to do it alone. If we can setup a team of people working on jobs like this, it'll be more fun and diverse for everyone. I've been working on restructuring the [[Health]] pages on the wiki and I'm working my way into restructuring the participate and volunteering pages in general. If we really want people to get involved, we need to better document what you're doing, what the work flow would be, what skills are required, and get the word out there. Volunteer coordination is hard, but worth it. :) We need a project page for each activity, each document set, and much of the basic hardware and software development, and we need to prod people to sign up there. Then we have to create pages to index it all, or at least make sure that category markers are applied consistently. Seth - Pascal. ___ Library mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/library -- Edward Cherlin End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business http://www.EarthTreasury.org/ The best way to predict the future is to invent it.--Alan Kay ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
