Re: [Server-devel] XSCE Sprint
Hi, I think this should be done in the overall context of XSCE as proposed by David Farning. I think of what I am doing as a system and not as isolated pieces. The ds-backup is independent because it only addresses backup and restore of the Journal. However, this is going to become more a system element as deployments turn to the shared model. It may become moot, if the community abandons dependence on Sugar. Tony On 07/12/2013 03:39 AM, George Hunt wrote: Hi Tony, When you sent me your ds-backup script to migrate student datastore to the server based upon the favorite star in the journal, I downloaded the olpc repo, and added your version as a branch, and uploaded it to https://github.com/georgejhunt/ds-backup/blob/ds_on_xs/client/ds-backup.py. This is a branch which I called ds_on_xs, but which could just as easily be called tony's ds-backup. If you are interested, I'd like to create a repo at github for any of the following: (can't do everything at once): * epath library system, * english language content, * schools, a django application to keep track of students and teachers And then we can all have access to it and make changes to separate branches, and contribute to one another's code. If you'd like, you can have your own github account (they're free), or I can give you shared access to the repo that we create together at the github.com/georgejhunt http://github.com/georgejhunt account. George On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 8:32 AM, Tony Anderson t...@olenepal.org mailto:t...@olenepal.org wrote: Hi, On 07/10/2013 02:07 PM, David Farning wrote: Pathagar is based on Django. The digital library on the school servers in Rwanda and Lesotho is based on the same technology but supports any item with a recognized mime-type. The issue is how to organize the contents so that it can be easily accessed. Are these open source projects? Can you send links to project code so we can learn from the approach or include it directly in XS? The plugin structure enables us to run multiple libraries. Django is open source. I have sent you copies of the scripts with install Django. Django is organized by applications - it provides a framework to build an application. The basic application is called schoolsite (this is sort of a master application that handles the interface to Apache and to the other applications). The library is handled by the 'library' application. Essentially the library content is organized into collections. A collection is a set of media files (library items), a folder of thumbnails (e.g. the first page of a pdf), and a json file (books.json). The json file provides title, author, path to the item, and mime-type, and path to the thumbnail. A script in the library application loads the collection (i.e. puts the books.json information in the database). The library is accessed by urls (e.g. http://schoolserver/library/ for the home page). Clicking on a category in the home pages goes to a topic page. A button on the topic page goes to a list of items (show 9 per screen). A click on the item, downloads it to the XO and installs it (activity) or puts it in the Journal (pdf, etc.). Logically, the library includes the Wikipedia (Wiki4Schools) although that is not a Django application. It also includes Wiktionary which is based on Mediawiki (and currently not working because of the switch to PostgreSQL from MySQL). The Django content consists of the Sugar Activities from ASLO, the English pdfs from E-Pustakalaya, and a large collection of Old-time Radio and Classical music (Musopen) audio files. I am not sure about the comment about plugins. The current model is to install XS-0.7 to obtain a running server (with the two configuration scripts which should be eliminated), a deployment-specific xs-custom script (which installs the usbmount script, for example). The content is installed from a hard drive using the usbmount script from the booted server. My sense is that the deployment really needs to determine what content it wants on the server particularly since the available content is approaching a terabyte. We need software (api, application) to enable this to be done, but the process will need content specialists more than software engineers. I can supply you with scripts and some rudimentary documentation at the Django level and a sketchy index of what is in the content, if that helps. It is very similar to Pathagar except that Pathagar seems to intermediate between the internet and the server where this application mediates between the servers and the XO clients. Tony ___ Server-devel mailing list
Re: [Server-devel] XSCE Sprint
I apologize to Tony, George and any others confused by this thread. I am still learning how to balance my various roles and responsibility to the project and ecosystem. In the back ground, Tony and I have been having a separate thread searching for areas of mutual value between XSCE and the deployments he supports. I hope that he and I can continue that discussion and achieve consensus among the various stake holders. In the mean time, we are have this public XSCE thread searching for way to get started. In this case a good implementation strategy seems to be picking high value services and/or content and making it available on XSCE. In this way, Tony and other deployments can pick and chose between the various available content and services to build a stack which meets their needs. The things George was asking about about are three strategic pieces which fill holes in the current XSCE project: 1. epath library system: George is talking about the server side service which distributes the content to students. XSCE is currently working with Pathagar and Internet In a Box. We would like to see what synergy we can achieve by working together. 2. english language content: Our ability to grow XSCE as a project depends on our ability to 'show value' to students, teachers, and deployments. Off line learning content is the single biggest way to show that value. 3. schools: Once we get beyond content, the single most requested feature is the ability to keep track of the relationships between students, teachers, classrooms, and schools. The learning curve for tools like moodle and schooltool are a barrier to their adoption for many teacher, schools, and deployments. The simple django web app you use looks like a nice step toward meeting classroom management requests without become overwhelming. On Fri, Jul 12, 2013 at 1:24 AM, Tony Anderson t...@olenepal.org wrote: Hi, I think this should be done in the overall context of XSCE as proposed by David Farning. I think of what I am doing as a system and not as isolated pieces. The ds-backup is independent because it only addresses backup and restore of the Journal. However, this is going to become more a system element as deployments turn to the shared model. It may become moot, if the community abandons dependence on Sugar. Tony On 07/12/2013 03:39 AM, George Hunt wrote: Hi Tony, When you sent me your ds-backup script to migrate student datastore to the server based upon the favorite star in the journal, I downloaded the olpc repo, and added your version as a branch, and uploaded it to https://github.com/georgejhunt/ds-backup/blob/ds_on_xs/client/ds-backup.py. This is a branch which I called ds_on_xs, but which could just as easily be called tony's ds-backup. If you are interested, I'd like to create a repo at github for any of the following: (can't do everything at once): epath library system, english language content, schools, a django application to keep track of students and teachers And then we can all have access to it and make changes to separate branches, and contribute to one another's code. If you'd like, you can have your own github account (they're free), or I can give you shared access to the repo that we create together at the github.com/georgejhunt account. George On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 8:32 AM, Tony Anderson t...@olenepal.org wrote: Hi, On 07/10/2013 02:07 PM, David Farning wrote: Pathagar is based on Django. The digital library on the school servers in Rwanda and Lesotho is based on the same technology but supports any item with a recognized mime-type. The issue is how to organize the contents so that it can be easily accessed. Are these open source projects? Can you send links to project code so we can learn from the approach or include it directly in XS? The plugin structure enables us to run multiple libraries. Django is open source. I have sent you copies of the scripts with install Django. Django is organized by applications - it provides a framework to build an application. The basic application is called schoolsite (this is sort of a master application that handles the interface to Apache and to the other applications). The library is handled by the 'library' application. Essentially the library content is organized into collections. A collection is a set of media files (library items), a folder of thumbnails (e.g. the first page of a pdf), and a json file (books.json). The json file provides title, author, path to the item, and mime-type, and path to the thumbnail. A script in the library application loads the collection (i.e. puts the books.json information in the database). The library is accessed by urls (e.g. http://schoolserver/library/ for the home page). Clicking on a category in the home pages goes to a topic page. A button on the topic page goes to a list of items (show 9 per screen). A click on the item, downloads it to the XO and installs it
Re: [Server-devel] XSCE Sprint
On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 11:07:04AM +0200, Tony Anderson wrote: Hi, Thanks again for this! What I gather is that we should use Nandblast from an XO for reflash. For a time it was not supported for XO-1.5, but my current understanding is that it supported for all versions of XO. Up to 13.1.0 it is supported on XO-1, XO-1.5 and XO-1.75. It is fast for XO-1, and quite slow for XO-1.5 and XO-1.75. The breakeven point, where I would switch from USB drive to NANDblaster, is about five XO-1, and about twenty for XO-1.5 and XO-1.75. In 13.2.0 it is broken, and I am working on that in ticket #12726, hoping to get fixes in before release. Fixes are available for XO-1 (Q2F19) and XO-1.5 (Q3C16). XO-1.75 is still a problem. It was not intended to be supported on XO-4 with the new 802.11n wireless card, but so far it looks possible. In Lesotho, the flash was taking 15min from boot to reboot for registration. These laptops (XO-1) date from the first G1G1 and so there is no telling about endurance. That time of 15 minutes is far too long, and should be investigated ... if the internal storage is three times slower than when the laptops were produced, you will have performance problems. I have some old XO-1 units here that have been used by children, and they are not showing that symptom. Naturally, reload of the Journal occurs via the file system after the flash. Sadly, this is not a current issue because none of the deployments actually use the Journal (e.g. in Lesotho the laptops are shared among several students). The laptops (XO-1.5s) at Saint Jacobs were sponsored by a group in Stuttgart and are not part of the Rwanda purchase. In any case, I believe the information needed for the collection stick is available (serial number and uuid). If it is already available, get it to me. Yours, Tony On 07/10/2013 10:55 AM, James Cameron wrote: On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 10:11:14AM +0200, Tony Anderson wrote: The 'locked' XO problem derives from XOs distributed in the minimum 100 XO purchase - many of these are locked. Also, in Rwanda the policy is to keep the laptops locked even though they have indefinite leases. Rwanda probably has a deployment key and should be able to sign builds with it. My guess is that the laptops would also have the deployment keys injected already. You will need to work with the people who have the keys. My current plans are to visit these schools in December and so I may be able to get them unlocked then. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Collection_stick is perfect for this, provided the deployment did not remove the OLPC keys. (I don't have records of what deployments have done). What I would really love is a 'Nandblast' capability in the firmware that gets it's image from the schoolserver. That probably would work (how does an XO know an image is coming over wifi from an XO or a school server?). There is no implementation of NANDblaster for the school server, because it requires special support in the wireless device. A typical access point will not work. It requires an XO as the sender. (NANDblaster is implemented in the firmware, not the operating system. An alternate design could be engineered, but that doesn't seem likely to be attempted.) The normal flash problem is that several XOs need to be reflashed at one time, so the usb key approach is time-consuming. My experience is that a reflash from usb key takes 15min. Naturally, one key to this process is the ability to reload the backed up (hopefully) Journal. Reloading the backed up journal is costing you 10min? Reflashing an XO-1 from USB drive 13.2.0-12 costs only 5min. If the reflash is taking much longer than that, there may be an endurance or end of life problem with the internal storage of the XO. -- James Cameron http://quozl.linux.org.au/ ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] XSCE Sprint
Hi, Thanks again. The laptops are good to go for this school year (12.1.0). I will be able to work the collection stick problem when I return to the schools (probably in December). I'll double check the flash time to check for variability between units. At these schools all the laptops are XO-1 or XO1.5. However, I think a Nandblast facility working across all the models would be very useful for the start-of-year update. Yours, Tony On 07/11/2013 09:32 AM, James Cameron wrote: On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 11:07:04AM +0200, Tony Anderson wrote: Hi, Thanks again for this! What I gather is that we should use Nandblast from an XO for reflash. For a time it was not supported for XO-1.5, but my current understanding is that it supported for all versions of XO. Up to 13.1.0 it is supported on XO-1, XO-1.5 and XO-1.75. It is fast for XO-1, and quite slow for XO-1.5 and XO-1.75. The breakeven point, where I would switch from USB drive to NANDblaster, is about five XO-1, and about twenty for XO-1.5 and XO-1.75. In 13.2.0 it is broken, and I am working on that in ticket #12726, hoping to get fixes in before release. Fixes are available for XO-1 (Q2F19) and XO-1.5 (Q3C16). XO-1.75 is still a problem. It was not intended to be supported on XO-4 with the new 802.11n wireless card, but so far it looks possible. In Lesotho, the flash was taking 15min from boot to reboot for registration. These laptops (XO-1) date from the first G1G1 and so there is no telling about endurance. That time of 15 minutes is far too long, and should be investigated ... if the internal storage is three times slower than when the laptops were produced, you will have performance problems. I have some old XO-1 units here that have been used by children, and they are not showing that symptom. Naturally, reload of the Journal occurs via the file system after the flash. Sadly, this is not a current issue because none of the deployments actually use the Journal (e.g. in Lesotho the laptops are shared among several students). The laptops (XO-1.5s) at Saint Jacobs were sponsored by a group in Stuttgart and are not part of the Rwanda purchase. In any case, I believe the information needed for the collection stick is available (serial number and uuid). If it is already available, get it to me. Yours, Tony On 07/10/2013 10:55 AM, James Cameron wrote: On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 10:11:14AM +0200, Tony Anderson wrote: The 'locked' XO problem derives from XOs distributed in the minimum 100 XO purchase - many of these are locked. Also, in Rwanda the policy is to keep the laptops locked even though they have indefinite leases. Rwanda probably has a deployment key and should be able to sign builds with it. My guess is that the laptops would also have the deployment keys injected already. You will need to work with the people who have the keys. My current plans are to visit these schools in December and so I may be able to get them unlocked then. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Collection_stick is perfect for this, provided the deployment did not remove the OLPC keys. (I don't have records of what deployments have done). What I would really love is a 'Nandblast' capability in the firmware that gets it's image from the schoolserver. That probably would work (how does an XO know an image is coming over wifi from an XO or a school server?). There is no implementation of NANDblaster for the school server, because it requires special support in the wireless device. A typical access point will not work. It requires an XO as the sender. (NANDblaster is implemented in the firmware, not the operating system. An alternate design could be engineered, but that doesn't seem likely to be attempted.) The normal flash problem is that several XOs need to be reflashed at one time, so the usb key approach is time-consuming. My experience is that a reflash from usb key takes 15min. Naturally, one key to this process is the ability to reload the backed up (hopefully) Journal. Reloading the backed up journal is costing you 10min? Reflashing an XO-1 from USB drive 13.2.0-12 costs only 5min. If the reflash is taking much longer than that, there may be an endurance or end of life problem with the internal storage of the XO. ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] XSCE Sprint
This will be very useful. Can't wait to try it. David Leeming Solomon Islands -Original Message- From: server-devel-boun...@lists.laptop.org [mailto:server-devel-boun...@lists.laptop.org] On Behalf Of Tony Anderson Sent: Thursday, 11 July 2013 6:49 p.m. To: James Cameron; server-devel@lists.laptop.org; George Hunt; David Farning; Jerry Vonau Subject: Re: [Server-devel] XSCE Sprint Hi, Thanks again. The laptops are good to go for this school year (12.1.0). I will be able to work the collection stick problem when I return to the schools (probably in December). I'll double check the flash time to check for variability between units. At these schools all the laptops are XO-1 or XO1.5. However, I think a Nandblast facility working across all the models would be very useful for the start-of-year update. Yours, Tony On 07/11/2013 09:32 AM, James Cameron wrote: On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 11:07:04AM +0200, Tony Anderson wrote: Hi, Thanks again for this! What I gather is that we should use Nandblast from an XO for reflash. For a time it was not supported for XO-1.5, but my current understanding is that it supported for all versions of XO. Up to 13.1.0 it is supported on XO-1, XO-1.5 and XO-1.75. It is fast for XO-1, and quite slow for XO-1.5 and XO-1.75. The breakeven point, where I would switch from USB drive to NANDblaster, is about five XO-1, and about twenty for XO-1.5 and XO-1.75. In 13.2.0 it is broken, and I am working on that in ticket #12726, hoping to get fixes in before release. Fixes are available for XO-1 (Q2F19) and XO-1.5 (Q3C16). XO-1.75 is still a problem. It was not intended to be supported on XO-4 with the new 802.11n wireless card, but so far it looks possible. In Lesotho, the flash was taking 15min from boot to reboot for registration. These laptops (XO-1) date from the first G1G1 and so there is no telling about endurance. That time of 15 minutes is far too long, and should be investigated ... if the internal storage is three times slower than when the laptops were produced, you will have performance problems. I have some old XO-1 units here that have been used by children, and they are not showing that symptom. Naturally, reload of the Journal occurs via the file system after the flash. Sadly, this is not a current issue because none of the deployments actually use the Journal (e.g. in Lesotho the laptops are shared among several students). The laptops (XO-1.5s) at Saint Jacobs were sponsored by a group in Stuttgart and are not part of the Rwanda purchase. In any case, I believe the information needed for the collection stick is available (serial number and uuid). If it is already available, get it to me. Yours, Tony On 07/10/2013 10:55 AM, James Cameron wrote: On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 10:11:14AM +0200, Tony Anderson wrote: The 'locked' XO problem derives from XOs distributed in the minimum 100 XO purchase - many of these are locked. Also, in Rwanda the policy is to keep the laptops locked even though they have indefinite leases. Rwanda probably has a deployment key and should be able to sign builds with it. My guess is that the laptops would also have the deployment keys injected already. You will need to work with the people who have the keys. My current plans are to visit these schools in December and so I may be able to get them unlocked then. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Collection_stick is perfect for this, provided the deployment did not remove the OLPC keys. (I don't have records of what deployments have done). What I would really love is a 'Nandblast' capability in the firmware that gets it's image from the schoolserver. That probably would work (how does an XO know an image is coming over wifi from an XO or a school server?). There is no implementation of NANDblaster for the school server, because it requires special support in the wireless device. A typical access point will not work. It requires an XO as the sender. (NANDblaster is implemented in the firmware, not the operating system. An alternate design could be engineered, but that doesn't seem likely to be attempted.) The normal flash problem is that several XOs need to be reflashed at one time, so the usb key approach is time-consuming. My experience is that a reflash from usb key takes 15min. Naturally, one key to this process is the ability to reload the backed up (hopefully) Journal. Reloading the backed up journal is costing you 10min? Reflashing an XO-1 from USB drive 13.2.0-12 costs only 5min. If the reflash is taking much longer than that, there may be an endurance or end of life problem with the internal storage of the XO. ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo
[Server-devel] XSCE Sprint day 4.
A brief update. George and Jerry made progress getting IIaB to run on the XSCE. It is running, but needs some clean up. Braddock has been a great help. -- Thanks Braddock Santi and Ruben have been testing the new hardware which arrived yesterday. Ubuntu 12.04 runs out of the box. They are trying Fedora 18 to stay consistent with the rest of the XSCE project. -- Thanks Santi and Ruben Tony Anderson of Nepal, Rwanda, and Lesotho fame has set up http://www.karmalearning.com/learn/ to share a subset of the content they have created. We are making progress laying out a road map on how to work more closely. This is exciting. -- Thanks Tony If everything works out, we will try to do as much of the development communication on server-devel. This will help us learn and demonstrate how two existing projects can find point of common interest and collaborate our those common interests without getting too wrapped up in the differences. It is all about the plugin design. If you like a service, turn it on. If you don't like it, don't install it. But we will frown on people telling other that they shouldn't or can't implement a plugin. -- Thanks to everyone who is comeing together to help the project gather the momentue necessary for continued growth. For those folks who want to watch and participate a status page is available at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1blFrHtvl6RaMH37-DhznphaEG9bfWZv4b-wSyhS9vDM/edit -- David Farning Activity Central: http://www.activitycentral.com ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] XSCE Sprint
Hi, Thanks for the update. The 'locked' XO problem derives from XOs distributed in the minimum 100 XO purchase - many of these are locked. Also, in Rwanda the policy is to keep the laptops locked even though they have indefinite leases. My current plans are to visit these schools in December and so I may be able to get them unlocked then. What I would really love is a 'Nandblast' capability in the firmware that gets it's image from the schoolserver. That probably would work (how does an XO know an image is coming over wifi from an XO or a school server?). The normal flash problem is that several XOs need to be reflashed at one time, so the usb key approach is time-consuming. My experience is that a reflash from usb key takes 15min. Naturally, one key to this process is the ability to reload the backed up (hopefully) Journal. Tony On 07/10/2013 10:02 AM, James Cameron wrote: On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 09:33:29AM +0200, Tony Anderson wrote: The flash level needs to be handled by the firmware. I believe the firmware is capable of obtaining the image from a network. This is where the 'lock' is invoked so the trick will be to find out how to do this for locked XOs. Yes, the firmware is capable of obtaining an image from wireless or USB ethernet, but this is not a very efficient use of time. A USB drive easily outperforms network reflash. To do it for locked XOs requires signing the build with your deployment keys, and honestly we haven't tested secure network reflash feature for a long time, so the community should test it before recommending it. If I recall correctly, it was not in scope for XO-1.75 and XO-4 engineering. (p.s. I salute the bravery of any deployment that uses locked XOs without a deployment key injected on the laptops ... but I recommend that this be avoided because of the numerous pitfalls ... ensure a deployment key is injected, or unlock the laptops). ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] XSCE Sprint
On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 10:11:14AM +0200, Tony Anderson wrote: The 'locked' XO problem derives from XOs distributed in the minimum 100 XO purchase - many of these are locked. Also, in Rwanda the policy is to keep the laptops locked even though they have indefinite leases. Rwanda probably has a deployment key and should be able to sign builds with it. My guess is that the laptops would also have the deployment keys injected already. You will need to work with the people who have the keys. My current plans are to visit these schools in December and so I may be able to get them unlocked then. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Collection_stick is perfect for this, provided the deployment did not remove the OLPC keys. (I don't have records of what deployments have done). What I would really love is a 'Nandblast' capability in the firmware that gets it's image from the schoolserver. That probably would work (how does an XO know an image is coming over wifi from an XO or a school server?). There is no implementation of NANDblaster for the school server, because it requires special support in the wireless device. A typical access point will not work. It requires an XO as the sender. (NANDblaster is implemented in the firmware, not the operating system. An alternate design could be engineered, but that doesn't seem likely to be attempted.) The normal flash problem is that several XOs need to be reflashed at one time, so the usb key approach is time-consuming. My experience is that a reflash from usb key takes 15min. Naturally, one key to this process is the ability to reload the backed up (hopefully) Journal. Reloading the backed up journal is costing you 10min? Reflashing an XO-1 from USB drive 13.2.0-12 costs only 5min. If the reflash is taking much longer than that, there may be an endurance or end of life problem with the internal storage of the XO. -- James Cameron http://quozl.linux.org.au/ ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] XSCE Sprint
Hi, Thanks again for this! What I gather is that we should use Nandblast from an XO for reflash. For a time it was not supported for XO-1.5, but my current understanding is that it supported for all versions of XO. In Lesotho, the flash was taking 15min from boot to reboot for registration. These laptops (XO-1) date from the first G1G1 and so there is no telling about endurance. Naturally, reload of the Journal occurs via the file system after the flash. Sadly, this is not a current issue because none of the deployments actually use the Journal (e.g. in Lesotho the laptops are shared among several students). The laptops (XO-1.5s) at Saint Jacobs were sponsored by a group in Stuttgart and are not part of the Rwanda purchase. In any case, I believe the information needed for the collection stick is available (serial number and uuid). Yours, Tony On 07/10/2013 10:55 AM, James Cameron wrote: On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 10:11:14AM +0200, Tony Anderson wrote: The 'locked' XO problem derives from XOs distributed in the minimum 100 XO purchase - many of these are locked. Also, in Rwanda the policy is to keep the laptops locked even though they have indefinite leases. Rwanda probably has a deployment key and should be able to sign builds with it. My guess is that the laptops would also have the deployment keys injected already. You will need to work with the people who have the keys. My current plans are to visit these schools in December and so I may be able to get them unlocked then. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Collection_stick is perfect for this, provided the deployment did not remove the OLPC keys. (I don't have records of what deployments have done). What I would really love is a 'Nandblast' capability in the firmware that gets it's image from the schoolserver. That probably would work (how does an XO know an image is coming over wifi from an XO or a school server?). There is no implementation of NANDblaster for the school server, because it requires special support in the wireless device. A typical access point will not work. It requires an XO as the sender. (NANDblaster is implemented in the firmware, not the operating system. An alternate design could be engineered, but that doesn't seem likely to be attempted.) The normal flash problem is that several XOs need to be reflashed at one time, so the usb key approach is time-consuming. My experience is that a reflash from usb key takes 15min. Naturally, one key to this process is the ability to reload the backed up (hopefully) Journal. Reloading the backed up journal is costing you 10min? Reflashing an XO-1 from USB drive 13.2.0-12 costs only 5min. If the reflash is taking much longer than that, there may be an endurance or end of life problem with the internal storage of the XO. ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] XSCE Sprint
Hi, On 07/10/2013 02:07 PM, David Farning wrote: Pathagar is based on Django. The digital library on the school servers in Rwanda and Lesotho is based on the same technology but supports any item with a recognized mime-type. The issue is how to organize the contents so that it can be easily accessed. Are these open source projects? Can you send links to project code so we can learn from the approach or include it directly in XS? The plugin structure enables us to run multiple libraries. Django is open source. I have sent you copies of the scripts with install Django. Django is organized by applications - it provides a framework to build an application. The basic application is called schoolsite (this is sort of a master application that handles the interface to Apache and to the other applications). The library is handled by the 'library' application. Essentially the library content is organized into collections. A collection is a set of media files (library items), a folder of thumbnails (e.g. the first page of a pdf), and a json file (books.json). The json file provides title, author, path to the item, and mime-type, and path to the thumbnail. A script in the library application loads the collection (i.e. puts the books.json information in the database). The library is accessed by urls (e.g. http://schoolserver/library/ for the home page). Clicking on a category in the home pages goes to a topic page. A button on the topic page goes to a list of items (show 9 per screen). A click on the item, downloads it to the XO and installs it (activity) or puts it in the Journal (pdf, etc.). Logically, the library includes the Wikipedia (Wiki4Schools) although that is not a Django application. It also includes Wiktionary which is based on Mediawiki (and currently not working because of the switch to PostgreSQL from MySQL). The Django content consists of the Sugar Activities from ASLO, the English pdfs from E-Pustakalaya, and a large collection of Old-time Radio and Classical music (Musopen) audio files. I am not sure about the comment about plugins. The current model is to install XS-0.7 to obtain a running server (with the two configuration scripts which should be eliminated), a deployment-specific xs-custom script (which installs the usbmount script, for example). The content is installed from a hard drive using the usbmount script from the booted server. My sense is that the deployment really needs to determine what content it wants on the server particularly since the available content is approaching a terabyte. We need software (api, application) to enable this to be done, but the process will need content specialists more than software engineers. I can supply you with scripts and some rudimentary documentation at the Django level and a sketchy index of what is in the content, if that helps. It is very similar to Pathagar except that Pathagar seems to intermediate between the internet and the server where this application mediates between the servers and the XO clients. Tony ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
[Server-devel] XSCE sprint update day 0 and day 1
We are safely locked away in cabin in Gimli, Manitoba ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli,_Manitoba ) We have been going through a couple days of reflection. Sometimes painful, but always useful. It feels like many of the big technical pieces are coming together. Now, we are in that awkward adolescence phase, more than an idea... by less than a product. We are 80% done... with 80% left to go :) We are talking about where we should go and what we need to do. Navigating the fog of uncertainty. Through all this I am still pretty confident: 1. George is advocating for what he needs in Haiti. - A full turnkey system from power to wireless. A typical micro-deployment. 2. Jerry is advocating for what he needs in Australia. - Thousands of laptops in 100s of schools which are 1000s of kilometers apart. 3. I am advocating for I think the ecosystem needs in a server appliance. Inexpensive, low power, easily maintainable, sane defaults yet configurable. 4. Adam is advocating for the big picture needs of olpc Please join us on this mailing list or IRC #schoolserver to advocate for your deployment or use case. If it feels like your voice is not being heard, patches and clearly define customers specification will have greater effect than all caps :) -- David Farning Activity Central: http://www.activitycentral.com ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] XSCE sprint update day 0 and day 1
Thanks David for writing daily reports on our http://schoolserver.org/0.4/Sprint progress and I apologize to all our 1st voice call was choppy yesterday, due to our untested 3G backwoods modem. Working better now! So daily 3PM EDT voice calls (3PM NYC time on Skype) should be smoother today and in coming days we hope, all who can join this week, please reply to me with your Skype username -- or see you on #schoolserver on http://webchat.freenode.net On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 8:43 AM, David Farning dfarn...@activitycentral.comwrote: We are safely locked away in cabin in Gimli, Manitoba ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli,_Manitoba ) We have been going through a couple days of reflection. Sometimes painful, but always useful. It feels like many of the big technical pieces are coming together. Now, we are in that awkward adolescence phase, more than an idea... by less than a product. We are 80% done... with 80% left to go :) We are talking about where we should go and what we need to do. Navigating the fog of uncertainty. Through all this I am still pretty confident: 1. George is advocating for what he needs in Haiti. - A full turnkey system from power to wireless. A typical micro-deployment. 2. Jerry is advocating for what he needs in Australia. - Thousands of laptops in 100s of schools which are 1000s of kilometers apart. 3. I am advocating for I think the ecosystem needs in a server appliance. Inexpensive, low power, easily maintainable, sane defaults yet configurable. 4. Adam is advocating for the big picture needs of olpc Please join us on this mailing list or IRC #schoolserver to advocate for your deployment or use case. If it feels like your voice is not being heard, patches and clearly define customers specification will have greater effect than all caps :) -- David Farning Activity Central: http://www.activitycentral.com ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
