Re: XO-2 software plans
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 - ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: XO-2 software plans
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 - ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: XO-2 software plans
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 ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: XO-2 software plans
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? ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: XO-2 software plans
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. -- Chris Ball [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: XO-2 software plans
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] ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: XO-2 software plans
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 ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: XO-2 software plans
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 ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: XO-2 software plans
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 ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: XO-2 software plans
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 - ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: XO-2 software plans
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 -- ( http://cscott.net/ ) ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: XO-2 software plans
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 -- Jordan Crouse Systems Software Development Engineer Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: XO-2 software plans
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 - ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: XO-2 software plans
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 - ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel -- Jim Gettys [EMAIL PROTECTED] One Laptop Per Child ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: XO-2 software plans
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. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: XO-2 software plans
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 -- Jim Gettys [EMAIL PROTECTED] One Laptop Per Child ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: XO-2 software plans
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 :-) ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: XO-2 software plans
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 -- ( http://cscott.net/ ) ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: XO-2 software plans
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 -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- School Server Architect - ask interesting questions - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: XO-2 software plans
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! ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: XO-2 software plans
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 -- Jim Gettys [EMAIL PROTECTED] One Laptop Per Child ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel