Interactive whiteboards
Now that we have USB2VGA adapter support, has anyone tried an XO with an interactive whiteboard? These things are in every classroom here in Australia. I understand that there are different models that each work differently, and their proprietary nature makes compatibility even more difficult. I've had some success in the past using a normal laptop and Sugar on a Stick, but because we didn't have the manufacturer's software we couldn't calibrate the input to the display. Sridhar Dhanapalan Technical Manager One Laptop per Child Australia M: +61 425 239 701 E: srid...@laptop.org.au A: G.P.O. Box 731 Sydney, NSW 2001 W: www.laptop.org.au ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Interactive whiteboards
On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 2:08 PM, Sridhar Dhanapalan srid...@laptop.org.au wrote: Now that we have USB2VGA adapter support, has anyone tried an XO with an interactive whiteboard? These things are in every classroom here in Australia. I understand that there are different models that each work differently, and their proprietary nature makes compatibility even more difficult. I've had some success in the past using a normal laptop and Sugar on a Stick, but because we didn't have the manufacturer's software we couldn't calibrate the input to the display. I seem to remember Fedora has tools for communicating and calibrating at least one type of interactive whiteboard and as a result for those models it would be a matter of adding the appropriate packages into the builds. Doing a quick google it seems that quite a few of the IWB's do have various support for Linux including Fedora so support would be possible without too much problem and in this case its likely best for the local teams to add appropriate support into their local builds. Of course a list of models that the schools use in Australia would help making recommendations as to the best route to support. Peter ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: XO-1.75 RAM
Might 1GB of RAM become a performance bottleneck? I myself am skeptical of efforts to use the OLPC where a desktop system might be more effective. I've run various large applications on an XO-1.5 system, and have not myself experienced memory shortage. Unless the RAM chips on the XO-1.75 are socketed (and thus easily replaceable), it seems to me that it would be easier to add swap space (rather than RAM) to those systems used to run particularly memory-hungry applications (such as video editing). mikus ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] [DESIGN] XO1 | Same hardware, slower internet
[cc+=olpc-devel] Hmm, it'd be interesting to see how much of a performance improvement webkit offers. Also, should we consider loading mobile versions of websites on the XO-1? I don't know how good an alternative that might be. Could be leverage the school server in some way? Any other ideas? On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 19:25, Lucian Branescu lucian.brane...@gmail.com wrote: On 28 March 2011 23:01, Anish Mangal an...@activitycentral.org wrote: Hi, With time, as hardware gets more complex, software gets bloated up to use the excess processor cycles available. A part of it is the websites that get more content heavy, bulky and slow with time. Considering that the hardware on the XO-1 is not going to get any faster, and websites _are_ going to get bulkier, I see a problem gradually arising. For example, Google image search, blogger and other similar services have recently refreshed their websites to be more user friendly at the cost of being heavier. I have seen kids trying to use these heavier websites in the classroom and it results in more time being wasted because of a overall slower computer. I would like to get opinions on what will be an increasingly significant issue, as websites get more complex and the hardware essentially remains the same. -- Anish Webkit should help somewhat. Once the XO 1 gets a reasonably recent OS, Surf can be finished (in fact the porting could happen earlier, but I don't have time for it until late summer). ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Interactive whiteboards
I think the best way to use an interactive whiteboard is to use Sugar as a VirtualBox guest in full screen mode. I would not expect to use an XO ... schools with interactive whiteboards tend also to have far better laptops and computers available for teachers to use. For learner display via interactive whiteboard, I suggest learner laptop screen shared to teacher computer. VNC and the like. I can probably get access to an interactive whiteboard at my local primary school, but I don't have any USB2VGA adapter. -- James Cameron http://quozl.linux.org.au/ ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
XO-1.75 - Flash, Java?
Will Flash Flash Player Java SE (not JavaME) run on the XO-1.75, it being non-x86? For Android, Flash Player requires an ARMv7 (Cortex) + to run. Flash Player 9 was running on the N900 which ran Maemo. Video calls streaming over internet is now one of the most important uses for developing countries and for children to talk to family members like parents who work overseas like here in the Philippines. Aside from Skype, Flash facilitates this for streaming. AFAIK Youtube will also be rolling out more livestreaming soon and will probably do full streaming for anyone a la Ustream in the future. By the way, one of the routes I pass is a depressed area/squatters area and there are at least 6 internet cafes along the 1.5km stretch of road I pass. -Naz -- carlos nazareno http://twitter.com/object404 http://www.object404.com -- core team member phlashers: philippine flash actionscripters http://www.phlashers.com -- poverty is violence ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: XO-1.75 RAM
On 14 April 2011 06:16, Mikus Grinbergs mi...@bga.com wrote: Might 1GB of RAM become a performance bottleneck? I myself am skeptical of efforts to use the OLPC where a desktop system might be more effective. I've run various large applications on an XO-1.5 system, and have not myself experienced memory shortage. Unless the RAM chips on the XO-1.75 are socketed (and thus easily replaceable), it seems to me that it would be easier to add swap space (rather than RAM) to those systems used to run particularly memory-hungry applications (such as video editing). Flash storage is mush slower than spinning hard drives and wears out far more quickly. I don't think using flash for swap is a good idea. More RAM can be used for write caching, which can greatly improve performance (depending on the load). Sridhar ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] [DESIGN] XO1 | Same hardware, slower internet
Hmm, it'd be interesting to see how much of a performance improvement webkit offers. It's no big deal to run webkit-based browsers on the XO. For instance, all of my XO-1s have Midori installed. The question is - what is this performance improvement that you are looking for? I believe that in practice, it is the usability of a browser that is noticed the most, not the performance. What Midori has is a smaller footprint - what it does not have is a richer experience than Firefox - the result is that I myself prefer using Firefox on the XO-1 to using Midori on the XO-1. [In my opinion, the performance of the two is roughly equivalent (e.g., in showing YouTube videos).] It is worth noting that the Google Chrome browser, which *does* have the reputation (in the general public) of better performance, does not stand out on the XO (perhaps because its footprint is large). should we consider loading mobile versions of websites Regarding creating websites suited to web clients without much computational power -- why should the typical internet website owner bother? I'm going to assume there might be 100 users in the worldwide audience who are looking for glitz for every one user who is looking for fast rendition -- just look at the size of the images transmitted by the typical internet website -- in my opinion any image greater than 40KB will slow down a web client which does not have considerable computational power -- yet monster images abound. Regarding a project providing web transmissions specifically aimed at a classroom - the phrase mobile versions of websites is often applied to video information formatted to be displayed on phones - yet if there are XOs in the classroom, they have a significantly larger screen than phones. I expect what you are looking for is video information formatted to be displayed on *tablets* - it will come, but I don't know if it is available just yet. What is definitely useful is an aimed-at-classroom setup, where a teacher's (or lab experimenter's) mobile system broadcasts to multiple (pupils') XO *clients* in that classroom. [Think of it as a website aimed at XOs.] This setup ideally would use an XO for the system from which the video transmissions originate. The simplest way to provide such functionality appears to be a slimmed-down web *server*. [I've seen descriptions of such, but at the moment can't remember the name of that software (might have been proprietary).] Since such a website would be viewed at XOs, the webpages created for that site definitely need to take into account the limited computational power of the XO. mikus ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: XO-1.75 RAM
On 14 April 2011 06:16, Mikus Grinbergs mi...@bga.com wrote: Unless the RAM chips on the XO-1.75 are socketed (and thus easily replaceable), This seems unlikely. Socketing adds cost up front, and low cost is a primary goal. Also the demand for upgrade would be relatively low. ... particularly memory-hungry applications (such as video editing). Video editing requires low latency storage rather than large amounts of memory. The files, being often larger than memory, cause the cache to be filled with single-use data, which is a waste. You get the same cache effect just by copying the files. -- James Cameron http://quozl.linux.org.au/ ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: XO-1.75 - Flash, Java?
On 04/13/2011 05:47 PM, Carlos Nazareno wrote: Will Flash Flash Player Java SE (not JavaME) run on the XO-1.75, it being non-x86? You may look into trying to get Java SE For Embedded working. It supposedly supports ARM architectures, but that's all I know about it. http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/embedded/overview/index.html#FAQ I did some work on getting Java to work correctly on my XO-1.0 and added the information that I discovered to the Wiki: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Java The biggest problems were that the Java distribution available from Yum didn't pull in the fonts that its font configuration file actually used (making everything show up in an odd italic font,) and some problems with the display not being repainted properly on rotate. I considered it also a serious problem that the then-shipping configurations of the OLPC completely lacked fonts with glyphs for many languages (e.g. there were no fonts with Chinese or Japanese characters) so these languages could not be rendered in any application on the OLPC, including in the browser. This should probably be considered to be a bug in a supposedly-internationalized platform, and affects language learning, or even seeing what another language looks like. -- Alan Eliasen elia...@mindspring.com http://futureboy.us/ ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: XO-1.75 - Flash, Java?
On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 9:16 PM, Alan Eliasen elia...@mindspring.com wrote: I considered it also a serious problem that the then-shipping configurations of the OLPC completely lacked fonts with glyphs for many languages (e.g. there were no fonts with Chinese or Japanese characters) so these languages could not be rendered in any application on the OLPC, including in the browser. This should probably be considered to be a bug in a supposedly-internationalized platform, and affects language learning, or even seeing what another language looks like. The Chinese and Japanese fonts are *very* large. I believe OLPC only ships them to countries which need them, in order to make more space for kids' stuff. --scott ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
