Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] turtle art: 2 instances, no?
On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 9:45 PM, Gary C Martin g...@garycmartin.com wrote: Hi Bill, On 7 Sep 2009, at 12:09, Bill Kerr wrote: I can't see any way to load 2 instances on the SoaS version If I have a project loaded, saved and named Then go into the journal and try to load an older saved version then it doesn't load but puts me back to the current open version I have to first close the current version and then open the older version to get it This is not a bug with TurtleArt. It's (in my view) the major design backfire that is the Keep button... Keep is not like a copy, duplicate or 'save as' file operation in other OS environments. Sugars Keep is actually a (bad) attempt at Keep version snap shot, unfortunately no where in the Journal UI is this visually indicated/referenced. Think of Keep a little like non-linear undo states stored to Journal. The problem with all this is that Sugar currently treats all versions you Keep from an activity as the same activity. You can only have one of the versions active at once, this is what you're seeing when you try to resume (what you think is another old activity is actually a version) and Sugar switches to the current version of it you already have open. To create fresh new activities, you need to: 1) start new activity 2) create masterpiece 3) stop activity 4) goto step 1 If you ever find yourself clicking Keep give your self a small jab in the hand with a sharp protractor ;-) hi gary, I'm doing some of the barry newell 40 shapes challenge I posted on another thread Some of the shapes are related to other shapes eg. after I do shape 6 then I want to Keep that as BN6 then use it again to make BN7, etc So I change the name in the box from BN6 to BN7 and click Keep It does work similar to Save As ... If I go to the Journal and click the arrow on the right the image represents the different versions But the confusion arises when I try to open an old version and just get back to the currently open version So I can achieve something like Save As ... but can't achieve opening two versions at once, as you say In every release of Sugar to date, Keep == horrible design failure, even for the upcoming 0.86. The problem is the real deal (true versioning) is always just over the horizon, like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and the blasted button some how makes it through (and causes way more grief then it ever solves as the common use case is I want a duplicate copy of this). Regards, --Gary Also if I am working on a project and remember an idea from a sample project then I can't just load the sample view the idea and then quickly return to my current project to implement there I have to close current project, then open sample and view idea, then close sample, then reopen current project, etc. Please correct if I am wrong about this ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) i...@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
[Sugar-devel] FSF attitude to xo and sugar
n Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 7:20 AM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.comwrote: === Sugar Digest === 4. The recent FSF campaign condemning the use of Windows 7 in education (See http://windows7sins.org/) imputes OLPC in complicity with Microsoft. It is disappointing that the FSF is not making any constructive arguments in favor of free software alternatives to Windows such as Sugar on GNU/Linux, which is currently shipped on every machine distributed by OLPC. http://windows7sins.org/#1 When I first saw it I interpreted that page as contrasting the xo as a positive alternative to Windows (and still think that is a valid interpretation) When I read what walter wrote above later I was shocked to realise that it could indeed be interpreted the way walter has, as well On revisiting I can't see any clarifying text there If walter's interpretation is the correct one, which may well be true, then it's a bad choice of graphic - they should have shown windows running on the xo screen, not happy smiling children from this 2008 article RMS is supportive of sugar but ambivalent about the xo: Sugar is free software, and contributing to it is a good thing to do. But don't forget the goal: helpful contributions are those that make Sugar better on free operating systems. Porting to Windows is permitted by the license, but it isn't a good thing to do http://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/can-we-rescue-olpc-from-windows ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] FSF attitude to xo and sugar
On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 4:35 PM, Bastien bastiengue...@googlemail.comwrote: After a discussion with the FSF, they agreed the picture was not really appropriate and that the text should clearly distinguish OLPC from Sugar. They will make an update - stay tuned. the picture is gone but the words are still there: As a result, it is expected that the main effect of the OLPC project -- if it succeeds -- will be to turn millions of children into Microsoft dependents. That is a negative effect, to the point where the world would be better off if the OLPC project had never existed still over zealous, purist and FUD ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] SoaS with SD cards irregularities
On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 6:59 PM, Sascha Silbe sascha-ml-ui-sugar-de...@silbe.org wrote: [CC list trimmed quite a bit] On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 04:20:17PM +0930, Bill Kerr wrote: aborted boot: I then tried tab anyway and got: linux0 check0 local Please try typing linux0 rootwait (without the quotes) and pressing return at the boot: prompt. I did try linux0 rootwait (without the quotes) at the boot prompt It just did the same thing as before: the XO icon appears, the ring form but without icons, just dots and then it exits to the WARNING screen, the same screen as before CU Sascha -- http://sascha.silbe.org/ http://www.infra-silbe.de/ -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJKf+iJAAoJELpz82VMF3DaXNoIALyHYMGerpPDgZkNxX0pHyRJ xECIoycASh0XCSlDRXuKc42VWuGrDOwhUMHHznP2hd+EjwnQaw6+LFEmKiRojXxm JptMpGHB6WpSdLC7u9aiuXb1Z6knSpkrp+Iavvj2l8qwKIdsb3PnSz6OWvxpnzix RQm+GywXGuchW6pK0KOiq26iRD8FdKjTTbky4C+r5zWW/U6QfAJ9XBUEP4PaheZD zFpH2mFYhROIqlKL8MnQ/HENrUGg8r/trUrVONebh/QM0vRrT6AYbR7VnEJ0uHnE g0a6VWmUP/OTFzKzAiQYeJmu26BJFdvFGnp29ttkj/zPGLpUEaUxKsX0uMy3bcc= =kzeB -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] SoaS with SD cards irregularities
On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 5:12 AM, Sebastian Dziallas sebast...@when.comwrote: Sascha Silbe wrote: On Fri, Aug 07, 2009 at 09:11:31PM +0930, Bill Kerr wrote: The sticks I have with SD cards have started to fail on the older computers at school (after working ok for 2 weeks of lessons). But they still work fine on my newer Dell mini inspiron. The older ones are not XOs, right? Warning: cannot find root file system Can you append rootwait (without the quotes) to the kernel parameters, please? I hope Sebastian can give specific instructions how to do this interactively for SoaS. I'll try to! :) When you boot SoaS, you'll see a blue screen for one second - press escape there quickly - you'll be presented a menu saying in its first entry boot. Press tabulator there. You can now modify the kernel arguments (add rootwait) and boot by pressing enter then. This will add it only once, though. Usually, one needs to edit /etc/grub.conf to makesuch a change persistent, but I seem to recall that this didn't work in live images lately... When I tried this (press escape at the one second blue screen) on the machines which failed to boot properly they did not exit to the menu screen but instead a message came up: aborted boot: I then tried tab anyway and got: linux0 check0 local ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
[Sugar-devel] SoaS with SD cards irregularities
On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 3:34 AM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.comwrote: ===Sugar Digest=== In the meanwhile, we need to: experiment with more USB manufacturers; be more careful about characterizing the different failure modes; do some workflow experiments to see if we can minimize failures; try different file formats; and come up with simple and robust backup/restore mechanism so that we can end run failures. Greg Dekoenigsberg has suggested we take advantage of Fedora Test Days] to put a more rigorous analysis together. But we need a testing plan which means we need to first come to consensus on what it is we are trying to test. Variables include: * Which Sugar-on-a-Stick image is being tested? * What customizations have been made? * What process was used to create the key? * What size and brand of key is being tested? * What hardware the key is being tested on? * What is the nature of the failure? (no boot, corrupted data, etc.?) * What was the history of use prior to failure? The sticks I have with SD cards have started to fail on the older computers at school (after working ok for 2 weeks of lessons). But they still work fine on my newer Dell mini inspiron. This is a very consistent pattern. I have 8 sticks with SD cards and 6 have failed on older computers but all of those 6 still work on the Dell mini inspiron. They start to boot, the xo icon appears and dots but not icons appear in the circle. This screen hangs for a while and then exits to a black screen with this message: 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 - 4.0# My other sticks are a mixture of Kingstons and Laser and none of these have failed. Let me know if you want more detail such as answers to all of the above questions. ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] SoaS with SD cards irregularities
On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 12:14 AM, Sascha Silbe sascha-ml-ui-sugar-de...@silbe.org wrote: On Fri, Aug 07, 2009 at 09:11:31PM +0930, Bill Kerr wrote: The sticks I have with SD cards have started to fail on the older computers at school (after working ok for 2 weeks of lessons). But they still work fine on my newer Dell mini inspiron. The older ones are not XOs, right? the older ones are PCs 4 years old ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Debrief of Sugar on a Stick v1 Strawberry launch for all teams
Thanks for detailed and comprehensive report Sean. I hadn't understand the importance of visuals and your report explained that very clearly. btw your report doesn't contain any links - I found the gallery page http://www.sugarlabs.org/index.php?template=gallerypage=gallery but still wasn't sure what you meant by this: a great many websites carried screenshots of Buddy View with collaboration; the large colorful icons in that screenshot kept their visual code when thumbnailed, better than the Neighborhood View I guess your are referring to either the Groups or Journal screenshot? I had a look at the videos here: http://www.dailymotion.com/sugarlabs and noticed that they don't have sound. Sound would improve them a lot. Related: I recently did a search for xo videos for a presentation - there are a lot out there (you tube) and I found it difficult to find good ones. Most are too general and often the quality is poor. In the end the ones I picked out were either professionally done (eg. David Pogues NYT) or had an interesting twist of gimick, eg. 9yo evaluating the xo or joel's video showing two kids pulling it apart and putting it back together Possibly some high quality, high profile videos - some illustrating specific interesting features or with an original creative twist (educational bloggers might pick up on that) - would help promotion of sugar. On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 7:42 PM, Sean DALY sdaly...@gmail.com wrote: We have had a successful media launch of the Strawberry release of SoaS; coverage is ongoing a week after the launch. I feel very strongly that a successful launch like this can only work if everyone is on board together, from developers to marketers, from packagers to designers, so I have preferred starting this integrated thread rather than continuing David's separate threads; I also feel that the longer-term SoaS-distro issue should be discussed separately. Although we did manage to avoid confusion from the last-minute timetable change through some hard work, we may not be so lucky next time; communication between teams is vital, especially as we grow. Routine work should of course stay compartmentalized, but I am convinced the key to a launch's success (aside from great software :-) is that we all pull together and make an extra effort at launch time, pulling back after launch. Coverage began with an article in MIT Technology Review a few hours before the press release went out; we were Slashdotted several hours later. This was followed by a BBC News report the day of the release, and we have been picked up around the world every day since by tech media, bloggers, and even some Spanish language print newspapers. I want to share some observations, and mention several techniques we used this time which multiplied coverage, as well as some missed opportunities. Comments are encouraged pleased. * Press release editing. We got the PR done 30 minutes before the Friday evening deadline and I thank Walter, Fred, David, and Caroline for their very helpful co-editing with me directly on the Google Docs document and IRC discussion. I had been concerned about an Activities positioning issue and we made a good choice through consensus. We were able to trim 150 words in the final minutes yet the final release had enough information to interest editors worldwide. * Prelaunch journalist briefings. Some journalists were briefed with the releases beforehand, under embargo. This common practice gives them time to decide if they want to work up a story or not and provides an opportunity for direct discussion with us for background and quotes. It also provides precious lead time for us to provide visuals (journalists won't waste time fishing, and without visuals will just google and snatch the first thing they find, including bad logos and dated screenshots). * The last-minute timetable change. We successfully spun the move of v1 from the Q3 in the fall to June as part of the plan and diverted some attention from the numbering with the Strawberrry code name which was universally liked. Only one news site noticed we had changed our story, and their coverage arrived late; journalists who have been following us kindly didn't bring it up. That said I can't stress enough that our very wide coverage was a direct result of our simplification of the numbering system to beta-1 and v1; most news sites judged this release as our first major milestone since the creation of Sugar Labs. I agree with David and Caroline that our next major media push should stress content over technical info to generate teacher interest. As part of avoiding last-minute crises in the future, to avoid surprises I sent the press release to all the lists before it went out on the wires. The marketing team work is of course available to all. * Launch datelined LinuxTag Berlin. Do a Google News search in English on LinuxTag... you will notice that our launch is the only
Re: [Sugar-devel] versus, not
On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 10:33 AM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.comwrote: On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 8:20 PM, Bill Kerr billk...@gmail.com wrote: however, I do think the roll back of enlightenment principles is not well understood (http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/nonUniversals) and that a better understanding might persuade more people of the need to keep searching and struggling for different ways to go against some of the tide of local culture - there is a recent interesting comment thread on mark guzdial's blog which is worth reading from this point of view http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK3F4TMBURELZZK Regarding Guzdial's blog, I am optimistic. While I had always feared that phone culture would turn us into a society of consumers of services that Ma Bell chose for us; but the iPhone and the Android are programmable and, while Apple is the iPhone gatekeeper, the meme that phones can be programmed is spreading. This is a huge step forward. I'd also point out that there are some other great themes in the mark guzdial comments thread, eg. the difficult question of the need to transcend a marketing approach (dialogue b/w mark guzdial and alan kay) I've recently had some striking experiences from a couple of people - both huge mac fans - who I thought perversely avoided anything to do with programming, including visual drag and drop using scratch or even raw HTML markup The Guzdial blog helped me make the connection - that the mac way does in fact brainwash people to the mentality that everything is perfect, beautiful and shiny as it comes packaged to you, that there is an app for everything. Although I find that most students will accept simple challenges such as scratch programming and become absorbed in them this minority(?) trend does worry me - Guzdial's blog is pretty much devoted to the theme of how induce more students into programming in view of the trend to falling enrolments in programming courses (in Australia too, as well as the USA) I then thought of some notes I made a couple of years ago after reading John Maxwell's history of the dynabook ( http://thinkubator.ccsp.sfu.ca/Dynabook/dissertation): http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/alanKay+talk What sort of user interface is suitable for learning? We have become very used to a certain style of user interface, one which is “user friendly” and which gives us access to the function of the computer. The user friendly user interface has been designed by experts to not demand too much of the end user. Some systems take this a step further and actively discourage the user from becoming curious about how things work under the hood. It is not just a matter of “user friendly”, in itself that is not serious grounds for complaint. It is the idea of users as users of clearly defined applications that have been developed by “experts”. In large part this state of things has arisen through commercialisation. A marketable commodity requires a clear definition. So proprietary applications are developed as a black box as an expression of “efficient software engineering”. In this commercial vision the “personal computer” is not really personal because most of its interfaces have been standardised which transforms the actors into docile agents who respond in predictable ways to stimuli. “my life belongs to the engineers ... we hesitate to exist” (Latour) “The self evident state of the art blinds people to other possibilities” (Andy diSessa) If you start from a more philosophical perspective of amplifying human reach, of computer as a meta medium for expressing the creative spirit then the attitude to the user is different. The user, as well as being a user, is also a potential constructionist designer and developer who eventually will be able to create their own tools. So, the tools for exploring the system should be powerful and easily accessible. This is one of the features of Smalltalk. The ethic is one of mutability and simplicity. Every component of a system is open to be explored, investigated, modified and built upon. The tool / medium distinction is blurred and so is a lot of other false clarity. Rather than a world of reified “experts”, “engineers”, “designers”, “end-users”, “miracle workers” and “plain folks” it would be better to blur these boundaries, particularly for learning environments. ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
[Sugar-devel] versus, not
On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 7:43 AM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.comwrote: ===Sugar Digest=== I encourage you to join two threads on the Education List this week: http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2009-April/005382.html, which has boiled down to an instruction vs construction debate; and http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2009-April/005342.html, which has boiled down to a debate of catering to local culture vs the Enlightenment. I encourage you to join these discussions. Agree that these are important discussions Need to be careful about the use of the versus depiction of these discussions IMO, this tempting shorthand can create the wrong impression eg. I would see direct instruction as a must for autistic children but don't see that it follows as a general model for all education (special needs are special) or that we should even think it is possible to have a correct general model. I don't think there is one and good teachers swap between multiple models all the time. no one on this list has argued overtly against the enlightenment or that local culture ought not to be taken into account, eg. Ties said think practical, the response was of the nature that our context demands we do a certain course of action however, I do think the roll back of enlightenment principles is not well understood (http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/nonUniversals) and that a better understanding might persuade more people of the need to keep searching and struggling for different ways to go against some of the tide of local culture - there is a recent interesting comment thread on mark guzdial's blog which is worth reading from this point of view http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK3F4TMBURELZZK ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] Fwd: sugar-jhbuild
On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 10:43 AM, David Farning dfarn...@sugarlabs.orgwrote: Tony, As far as running Jhbuild, I would look at http://sugarlabs.org/go/DevelopmentTeam/Jhbuild It is quite a bit more up to date then the resources you are looking at. Have you seen the work that the Sugar on a Stick people are doing at http://sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_on_a_Stick ? It is basically a live CD of Sugar running on a USB stick instead of a Live CD. This gives the user the option of saving their work. On the other hand, burning the .iso found on the SoaS page should get you a working Sugar based liveCD. Caroline Meeks is heading up this effort. thanks david So is sugar on a stick a suitable development environment. Could it be used as an environment for minor hacking of say, turtle art and saving changes? My understanding is that since Sugar is written in Python and Python is an interpreted language then the answer to my question might be yes. Is there anything missing from sugar on a stick that developers who use sugar-jhbuild value and use regularly? Would a developer be inconvenienced in some way by using sugar on a stick? Are some version of sugar on a stick better or worse than others for say hacking turtle art? eg. as well as the official version there is Wolfgang Rohrmoser's version. Is that equivalent? Is there any advantage to using sugar-jhbuild, instead of sugar on a stick? For educators who are not developers using sugar on a stick looks more convenient. ie. to get sugar-jhbuild you need a linux computer, git and then sort through dependency problems as they arise. Bread and butter for developers but not everyones cup of tea. There are also technical complexities involved in using emulators with the added disadvantage that they might run slow. I'm aware that some developers of other software use IDEs such as Eclipse which contain a full suite of useful tools for development. I've never used Eclipse but have used briefly similar sorts of tools (well some of them) in Smalltalk / Squeak. That is the sort of distinction I'm inquiring about - but there may be other important distinctions that I'm not aware of - you don't know what you don't know. Our goal here is simply to put the toe in the water and be able to hack turtle art, as a starter. The blockage point identified here is a convenient way to obtain a developers environment. Known unknowns: All the things you know you don't know Unknown unknowns: All the things you don't know you don't know Errors: All the things you think you know but don't Unknown knowns: All the things you don't know you know Taboos: Dangerous, polluting or forbidden knowledge Denials: All the things too painful to know, so you don't On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 5:13 PM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.com wrote: Forwarding to list -walter -- Forwarded message -- From: fors...@ozonline.com.au Date: Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 3:27 PM Subject: sugar-jhbuild To: walter.ben...@gmail.com Cc: pau...@gmail.com, rgesthui...@gmail.com, costello.ro...@edumail.vic.gov.au, billk...@gmail.com, joel.s...@gmail.com Walter, I was wondering, would it be possible to make a live CD with Linux and sugar jhbuild and the source code for a few activities all on it and use that for teachers and students to hack and test activities? Tony From: Bill Kerr billk...@gmail.com Date: Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 8:19 PM Subject: sugar-jhbuild To: Paul T pau...@gmail.com, Tony Forster fors...@ozonline.com.au, Roland Gesthuizen rgesthui...@gmail.com, Costello, Rob R costello.ro...@edumail.vic.gov.au http://magazine.redhat.com/2007/02/23/building-the-xo-introducing-sugar/ this (old) article explains what sort of thing sugar-jhbuild is and where the jh in the name comes from - the 3 paragraphs under the 'Sugar Basics' heading this looks to me to be a better way to go than using emulators but still not easy the not easy quirkiness is confirmed by reading this: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar_with_sugar-jhbuild joel told me that he was making an activity using sugar-jhbuild but ran into some buggy issues that he couldn't solve even with the help of a couple of the developers -- Walter Bender Sugar Labs http://www.sugarlabs.org ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
[Sugar-devel] kusasa
On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 4:11 AM, Bert Freudenberg b...@freudenbergs.dewrote: On 13.01.2009, at 17:53, Samuel Klein wrote: Also see http://www.kusasa.org/background/mathland/mathland.html yes... a great project to discuss, actually. Indeed. Does anybody have contacts to them, to find out in more detail why it was canceled? http://www.shuttleworthfoundation.org/media-centre/press-releases/shuttleworth-foundation-cancels-kusasa-project struck me as an honest attempt to summarise the reasons some discussion at tom hoffman's blog last year: http://www.tuttlesvc.org/2008/10/kusasa-cancelled.html http://www.tuttlesvc.org/2008/10/thats-little-harsh.html Sadly if a project does require advanced teacher skills (which ought to be spelt out) it does often falter at that point - difficult to scale Papert proposed a new field of teacher training called humanistic computer studies, where: In my vision of this field its professionals will need special combinations of competences. Apart from a foundation in scientific knowledge and technological skill they will need high degrees of psychological sensitivity and 'artistic' imagination. For the ones who will make the greatest social contribution will be those who know how to mold the computer into forms which people will love to use and in ways which will lead them on to enrichment and enhancement (from Solomon, p.133) ___ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
