Re: XO-2 software plans

2008-05-25 Thread NoiseEHC
There was a thread about the X driver here:
http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/devel/2007-September/006565.html

Because there were much more pressing things to do than rewriting the X 
driver by Bernardo this project stalled.
However it is one of my project ideas on the developer program so 
hopefully one day any program will be able to use the hardware scaler of 
the CPU.
(Of course the documentation does not mention if the scaler is faster or 
not, or does it trash the cache as software copying so it must be 
measured...)

Jim!
Could you be a bit more specific than Profiling is in order. please? 
What is currently happening and will it make moot my efforts? Thanks!


Bert Freudenberg wrote:
 On 24.05.2008, at 03:41, Jim Gettys wrote:

   
 On Fri, 2008-05-23 at 17:17 -0700, Alex Belits wrote:
 
 Jim Gettys wrote:
   
 Bert...

 Part of the problem is the X driver model is pretty broken,  
 causing much
 more to be done in software than should be necessary; and it isn't  
 clear
 we're even using X efficiently at the moment...  The driver stuff is
 getting fixed (in general in X: this is the EXA/DRI2 work);  
 profiling of
 our entire software stack is in order to see where our real  
 problems are
 at the moment.
 
 EXA? DRI2?

 Don't you end up using Cairo through GTK as the main layer that  
 almost
 everything goes through, so everything below has any importance  
 only as
 long as Cairo uses it efficiently?
   
 You can abuse Cairo, rather than use it.

 And we use it sometimes in ways other than strictly through GTK+: e.g.
 the canvas.

 Profiling is in order.

 Also, note I was replying to Bert Freudenberg, one of the Squeak/etoys
 folks.  They don't go through the GTK/cairo stack, except for the
 activity decoration.
- Jim
 


 Ah, well, for one Squeak/Etoys could potentially make use of hardware  
 acceleration, and secondly, Squeak is not my only interest :)

 But profiling would be in order indeed. Wish there was time for that ...

 - Bert -


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Re: XO-2 software plans

2008-05-24 Thread Bert Freudenberg

On 24.05.2008, at 03:41, Jim Gettys wrote:

 On Fri, 2008-05-23 at 17:17 -0700, Alex Belits wrote:
 Jim Gettys wrote:
 Bert...

 Part of the problem is the X driver model is pretty broken,  
 causing much
 more to be done in software than should be necessary; and it isn't  
 clear
 we're even using X efficiently at the moment...  The driver stuff is
 getting fixed (in general in X: this is the EXA/DRI2 work);  
 profiling of
 our entire software stack is in order to see where our real  
 problems are
 at the moment.

 EXA? DRI2?

 Don't you end up using Cairo through GTK as the main layer that  
 almost
 everything goes through, so everything below has any importance  
 only as
 long as Cairo uses it efficiently?

 You can abuse Cairo, rather than use it.

 And we use it sometimes in ways other than strictly through GTK+: e.g.
 the canvas.

 Profiling is in order.

 Also, note I was replying to Bert Freudenberg, one of the Squeak/etoys
 folks.  They don't go through the GTK/cairo stack, except for the
 activity decoration.
- Jim


Ah, well, for one Squeak/Etoys could potentially make use of hardware  
acceleration, and secondly, Squeak is not my only interest :)

But profiling would be in order indeed. Wish there was time for that ...

- Bert -


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Re: XO-2 software plans

2008-05-23 Thread Alex Belits
John Gilmore wrote:

 It'll be hard for OLPC to get multi-touch working when for the last 15
 months they haven't had the bandwidth to figure out whether the
 current touchpad can do tap to click (ticket #959).  But developers
 and users of devices built between now and then will write most of the
 software needed.  The free software ecosystem will save the day again.

That's assuming that non-OLPC developers will have access to hardware 
before it will be declared ready for deployment. Otherwise it will be 
like G1G1 -- first batch to outside developers coincides with first mass 
deployment, then everyone complains that deployment happened before 
development.

-- 
Alex
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Re: XO-2 software plans

2008-05-23 Thread Morgan Collett
On Fri, May 23, 2008 at 10:07 AM, Alex Belits
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 John Gilmore wrote:

 It'll be hard for OLPC to get multi-touch working when for the last 15
 months they haven't had the bandwidth to figure out whether the
 current touchpad can do tap to click (ticket #959).  But developers
 and users of devices built between now and then will write most of the
 software needed.  The free software ecosystem will save the day again.

 That's assuming that non-OLPC developers will have access to hardware
 before it will be declared ready for deployment. Otherwise it will be
 like G1G1 -- first batch to outside developers coincides with first mass
 deployment, then everyone complains that deployment happened before
 development.

It will be slightly more difficult to write (multi-touch) software for
the XO-2 in an emulator or on a regular PC... I wonder if there are
(or will be) any third party multi-touch input devices readily
available for a similar effect. Multi stylus wacom tablets?
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Re: XO-2 software plans

2008-05-23 Thread Chris Ball
Hi Alex,

That's assuming that non-OLPC developers will have access to
hardware before it will be declared ready for deployment. Otherwise
it will be like G1G1 -- first batch to outside developers coincides
with first mass deployment, then everyone complains that deployment
happened before development.

This isn't true at all.  I got my first hardware, as a non-employee with
no relationship to the project, in May 2006.  We'd sent hundreds of
laptops out via the public developer program by the time G1G1 happened.

- Chris.
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Re: XO-2 software plans

2008-05-23 Thread Chris Ball
Hi,

It will be slightly more difficult to write (multi-touch) software
for the XO-2 in an emulator or on a regular PC... I wonder if there
are (or will be) any third party multi-touch input devices readily
available for a similar effect. Multi stylus wacom tablets?

The keyboard I use¹ is a multitouch surface, and it has an open API/SDK
for getting access to the unprocessed movement data² and converting it
into gestures that do whatever you like.  It's not a screen, though.

- Chris.

¹: http://www.fingerworks.com/ST_product.html,
   http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1039254,00.asp
²: http://www.fingerworks.com/downloads.html
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Re: XO-2 software plans

2008-05-23 Thread Morgan Collett
On Fri, May 23, 2008 at 3:38 PM, Chris Ball [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Hi,

It will be slightly more difficult to write (multi-touch) software
for the XO-2 in an emulator or on a regular PC... I wonder if there
are (or will be) any third party multi-touch input devices readily
available for a similar effect. Multi stylus wacom tablets?

 The keyboard I use¹ is a multitouch surface, and it has an open API/SDK
 for getting access to the unprocessed movement data² and converting it
 into gestures that do whatever you like.  It's not a screen, though.

 - Chris.

 ¹: http://www.fingerworks.com/ST_product.html,
   http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1039254,00.asp
 ²: http://www.fingerworks.com/downloads.html
 --
 Chris Ball   [EMAIL PROTECTED]


Wow, I had not seen these before. Very nice! Pity about the $329 price
- I'll have to wait until 2010 :)

Morgan
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Re: XO-2 software plans

2008-05-23 Thread Alex Belits
Chris Ball wrote:
 Hi Alex,
 
 That's assuming that non-OLPC developers will have access to
 hardware before it will be declared ready for deployment. Otherwise
 it will be like G1G1 -- first batch to outside developers coincides
 with first mass deployment, then everyone complains that deployment
 happened before development.
 
 This isn't true at all.  I got my first hardware, as a non-employee with
 no relationship to the project, in May 2006.  We'd sent hundreds of
 laptops out via the public developer program by the time G1G1 happened.

How many developers were in that program, and how can one join it? Is it 
available now, between G1G1's?

-- 
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Re: XO-2 software plans

2008-05-23 Thread Eben Eliason
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Developer_program =)

- Eben


On Fri, May 23, 2008 at 9:59 AM, Alex Belits
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Chris Ball wrote:
 Hi Alex,

 That's assuming that non-OLPC developers will have access to
 hardware before it will be declared ready for deployment. Otherwise
 it will be like G1G1 -- first batch to outside developers coincides
 with first mass deployment, then everyone complains that deployment
 happened before development.

 This isn't true at all.  I got my first hardware, as a non-employee with
 no relationship to the project, in May 2006.  We'd sent hundreds of
 laptops out via the public developer program by the time G1G1 happened.

 How many developers were in that program, and how can one join it? Is it
 available now, between G1G1's?

 --
 Alex
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Re: XO-2 software plans

2008-05-23 Thread Bert Freudenberg

On 23.05.2008, at 04:54, Jim Gettys wrote:

 On Thu, 2008-05-22 at 19:28 -0400, Andres Salomon wrote:

 If they put me in charge, I'd choose whichever CPU had the best
 performance, lowest power consumption, and lowest price - regardless
 of architecture.

 Change the ordering: power consumption and price (closely related to
 integration these days), then performance.  FP required...  That's  
 what
 drove us to the Geode.  FP is essential for Linux software to just
 work: I lived on the StrongARM with the iPAQ, and (almost) all free
 software signal processing code (e.g. all multimedia code) is written
 presuming a floating point unit.  At the time, there were many chips
 whose spec sheet claimed you could get FP, but when you went to the
 vendor, the FP unit didn't exist.  It's now 3 years later, so we  
 have a
 number of highly integrated chips with FP units that are pretty low
 power to choose from.

 Note that power consumption drives price through the entire chain;  
 what
 kind/size of power generation you need, etc.

/me wants a graphics accelerator.

- Bert -


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Re: XO-2 software plans

2008-05-23 Thread C. Scott Ananian
On 5/23/08, Eben Eliason [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  On Fri, May 23, 2008 at 9:59 AM, Alex Belits [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
   How many developers were in that program, and how can one join it? Is it
   available now, between G1G1's?
 http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Developer_program =)

There were at least 826 pre-G1G1 machines distributed during the
developer program to non-OLPC employees (I've got a partial database
here, including just b4, c1, and c2 machines, and there were hundreds
of a, b1, b2, and b3 machines distributed before that), and as far as
I know we are currently receiving an allotment of 250 machines per
month for the developer program (and other uses, such as mesh test
beds and pilots).
  --scott

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Re: XO-2 software plans

2008-05-23 Thread Jordan Crouse
On 23/05/08 18:00 +0200, Bert Freudenberg wrote:
 
 On 23.05.2008, at 04:54, Jim Gettys wrote:
 
  On Thu, 2008-05-22 at 19:28 -0400, Andres Salomon wrote:
 
  If they put me in charge, I'd choose whichever CPU had the best
  performance, lowest power consumption, and lowest price - regardless
  of architecture.
 
  Change the ordering: power consumption and price (closely related to
  integration these days), then performance.  FP required...  That's  
  what
  drove us to the Geode.  FP is essential for Linux software to just
  work: I lived on the StrongARM with the iPAQ, and (almost) all free
  software signal processing code (e.g. all multimedia code) is written
  presuming a floating point unit.  At the time, there were many chips
  whose spec sheet claimed you could get FP, but when you went to the
  vendor, the FP unit didn't exist.  It's now 3 years later, so we  
  have a
  number of highly integrated chips with FP units that are pretty low
  power to choose from.
 
  Note that power consumption drives price through the entire chain;  
  what
  kind/size of power generation you need, etc.
 
 /me wants a graphics accelerator.

Minor nitpick - you _have_ a graphics accelerator.  What you really want
is a 3D graphics engine.  Be sure to keep the distinction seperate;
lots of embedded processors have 2D accelerators, fewer have 3D
capabilities.

Jordan

-- 
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Systems Software Development Engineer 
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.

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Re: XO-2 software plans

2008-05-23 Thread Bert Freudenberg
On 23.05.2008, at 19:38, Jordan Crouse wrote:

 On 23/05/08 18:00 +0200, Bert Freudenberg wrote:

 /me wants a graphics accelerator.

 Minor nitpick - you _have_ a graphics accelerator.  What you really  
 want
 is a 3D graphics engine.  Be sure to keep the distinction seperate;
 lots of embedded processors have 2D accelerators, fewer have 3D
 capabilities.


I actually didn't necessarily mean 3D. Just something that's fast  
enough for full-screen panning/zooming/rotating/compositing operations  
would do nicely. But perhaps that only comes in 3D variants nowadays ...

- Bert -


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Re: XO-2 software plans

2008-05-23 Thread Jim Gettys
Bert...

Part of the problem is the X driver model is pretty broken, causing much
more to be done in software than should be necessary; and it isn't clear
we're even using X efficiently at the moment...  The driver stuff is
getting fixed (in general in X: this is the EXA/DRI2 work); profiling of
our entire software stack is in order to see where our real problems are
at the moment.
 - Jim


On Fri, 2008-05-23 at 19:58 +0200, Bert Freudenberg wrote:
 On 23.05.2008, at 19:38, Jordan Crouse wrote:
 
  On 23/05/08 18:00 +0200, Bert Freudenberg wrote:
 
  /me wants a graphics accelerator.
 
  Minor nitpick - you _have_ a graphics accelerator.  What you really  
  want
  is a 3D graphics engine.  Be sure to keep the distinction seperate;
  lots of embedded processors have 2D accelerators, fewer have 3D
  capabilities.
 
 
 I actually didn't necessarily mean 3D. Just something that's fast  
 enough for full-screen panning/zooming/rotating/compositing operations  
 would do nicely. But perhaps that only comes in 3D variants nowadays ...
 
 - Bert -
 
 
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Re: XO-2 software plans

2008-05-23 Thread Alex Belits
Jim Gettys wrote:
 Bert...
 
 Part of the problem is the X driver model is pretty broken, causing much
 more to be done in software than should be necessary; and it isn't clear
 we're even using X efficiently at the moment...  The driver stuff is
 getting fixed (in general in X: this is the EXA/DRI2 work); profiling of
 our entire software stack is in order to see where our real problems are
 at the moment.

EXA? DRI2?

Don't you end up using Cairo through GTK as the main layer that almost 
everything goes through, so everything below has any importance only as 
long as Cairo uses it efficiently?

Don't the most important speed limitations come from the need to support 
interpreter-based, easy-to-develop-for environment?

Scaling works fine where it's necessary (video), however it will be of 
no help for most of the user interface.
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Re: XO-2 software plans

2008-05-23 Thread Jim Gettys
On Fri, 2008-05-23 at 17:17 -0700, Alex Belits wrote:
 Jim Gettys wrote:
  Bert...
  
  Part of the problem is the X driver model is pretty broken, causing much
  more to be done in software than should be necessary; and it isn't clear
  we're even using X efficiently at the moment...  The driver stuff is
  getting fixed (in general in X: this is the EXA/DRI2 work); profiling of
  our entire software stack is in order to see where our real problems are
  at the moment.
 
 EXA? DRI2?
 
 Don't you end up using Cairo through GTK as the main layer that almost 
 everything goes through, so everything below has any importance only as 
 long as Cairo uses it efficiently?

You can abuse Cairo, rather than use it.  

And we use it sometimes in ways other than strictly through GTK+: e.g.
the canvas.

Profiling is in order.

Also, note I was replying to Bert Freudenberg, one of the Squeak/etoys
folks.  They don't go through the GTK/cairo stack, except for the
activity decoration.
- Jim

-- 
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One Laptop Per Child

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Re: XO-2 software plans

2008-05-22 Thread John Gilmore
 What are the software plans for the second-generation XO?

First they need to build one out of something other than modeling clay
and Photoshop.

Then whenever your hand comes close to the laptop, ugly black bars are
going to cover all the edges of that nice sky-blue screen.

There's no need to go crazy, it'll evolve from the current software.
Since it's 2010, assume higher integration: many fewer chips, more
MIPS, lower power, more RAM, more flash.  Brighter, higher resolution,
cheaper, lower power screens from Pixel Qi.  A system-on-chip designed
to suspend in milliseconds at very low power.  Linux.  Since the high
volume very low cost market will have proved itself, you'll be able to
get actual documentation for the hardware.  (Intel will decline to
participate, for that reason.)

If they'd put me in charge, I'd make sure it wasn't an x86 CPU, so
this pesky Windows nonsense wouldn't come up.  Nobody argues that a
non-x86 has to run Windows CE to prepare students for business
cellphone use.  If you've interacted with a few farm animals, you
don't have to be told where not to stand when encountering a new one.
The same goes for operating systems.  The basic lessons are: There's
usually a way.  It's always harder than you want it to be.  Be sure
your backups do actually restore.  Listen when other users gather.
Beyond that it's just details, and you can pick them up quickly.

You'll be able to suspend for low power without running the Sugar GUI.
You'll be able to share applications without running the Sugar GUI.
You'll be able to mesh wifi without running the Sugar GUI.  You might
even have a GigE jack to reliably network a school full of computers.
All those capabilities will migrate into the infrastructure, where
they belong.  Once there's a choice of GUIs, Sugar as a look will be
as popular as the IBM 3270.

Somebody, probably not at OLPC, will finally write a decent book
reader for it -- in 2023 or so.

It'll be hard for OLPC to get multi-touch working when for the last 15
months they haven't had the bandwidth to figure out whether the
current touchpad can do tap to click (ticket #959).  But developers
and users of devices built between now and then will write most of the
software needed.  The free software ecosystem will save the day again.

John  :-)
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Re: XO-2 software plans

2008-05-22 Thread C. Scott Ananian
On 5/22/08, John Gilmore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  What are the software plans for the second-generation XO?
  First they need to build one out of something other than modeling clay
  and Photoshop.
[...]
  current touchpad can do tap to click (ticket #959).  But developers
  and users of devices built between now and then will write most of the
  software needed.  The free software ecosystem will save the day again.

It's certainly true that we can't do it alone.  It's also true that we
couldn't even consider doing XO-2 if it weren't for the fantastic work
already done on multitouch and multi-pointer X.  I'm excited that
Sugar is being packaged for other linux distros now, and I hope OLPC's
software will gradually seem less and less unusual.  We will continue
to try new things, and I hope the free software community helps us
push the envelope.
 --scott

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Re: XO-2 software plans

2008-05-22 Thread Martin Langhoff
On Fri, May 23, 2008 at 10:17 AM, John Gilmore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Then whenever your hand comes close to the laptop, ugly black bars are
 going to cover all the edges of that nice sky-blue screen.

I hear ugly black is the new black these days :-)

 It's always harder than you want it to be.  Be sure
 your backups do actually restore.

I'm working on that infrastructure right now. Anyone got some cycles to help?

cheers,


m
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 - ask interesting questions
 - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first
 - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff
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Re: XO-2 software plans

2008-05-22 Thread Andres Salomon
On Thu, 22 May 2008 15:17:02 -0700
John Gilmore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

  What are the software plans for the second-generation XO?
 
[...]
 
 If they'd put me in charge, I'd make sure it wasn't an x86 CPU, so
 this pesky Windows nonsense wouldn't come up.  Nobody argues that a
 non-x86 has to run Windows CE to prepare students for business
 cellphone use.  If you've interacted with a few farm animals, you

If they put me in charge, I'd choose whichever CPU had the best
performance, lowest power consumption, and lowest price - regardless
of architecture.

Amusingly, Jordan was just telling me that the Windows people say
similar things: We can't make a set top box with x86, someone will try
to put Linux on it!
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Re: XO-2 software plans

2008-05-22 Thread Jim Gettys
On Thu, 2008-05-22 at 19:28 -0400, Andres Salomon wrote:

 If they put me in charge, I'd choose whichever CPU had the best
 performance, lowest power consumption, and lowest price - regardless
 of architecture.

Change the ordering: power consumption and price (closely related to
integration these days), then performance.  FP required...  That's what
drove us to the Geode.  FP is essential for Linux software to just
work: I lived on the StrongARM with the iPAQ, and (almost) all free
software signal processing code (e.g. all multimedia code) is written
presuming a floating point unit.  At the time, there were many chips
whose spec sheet claimed you could get FP, but when you went to the
vendor, the FP unit didn't exist.  It's now 3 years later, so we have a
number of highly integrated chips with FP units that are pretty low
power to choose from.

Note that power consumption drives price through the entire chain; what
kind/size of power generation you need, etc.
  - Jim



-- 
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One Laptop Per Child

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