Re: Walter leaving and shift to XP.
Edward Cherlin wrote: On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 6:09 PM, Tom Hoffman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 5:40 PM, Edward Cherlin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 1:27 AM, Torello Querci [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If is possible to use normal windows application on top Sugar+Windows the educational project is broken because the developers what need to write a program (program not activity) write it on windows because in this manner one PC with windows can run it, and XO XPzed too so why write code for sugar? In this scenario Sugar is dead and OLPC became a Laptop organization If Sugar cannot offer any advantages to developers writing applications for children beyond those already offered by Windows XP, it will fail regardless. It does, though, so it won't. Here are just a few examples. * We are now working on integrating the formerly separate activities. Among other things, we will be able to feed sound and other program output to Measure, and text-to-speech with karaoke-style text coloring will be available to all activities. * Sugar provides a standard suite of software functions that can be built into interactive textbooks. * Sugar is far easier to localize than other software, and a language community can do it themselves. the way they were talking most of those things would just be made into top level apis. Things like sharing would be available to all applications. If these functions are being made into apis then there is no benefit in developing for sugar. Why would any of us spend time developing a sugar specific app at that point? we can write a normal desktop app that uses sugar apis. We would get the same functionality with more portability. Sugar as a window manager would be marginalized and fail. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [sugar] [Community-news] on Sugar
C. Scott Ananian wrote: On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 12:06 PM, Nicholas Negroponte [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: For this reason, Sugar needs a wider basis, to run on more Linux platforms and to run under Windows. We have been engaged in discussions with Microsoft for several months, to explore a dual boot version of the XO. Some of you have seen what Microsoft developed on their own for the XO. It works well and now needs Sugar on top of it (so to speak). You have been saying variations of this for a while now, but: * OLPC has not hired any Windows developers * OLPC has not adjusted its timeline to allow for time necessary for such a port. What are we to make of this? Are you serious about Sugar on Windows or not? If you are, then you need to immediately hire *at least* 10 windows developers to actually perform the port, and inform the deployment countries that we are placing a hold on new development for at least 6 months while the port is prepared. And the result, of course, will be a new version of Sugar which is guaranteed to run *no better* than the one on Linux. From an IT management perspective, this is madness. If you are not serious about Sugar on Windows within the next year, please continue to avoid 'now' and use 'might' and 'someday' when you talk about it, and we'll continue to try to make Sugar-on-Linux achieve its potential. I approve of keeping OLPC's options open, in case your current development team (myself included) cannot deliver on Sugar's potential, but setting vague (and demoralizing) goals for future development -- without actually devoting the resources to achieve those goals -- is madness. You have only succeeded in alienating the developers you need to make Sugar-on-Linux work, without actually achieving any progress on Sugar-on-Windows. --scott The sugar team has accomplished an amazing amount in the time they've spent so far. However, there are so many features, like security, that were not implemented or implemented as well as they should have been. Several people said a lack of manpower was to blame. If more resources are available for porting to windows, why weren't more developers hired for the initial work on sugar? Is there new funding that is making this port possible? What I'm having a hard time with is how this new, much greater commitment can be honored when the initial undertaking was understaffed. Sugar was _already_ an integral part of the XO and it now seems like it was not given the attention it deserved. -Peter ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: working version of Watch and Listen?
The link to version 10 should work now. the version in git is actually version 12, but it was only minor changes to add localization/interationalization. Josh Schonstal wrote: The version that is in git should work. It's working on the emulator, and as far as I know it should be working on the laptop as well. You could download it and test it, but from what I know we haven't done much to WL after finishing the latest version (that xo appears to be version 10, which is an older version than what is in git). I've CC'd this message to the rest of the WL developers to see if they have anything else to add on this. Bryan Berry wrote: I get 404 not found when I try to access the url listed for Watch and Listen on the Activities page: http://staff.osuosl.org/~peter/myfiles/Watch%20%20Listen-10.xo Can anyone tell me how stable the version of Watch and Listen is that lives in git? http://dev.laptop.org/git?p=projects/watch-listen;a=shortlog;h=master thanks ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Semi-successful Bayer-mode capture from internal camera
Are you using gstreamer or are you just accessing the camera with v4l? If you do not change the parameters V4L will just use the current settings that were set by the last program to use it. -Peter Benjamin M. Schwartz wrote: HUGE BUG: 1. After each reboot YOU MUST OPEN Record (or any other program that uses gstreamer to access the camera) BEFORE RUNNING bayertest.py. Otherwise, your images will be squished into the left half of the field. I have no idea why. It's pretty weird. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Printing et al.
Greg Smith (gregmsmi) wrote: Lastly, is the teacher up to doing it this way (we can translate if needed)? http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Enabling_CUPS Once the printer is installed you're close but lpr -P fooprinter foodoc.ps will need a path to the file and they may not be comfortable with the prompt. That documentation was intended more as proof that you could print and for developers who wanted to add print support to an activity. Manual configuration of CUPs requires some knowledge of it. Teachers can't be expected to manually configure cups. In fact when I tested it i cheated and copied printers.conf from my workstation. Currently there are no activities that convert files to a printable format (ps/pdf). The teachers won't be able to print this way even if they had their printer configured. Pardon my ignorance but how hard is it to create a mini-activity in the Sugar GUI that allows you to run a shell script? May need the ability to enter a file name or other arguments. Even better would be to drag and drop a file from the Journal on the print activity and away it goes. That's my 2 cents on design but let's hear from the teacher. Printing needs to be implemented on a per-activity basis. Translating what you see on the screen to a printable format will be different for each file type. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Printing and the XO
We didn't talk about which specific teachers or schools requested printing. JG or Walter would know, thats where that information came from. That *any* want printing makes it compelling enough. Greg Smith (gregmsmi) wrote: Hi Peter, Which teachers or schools have been asking for printing support? If we can add some documentation on that to the Wiki it will help a lot. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Printing and the XO
Hi all, While not a primary concern of the project, printing is something that teachers are asking for. OSL HP are exploring how all the pieces will fit together. Much of this was discussed in a recent call with Walter Bender, Jim Gettys, Jim Rowson (HP), North Krimsly (OSL), Carlos Jensen (OSU Engineering), and myself. I'm bringing this to the mail list so other people can give input. There were a lot of details discussed so in an effort to be concise this will be more of an outline. There are many pieces to this problem, this description is in no way considered complete. I'm just getting the conversation going. Overview * XO will have CUPS (currently installable by yum) and send print jobs to the school server or another linux desktop. * New GUI on the XO will be added to configure and use printers. * Modifications and or additions to CUPS client might be needed to improve performance, reduce footprint, and or achieve desired functionality. * New GUI for security and other configuration options (queueing, authorization, etc) for cups Configuration - XO The number of printers, the models, and their locations will be unknown. It may be 1 printer per school, or many depending on the country or region. Adding or selecting a printer needs to be simple. Autoconfiguration is the best case scenario but some manual configuration is still needed. A GUI is required for all of this. The presence service may be a way to discover printers and configuration information. IE. the advertisement includes the configuration to be added to /etc/cups/printers.conf A printer would really only be configured, once, at the server. Some unanswered questions are: * What does this GUI look like. * Where is it located within sugar. Within the configure activity? Configuration/Moderation - Server Some form of authorization will be needed to make sure kids only print to their own school, class, etc. Cups already allows for access per user and XOs can be identified by their keys. The printer configuration tool in the current version of Ubuntu has this feature already. Printing supplies are not cheap and may be the biggest obstacle. There is concern that kids will print large jobs and use supplies up quickly. There should be some form of moderation to prevent waste and misuse. Authorization queues and or quotas were suggested. Some of these features exist in CUPS but there is no GUI to expose them. Some possible features for moderation: * configurable quotas. IE. 2 pages per day. 20 pages per month. etc. * override for quota * Authorization queues. Rulesets to determine which jobs requires teacher authorization before printing * previewing jobs in queue * identification of duplicate jobs Activities The first activities that this is a priority for are write and browse but development can be in parallel. These activities are some with the most compelling need for printing. They also are low hanging fruit since both mozilla and abiword already have printing capabilities. Files sent to cups must be postscript or PDF. What is shown on the screen must be translated to one of these formats. Cairo has an API for creating PDFs. Performance Issues We are under the impression that cups includes drivers and or other information for a lot of printers. This creates a large footprint on disk and or in memory. If this is the case then cups should be modified to allow better control of resources that cups uses. Hardware We did not touch on the questions involving printer hardware very much. We were focusing on the software side of things. The consensus from the earlier OSL/HP meetings was that a low cost, rugged, printer that can use cheap ink would be a great thing. Hardware is not something the OSL has expertise in creating but perhaps HP labs or OLPC could handle it. Testing CUPS I verified that cups was installable and works on the XO over a traditional wireless network with the following steps (1-3 require root) 1) yum install cups.i386 2) configure your printer in /etc/cups/printers.conf 3) /etc/init.d/cups restart 4) lpr -P fooprinter foodoc.ps - Peter --- Peter Krenesky Open Source Lab Oregon State University ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Help wanted: video demo!
C. Scott Ananian wrote: On Dec 11, 2007 6:52 PM, Walter Bender [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The Sesame Street video that runs in the Helix player (RV encoded) is quite a good demo of full screen video on the laptop. Is there a URL that that can be downloaded from? Does Erik's transcoding mechanism work to get it out of RV format? Can we still play it smoothly when it has been transcoded to an unencumbered format? --scott http://staff.osuosl.org/~peter/myfiles/helix/SesameFull.rv or for a shorter video: http://staff.osuosl.org/~peter/myfiles/helix/SesameStreet_21.rv ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Need account on dev.laptop.org
Hi all,
I need to add watch and listen to joyride per ticket
http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/5036.
According to the wiki i need shell access and this is the place to
request it.
1. Project name : Watch Listen
2. Existing website, if any : https://olpc-player.helixcommunity.org/
3. One-line description : Media Player based on Helix media engine
4. Longer description : Watch Listen is a media player that uses the
helix
: media engine. It supports a variety of audio,
video
: and image formats.
:
5. URLs of similar projects :
6. Committer list
Please list the maintainer (lead developer) as the first entry. Only list
developers who need to be given accounts so that they can commit to your
project's code repository, or push their own. There is no need to list
non-committer developers.
Username Full name SSH2 key URLE-mail
- --
#1 kreneskyp Peter Krenesky[EMAIL
PROTECTED]
#2
#3
...
If any developers don't have their SSH2 keys on the web, please attach them
to the application e-mail.
7. Preferred development model
[] Central tree. Every developer can push his changes directly to the
project's git tree. This is the standard model that will be familiar to
CVS and Subversion users, and that tends to work well for most projects.
[X] Maintainer-owned tree. Every developer creates his own git tree, or
multiple git trees. He periodically asks the maintainer to look at one
or more of these trees, and merge changes into the maintainer-owned,
main tree. This is the model used by the Linux kernel, and is
well-suited to projects wishing to maintain a tighter control on code
entering the main tree.
If you choose the maintainer-owned tree model, but wish to set up some
shared trees where all of your project's committers can commit directly,
as might be the case with a discussion tree, or a tree for an individual
feature, you may send us such a request by e-mail, and we will set up the
tree for you.
8. Set up a project mailing list:
[ ] Yes, named after our project name
[ ] Yes, named __
[X] No
When your project is just getting off the ground, we suggest you eschew
a separate mailing list and instead keep discussion about your project
on the main OLPC development list. This will give you more input and
potentially attract more developers to your project; when the volume of
messages related to your project reaches some critical mass, we can
trivially create a separate mailing list for you.
If you need multiple lists, let us know. We discourage having many
mailing lists for smaller projects, as this tends to
stunt the growth of your project community. You can always add more lists
later.
9. Commit notifications
[ ] Notification of commits to the main tree should be e-mailed to the list
we chose to create above
[ ] A separate mailing list, projectname-git, should be created for commit
notifications
[X] No commit notifications, please
10. Shell accounts
As a general rule, we don't provide shell accounts to developers unless
there's a demonstrated need. If you have one, please explain here, and
list the usernames of the committers above needing shell access.
kreneskyp - Shell access is required for adding packages to joyride.
11. Translation
[X] Set up the laptop.org Pootle server to allow translation commits to be
made
[ ] Translation arrangements have already been made at ___
per ticket #4593 translation commits will be handled manually.
12. Notes/comments:
___
Devel mailing list
Devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Urgent: Need icons from some 3rd party activities
On Thursday 11 October 2007 9:22:24 am Eben Eliason wrote: Pentagram is in need of a few activity icons for the xogiving.org microsite. Would the developers of the following activities please attach the corresponding activity icons to this thread? Thanks! Block Party Calculate News Reader Watch LIsten Turtle Art Additionally, if any of you are unsatisfied with your icons or would the like Sugar design team to clean up their appearance, please let us know. Thanks! - Eben, Pentagram ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel we wanted a new icon to replace the current one for watch and listen. here is what we came up with some help from real's designer. None of us on the WL team are artists so feedback/help from the sugar team would be great. -Peter attachment: wlicon-xo.svg___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
