Re: [Server-devel] [support-gang] [UKids] Volunteers are tracking COVID-19 more informatively than the US Govt CDC (for now)

[Sameer Verma]

There's a Google Docs doc at https://coronavirustechhandbook.com/ and a
Facebook site with lots of info...fast-moving, with an ok signal-to-noise
ratio, but useful. https://www.facebook.com/groups/221979475862484/

There's also https://nextstrain.org/ncov that's mapping the genomic
epidemiology of the novel coronavirus, as the mutations pop up around the
world.

cheers,
Sameer
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] [XSCE] 1TB microSD

[Sameer Verma]

Pricing will come down, like all other cards in the past. I agree that
shipping content will be a big plus.

Sameer

On Sat, Mar 2, 2019, 10:31 PM Anish Mangal  wrote:

> wouldn't wanna lose one :)
>
> but seriously, this would be interesting from the pov of shipping around
> large IIAB content collections
>
> On Mon, Feb 25, 2019 at 10:32 PM Sameer Verma  wrote:
>
>> Looks like 1 terrabyte microSD cards are coming.
>>
>>
>> https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2019/2/25/18239433/1tb-microsd-card-sandisk-micron-price-release
>>
>> Sameer
>>
>
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

[Server-devel] 1TB microSD

[Sameer Verma]

Looks like 1 terrabyte microSD cards are coming.

https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2019/2/25/18239433/1tb-microsd-card-sandisk-micron-price-release

Sameer
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

[Server-devel] Provisioning services

[Sameer Verma]

Greetings!
I haven't written to this list in a while.

I am working with some other OLPC-SF members to package and make
available Pathagar using the snaps (http://snapcraft.io platform). We
are currently doing this as part of a two-day hackathon
(http://hackathon.sfsu.edu/challenges/snap-ify-pathagar).

Of course, the work continues past this hackathon, but let's see how
far we can get today. Right now, we are using the NextCloud snap
(https://github.com/nextcloud/nextcloud-snap) as a base example and
adding/removing to it to see if we can put together a snap.

If you haven't used snaps before, try it out the NextCloud snap. On
Ubuntu/Debian, try "sudo snap install nextcloud" Give it a few
minutes, and when installed go to http:// and it should
be there.

Our proposal and approach is to first do this with Pathagar, and then
see if we can do this with all the other services on the school
server. This will give deploymentw a menu approach to adding services
without worrying about dependencies and cross-contamination and such.
It's a little bit more work to architect services that do talk to each
other, but we think that in the end it's a much cleaner solution.

Ideas? Comments?

Please let us know. Andi Gros, Aaron Borden and myself are working on
this currently.

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Professor, Information Systems
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

[Server-devel] Fwd: Community Summit 2018

[Sameer Verma]

FYI


-- Forwarded message --
From: Sameer Verma 
Date: Thu, Mar 15, 2018 at 11:36 AM
Subject: Community Summit 2018
To: OLPC SF , iaep
, "olpc-o...@lists.laptop.org"
, "grassro...@lists.laptop.org"



Remember our Community Summit? We didn't host one last year due to
logistical challenges and such, but we are getting ready to host one
this year! We have joined forces with open source, open data, and open
education communities at San Francisco State University to organize a
weekend hackathon. Details will be out shortly, but mark your
calendars.

April 27-29, 2018

https://www.olpcsf.org/open-hack-2018

cheers,
Sameer
--
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Professor, Information Systems
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] [XSCE] Video: Internet-in-a-Box in the Dominican Republic

[Sameer Verma]

Excellent! Thx for introducing the project to the folks at Columbia.

Sameer

On Mon, May 22, 2017 at 3:51 PM, Adam Holt  wrote:
> Fantastic video, even if I wish they/d credited "Internet-in-a-Box" (all of
> us, and our OLPC/Sugar origins) rather than crediting me!  I did not know
> this video was coming.  I've asked Columbia Univ folks(*) to more properly
> credit Internet-in-a-Box in future :)
>
>https://youtu.be/xI3Ed008Mxo
>
> (*) under the leadership of Columbia School of Journalism Professor Anne
> Nelson, whose grad student team did all the hard work in the Dominican
> Republic this spring.  Very honest mistake on their part, as our
> http://internet-in-a-Box.org and http://schoolserver.org web sites are
> indeed stale.
>
> Finally if you too are inspired by what rural health workers are doing for
> Haitians' rights-to-survive in the Dominican Republic, and want to build
> your very own digital library- please do read this important article at
> OpenSource.com (also just published) and feel free to ask us @
> http://iiab.io what you need to make it happen:
>
>How to create an Internet-in-a-Box on a Raspberry Pi
>Learn about this inexpensive device for students with restricted internet
>access and people in remote areas of the world not served by broadband.
>https://opensource.com/article/17/5/internet-in-a-box-raspberry-pi
>
> PS developing world hackers & offline content gurus please write me if you
> want to attend our larger http://OFF.NETWORK Wikipedia/OpenStreetMap
> Hackathon in August for hard-core implementers, --taking "meducational"
> humanitarian open content to the next level -- for schools, clinics,
> libraries truly everywhere.  Yes that means heading further into the hills
> than 5G Helicopter Celebrities, beyond even SUNY Potsdam where our hackathon
> will be held ;)  FYI our "Kiwix + Internet-in-Box + Offliners All" hackathon
> will be held in conjunction and right after Wikipedia's own annual community
> powwow in Montreal (https://wikimania2017.wikimedia.org) co-located right in
> the same city with DebConf17 (https://debconf17.debconf.org).  Thanks in
> advance to open-access librarians / factivist developers all for getting in
> touch towards joining us from different corners of the globe!!
>
> "Always do right, this will gratify some people and astonish the rest."
> Mark Twain



-- 
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Professor, Information Systems
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] [XSCE] auditing our "IIAB/XSCE 6.2 Networking" overview

[Sameer Verma]

Anish,

5060 for SIP is UDP and TCP, or UDP only?

Sameer

On Thu, Feb 23, 2017 at 10:55 AM, Anish Mangal  wrote:

> fwiw. I am using asterisk on my installs (port 5060) and ports in the
> range 1:2
>
> On Thu, Feb 23, 2017 at 12:08 AM, Adam Holt  wrote:
>
>> Are all the reserved ports here still in actual/ongoing use?
>>
>> Protocol Port Service
>> TCP 22 sshd
>> TCP 80 httpd-xs
>> TCP 631 cups
>> TCP 873 xs-rsync (xinetd)
>> TCP 3000 kiwix-serve
>> TCP 3128 squid / dansguardian
>> TCP 3130 squid
>> TCP 5000 xs-authserver
>> TCP 4369,47893,5280,5222,5223 ejabberd-xs
>> TCP 8000 sugar-stats-server
>> TCP 8008 kalite-serve
>> TCP 8080 idmgr
>> TCP 8089 sugarizer
>> TCP 27018 mongodb
>>
>> Any suggestions for ports we should remove from this list, as
>> infrequently used in 2017 and onwards?  Just checking with all *(no
>> matter how far afield, your experiences matter, including security
>> recommendations)* as I continue to clean up our Networking overview doc
>> just prior to Internet-in-a-Box 6.2's release:
>>
>>https://github.com/XSCE/xsce/wiki/IIAB-Networking
>>
>> With this new reference alongside, thanks to George:
>>
>>https://github.com/XSCE/xsce/wiki/IIAB-Architecture (might later be
>> renamed!?)
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Anish
>
>
>


-- 
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Professor, Information Systems
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] [XSCE] Proposal | SIP VoIP server on XSCE

[Sameer Verma]

On Fri, Oct 14, 2016 at 5:12 PM, Anish Mangal  wrote:
> Following from:
> http://www.en.voipforo.com/IAX/IAXvsSIP.php
>
> If SIP is using a server signaling messages always pass through the server
> but audio messages (RTP flow) can travel end to end without passing through
> the server. In IAX, signaling and data must pass always through IAX server.
> This increases the bandwidth need by the IAX servers when there are many
> simultaneous calls.
>
>
> This is a big drawback of IAX it seems, especially in a mesh setup, where in
> many cases, the available bandwidth between clients may be higher via direct
> node routes compared with the bandwidth via the server route. It seems SIP
> will utilize the network more efficiently in a mesh topology.
>
> Yesterday we were testing this on the server, and two nodes with three
> client. The data was being sent directly client -- node -- node -- client,
> and virtually no bandwidth was being used on the server. :)

Not always the case. One of my students worked on her thesis where she
set up a bunch of XO-1 laptops over a 802.11s (draft) mesh and tested
simultaneous calls to look for saturation, etc.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/0gszp4447j1g2qn/AAAxdUv_tNbstjzmD6BI1-jla/tilila-moujahid-thesis.pdf?dl=0

I'll see if I can find the actual thesis.

Sameer

>
> On Sat, Oct 15, 2016 at 5:07 AM, Anish Mangal  wrote:
>>
>> Will look into IAX2. Is it supported by apps on different clients? For
>> SIP, there are usually many client options available on various platforms.
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 14, 2016 at 9:22 PM, Sameer Verma  wrote:
>>>
>>> What server/service are you using? Look at IAX2 as well. Usually IAX2
>>> does better on networks because unlike SIP, session initiation and voice
>>> call happen on the same port.
>>>
>>> Sameer
>>>
>>>
>>> On Oct 14, 2016 4:48 AM, "Anish Mangal"  wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> A SIP server on the XSCE will allow for VOIP services (audio, video,
>>>> text). There are numerous SIP clients on various platforms so it seems a
>>>> good protocol and standard to build upon.
>>>>
>>>> I have already included a SIP server in the upcoming deployment of XSCE
>>>> and mesh in Spiti, north India.
>>>>
>>>> Thoughts?
>>>>
>>>> Best,
>>>> Anish
>>>>
>>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Anish
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Anish
>
>
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] [XSCE] Proposal | SIP VoIP server on XSCE

[Sameer Verma]

What server/service are you using? Look at IAX2 as well. Usually IAX2 does
better on networks because unlike SIP, session initiation and voice call
happen on the same port.

Sameer

On Oct 14, 2016 4:48 AM, "Anish Mangal"  wrote:

> Hi,
>
> A SIP server on the XSCE will allow for VOIP services (audio, video,
> text). There are numerous SIP clients on various platforms so it seems a
> good protocol and standard to build upon.
>
> I have already included a SIP server in the upcoming deployment of XSCE
> and mesh in Spiti, north India.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Best,
> Anish
>
>
>
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] [XSCE] [Off Topic] More Linux users facing skype issues

[Sameer Verma]

Ring had a lot of active development. I've been using it since back when it
was called SFLPhone.

Sameer
On Apr 1, 2016 6:25 PM, "Anish Mangal"  wrote:

> Unfortunately, Antox - The Tox client for Android is quite buggy, and
> AFAIK, doesn't support audio/video calling.
>
> On Fri, Apr 1, 2016 at 11:06 PM, Alex Perez  wrote:
>
>> I’d also like to second that you guys look into Tox:
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tox_(protocol). There are iOS/Android, OS
>> X, (numerous) Windows and Linux clients.
>>
>> On Apr 1, 2016, at 6:34 AM, Anish Mangal  wrote:
>>
>>
>> https://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/03/31/1956218/skype-for-linux-dead-or-just-resting
>>
>> http://nickforall.nl/skype/
>>
>> and of-course
>>
>> https://www.stallman.org/skype.html
>>
>>
>> This is not an excuse for not joining the weekly calls (sorry for that),
>> but it has made it quite a bit harder to join skype calls, if you happen to
>> run purer (purely) free software based software.
>>
>> I have an android phone with Cyanogenmod, and only f-droid (none of the
>> google spyware). There is no way to get skype to run on it.
>>
>> Skype doesnt work on my fedora 21 box.
>>
>> The only way I am able to connect is via a VM running Linux mint.
>>
>>
>> So far, it's been mostly me creating noise (and apologies for that), but
>> I will continue to do so from time to time. Hopefully someone else who
>> joins these calls regularly in the community values freedom.
>>
>> ==Alternatives==
>>
>> So far, I have found the  following alternatives.
>> 1. Tox (http://tox.chat) - It has bad support for android, but it's
>> linux client seems to work well
>>
>> 2. Ring (http://ring.cx) - It seems to have good support for android,
>> and ofcourse Linux/Windoze/OSX
>>
>> 3. Mumble - This is widely used by many communities and well supported on
>> most platforms
>>
>> 4. Having a SIP server - There are all kinds of apps that can connect to
>> a SIP server,* including from within the browser* as well (see sip.js).
>> This is also easy enough to host, and not bandwidth consuming. Willing to
>> offer to setup one if someone can offer server space.
>>
>> Anyway, all this is not to say, i wont join calls, I am sorry for that,
>> but just making aware of where things are headed skype-wise.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Anish
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Anish
>
>
>
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] ext2 vs ext4 vs exFAT for XO content SD cards?

[Sameer Verma]

James,
Would it help to mark the content partition(s) as read only?

Sameer
On Aug 16, 2015 5:13 PM, "James Cameron"  wrote:

> Thanks, interesting questions.
>
> No, ext4 is not a slow journaled filesystem, and no, there are no
> obvious problems on SD when using ext4 given your use case.  But it
> isn't operating system portable, and as your content is static no need
> for a journal.  Other features of ext4 make mounting or filesystem
> check faster.
>
> Yes, wear-leveling is taken care of by the firmware in the card, put
> there by the manufacturers.  Wear-levelling also critical during
> reading, since a flash page can't be read repeatedly without
> disturbance eventually requiring it to be written to a freshly erased
> page.  This is all handled by the firmware.  Happens way more
> frequently than it does on a hard drive.
>
> Duplication time of SD cards won't be affected by your filesystem or
> partition decision.
>
> One partition is sufficient.  MBR partition type best, for
> compatibility across the operating systems.
>
> For filesystem, use FAT32, mounted read-only.  FAT32 works across most
> Windows and Mac computers, at media sizes up to 2 TB, for file sizes
> up to 4 GB.
>
> Where content cannot live on FAT32 due to file name character set or
> metadata, it can be placed in disk image bundles of ISO-9660,
> squashfs, or ext4 and loop mounted.  The content curation process for
> the end user might be easier if bundles can be added and removed as
> needed.
>
> What you might be overlooking; I/O bandwidth of the connection to the
> media, endurance impact of reading data from the card slowing
> performance one year on, backups, content bundle tamper checks, risk
> of filesystem format incompatibilities introduced by new versions of
> operating systems after your product is in the field, risk of cross
> system malware infections, electrostatic discharge damage to the card,
> and how modern cards can change performance behaviour as a result of a
> production state awareness flag stored by card firmware.
>
> On the other hand the alternatives have their own problems.
>
> --
> James Cameron
> http://quozl.linux.org.au/
> ___
> 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

Re: [Server-devel] [IAEP] Intel's attempt at an offline server

[Sameer Verma]

This may very well be a CES vaporware thing.

Sameer
On Jan 26, 2015 9:14 AM, "Christoph Derndorfer" <
e0425...@student.tuwien.ac.at> wrote:

> Unfortunately there's a lack of pricing information as well as information
> about the available content (and accompanying management systems) but
> overall this looks like an interesting effort. Oh, and I really do like the
> inclusion of a (supposedly) 5 hour battery as this will come in really
> handy in places such as Nepal, rural Peru, etc.
>
> Just my 2 eurocents,
> Christoph
>
> On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 3:47 PM, Sameer Verma  wrote:
>
>> http://linuxgizmos.com/intel-spins-ubuntu-based-education-access-point/
>>
>> cheers,
>> Sameer
>> --
>> Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
>> Professor, Information Systems
>> San Francisco State University
>> http://verma.sfsu.edu/
>> http://commons.sfsu.edu/
>> http://olpcsf.org/
>> http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/
>> ___
>> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
>> i...@lists.sugarlabs.org
>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Christoph Derndorfer
>
> volunteer, OLPC (Austria) [www.olpc.at]
> co-founder, TechnikBasteln® [www.technikbasteln.net]
>
> e-mail: christ...@derndorfer.eu
>
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

[Server-devel] Intel's attempt at an offline server

[Sameer Verma]

http://linuxgizmos.com/intel-spins-ubuntu-based-education-access-point/

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Professor, Information Systems
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://commons.sfsu.edu/
http://olpcsf.org/
http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

[Server-devel] Lantern: One Device, Free Data From Space Forever | Indiegogo

[Sameer Verma]

Via Bruce Baikie.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/lantern-one-device-free-data-from-space-forever
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] [XSCE] copyright and licensing

[Sameer Verma]

On Sat, Nov 1, 2014 at 4:20 PM, Braddock Gaskill  wrote:
> You don't need our (IIAB) permission to relicense our software under GPL or
> AGPL because the BSD 2 clause license we are using is compatible with GPL
> forks.  BSD is gives more rights than GPL.
>

GPL is a reciprocating license, whereas BSD style licenses (academic
license) aren't required to be. Lawrence Rosen's book
(http://www.rosenlaw.com/oslbook.htm) is a good read. I use it in my
"Managind Open Source" class at SFSU.

Some interesting chapters:

"Taxonomy of licenses" is an overview of different styles and
purposes: http://www.rosenlaw.com/pdf-files/Rosen_Ch04.pdf
"Academic licenses" is all about BSD and its kin:
http://www.rosenlaw.com/pdf-files/Rosen_Ch05.pdf
"Reciprocity and the GPL" is all about the requirement of propagation
in GPL: http://www.rosenlaw.com/pdf-files/Rosen_Ch06.pdf
"Choosing an Open Source license" is a good chapter on the process of
choosing an appropriate license:
http://www.rosenlaw.com/pdf-files/Rosen_Ch10.pdf

Also, the task of choosing a license only belongs to the intellectual
property holder, and nobody else. So, if you get code under a specific
license, you have no choice but to use it. You cannot change it. The
IP holder however may change licenses or use multiple ones, including
non-FOSS licenses.

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Professor, Information Systems
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://commons.sfsu.edu/
http://olpcsf.org/
http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/

> That said, I'd strongly prefer no one forks our code base in that way and
> instead contribute back to the core IIAB project software (under a BSD
> license).
>
> There is no reason BSD components and GPL components cannot co-exist, as
> they do everywhere else, assuming basic linking hygiene is used.  If you
> don't understand this post please don't make licensing decisions.
>
> -braddock
>
> On Fri, Oct 31, 2014 at 8:26 AM, Anish Mangal 
> wrote:
>>
>> GPL or AGPL? Can/Should we ask the IIAB maintainers and contributors for
>> permission to license under GPL if it's not too complicated?
>>
>> On Oct 31, 2014 8:52 PM, "Tim Moody"  wrote:
>>>
>>> I am starting to write larger chunks of code and wondering what copyright
>>> and licensing I should include.  Any suggestions welcome.  (In Canada
>>> copyright rests with the author unless it is relinquished.)
>>>
>>> Most XS code has something like:
>>>
>>> #  Copyright 2007, One Laptop per Child
>>> #  Author: John Watlington
>>> #
>>> # This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
>>> # modify it under the terms of the GNU Library General Public License
>>> # as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
>>> # of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
>>> #
>>> # This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
>>> # but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
>>> # MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
>>> # GNU General Public License for more details.
>>> #
>>> # You should have received a copy of the GNU Library General Public
>>> # License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
>>> # Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA
>>> # 02111-1307, USA.
>>>
>>> IIAB has:
>>>
>>> This software is licensed with the BSD 2-clause license
>>> (See http://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-2-Clause)
>>>
>>> Copyright (c) 2013, Humane Informatics LLC
>>> All rights reserved.
>>>
>>> Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
>>> modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are
>>> met:
>>>
>>> Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
>>> notice, this
>>> list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
>>> Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
>>> notice,
>>> this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation
>>> and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
>>>
>>> THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS
>>> IS" AND
>>> ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
>>> IMPLIED
>>> WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE
>>> DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE
>&g

Re: [Server-devel] [XSCE] CentOS 7.0 Released, 3 years after CentOS 6.0

[Sameer Verma]

On Jul 20, 2014 11:57 AM, "Anish Mangal"  wrote:
>
> When I had checked the release notes a few days ago, there wasn't any ARM
support, at least officially.
>

Keeping that constraint in mind, it may still be worthwhile to try out the
build process on CentOS 7. I didn't get much success on CentOS 6.X.

It may also be worthwhile to explore the portability of the ansible-driven
install process on Debian for ARM.

Cheers,
Sameer
> On Jul 21, 2014 12:04 AM, "Adam Holt"  wrote:
>>
>> Is it time to consider this industrial-strength OS, promising "full
updates til Q4 2020" and 10 yrs of "maintenance updates til 30 June 2024" ?
>>
>>http://CentOS.org
>>http://wiki.CentOS.org/Download
>>
>> Or do we consider alternatives, reflecting complaints CentOS is no
longer sufficiently community-driven ??
>>
>>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7998698
>>
>> We're certainly at a very unique moment in time suddenly.  In Haiti,
quite a number of high schools are moving to Linux Mint 17 LTS based on
Ubuntu 14.04, with laptop security updates promised until "April 2019", for
similar reasons (rich countries may tolerate it, but developing world
schools have had Quite Enough of the Fedora-like upgrade treadmill pushed
upon them by self-interested Silicon Valley types..)
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] [XSCE] xovis on the XSCE 5.0

[Sameer Verma]

On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 7:45 AM, Martin Dluhos  wrote:
> On 06/24/2014 07:47 PM, Sameer Verma wrote:
>> So, here are some observations:
>
> Thanks for the feedback, Sameer! Tim already addressed many of the things you
> point out in the latest xovis pull request, which has been merged into master
> (https://github.com/XSCE/xsce/pull/145). My comments follow inline.
>
>> XSCE should pull to get the latest from xovis (Tim Moody has already
>> written about this). I don't see the add deployment [+] button and
>> spider charts on the XSCE version.
>
> Fixed in #145.

I'll pull and take a look.

>
>> Add methods to pull from sugar-stats (currently stores data in RRD
>> format, but rrdtool does the export in versions 1.4.6 and above) and
>> harvest (already has serialized json).
>
> Yes, that would be very useful.

Anish Mangal and I have some data from Bhagmalpur, India is a RRD
format. We'll try to fiddle with it and see how the RRD to json goes.

>
>> Also add methods to read from
>> Sugar backups done using the Backup activity. Many smaller projects
>> have backups done by hand.
>
> Are you talking about projects, which do not use a server at all? If there is 
> a
> server, one can always run a ds-backup.
>

True, but there are several projects that don't have a XS or XSCE, and
have collected backups via the Backup activity. I have some samples if
you want to take a peek.

>> Resolve the userid:password for couchdb (instead of admin:admin) in
>> ansible, so it installs with an account other than admin.
>>
>> A way to edit out the "OLENepal" header from all charts.
>
> Both handled in #145.

Great!

>
>> Maybe we spin a VM with CentOS and xovis (call it the visualizer!)
>> where you can plug in a USB stick or external drive with backups, and
>> visualize.
>
> I've just added the backup directory as an ansible variable.
>
>> Some basic documentation on the use of xovis and interpretation of
>> data for teachers, principals, etc.
>
> Perhaps a 'help' page?

+1

>
>> Something that's quite popular with many similar projects (deployment
>> of several mobile computers) is "How many laptops showed up at school
>> today?". There are a few different ways this can be done (dhcp log,
>> Journal data), but I'd like to discuss this a bit more.
>
> Since we already store Journal data, this wouldn't be too difficult to add. 
> Good
> idea!
>
> Thanks for the feedback, Sameer!
>
> Cheers,
> Martin
> ___
> Server-devel mailing list
> Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
>
>


cheers,
Sameer
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] [XSCE] sugarstats and xovis

[Sameer Verma]

On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 2:26 AM, Martin Dluhos  wrote:
> On 06/27/2014 02:10 PM, Martin Abente wrote:
>> Hello Martin!
>>
>> Do you have documentation on how XOvis pipeline works? I would like to see 
>> how
>> it works after the data is store and the visualization is generated.
>
>
> Here is a simple graphic that illustrates the workflow:
>
> http://i.imgur.com/Xhy1Vx3.jpg
>
> XOvis is a Couch application, which means that it's also stored in the db 
> along
> with the journal metadata. It queries the db using map-reduce queries, which 
> you
> can see here:
>
> https://github.com/martasd/xovis/blob/master/lib/views.js
>
>> Writing a tool to export the metadata from Harvest-server to a compatible 
>> subset
>> in the visualization-ready format of XOvis, would be cheaper in development
>> cost, but more expensive in running time (with large datasets). The other way
>> around, would be to allow XOvis read directly from Harvest-server MySQL 
>> format.
>

CouchDB has two distinct advantages for XOVis. 1) It allows for
"eventual consistency" which helps in syncing data from the school to
a central location using XS or XSCE. I believe this isn't relevant for
AU/Harvest because they don't use a school server, and the XOs send
metadata directly. 2) CouchDB does the aggregation through mapreduce.
This is powerful, and withour couchDB (or mongodb etc) you'll have to
write the aggregation yourself and/or get MySQL to do it.

The visualization may or may not be stored in the DB. It just happens
to be one more convenience of CouchDB.

cheers,
Sameer

> Since transferring metadata into the db needs to be done only once, running 
> time
> has never been a major concern. How large are the datasets you've collected on
> the Harvest-server?
>
> Cheers,
> Martin
>
>
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] [XSCE] activation server feature XSCE 5.0

[Sameer Verma]

On Jul 4, 2014 3:31 PM, "James Cameron"  wrote:
>
> I haven't heard of any XSCE deployments that wish to use the OLPC
> security system at the same time, so you are probably the first to
> try.
>
> I think the next step in diagnosis will be to find out what the XO
> does during the activation step, find out how XS-0.7 implements this,
> and ensure XSCE does as well.
>

A quick note. I remember that with XS 0.7 running on CentOS6.x it had to be
the 32 bit OS. Reuben Caron may know more.

Sameer
> --
> James Cameron
> http://quozl.linux.org.au/
> ___
> 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

Re: [Server-devel] [XSCE] pathagar

[Sameer Verma]

My guess would be wrong system time.

Sameer
On Jul 1, 2014 2:42 PM, "James Cameron"  wrote:

> Try another tool to get more detail on the SSL handshake failure.
>
> Check the system time.  An SSL handshake also fails if the system time
> is very wrong, depending on the remote certificate.
>
> --
> James Cameron
> http://quozl.linux.org.au/
> ___
> 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

Re: [Server-devel] [XSCE] pathagar

[Sameer Verma]

On Sat, Jun 28, 2014 at 2:19 PM, Tim Moody  wrote:
> I now see a failure as below every time I runansible, even on a fast machine
> and fast network.
>
> TASK: [pathagar | Install pathagar requirements in a virtualenv]
> **
> changed: [127.0.0.1] => (item=Django==1.4.5)
> changed: [127.0.0.1] => (item=django-tagging==0.3.1)
> failed: [127.0.0.1] => (item=django-sendfile==0.3.0) => {"cmd":
> "/usr/local/pathagar/venv/bin/pip install --use-mirrors
> django-sendfile==0.3.0", "failed": true, "item": "django-sendfile==0.3.0"}
> msg: stdout: Downloading/unpacking django-sendfile==0.3.0
>  You are installing a potentially insecure and unverifiable file. Future
> versions of pip will default to disallowing insecure files.
>  Error  routines:SSL23_GET_SERVER_HELLO:sslv3 alert handshake failure> while getting
> https://github.com/downloads/johnsensible/django-sendfile/django-sendfile-0.3.0.tar.gz
> (from https://github.com/johnsensible/django-sendfile/downloads)
>
> Tim
>
>
>

SSL handshake error?

Sameer
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] [XSCE] xovis on the XSCE 5.0

[Sameer Verma]

On Thu, Jun 19, 2014 at 3:38 AM, Martin Dluhos  wrote:
> On 06/17/2014 08:49 PM, Sameer Verma wrote:
>> On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 1:11 AM, Martin Dluhos  wrote:
>>> When installing with install_xovis.sh script, the script will output the 
>>> command
>>> that you need to run. Since the db was created using an admin account, you 
>>> need
>>> to pass the 'server' flag to the command including the couch credentials:
>>>
>>> ./process_journal_stats.py dbinsert xovis --deployment olpc --server
>>> http://admin:admin@127.0.0.1:5984
>>>
>>
>> That works! https://twitter.com/sameerverma/status/478970452757327874
>
> Very nice!
>
>
>

So, here are some observations:

XSCE should pull to get the latest from xovis (Tim Moody has already
written about this). I don't see the add deployment [+] button and
spider charts on the XSCE version.

Add methods to pull from sugar-stats (currently stores data in RRD
format, but rrdtool does the export in versions 1.4.6 and above) and
harvest (already has serialized json). Also add methods to read from
Sugar backups done using the Backup activity. Many smaller projects
have backups done by hand.

We'll need some auth layer above xovis. If it's on XSCE, then XSCE
should handle this, but if not, there should be some basic auth
mechanism to do roles/permissions for teacher, principal, etc.

Resolve the userid:password for couchdb (instead of admin:admin) in
ansible, so it installs with an account other than admin.

A way to edit out the "OLENepal" header from all charts.

Maybe we spin a VM with CentOS and xovis (call it the visualizer!)
where you can plug in a USB stick or external drive with backups, and
visualize.

Some basic documentation on the use of xovis and interpretation of
data for teachers, principals, etc.

Something that's quite popular with many similar projects (deployment
of several mobile computers) is "How many laptops showed up at school
today?". There are a few different ways this can be done (dhcp log,
Journal data), but I'd like to discuss this a bit more.

I'll post more as I think of other ideas.

cheers,
Sameer
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] [XSCE] sugarstats and xovis

[Sameer Verma]

On Mon, Jun 23, 2014 at 9:32 PM, Martin Abente
 wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sun, Jun 22, 2014 at 9:43 PM, Sameer Verma  wrote:
>>
>> On Sun, Jun 22, 2014 at 6:12 PM, Walter Bender 
>> wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> > On Sun, Jun 22, 2014 at 6:33 PM, Sameer Verma  wrote:
>> >>
>> >> On Sun, Jun 22, 2014 at 7:41 AM, Tim Moody  wrote:
>> >> > does xovis supersede sugarstats?
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> From what I understand, sugar-stats runs at the dbus level as opposed
>> >> to the Journal metadata, which pulls data from the Journal backups.
>> >> xovis relies on data that it can get as json, pushed into couchdb. So,
>> >> while right now xovis uses json from Journal backups, it could be
>> >> modified to do so from the RRD files that sugar-stats produces. That
>> >> said, the data collected by sugar-stats is different, and needs to be
>> >> filtered accordingly before it can be used sensibly by xovis.
>> >
>> >
>> > And there is the Harvest system, which for the most part relies on data
>> > in
>> > Journal.
>> >
>>
>> Yes, in fact we had conversations with Martin Abente about Harvest,
>> and the possibility that the Harvest data could be serialized (json)
>> and pushed into xovis. Are there any samples of Harvest data that we
>> can look at some place?
>
>
>
> Hello Sameer,
>
> The harvest-client serializes (using json) a subset of journal-objects
> metadata and then sends it to the harvest-server, which is basically a
> web-service plus a MySQL back-end.
>

Great! Then we can perhaps add a method to process_journal_stats.py in
XOVis to support Harvest.

> I need to update this documentation [1] (will do this tomorrow early), but
> you can get an idea of what fields are used. If you need an example of the
> serialized format for the client-server communication you can look at [2].
> The bits that handle the serialization process can be found here [3], which
> is meant to be read.
>

OK. Will take a look.

Sameer

> Regards,
> Martin.
>
> Refs:
> 1. http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Harvest
> 2. https://github.com/tchx84/harvest-server/blob/master/test/data/data.json
> 3.
> https://github.com/tchx84/harvest-client/blob/master/extensions/webservice/harvest/harvest/crop.py
>
>>
>>
>> Sameer
>>
>> > -walter
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> We have RRD files from Bhagmalpur, India, but we haven't done much
>> >> with it as yet. I understand that AU may have a boatload of
>> >> sugar-stats data as well, but not sure if they got around to doing
>> >> anything with it.
>> >>
>> >> cheers,
>> >> Sameer
>> >> --
>> >> Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
>> >> Professor, Information Systems
>> >> San Francisco State University
>> >> http://verma.sfsu.edu/
>> >> http://commons.sfsu.edu/
>> >> http://olpcsf.org/
>> >> http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/
>> >> ___
>> >> Server-devel mailing list
>> >> Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
>> >> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > Walter Bender
>> > Sugar Labs
>> > http://www.sugarlabs.org
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
>> Professor, Information Systems
>> San Francisco State University
>> http://verma.sfsu.edu/
>> http://commons.sfsu.edu/
>> http://olpcsf.org/
>> http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

[Server-devel] XOVis posts

[Sameer Verma]

Two blog posts are up for XOVis. These should do a good job as an
intro to XOVis.

http://blog.olenepal.org/index.php/archives/902
http://www.olpcsf.org/node/208

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Professor, Information Systems
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://commons.sfsu.edu/
http://olpcsf.org/
http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] [XSCE] sugarstats and xovis

[Sameer Verma]

On Sun, Jun 22, 2014 at 6:12 PM, Walter Bender  wrote:
>
>
> On Sun, Jun 22, 2014 at 6:33 PM, Sameer Verma  wrote:
>>
>> On Sun, Jun 22, 2014 at 7:41 AM, Tim Moody  wrote:
>> > does xovis supersede sugarstats?
>>
>>
>> From what I understand, sugar-stats runs at the dbus level as opposed
>> to the Journal metadata, which pulls data from the Journal backups.
>> xovis relies on data that it can get as json, pushed into couchdb. So,
>> while right now xovis uses json from Journal backups, it could be
>> modified to do so from the RRD files that sugar-stats produces. That
>> said, the data collected by sugar-stats is different, and needs to be
>> filtered accordingly before it can be used sensibly by xovis.
>
>
> And there is the Harvest system, which for the most part relies on data in
> Journal.
>

Yes, in fact we had conversations with Martin Abente about Harvest,
and the possibility that the Harvest data could be serialized (json)
and pushed into xovis. Are there any samples of Harvest data that we
can look at some place?

Sameer

> -walter
>>
>>
>> We have RRD files from Bhagmalpur, India, but we haven't done much
>> with it as yet. I understand that AU may have a boatload of
>> sugar-stats data as well, but not sure if they got around to doing
>> anything with it.
>>
>> cheers,
>> Sameer
>> --
>> Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
>> Professor, Information Systems
>> San Francisco State University
>> http://verma.sfsu.edu/
>> http://commons.sfsu.edu/
>> http://olpcsf.org/
>> http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/
>> _______
>> Server-devel mailing list
>> Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
>> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
>
>
>
>
> --
> Walter Bender
> Sugar Labs
> http://www.sugarlabs.org



-- 
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Professor, Information Systems
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://commons.sfsu.edu/
http://olpcsf.org/
http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] [XSCE] sugarstats and xovis

[Sameer Verma]

On Sun, Jun 22, 2014 at 7:41 AM, Tim Moody  wrote:
> does xovis supersede sugarstats?


>From what I understand, sugar-stats runs at the dbus level as opposed
to the Journal metadata, which pulls data from the Journal backups.
xovis relies on data that it can get as json, pushed into couchdb. So,
while right now xovis uses json from Journal backups, it could be
modified to do so from the RRD files that sugar-stats produces. That
said, the data collected by sugar-stats is different, and needs to be
filtered accordingly before it can be used sensibly by xovis.

We have RRD files from Bhagmalpur, India, but we haven't done much
with it as yet. I understand that AU may have a boatload of
sugar-stats data as well, but not sure if they got around to doing
anything with it.

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Professor, Information Systems
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://commons.sfsu.edu/
http://olpcsf.org/
http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] Recommended base for XSCE 5.

[Sameer Verma]

On Thu, Jun 19, 2014 at 11:39 AM, Adam Holt  wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 19, 2014 at 2:29 PM, Richard Smith  wrote:
>>
>> The docs I've looked at so far aren't clear on the OS base for XSCE 5.
>>
>> Does it need F20 or will it work on F18?
>
>
> Fedora 18 support is solid.  Fedora 20 support's coming but not entirely
> there yet (others will hopefully prove me wrong on this last bit ;)
>

Yeah, but Fedora 18 itself is dead. I've always been unhappy with
using Fedora as a server OS, even if the server lives offline. It's
too unstable a target for server builds. Just building a new image
tends to be problematic because the dependencies and updates tend to
disappear. We had a bunch of problems building XS 0.6 back when it was
based on F9, I think, after F9 died. XS 0.7 on the other hand is
supported on CentOS6.x and that has been rock solid.  Sadly, CentOS
does not do ARM (yet).

cheers,
Sameer

> ___
> 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

Re: [Server-devel] Recommended base for XSCE 5.

[Sameer Verma]

On Thu, Jun 19, 2014 at 11:29 AM, Richard Smith  wrote:
> The docs I've looked at so far aren't clear on the OS base for XSCE 5.
>
> Does it need F20 or will it work on F18?
>
> --
> Richard A. Smith
> ___
> Server-devel mailing list
> Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
>
>

My attempts to build it on CentOS 6.5 32 and 64 bit have been
difficult (and unsuccessful) thus far.

Sameer
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] [XSCE] xovis on the XSCE 5.0

[Sameer Verma]

On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 1:11 AM, Martin Dluhos  wrote:
> On 06/16/2014 05:41 AM, Sameer Verma wrote:
>> On Sun, Jun 15, 2014 at 3:58 AM, Martin Dluhos  wrote:
>>> On 06/15/2014 02:41 AM, Sameer Verma wrote:
>>>> Hi Martin,
>>>>
>>>> I installed xovis on the XSCE 5.0 running on a XO 1.75 (512MB RAM,
>>>> consuming 405MB or so right now). I've successfully registered a few
>>>> XOs with the server. I see the backups in /library/users/
>>>>
>>>> I see that I have a /opt/xovis folder. Does the database insert into
>>>> couchdb run via cron? If not, how do I push the metadats into couchdb?
>>>
>>> Currently, this needs to be done manually by running script
>>> process_journal_stats.py, which is in the repository. I updated the 
>>> installation
>>> instructions in the README yesterday, which explains how to install and use 
>>> XOvis:
>>>
>>> https://github.com/martasd/xovis
>>>
>>> See the "Load existing deployment data into the database" section in the 
>>> README.
>>> Are the instructions clear?
>>>
>>
>> Got it. I ran
>>
>> ./process_journal_stats.py dbinsert xovis --deployment olpc and got
>> the following. I'm running this as root.
>
> When installing with install_xovis.sh script, the script will output the 
> command
> that you need to run. Since the db was created using an admin account, you 
> need
> to pass the 'server' flag to the command including the couch credentials:
>
> ./process_journal_stats.py dbinsert xovis --deployment olpc --server
> http://admin:admin@127.0.0.1:5984
>

That works! https://twitter.com/sameerverma/status/478970452757327874

Sameer

> Delete xovis db if it exists and try it again.
>
> Martin
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] xovis on the XSCE 5.0

[Sameer Verma]

Forgot to cc Martin Dluhos.

On Sat, Jun 14, 2014 at 5:41 PM, Sameer Verma  wrote:
> Hi Martin,
>
> I installed xovis on the XSCE 5.0 running on a XO 1.75 (512MB RAM,
> consuming 405MB or so right now). I've successfully registered a few
> XOs with the server. I see the backups in /library/users/
>
> I see that I have a /opt/xovis folder. Does the database insert into
> couchdb run via cron? If not, how do I push the metadats into couchdb?
>
> cheers,
> Sameer
> --
> Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
> Professor, Information Systems
> San Francisco State University
> http://verma.sfsu.edu/
> http://commons.sfsu.edu/
> http://olpcsf.org/
> http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

[Server-devel] xovis on the XSCE 5.0

[Sameer Verma]

Hi Martin,

I installed xovis on the XSCE 5.0 running on a XO 1.75 (512MB RAM,
consuming 405MB or so right now). I've successfully registered a few
XOs with the server. I see the backups in /library/users/

I see that I have a /opt/xovis folder. Does the database insert into
couchdb run via cron? If not, how do I push the metadats into couchdb?

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Professor, Information Systems
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://commons.sfsu.edu/
http://olpcsf.org/
http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] [XSCE] wvdial

[Sameer Verma]

On Jun 8, 2014 3:27 PM, "James Cameron"  wrote:
>
> On Sat, Jun 07, 2014 at 10:42:25AM -0700, Sameer Verma wrote:
> > Anybody have on the ground experience with wvdial to run a USB modem
> > directly from the school server?
>
> No on the ground experience with the school server.
>
> > Does XSCE 0.5 have anything built-in?
>
> wvdial gets me nothing that pppd and Network Manager don't already do
> better.  Packages ppp and NetworkManager.  Should be there now.  Plug
> the modem in and try to create a connection in the UI.
>

>From what I understand, XSCE build do not have a native GUI. Not sure how
nm would work in this config.

Sameer

> wvdial usually springs up because it was an early solution that people
> remember with fondness, or find in outdated documentation.
>
> --
> 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] pathagar admin pass

[Sameer Verma]

That works. Will let Anish know.

Sameer
On Jun 7, 2014 10:49 AM, "Miguel González Álvarez" 
wrote:

> Did you try `revreskoob` (bookserver reversed)?
>
> https://github.com/XSCE/xsce/blob/master/docs/CONFIG.rst#pathagar
>
> On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 7:41 PM, Sameer Verma  wrote:
> > I'm helping Anish with a XSCE 0.5 server install. His bandwidth is
> > extremely limited.
> >
> > Anyone know what the method for login/reset pass is for the admin side
> > of pathagar as installed by ansible? The main.yml file
> > (https://github.com/XSCE/xsce/blob/master/roles/pathagar/vars/main.yml)
> > has a long string, but I suspect that isn't the password.
> >
> > cheers,
> > Sameer
> > --
> > Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
> > Professor, Information Systems
> > San Francisco State University
> > http://verma.sfsu.edu/
> > http://commons.sfsu.edu/
> > http://olpcsf.org/
> > http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/
>
>
>
> --
> Miguel González
> migonzal...@gmail.com
> PGP ID: 0C63761BEEBD05D3
>
>
>
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

[Server-devel] wvdial

[Sameer Verma]

Anybody have on the ground experience with wvdial to run a USB modem
directly from the school server? Does XSCE 0.5 have anything built-in?

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Professor, Information Systems
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://commons.sfsu.edu/
http://olpcsf.org/
http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

[Server-devel] pathagar admin pass

[Sameer Verma]

I'm helping Anish with a XSCE 0.5 server install. His bandwidth is
extremely limited.

Anyone know what the method for login/reset pass is for the admin side
of pathagar as installed by ansible? The main.yml file
(https://github.com/XSCE/xsce/blob/master/roles/pathagar/vars/main.yml)
has a long string, but I suspect that isn't the password.

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Professor, Information Systems
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://commons.sfsu.edu/
http://olpcsf.org/
http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

[Server-devel] ansible install on a 1.75 with low RAM

[Sameer Verma]

I've been helping Anish with some server testing. I have a XO 1.75
with 512MB RAM. After installing the 13.2 build, and following
instructions from
(https://github.com/XSCE/xsce/blob/master/docs/INSTALL.rst)

./runansible fails repeatedly, and at varying successive points. I
suspect this is due to a low amount of RAM and no swap (I see memory
page errors at the console). After running ./runansible a few times, I
decided to install using one playbook at a time. The initial runs had
failed at squid, so I started there.

ansible-playbook -i ansible_hosts xsce.yml --connection=local --tags="squid"

Installing services like this, with one playbook at a time works.
After all the playbooks, I ran ./runansible again and it ran through
completely.

Putting this out there in case someone else gets stuck.

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Professor, Information Systems
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://commons.sfsu.edu/
http://olpcsf.org/
http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] [XSCE] Re: [IIAB] getting the archive

[Sameer Verma]

On Sun, Jun 1, 2014 at 2:40 PM, Braddock  wrote:
> -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On 05/31/2014 09:42 PM, Sameer Verma wrote:
>> Looking to see what the quickest and easiest way is, of getting a
>> copy of the full archive of IIAB. Thoughts? Ideas? Pointers?
>
> Sameer,
>
> I am happy to ship out a USB hard drive with the full
> Internet-in-a-Box dataset to anyone willing to copy it and ship it
> back to me.

Considering other projects at OLPC SF may also want this, I think it
makes sense for us to get a copy. I'll write to you offlist.
BTW, is there a rsync style mechanism to do minor updates to the image?

cheers,
Sameer

>
> We don't currently have a download site.
>
> - -braddock
> -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/
>
> iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJTi52uAAoJEHWLR/DQzlZu1PQIAJmKu2Zj/Opg3NdavKlguoxN
> L4edFe434II3VaV+XuCngkvhdrZ/bTz7RtH5Z11JZ6/UygxhxcGurgUyr0/xdslr
> K26DpbqcymsiEVTZvbcx1aDlWXq46/bOabmVDwMkjFTTQWoeoIShgYDdanvA094v
> NIZIha9y4Xx72UN7eBVxhak4Q/ASKmC035n9kQEkE/janV5GndtX9oMpneAUFaCg
> zRA60UzxkQm1Y/voFk3I5p1tn33aSxrzspoLN3sVPnlmyYNB03GaZkjQ1ts/8zpC
> ZusvacsI8fY3oszQdK6Fzfay61OOLQv9jK0FlmlQDjeb0CHj6HZo4VrQMydpO1Y=
> =ICjq
> -END PGP SIGNATURE-
>
>
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

[Server-devel] getting the archive

[Sameer Verma]

Looking to see what the quickest and easiest way is, of getting a copy
of the full archive of IIAB. Thoughts? Ideas? Pointers?

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Professor, Information Systems
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://commons.sfsu.edu/
http://olpcsf.org/
http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] [UKids] Re: [XSCE] Re: Nepal Focus: Thursday's XS(CE) 10AM NYC Time weekly call

[Sameer Verma]

Hope you all got a chance to talk about Martin Dluhos' visualization
project. Andi Gros and I have been working with him for a few weeks
now, and it is near completion. I have a test image running on a
couple of machines. Still a few tweaks, but very promising. Matrin D.
should be doing an update fairly soon. I have a write-up in progress
as well.

Sameer

On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 8:22 AM, Adam Holt  wrote:
> Fantastic insights into OLE Nepal's ~80 schools, and the school server in
> each, during this morning's meeting.  So much info (thanks to Basanta & Tony
> etc!) I couldn't quite to transcribe it all into the minutes here:
>
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1o6QtzLb6e58YKWqMf_junux2XyBRLFm31un8YLcYslg
>
> But we'll be meeting 1st Thur of every month to keep heartbeat focus on
> Nepal's powerful progress, so XSCE 6.0 (or similar) is properly tailored for
> Nepal and many others.
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 10:38 AM, Jon Nettleton 
> wrote:
>>
>> Sorry guys forgot that the US switched to daylight savings time.  The
>> rest of the world doesn't change until the 30th so the time difference
>> is an hour shorter.  I will catch the meeting next week
>>
>> -Jon
>>
>> On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 2:05 PM, Adam Holt  wrote:
>> > See you in 1 hour!
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 5:04 PM, Adam Holt  wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Great that Tony Anderson and others have committed to being there to
>> >> keep
>> >> the focus on actual educators' needs around XS 0.7 and XSCE 5.1.
>> >> Perfect
>> >> given a number of experienced Veteran Volunteers will be visiting
>> >> http://oleNepal.org in April and May, keeping our global repertoire of
>> >> EduTech tricks from being lost one country to the next.
>> >>
>> >> Thursday we'd like ask ourselves how http://internet-in-a-box.org +
>> >> XS(CE)
>> >> is delivering in each of our deployments, examining the real world case
>> >> of
>> >> how IIAB is evolving in Nepal with Tony's distribution known as BERNIE
>> >> (beautiful educ resources needed for innov education?!)  In particular
>> >> we'd
>> >> like to ask what OLE Nepal XS lessons can be derived for each of our
>> >> own
>> >> very pressing needs in Haiti, Africa, etc.
>> >>
>> >> But plz also add your own http://schoolserver.org Agenda for Thur March
>> >> 13th here:
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1o6QtzLb6e58YKWqMf_junux2XyBRLFm31un8YLcYslg
>> >>
>> >> Meeting time is always 10AM NYC Time Thursdays, just don't forget NYC
>> >> advanced its clocks by an hour early yesterday, and send me yr Skype
>> >> username or phone number in advance, Thanks :)
>>
>> --
>> Unsung Heroes of OLPC, interviewed live @ http://unleashkids.org !
>> ---
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
>> "Unleash Kids" group.
>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
>> email to unleashkids+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
>>
>>
>> --
>> Unsung Heroes of OLPC, interviewed live @ http://unleashkids.org !
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

[Server-devel] Rugged mini-PC runs Linux on quad-core G-Series SoC · LinuxGizmos.com

[Sameer Verma]

One more mini PC to possibly run a server.

http://linuxgizmos.com/rugged-mini-pc-runs-linux-on-quad-core-amd-g-series/

Sameer
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] [XSCE] [ANNOUNCE] Release 5.0 of XSCE

[Sameer Verma]

On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 6:30 PM, Tim Moody  wrote:
> This is a slightly belated announcement of the release of the XSCE School
> Server version 5.0.  The full release notes are included below.  Those who
> have been following the project will notice the order of magnitude jump in
> release numbers, e.g. 0.5 has become 5.0.  This has been done to  avoid
> confusion between the XS and XSCE projects, especially as we approach the
> next release.
>
> XSCE has been tested on a variety of  OLPC XO laptops and on 64 bit servers
> and VMs and has been installed on RaspberryPi, Trimslice, and experimentally
> on the Cubox.
>
> To get started (assuming you have git setup) please follow the instructions
> at https://github.com/XSCE/xsce/blob/master/docs/INSTALL.rst
>
> The 5.0 release can be cloned by
>
> git clone https://github.com/XSCE/xsce.git --branch 5.0 --depth 1
>
> or if you want the entire repository:
>
> git clone https://github.com/XSCE/xsce.git
> git checkout 5.0
>
> The release notes that follow are at
> https://github.com/XSCE/xsce/blob/master/ReleaseNotes5.0.rst
>
> RELEASE NOTES
>
> The focus of release 5.0 is making it easier for contributors to
> participate. This has been accomplished in three ways:
>
> 1) Better Documentation
>
> The documentation concerning installation, configuration, and usage has been
> greatly expanded and clarified. This includes information on alternative
> networking configurations and urls and ports to exercise the various
> services included. There are also an increased number of troubleshooting
> tips.
> The documentation is located at
> https://github.com/XSCE/xsce/tree/master/docs.
>
> 2) Relocation of Source to Github
>
> While the source code for the School Server has always been public, moving
> XSCE to github encourages a workflow that is becoming standard in the open
> source software industry wherein a git repository is cloned and contributors
> work on their own branches and then create pull requests which allow code to
> be rolled up to the master copy. Github facilitates this work flow and the
> School Server community has adopted it.
> The XSCE project is located at https://github.com/XSCE/xsce.
>
> 3) Use of Ansible for Installation
>
> The XSCE project has been restructured around ansible playbooks. This has a
> number of benefits. First, it allows independent developers to work on their
> individual contributions to the project (mostly) without tripping over other
> developers. To further this aim an aggregate playbook 'addons' has been
> created as a home for installing the playbooks of these individuals.
> Secondly, the effort to perform a testing cycle is greatly reduced. Because
> ansible installs from a git clone it is not necessary to create a new rpm
> and install it in its entirety. A simple git pull gets the latest version
> for testing and this version can be ones own branch or the master. Ansible
> tags have been used widely throughout the playbooks so that it is now much
> easier to test a subset of functionality rather than having to test the
> entire install on each iteration.
> Ansible is documented at http://www.ansibleworks.com/.
> In addition to making it easier for a broader range of contributors, XSCE
> 5.0 includes the following:
>
> Two Flavors
>
> There are gateway and non-gateway ('appliance') flavors of XSCE. The
> installation attempts to determine the mode in which the server will operate
> based on attached network devices.
>
> Platforms
>
> XSCE has been tested on XO 1.5, 1.75, and 4 as well as on i386 and x64.
>
> RPM Based Install
>
> An RPM can be produced from the ansible playbooks using rpmbuild -bb
> xsce-server.spec. This RPM can then be installed using yum.
>
> Not included in this Release
>
> This release does not address the recent announcement that Fedora Core 18 is
> end of life. Experiments with Fedora Core 20 are promising and support is
> expected in a future release.
>

How well does this translate to CentOS 6.x for x86 and x64 machines?

Sameer

> Testing
>
> To get started please install git and then issue:
> git clone g...@github.com:XSCE/xsce.git
> cd xsce
> git checkout 5.0
> Please help test this and file bugs at
> https://github.com/XSCE/xsce/issues?state=open
>
>
>
> ___
> 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

Re: [Server-devel] [Sugar-devel] The quest for data

[Sameer Verma]

On Sun, Jan 12, 2014 at 3:02 PM, Walter Bender  wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 12, 2014 at 3:32 PM, Sameer Verma  wrote:
>> On Sun, Jan 12, 2014 at 6:33 AM, Walter Bender  
>> wrote:
>>> On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 3:37 PM, Sameer Verma  wrote:
>>>> On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 3:26 AM, Martin Dluhos  wrote:
>>>>> On 7.1.2014 01:49, Sameer Verma wrote:
>>>>>> On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 12:28 AM, Martin Dluhos  wrote:
>>>>>>> For visualization, I have explored using LibreOffice and SOFA, but 
>>>>>>> neither of
>>>>>>> those were flexible to allow for customization of the output beyond 
>>>>>>> some a few
>>>>>>> rudimentary options, so I started looking at various Javascript 
>>>>>>> libraries, which
>>>>>>> are much more powerful. Currently, I am experimenting with Google 
>>>>>>> Charts, which
>>>>>>> I found the easiest to get started with. If I run into limitations with 
>>>>>>> Google
>>>>>>> Charts in the future, others on my list are InfoVIS Toolkit
>>>>>>> (http://philogb.github.io/jit) and HighCharts (http://highcharts.com). 
>>>>>>> Then,
>>>>>>> there is also D3.js, but that's a bigger animal.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Keep in mind that if you want to visualize at the school's local
>>>>>> XS[CE] you may have to rely on a local js method instead of an online
>>>>>> library.
>>>>>
>>>>> Yes, that's a very good point.  Originally, I was only thinking about 
>>>>> collecting
>>>>> and visualizing the information centrally, but there is no reason why it
>>>>> couldn't be viewed by teachers and school administrators on the 
>>>>> schoolserver
>>>>> itself. Thanks for the warning.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> In fact, my guess would be that what the teachers and principal want
>>>> to see at the school will be different from what OLE Nepal and the
>>>> government would want to see, with interesting overlaps.
>>>
>>> You left out one important constituent: the learner. Ultimately we are
>>> responsible for making learning visible to the learner. Claudia and I
>>> touched on this topic in the attached paper.
>>>
>>
>> Thanks for the paper. While we did point out to Portfolio and Analyze
>> Journal activities in our session at OLPC SF Summit in 2013, I didn't
>> include it in the scope of the blog post. I'll go back and update it
>> when I get a chance.
>>
>>> Just to place all my cards on the table, as much as I hate to suggest
>>> we head down this route, I think we really need to instrument
>>> activities themselves (and build analyses of activity output) if we
>>> want to provide meaningful statistics about learning. We've done some
>>> of this with Turtle Blocks, even capturing the mistakes the learner
>>> makes along the way. We are lacking in decent visualizations of these
>>> data, however.
>>>
>>
>> I haven't had a chance to read the paper in depth (which I intend to
>> do this afternoon), but how much of this approach would be shareable
>> across activities? Or would the depth of analysis be on a per activity
>> basis? If the latter, then I'd imagine it would be simpler for
>> something like the Moon activity than the TurtleBlocks activity.
>>
>>> Meanwhile, I remain convinced that the portfolio is our best tool.
>>>
>>
>> I think the approaches differ in scope and purpose. In the RFPs I've
>> been involved in, the funding agencies and/or the decision makers
>> either request or outright require "dashboard style" features to
>> report frequency of use, time of day, and in some cases even GPS-based
>> location in addition to theft-deterrence, remote provisioning, etc.
>> The same goes for going back to an agency to get renewed funding or to
>> raise funds for a new site expansion. In a way, the scope of the
>> "learner<->teacher" bubble is significantly different from that of the
>> "principal<->minister of edu". One is driven by learning and pedagogy,
>> while the other is driven by administration. Accordingly, the reports
>> they want to see are also different. While the measurements from the
>> Activity may be distilled into coarser indicators for t

Re: [Server-devel] [Sugar-devel] The quest for data

[Sameer Verma]

On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 12:04 PM, Sameer Verma  wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 12:28 AM, Martin Dluhos  wrote:
>> On 3.1.2014 04:09, Sameer Verma wrote:
>>> Happy new year! May 2014 bring good deeds and cheer :-)
>>>
>>> Here's a blog post on the different approaches (that I know of) to data
>>> gathering across different projects. Do let me know if I missed anything.
>>>
>>> cheers,
>>> Sameer
>>>
>>> http://www.olpcsf.org/node/204
>>
>> Thanks for putting together the summary, Sameer. Here is more information 
>> about
>> my xo-stats project:
>>
>> The project's objective is to determine how XOs are used in Nepalese
>> classrooms, but I am intending for the implementation to be general enough, 
>> so
>> that it can be reused by other deployments as well. Similarly to other 
>> projects
>> you've mentioned, I separated the project into four stages:
>>
>> 1) collecting data from the XO Journal backups on the schoolserver
>> 2) extracting the data from the backups and storing it in an appropriate 
>> format
>> for analysis and visualization
>> 3) statistically analyzing and visualizing the captured data
>> 4) formulating recommendations for improving the program based on the 
>> analysis.
>>
>> Stage 1 is already implemented on both the server side as well as the client
>> side, so I first focused on the next step of extracting the data. Initially, 
>> I
>> wanted to reuse an existing script, but I eventually found that none of them
>> were general enough to meet my criteria. One of my goals is to make the 
>> script
>> work on any version of Sugar.
>>
>> Thus, I have been working on process_journal_stats.py, which takes a '/users'
>> directory with XO Journal backups as input, pulls out the Journal metadata 
>> and
>> outputs them in a CSV or JSON file as output.
>>
>> Journal backups can be in a variety of formats depending on the version
>> of Sugar. The script currently supports backup format present in Sugar 
>> versions
>> 0.82 - 0.88 since the laptops distributed in Nepal are XO-1s running Sugar
>> 0.82. I am planning to add support for later versions of Sugar in the next
>> version of the script.
>>
>> The script currently supports two ways to output statistical data. To produce
>> all statistical data from the Journal, one row per Journal record:
>>
>> process_journal_stats.py all
>>
>> To extract statistical data about the use of activities on the system, use:
>>
>> process_journal_stats.py activity
>>
>> The full documentation with all the options are described in README at:
>>
>> https://github.com/martasd/xo-stats
>>
>> One challenge of the project has been determining how much data processing 
>> to do
>> in the python script and what to leave for the data analysis and 
>> visualization
>> tools later in the workflow. For now, I stopped adding features to the script
>> and I am  evaluating the most appropriate tools to use for visualizing the 
>> data.
>>
>> Here are some of the questions I am intending to answer with the 
>> visualizations
>> and analysis:
>>
>> * How many times do installed activities get used? How does the activity use
>> differ over time?
>> * Which activities are children using to create files? What kind of files are
>> being created?
>> * Which activities are being launched in share-mode and how often?
>> * Which part of the day do children play with the activities?
>> * How does the set of activities used evolve as children age?
>>
>> I am also going to be looking how answers to these questions vary from class 
>> to
>> class, school to school, and region to region.
>>
>> As Martin Abente and Sameer mentioned above, our work needs to be informed by
>> discussions with the stakeholders- children, educators, parents, school
>> administrators etc. We do have educational experts among the staff at OLE, 
>> who
>> have worked with more than 50 schools altogether, and I will be talking to 
>> them
>> as I look beyond answering the obvious questions.
>>
>
> We should start a list on the wiki to collate this information. I'll
> get someone from Jamaica to provide some feedback as well.
>
>> For visualization, I have explored using LibreOffice and SOFA, but neither of
>> those were flexible to allow for customization of the output beyond some a 
>> few
>> rudimentary options, so I started looking at various Javascri

Re: [Server-devel] [Sugar-devel] The quest for data

[Sameer Verma]

On Fri, Jan 3, 2014 at 2:23 PM, James Cameron  wrote:
> Metrics can direct action.
>
> Unfortunately, in the absence of meaningful metrics, the meaningless
> metrics will also direct action.
>

True. In fact, the reliability of the whole thing is dependent on the
reliability of the generated data. For instance, if the time stamp is
corrupt, then so will be the analysis, unless the data are treated for
that bias.

> One of the assertions inherent in OLPC is that merely using a device
> can have an effect on a brain, regardless of what activities are used.

Brain, perhaps. I'm leaning more on the learning side ;-)

>
> In the data listed, I haven't seen any use of more fundamental
> measurements like how long a device is used for.  OLPC's builds
> have a power log.  This captures time spent using a device.

True. Activities do not report end times, or whether the frequency
count is for the number of times a "new" activity was started, or if
it was simply a resumption of the previous instance. Walter had
indicated that thre is some movement in this direction to gather end
times. The sugar-stats system does record end times. We still have an
assumption (to be addressed by the researcher) that x number of
seconds actually lead to a delta of y in learning. Usually we
establish correlation, and support a case for causality with proxy
observations.

>
> It is especially relevant for a device that might also be used in
> Gnome rather than Sugar.  Harvest seems to have arisen out of the
> availability of the Journal.
>

Yes, the methods that use the datastore as a source rely on the
Journal, but the sugar-stats system does not. I believe it collects in
GNOME as well.

The way I see it, there are four parts to this supply chain:
measurement, collection, analysis and report (see
http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/penetrating-fog-analytics-learning-and-education).

1) The data has to be generated at the source (Sugar activity or dbus)
and must be done with required granularity and reliability. So, for
instance, TurtleArt can record the type of blocks, or Maze can record
the number of turns. This will vary by activity. We also have to be
mindful of the reliability, for instance, of internal clock variation
for timestamps.

2) We need a way to collect data on an ongoing basis on the laptop.
This may be in the Journal datastore, or in the RRD file, as in the
case of sugar-stats. We then continue the collection either by
aggregating the data at the XS/XSCE and/or a central location (as with
the Harvest system) so that the data can be analyzed.

3) The analysis stage can be done with the raw data (basic statistics,
correlation, qualitative), or it can be aggregated (as with the
Jamaica CouchDB system doing basic stats) and made ready for
reporting. Some of this may be automated, but to go beyond "Powerpoint
pie charts", it's really on a case-by-case basis.

4) The reporting can be done either via visualization, and/or by
generating periodic reports. The reporting should be specific to the
person(s) looking at it. No magic there.

Now, of course, if the data at the source is corrupt, then it may
reflect in the report. There are ways to address missing data and
biases, but it would be better to have a reliable way to generate data
at the source.

> On the other hand, use of metrics tends towards standardised testing,
> with the ultimate implementation being an examination that must be
> completed each time before using a device for learning.  Imagine
> having to delay learning!

How the data will be used remains to be seen. I have not seen it being
used in any of the projects that I know of. If others have seen/done
so, it would help to hear from them. I know that in conversations and
presentations to decision makers, the usual sore point is "can you
show us what you have so far?" For Jamaica, we have used a basic
exploratory approach on the Journal data, corroborated with structured
 interviews with parents, teachers, etc. So, for instance, the data we
have shows a relatively large frequency of use of TuxMath (even with
different biases). However, we have qualitative evidence that supports
both usage of TuxMath and improvement in numeracy (standardized test).
We can support strong(er) correlation, but cannot really establish
causality. The three data points put together make for a compelling
case. As an aside, I did encounter a clever question in one of the
presentations: "What's constructivist about TuxMath?". That's a
discussion for another thread :-)

>
> I don't like the idea of standardised testing.  I've seen the damage
> that it does.  Sir Ken Robinson had a few things to say about that, in
> his talk Changing Education Paradigms.
>

It plays a role in the education-industrial complex, and it is
difficult to entirely walk way from it, but yes, YMMV.

cheers,
Sameer

> --
> James Cameron
> http://quozl.linux.org.au/
> ___
> Sugar-devel mailing list
> sugar-de...@lists.sugarl

Re: [Server-devel] [XSCE] Re: a kernel for our solidrun protos?

[Sameer Verma]

On Fri, Jan 3, 2014 at 3:47 PM, George Hunt  wrote:
> On our skype call Thursday, Jon suggested using the XO4 config file as a
> base for getting all the needed kernel capability. And James suggested
> looking at the upstream kernel conf.  In any case I'll need to understand,
> and merge in, whatever special conig Rebeeh put in for the SOC in the Cubox.
>
> I won't have an XO4, until it arrives next week. (Adam agreed to send me
> one, if I'd build it up to XSCE for Haiti later this month). So here comes a
> request:
>
> Can I ask someone to email me the XO4 /boot/conf* file. I'm not at home, and
> I didn't bring an ARM XO with me to California. I would love to get XSCE to
> load, without erroring out, on a Cubox.
>

George,
If you are close by, you can borrow mine until Adam's XO-4 arrives.

Sameer

> Do we need to start thinking about eSata interfaces. I happen to have an
> eSata enclosure from Startech, and a eSata cable.  But I didn't find any
> reference that looked like the kernel was recognizing an eSata interface. I
> searched the config I'm using. There were "SATA" config lines which were not
> enabled.
>
> Jon, what hardware have you been using? Maybe I can get you to email or post
> your config file.
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 2, 2014 at 12:16 AM, James Cameron  wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, Jan 02, 2014 at 12:00:43AM -0500, George Hunt wrote:
>> > Right now XSCE server software does not load, because some of the
>> > kernel networking userland (rtnetfilter) interfaces are not enabled.
>>
>> Speculation: the configuration changes between the upstream Linux
>> kernel and the Fedora Linux kernel are what you may need to add.
>> Looking at the kernel configuration (/boot/config*) of a Fedora kernel
>> may give useful data.
>>
>> --
>> 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] [Sugar-devel] The quest for data

[Sameer Verma]

On Fri, Jan 3, 2014 at 4:15 AM, Martin Abente
 wrote:
> Hello Sameer,
>
> I totally agree we should join efforts for a visualization solution, but,
> personally, my main concern is still a  basic one: what are the important
> questions we should be asking? And how can we answer these questions
> reliably? Even though most of us have experience in deployments and their
> needs, we are engineers, not educators, nor decision makers.
>

Agreed. It would be helpful to have a conversation on what the various
constituencies need (different from want) to see at their level. The
child, the parents/guardians, the teacher, the
principal/administrator, and educational bureaucracy. We should also
consider the needs of those of us who have to fundraise by showing
progress of ongoing effort.

> I am sure that most of our collection approaches cover pretty much the
> trivial stuff like: what are they using, when are they using it, how often
> they use it, and all kind of things that derive directly from journal
> metadata. Plus the extra insight that comes when considering different
> demographics

True. Basic frequency counts such as frequency of use of activities,
usage by time of day, day of week, scope of collaboration are a few
simple one. Comparison of one metric vs the other will need more
thinking. That's where we should talk to the constituents.

>
> But, If we could also work together on that (including the trivial
> questions), it will be a good step forward. Once we identify these questions
> and figure out how to answer them, it would be a lot easier to think about
> visualization techniques, etc.

If the visualization subsystem (underlying tech pieces) are common and
flexible, then we can start with a few basic templates, and make it
extensible, so we can all aggregate, collate, and correlate as needed.
I'll use an example that I'm familiar with. We looked at CouchDB for
two reasons: 1) It allows for sync over intermittent/on-off
connections to the Internet and 2) CouchDB has a "views" feature which
provides selective subsets of the data, and the "reduce" feature does
aggregates. The actual visual is done in Javascript. Here's the
example Leotis had at the OLPC SF summit
(http://108.171.173.65:8000/).
>
> What you guys think?
>

A great start for a great year ahead!

> Saludos,

cheers,
> tch.
Sameer
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

[Server-devel] The quest for data

[Sameer Verma]

Happy new year! May 2014 bring good deeds and cheer :-)

Here's a blog post on the different approaches (that I know of) to data
gathering across different projects. Do let me know if I missed anything.

cheers,
Sameer

http://www.olpcsf.org/node/204
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] XS 0.7 on a new Gigabyte Brix i3-4010u

[Sameer Verma]

I used unetbootin to create the USB stick from the iso. Once CentOS is
installed, add the repos.

Sameer
On Dec 28, 2013 9:30 PM, "Adam Gordon"  wrote:

> Using the iso. I'll try with centos 6.x is there a guide for that, can I
> use the same Kickstarter file
> On Dec 29, 2013 12:26 AM, "Sameer Verma"  wrote:
>
>> Are you using the XS 0.7 iso? I've had better luck with installing CentOS
>> 6.x and then adding the repos. Also, IIRC theft deterrence works on the 32
>> bit, but not the 64 bit version. Daniel Drake or Reuben Caron will know
>> more.
>>
>> cheers,
>> Sameer
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Dec 27, 2013 at 6:13 PM, Adam Gordon  wrote:
>>
>>> while booting the liveusb created as per the wiki I reach the image and
>>> hang.
>>>  
>>> IMG_20131226_110601.jpg<https://docs.google.com/a/olpccanada.com/file/d/0B9wg4TDzluRiZ05rZGZyZFp5Tnc/edit?usp=drive_web>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Adam Gordon
>>> Systems Administrator / Technical Consultant
>>> One Laptop Per Child Canada
>>> olpccanada.com
>>>
>>> ___
>>> Server-devel mailing list
>>> Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
>>> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> <http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/>
>>
>
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] XS 0.7 on a new Gigabyte Brix i3-4010u

[Sameer Verma]

Are you using the XS 0.7 iso? I've had better luck with installing CentOS
6.x and then adding the repos. Also, IIRC theft deterrence works on the 32
bit, but not the 64 bit version. Daniel Drake or Reuben Caron will know
more.

cheers,
Sameer


On Fri, Dec 27, 2013 at 6:13 PM, Adam Gordon  wrote:

> while booting the liveusb created as per the wiki I reach the image and
> hang.
>  
> IMG_20131226_110601.jpg
>
>
> --
> Adam Gordon
> Systems Administrator / Technical Consultant
> One Laptop Per Child Canada
> olpccanada.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

Re: [Server-devel] Install python applications in a virtualenv without, system wide packages using wheel binary package format

[Sameer Verma]

On Dec 16, 2013 9:17 PM, "Samuel Greenfeld"  wrote:
>
> From the end user's perspective, what virtualenv does is rewrite the
Python path & environment so a series of custom-created directories are
always tried first.  It then optionally looks at the system python path for
other modules.
>
> The one time I had to use virtualenv it did not solve problems with
libraries that needed to compile machine-specific code.  It might be
possible to use pip with prepackaged binaries, but the project I was using
it with did not offer the option.
>
>
> Packaging admittedly is a bit over my head.  But the more XSCE deviates
from being directly packagable in a Linux Distribution, the more work it is
going to take to maintain this path.
>
> I think it would be worthwhile to look at the Linux Terminal Server
Project (www.ltsp.org) and see how they packaged their system so that it
was accepted into several distributions.  The LTSP project interfaces with
a lot of components (DHCP, X Server, etc.) and has been around since 1999,
so they have experience doing the kind of tweaks XSCE also needs to make.
>

LTSP uses chroot to contain the OS being served. We run a lab of 32
machines on it. Quite stable and runs well.

There's also LXC, a "chroot on steroids", as stgraber puts it.
https://www.stgraber.org/2013/12/20/lxc-1-0-blog-post-series/

Sameer
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Dec 16, 2013 at 1:53 PM, Miguel González <
migonzal...@activitycentral.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, Dec 16, 2013 at 6:16 PM, Braddock  wrote:
>> > -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
>> > Hash: SHA1
>> >
>> > If this can be made to work it would certainly make things easier for
>> > us at Internet-in-a-Box.
>> >
>>
>> Quick test in XO-4 using the following script, it seems it works
perfectly:
>>
>> mkdir iiab
>> cd iiab
>> virtualenv venv
>> source venv/bin/activate
>> pip install --use-wheel --no-index
>> --find-links=http://xsce.activitycentral.com/wheelhouse/
>> 'backports.lzma>=0.0.2' 'SQLAlchemy>=0.8.2' 'markupsafe'
>> pip install Internet-in-a-Box
>> iiab-server
>> ...
>> werkzeug -- 192.168.0.3 - - [16/Dec/2013 18:40:19] "GET /iiab/ HTTP/1.1"
200 -
>>
>> I'm attaching the full log.
>>
>> I plan to do more testing. I think we could use this method for latter
>> XSCE versions.
>>
>> > Currently we have to build and distribute Fedora rpms just for XSCE,
>> > including for a couple third party packages which have binary
>> > dependencies and have proven a pain.
>> >
>> > We already maintain pipy pip packages and use them for all of our own
>> > IIAB appliance deployments.
>> >
>> > However, a virtualenv is not really meant as a distribution format and
>> > has some downsides.  You will have to install the pip on every
>> > architecture you support, and I do not believe they are relocatable so
>> > they have to be in the same absolute path, and they may have system
>> > library dependencies which won't automatically be resolved like with
RPMs.
>> >
>> > Given the fragility and dependency hell of the RPM method though, I
>> > think it is worthwhile to switch to virtualenvs.
>> >
>> > - -braddock
>> >
>> >
>> >> From: Miguel Gonz?lez 
>> >>
>> >> I want to share with you my proposed approach to install Python
>> >> web application in XSCE.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> The idea is to install them into a Python virtual environment
>> >> isolated from the system wide packages installed.
>> >
>> > -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
>> > Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux)
>> > Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/
>> >
>> > iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJSrzWJAAoJEHWLR/DQzlZu2i8H/iuxZPLPnu60JzE4UiqpDo3v
>> > sPxqJgOjSA/lNj/icpl1EY0AaPUgcUWIOnmF2loYSMwR6AfzUbLH35OuPfXVZ8cY
>> > +3eSbT+BnqiQiV+vpsVJQ7NFYipICetldzN4jlhGLgFpVCRgwvDaQCLrgw0MY67y
>> > 6xmkI+e4g01i4q4DLA8+jEtlDGeVYWdTmcugka4a/w9UDKIBIfmZ2LCsZq/XoZxB
>> > p895BjYHWk/RSYGC3GC8o1pmXksUIMzf211Lkw3aunXD5G9+tW1ozSktcMEDxAlr
>> > DAXDduyOemEzLa5o1KdMsMbq9ENpBegY3ekejL9ftaN1uyebXVXDD/t32roAVD8=
>> > =9YGH
>> > -END PGP SIGNATURE-
>> > ___
>> > Server-devel mailing list
>> > Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
>> > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
>>
>> --
>> Miguel González
>> 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
>
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] [XSCE] Install python applications in a virtualenv without system wide packages using wheel binary package format

[Sameer Verma]

cc'ing pathagar list.

Sameer

On Mon, Dec 16, 2013 at 8:17 AM, Miguel González
 wrote:
> I want to share with you my proposed approach to install Python web
> application in XSCE.
>
>
> The idea is to install them into a Python virtual environment isolated
> from the system wide packages installed.
>
> If you are not familiar with Python virtualenvs, it's just a similar
> concept than a chroot.  It creates a new folder structure and makes
> symlinks to Python executable and libraries.  It also disables system
> site-packages allowing to install different ones.  To use the
> environment it must be activated.
>
> Some advantages to this approach are:
>
> - **Isolated dependencies**.  Each application can have its own
> requirements, for example two applications can have different Django
> versions.  Also it allows a clean remove procedure because modules and
> application source code are in the same dir.
>
> - It is a **standard solution** described in PEP 405 [1].  There are
> available great tools with excellent support.  For example, pip and
> pip's ansible module support virtualenvs.
>
> As disadvantages:
>
> - This approach uses **more space in disk** as site packages are
> installed once per application.  For example Django 1.4.5 uses 45MB.
>
> - **rpm packages can't be used** to install Python packages in a
> virtualenv.  That would require to compile binary packages.  That
> means more time and, more annoying, the system would need development
> libraries.
>
>
> I have nothing to say about disk space but, to counteract the
> compilation problem I propose to use the wheel binary package format
> [2][3].
>
> The tradeoff is that we would need to provide those packages so
> compiling the packages for every library and every architecture.
>
>
> My test has succeed with pathagar so far.  I have written recipes to
> create wheel packages [4] and to deploy a web application in a XSCE
> using them [5]. I've even created a wheels repository with ARM
> packages for psycopg2 and SQLAlchemy [6].
>
>
> if you have any doubts, concerns, comments, please share them with me,
> I'd really appreciate any kind of feedback.
>
>
> Links:
>
> [1] http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0405/
>
> [2] http://wheel.readthedocs.org/en/latest/
>
> [3] http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0427/
>
> [4] http://migonzalvar.eu/pip-installing-using-wheels.html
>
> [5] 
> http://migonzalvar.eu/deploying-a-web-application-into-a-virtualenv-using-wheel-packages.html
>
> [6] http://xsce.activitycentral.com/wheelhouse/
>
>
>
> --
> Miguel González
> 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

Re: [Server-devel] Favorite School Server hardware?

[Sameer Verma]

On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 12:18 PM, George Hunt  wrote:
> Adam Holt is planning for an XSCE schoolserver deployment in Haiti in
> January, and in this instance there's plenty of power, and my favorite
> trimslice ARM may be under powered for the number of clients he is
> contemplating.
>
> The on-the-ground experience is not good with the trimslice that we
> installed earlier this year in a Haiti deployment.  Reports are that no more
> than 11 XO1 clients can simultaneously access the Internet In A Box. We're
> not sure whether the bottleneck is at the wifi level, (XO's not registered),
> the disk drive access, or the raw computing power of the dual core ARM
> processor.
>
> What other hardware have people been using recently?  What performance
> measures does anyone have?
>
> George
>
> ___
> Server-devel mailing list
> Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
>

Take a look at Appendix J of
http://wiki.laptop.org/images/4/46/Testing_the_OLPC_School_Server_Benjamin_Tran_SFSU.pdf

None of these were ARM based, but the numbers might give you an idea.
Note that the network segment that was used for these tests was not
over WiFi. Instead the loading machine and the XS were connected over
a crossover CAT5 cable. There's also no intervening effect of XMPP
conversations.

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Professor, Information Systems
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://commons.sfsu.edu/
http://olpcsf.org/
http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] [XSCE] End User Documentation / Basic Setup Guide / How to upload PDFs etc

[Sameer Verma]

On Sat, Nov 16, 2013 at 8:15 PM, Anna  wrote:
> Pathagar is still a work in progress.  I'm not sure if it can handle pdfs,
> though.  Last I saw, it was just epubs.
>

By design, Pathagar will serve *any* kind of file. The file serving is
done via HTTP (Can be apache, nginx, or lighttpd, etc). Here is an
example of PDF: http://108.171.173.65/book/10/view and here's an
example of epub: http://108.171.173.65/book/8/view Pathagar itself
doesn't care about the file format, as long as the http server has a
way (MIME) to handle it. As far as the Pathagar software itself is
concerned, there are no showstopping bugs that I know of.

A couple of notes on the *installation* of Pathagar, where we do have
a bunch of problems:

1) The *current* version of Pathagar is borked. I haven't gone back to
see where it fails or how, but there should be a prior version that
works. There is also a version (patch) that apparently fixes the book
edit and upload problem. I have not tested it. I hope someone else can
take a look?

https://github.com/PathagarBooks/pathagar/issues

2) There seem to be multiple deployment approaches. We have PIP, RPM,
fabric, and the good old way of installing and configuring by hand
(which is what I follow, because I haven't had the time to test the
other methods). At the OLPC SF Summit, Jerry told me that they have
the RPM part addressed, but the current bug (cannot add/edit books)
gets in the way.

Hopefully the latest patch can address these things.

> For your immediate purposes, I'd suggest `mkdir /var/www/html/science` and
> put the pdfs there.  Then clients can go to http://schoolserver/science to
> download them.
>
> Anna
>
>
> On Sat, Nov 16, 2013 at 10:05 PM, Curt Thompson 
> wrote:
>>
>> So I've been tinkering around XSCE School Server for a while now - I
>> have it set up with Internet-in-a-box via USB drive and I spent a while
>> trying to get my laptop to work as AP/server.
>>
>> I've also been poking around looking for basic setup info.  In
>> particular, I'm trying to upload these ~36 Science Textbook PDFs and I'm
>> not sure where to put them, if I should just be copying them to some
>> directory (etc/Moodle or etc/pathagar or /library/pathagar/media?) or
>> uploading them via one of these systems.  Any advice on which method is
>> best?
>>
>> I've looked around the Wiki but I can't find anything like a basic setup
>> guide (such as a reference that could be used by teachers, students,
>> and/or volunteers in the field.)  Is there such a guide?
>
>



-- 
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Professor, Information Systems
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://commons.sfsu.edu/
http://olpcsf.org/
http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] A couple of suggestions for making sure this week's XSCE sprint goes smoothly.

[Sameer Verma]

On Mon, Oct 21, 2013 at 9:52 AM, David Farning
 wrote:
> 1. In a session like this, it can become easy to complain about what
> others are doing. (or not doing) Complaining is contagious. Le't use
> the complaint bowel. Any time someone complains about someone else is
> doing wrong they need to put a dollar in the complaint bowel. We use
> the money for a dinner on the final night of the sprint.
>

I think you meant "bowl". Bowel would take the movement down the drain
;-) Great seeing you all at the summit. Have a great sprint! I'll peek
in when I can get away from my day job!

cheers,
Sameer

> 2. A new idea that came to mind this weekend was a rant sheet. Any
> time someone launches off on one of their 'go-to' rants, we write that
> rant on a white board and assign it a number. If anyone gets back on
> their soapbox and repeat a rant, we yell out the rant number and the
> person needs to put a dollar in the bowel.
>
> These are just (hopefully fun but firm) suggestions to help us
> self-police our passionate group of hackers.
>
> --
> 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

Re: [Server-devel] [XSCE]

[Sameer Verma]

On Sat, Oct 12, 2013 at 9:58 AM, George Hunt  wrote:
> Hi Tony,
>
> I'd add to Tim's comments:
>
> Sridhar, early in the XSCE design,  made a distinction between project, and
> product, which I find useful -See-
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dnhU2F6EntepVXTgN8QpkME8fZVUuPjcCoMUfAVKbcc/edit
> -- follow the "Product vs Distribution vs Product" link.
>
> XS0.7 was a product, whereas XSCE is attempting to be a project.

The correct answer to the million dollar question. Excellent!

Sameer

> By
> reconceptualizing, and restructuring the install process, now with the
> higher level server description language, called "ansible", we are
> attempting to position the code base to be flexible, and applicable, to new
> distributions, hardware, processors, needs and requirements.
>
> As such, XSCE is not meant to be directly usable until it is married with
> specific hardware, and a set of requirements. Two examples come to mind:
>
> In September, I installed an XO4  and a trimslice at two schools in Haiti.
> One with gateway function via 3G modem and Internet In A Box on an XO4, the
> other with IIAB function on a Trimslice, and a large storage battery, to
> deal with intermittent power.
> There is now a $100 low power quad core ARM becoming available (6 watt 2GB
> memory- CubeBox ) which XSCE software stack may be adapted to.
>
> XSCE project moved away from Centos, partially because we wanted to run on
> ARM as well as i386/x86_64.
>
> Also, we did not want dependencies on punji, kickstart, or anaconda that
> would lock us into fedora, as we looked forward towards running on
> debian/ubuntu, or such.
>
> Yes, much of what we have done does not directly add value in the classroom.
> But hopefully it positions our code base to be relevant in the classroom for
> the next 10 years.
>
> It's also true that we have not yet defined a product, or turnkey solution.
> Be we have a growing cadre of programmers,  with skills to do that. It
> appears that Activitycentral is moving in that direction with DXS.
>
> George
>
>
> On Sat, Oct 12, 2013 at 11:54 AM, Tim Moody  wrote:
>>
>> Everyone will be shy to respond, but here's my take.  First, the
>> motivation is that the benefit of a school server, especially in non or
>> occasionally connected environments, is assumed.  Secondly, let's be clear
>> that you asked about goals, not what we've accomplished.
>>
>> The goal of the XSCE project is to continue development of the OLPC XS
>> project along the following lines:
>>
>> 1. Absorb features from all the various incarnations of XS including 0.7,
>> Nepal, Australia, and any others and make it available on a variety of
>> platforms including intel, but also incredibly cheap and incredibly low
>> power devices, such as the XO but also raspi, trimslice, cubox, and others
>> as they come to market.  These features fall into three broad categories,
>> infrastructure such as routing, support for XO specific services, and
>> general (web) server based applications and content.
>>
>> 2. Move installation and configuration from something that happens along
>> with the OS installation to something an end user could do using a gui
>> whenever she likes, if required.
>>
>> 3. Provide a mechanism whereby features can be contributed by interested
>> members of the community without rebuilding a disk image or an rpm.
>>
>> Answers to specific questions below.
>>
>>> -Original Message- From: Tony Anderson Sent: Friday, October 11,
>>> 2013 11:10 AM To: xsce-de...@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: [XSCE]
>>>
>>> Hi, All
>>>
>>> Help me understand a little about where this project is going.
>>>
>>> I understood XSCE initially as an attempt to use an XO as the school
>>> server. This was motivated by two requirements: (1) support for deployments
>>> which were constrained to use XO and (2) use of the XO-1.75 as the school
>>> server to enable use of the lower power ARM architecture.
>>>
>>> Apparently one outcome is that the XS-0.7 install procedure was replaced
>>> by a requirement to add school server capabilities to a previously installed
>>> build (e.g. 13.2).
>>>
>>> The XS architecture separated the disk into two partitions: root and
>>> library. The intent was to separate software (root) from content (library).
>>> This would support backup of the library partition since the root partition
>>> could be restored by a new install followed by simple copy of the backup to
>>> the library partition. Does XSCE maintain this architecture?
>>
>>
>> XSCE requires that the OS be pre-installed, so the disk partitioning is a
>> priori.  However, some of us have encouraged people to place content in the
>> /library directory so that it can take advantage of a separate partition if
>> there is one.  It would certainly be possible to mount external devices as
>> /library.
>>
>>
>>>
>>> The XO build is installed as a copy of an image from a usb drive to the
>>> internal store.
>>
>>
>> Work is being done on this installation mechanism, but up 

Re: [Server-devel] [XSCE] School Server Special Interest Group at OLPC-SF

[Sameer Verma]

On Sat, Sep 7, 2013 at 6:23 PM, David Farning
wrote:

> On Sat, Sep 7, 2013 at 10:06 AM, Sameer Verma  wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Sep 5, 2013 at 9:26 PM, David Farning <
> dfarn...@activitycentral.com>
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> Great,
> >>
> >> I have been thinking of two parallel themes for how school servers can
> >> add value to the conference.
> >>
> >> Dogfooding/Demo. School server developers from various projects could
> >> dogfood their work at the conference by providing network connectivity
> >> for all participants via their server. This will provide an
> >> interesting feedback loop about what works and what else is needed.
> >> Plus it could be fun for everyone.
> >>
> >> Deployment feedback. The idea here would be to have a set of talks by
> >> deployments about how school servers add value to their projects and
> >> what else school servers can do to make their lives easier. The less
> >> time deployments have to worry about technical stuff like school
> >> servers, the more time they have to think about the educational side
> >> of the project:)
> >>
> >> From there we can have a talk about how the various people and
> >> organizations involved in school server projects can work together (if
> >> possible) to meet the needs of deployments.
> >>
> >> Finally, we can shift to work mode to design and implement solutions
> >> identified by dogfooding and deployment feedback.
> >>
> >
> > I would encourage you all to submit multiple proposals for the workshops
> > you'd like to lead or participate in. Here's the submission form.
> > http://www.olpcsf.org/CommunitySummit2013/proposal
> >
> > The sessions committee will sort through and merge proposals. Our
> approach
> > is to accommodate as many proposals as possible, and merge similar ones
> into
> > common sessions. We are not doing panel discussion this year, so that
> should
> > open up more sessions. Submit away!
>
> +1. My initial question was to see if other people participating in
> the conference are interested in the general theme of School Servers.
> If so, I will do what I can to encourage school server related talks
> and workshops. This means funding travel key people to give those
> talks and participate in those workshops. Final decisions over the
> sessions and how they are moderated is up to the event coordinators.
>
>
For moderation, we prefer self-policing within the sessions. We do ask for
volunteer note takers in each room, so we can get session briefs on the
wiki. I must also add, that we have a separate lockable room available for
the server and other hardware demo that needs to run unhindered. Last year,
this room was all the way in the back. This year, the room is further up
front (across from the welcome reception party hall), so it's easier to get
to, and keep an eye on. For your hardware, I would encourage you to bring
cable/kensington locks, just for your own peace of mind :-) It's hard for
someone to babysit the room, while other session go on.

Also, if you are working on cool server stuff, or for that matter, anything
OLPC related, but cannot make it, please submit a poster so we can share
some of your work. These are printed and posted in the hallway. We are up
to 27 posters from the years gone by. Add to these and make it grow.

http://www.olpcsf.org/CommunitySummit2013/posters

cheers,
Sameer


For full disclosure, I thought the session events on the first day of
> last year's conferences were outstanding. People with overlapping
> interests were meeting and talking about how they were solving their
> own problems at their own deployments. After the panel discussions, I
> was so frustrated that I left early and swore never to return
>
> Eleven month later, I am ready to try again. Having sponsored EduJam
> in Uruguay, I am well aware of the tendency of some of our more vocal
> community members to treat a public event as their personal soapbox.
>
> Thanks for doing this. It is a hard and thankless task.
>
> > Sameer
> > --
> > Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
> > Professor, Information Systems
> > San Francisco State University
> > http://verma.sfsu.edu/
> > http://commons.sfsu.edu/
> > http://olpcsf.org/
> > http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/
> >
> >>
> >> On Thu, Sep 5, 2013 at 10:24 PM, Adam Holt  wrote:
> >> > Indeed, two very successful XSCE 0.4 RC1 / IIAB server installations
> >> > here in
> >> > Haiti over the past 10 days (at 2 very different schools) where George
> >> > Hu

Re: [Server-devel] [XSCE] School Server Special Interest Group at OLPC-SF

[Sameer Verma]

On Thu, Sep 5, 2013 at 9:26 PM, David Farning
wrote:

> Great,
>
> I have been thinking of two parallel themes for how school servers can
> add value to the conference.
>
> Dogfooding/Demo. School server developers from various projects could
> dogfood their work at the conference by providing network connectivity
> for all participants via their server. This will provide an
> interesting feedback loop about what works and what else is needed.
> Plus it could be fun for everyone.
>
> Deployment feedback. The idea here would be to have a set of talks by
> deployments about how school servers add value to their projects and
> what else school servers can do to make their lives easier. The less
> time deployments have to worry about technical stuff like school
> servers, the more time they have to think about the educational side
> of the project:)
>
> From there we can have a talk about how the various people and
> organizations involved in school server projects can work together (if
> possible) to meet the needs of deployments.
>
> Finally, we can shift to work mode to design and implement solutions
> identified by dogfooding and deployment feedback.
>
>
I would encourage you all to submit multiple proposals for the workshops
you'd like to lead or participate in. Here's the submission form.
http://www.olpcsf.org/CommunitySummit2013/proposal

The sessions committee will sort through and merge proposals. Our approach
is to accommodate as many proposals as possible, and merge similar ones
into common sessions. We are not doing panel discussion this year, so that
should open up more sessions. Submit away!

Sameer
-- 
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Professor, Information Systems
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://commons.sfsu.edu/
http://olpcsf.org/
http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/


>  On Thu, Sep 5, 2013 at 10:24 PM, Adam Holt  wrote:
> > Indeed, two very successful XSCE 0.4 RC1 / IIAB server installations
> here in
> > Haiti over the past 10 days (at 2 very different schools) where George
> Hunt
> > & I learned more than we could have imagined.
> >
> > I'd encourage folks to use the following page as a scratchpad for school
> > server ideas of all kind coming together around SF Oct 18-20 and exactly
> 4
> > weeks later in Malaysia Nov 16-18 for the new Asia/Pacific folk too!
> >
> > http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XS_Community_Edition/0.5/Sprint
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Sep 5, 2013 at 10:59 PM, David Farning
> >  wrote:
> >>
> >> Hey all,
> >>
> >> I would like to float the idea of a School Server Special Interest
> >> Group as part of the upcoming OLP-SF conference.
> >>
> >> Over the last year, there has been a lot of activity around the school
> >> server. In addition to the ongoing OLPC - School Server work, the
> >> School Server Community Edition project has established itself as the
> >> leading community supported upstream project. Activity Central is
> >> creating Dextrose Server, a professionally support Downstream school
> >> server product on top of XSCE.
> >>
> >> With that in mind, I would like to test the temperature of the water
> >> about holding a School Server submit as part OLPC-SF with a possible
> >> School Server code sprint to follow.
> >>
> >> The timing of this summit opens up several opportunities for
> >> coordination between the people and organizations developing the
> >> School server and the the people and organizations deploying the
> >> server. Anyone interested interested in school server focused talks,
> >> tutorials, sessions?
> >>
> >> --
> >> David Farning
> >> Activity Central: http://www.activitycentral.com
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Unsung Heroes of OLPC, interviewed live @ http://unleashkids.org !
> >
> > ___
> > Server-devel mailing list
> > Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
> > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
> >
>
>
>
> --
> David Farning
> Activity Central: http://www.activitycentral.com
> ___
> Server-devel mailing list
> Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
>
>
>


<http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/>
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] [XSCE] Some queries regarding PATHAGAR workflows

[Sameer Verma]

On Fri, Sep 6, 2013 at 12:36 AM, Ajay Garg  wrote:

> Hi all.
>
> I have been playing with the public book-server
> http://108.171.173.65/latest/ that Sameer let me know some time back
> (thanks a lot Sameer, again !!)
>
>
That's a public facing install, so I cannot pass out the login/password
info on that one.


However, I have some queries regarding some workflows (and I found it best
> to query all you guys, so that the maximum information could be shared) :)
> ::
>
>
>
> 1)
> On the "home page" http://108.171.173.65/latest/, I only see a "Log in"
> option.
> However, how do users get registered/created at first place?
>
>
During installation, when you run the "python manage.py syncdb" it will ask
for an admin account. This account will give you a full admin backend on
Pathagar. From that backend, you can set up users with limited role, or
with superuser privileges.


> 2)
> What is the notion of a "user" in the book-server?
> In other words, what can a user do "after" logging in, which cannot be
> done "without" logging in?
>
>
>
A user is more like a curator, or a maintainer who can tag, untag, clean up
descriptions, etc.


>  Looking forward to some pointers :)
>
>
If you are using the VM (See http://www.olpcsf.org/pathagar) you can log
into the interface using login bsadmin and password bs::admin (#9 on that
page).

cheers,
Sameer

-- 
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Professor, Information Systems
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://commons.sfsu.edu/
http://olpcsf.org/
http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/


>
>
>
> Thanks and Regards,
>
> Ajay Garg
> Dextrose Developer
> Activity Central: http://activitycentral.com
>

<http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/>
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] XS 0.7 CentOS boot hang

[Sameer Verma]

On Tue, Aug 20, 2013 at 9:59 AM, Samuel Greenfeld  wrote:
> Given the XS-0.7 does not run X Windows by default, this likely is not the
> problem.
>
> You can try disabling the pseudo-graphical progress bar to get more
> information.

I usually hit F2 to see when it slows down or hangs (like when it
doesn't get a dhcp lease on the WAN port).

Sameer

>
> On a system that hangs, choose to edit the default boot option before the
> countdown timer finishes.  Delete the "rhgb" (Red Hat Graphical Boot) and
> "quiet" parameters, and then tell Grub to let the system boot to see if the
> hang point becomes obvious.
>
>
>
> On Tue, Aug 20, 2013 at 2:36 AM, David Leeming
>  wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>>
>>
>> Apologies if this has been covered before.
>>
>>
>>
>> I noticed that sometimes an XS 0.7 installation will hang in the boot
>> screen (the advancing white shaded bar bottom of screen). I have not been
>> able to fix this other than by reinstalling. I read somewhere there is a bug
>> involving X11 and the fix is to boot in single user mode and delete
>> xorg.conf. But tried that and it still hung but with scrolling boot text on
>> the screen.
>>
>>
>>
>> David Leeming
>>
>> Solomon Islands Rural Link
>> P.O.Box 652 Honiara, Solomon Islands
>>
>> +677 7476396 (m) +677 24419 (h)
>>
>> www.rurallink.com.sb
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ___
>> 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
>
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

[Server-devel] Peering into Journal Data

[Sameer Verma]

Some of you may find this useful. This was written by Leotis Buchanan
(cc'd) for OLPC Jamaica projects. We use it to collect metadata from
the Journal entries at the pilot schools. See blog post for details:
http://184.106.206.200/commons/blog/peering-journal-data

The script is under GPLv3 on GitHub. Use it, fork it, improve it and
reshare it.

This is similar to what Walter wrote for TurtleArt parsing and such.
http://git.sugarlabs.org/ds-analysis-scripts

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Professor, Information Systems
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://commons.sfsu.edu/
http://olpcsf.org/
http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] [XSCE] Root fs on XO1

[Sameer Verma]

On Fri, Aug 9, 2013 at 2:53 AM, George Hunt  wrote:
> Hi Jerry, et al,
>
> The motherboard flash on an XO1 is 1GB. The kernel, rootfs, provided by OLPC
> Boston for the XO1 occupies 745MB. The server software (XSCE) we have been
> adding on top of the OS occupies about 1.3GB.  So obviously an additional SD
> card is required.
>
> My first approach has been to start with a vfat formatted SD card, change
> its format to ext4, without changing its partition layout (I think this
> avoids creating erase block/OS write mismatch, which slows and wears SD
> cards prematurely). Then I have been copying large chunks from the JFFS to
> the SD card, and sym-linking to it, so that additional yum install
> operations are diverted to the SD card.
>
> Recently, Jerry has suggested that I just ignore the motherboard jffs flash,
> and run entirely off the SD card.  I've been studying how to accomplish
> this.  It looks to me like the .img file available for the XO1 is in
> jffs2/mtd format which would be appropriate for "dd"ing directly to the
> motherboard flash, but probably not correct for "dd"ing to an SD card.
>
> So here is my question: Does it make sense to let the openfirmware bios
> write the OS image to the jffs on the motherboard, and then for me to rsync
> that OS, as data,  to an ext4 formatted (not repartitioned) SD card? If I do
> this will the presence of a signed kernel on the SD card cause the boot
> loader to choose the SD card, ignore JFFS, even if the XO is still secured?
>
> George

George,
Have you looked at the XS-on-XO1 0.6 image? Just curious...
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XS-on-XO

cheers,
Sameer
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] XS to become XSCE???

[Sameer Verma]

On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 6:06 AM, David Farning
 wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 12:13 AM, Sameer Verma  wrote:
>> Just noticed that on
>> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XS_Installing_Software_0.7 it says that
>> stable version is XS 0.7 and unstable is XSCE 0.3
>>
>> Is this correct?
>>
>> Is XSCE to become XS 0.8? I am all in favor of the two projects
>> merging, but as I understand it, XS and XSCE are two very *different*
>> projects as of now. Some clarification would be great!
>
> This question has many interesting implications! While I don't know
> the answer to your question I do have some more specific follow on
> questions.
>
> Questions about today:
>
> If I am a deployment, large or small, looking to deploy a school
> server, which should I choose? and Why?
>
> If I am a deployment, large or small, looking to make customizations
> to my school server, which 'base' should I choose? Should I upstream
> my customizations or should hold on to them?
>
> If I a contributor looking to help ICT4E move forward, which school
> server should I work on and why?
>
> Questions about the future:
>
> Is the XS feature complete? Does it do everything it can to add value
> to deployments? If there are ways to add more value, is there a plan
> or funding model to support that development?
>
> Is the XSCE feature complete? Does it do everything it can to add
> value to deployments? If there are ways to add more value, is there a
> plan or funding model to support that development?


It's not that complicated. My original assertion was to be clear about
the roadmap for XS and XSCE. It is now clear that the XSCE project is
not going to be the next XS. Both projects are very different, and
convergence may not be in the best interests of all parties involved.
So be it. Move along. Nothing to see here.

>From my perspective, XS is designed by OLPC to service their projects,
which tend to be larger than microdeployments. XSCE, on the other hand
seems to be driven by smaller LAN size, such as the classroom scenario
promoted by AU, or my India project.

We use XS 0.7 in Jamaica because it was the only game in town back
then, it runs atop CentOS, and it uses Moodle, which we are not averse
to. It is also tried and tested in many other deployments much larger
than ours, so that's comforting.

I also use XSCE in India, but for entirely different reasons. I needed
something that was extremely low power. XS 0.6 that ran on a FitPC was
ok, but it pulled 8W. I couldn't move up to XS 0.7, because of a PAE
issue, and didn't have the resources to wrangle with it. The XO 1.75
as XS running XSCE fits the bill for very low power, although running
atop Fedora does not give me clear upgrade paths. We'll see how
quickly that install gets old. In fact, XS 0.6 was on F9, and suffered
the same fate. Personally, I would prefer the stability of CentOS over
the newness of Fedora.

Can XS 0.7 serve the features of XSCE? With a bit of work, sure. Can
XSCE serve the stability of XS 0.7? With a little bit of work, sure.
The difference in design is based on a difference in the needs of
various projects. I suspect it is also fueled by a "not invented here"
sentiment.

While the XS continues to live in the colored box on the wiki as an
"official" offering from OLPC, as I expect it to be, along with the
OLPC images for the XOs (and I hope we hear about the roadmap from the
powers-that-be), I think XSCE needs to grow up and live in its own
space on the wiki as a proper page, and not live in Adam Holt's user
page. It is a community project and it should be treated as such. Let
the deployment pick and choose what they'd like. If living under the
same wiki becomes too contentious, space is cheap! Move some place
else, and while you are at it, please keep the mailing lists open. I
shouldn't have to write a paragraph to Adam and ask permission to be
added to the mailing list. That stifles communication, and if you all
haven't caught on as yet, we are *not* dealing with a technology
problem! This business of building a dozen different server projects
is a people problem.

I look forward to more communication on this and other lists and I
sincerely hope we can continue to work together as one community.

Oh, and I hope to see you all in October. http://www.olpcsf.org/node/133

cheers,
Sameer

>
> Questions for OLCP:
>
> Are there steps OLPC can do to encourage deployments to fund further
> development of XS by OLPC developers? Are there steps OLPC can do to
> encourage direct development of XS by deployments?
>
> Would it be effective for OLPC to support and fund future development
> of XSCE or a product based on XSCE?
>
> Would OLPC officially endorse XSCE as supported project?
>
> Questions for XSCE:
>

Re: [Server-devel] XS to become XSCE???

[Sameer Verma]

On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 1:16 AM, James Cameron  wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 04, 2013 at 10:13:25PM -0700, Sameer Verma wrote:
>> Just noticed that on
>> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XS_Installing_Software_0.7 it says that
>> stable version is XS 0.7 and unstable is XSCE 0.3
>>
>> Is this correct?
>
> What you see is from the template page Latest Releases and occurs on
> every Wiki page that includes that template.  So the fact that it is
> on XS_Installing_Software_0.7 is not unusual, because that page
> includes the template.
>
> The template edits that led to this are here:
>
> http://wiki.laptop.org/index.php?title=Template:Latest_Releases/XS-devel&diff=287052&oldid=266082
> http://wiki.laptop.org/index.php?title=Template:Latest_Releases/XS-devel&diff=287053&oldid=287052
> http://wiki.laptop.org/index.php?title=Template:Latest_Releases/XS-devel&diff=287329&oldid=287053
>

Thanks for the links. Makes it clearer.

>> Is XSCE to become XS 0.8? I am all in favor of the two projects
>> merging, but as I understand it, XS and XSCE are two very
>> *different* projects as of now. Some clarification would be great!
>
> I don't see any indication on the template to suggest that XSCE will
> become XS, but I do see "Server" software now includes xs-0.7 as
> stable, and XSCE 0.3 as unstable.
>
> I don't see any unstable version of xs-, and I don't see any stable
> version of XSCE.  I'd like to see both.  The former would indicate
> ongoing development of xs- and the latter would indicate finalisation
> of XSCE.
>

Correct, but as it is represented now, XS will become XSCE, which is
incorrect. As a customer, I consider XS and XSCE to be two different
products. The XS is a product from OLPC. XSCE is a product (not
production ready, but still a product) from the "community" (double
quotes intended). Although the XSCE may very well be a fork of the XS,
it has its own specs and a set of developers working on it. I am one
of the few who use XSCE on a 1.75 in one of my projects. I also use XS
0.7 in three other projects. My reasonings for choosing one over the
other are distinct. So, I do not appreciate the confusion.

Mixing the two is misleading. XS 0.7 may very well be end of the line,
or there may be a 0.8, but that's up to OLPC to decide, and not for
XSCE to usurp. After all, AU has a server. So does Nepal. So does
Uruguay. So does Activity Central. We don't see those listed on the
template now, do we? If this was out of a misunderstanding, it needs
to be corrected. If this injection was deliberate, then it was foolish
at best.

It's a shame how much obfuscation has creeped into this space. Let's
be clear about what the XS is and what the XSCE is and move on.

Sameer
-- 
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Professor, Information Systems
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://commons.sfsu.edu/
http://olpcsf.org/
http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/


> --
> James Cameron
> http://quozl.linux.org.au/
>
>
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

[Server-devel] XS to become XSCE???

[Sameer Verma]

Just noticed that on
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XS_Installing_Software_0.7 it says that
stable version is XS 0.7 and unstable is XSCE 0.3

Is this correct?

Is XSCE to become XS 0.8? I am all in favor of the two projects
merging, but as I understand it, XS and XSCE are two very *different*
projects as of now. Some clarification would be great!

cheers,
Sameer
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] Server-devel Digest, Vol 75, Issue 25

[Sameer Verma]

On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 11:33 PM, Tony Anderson  wrote:
> Hi,
>
> As I have unsuccessfully tried to explain many times. OLE Nepal, with help
> from Daniel Drake, an effective and proven means to add selected
> capabilities
> to the base server. Since this capability takes advantage of the running
> base
> server, all of its normal system administration capabilities are available
> (ssh,
> yum, etc.).
>

This is true, but not documented well and not known. For instance, we
use munin and openvpn on the XS 0.7 in Jamaica, and those are
"add-ons". It would be good to document this and discuss approaches
for installing complementary services.

> The other difference with the school server is that disk capacity should not
> be
> a constraint. This means leaving Moodle installed but unused has negligible
> cost.
>
> Making http://schoolserver go directly to Moodle is probably not justified.
> We
> should probably create a home page or, at least provide an example that
> deployments could modify to their needs.
>

Good point. There is a cost to Moodle if it is the landing page,
because it eats up CPU cycles for PHP and postgres. In fact, when load
testing XS 0.6 on the XO-1 (pages 137-148
http://wiki.laptop.org/images/4/46/Testing_the_OLPC_School_Server_Benjamin_Tran_SFSU.pdf),
it was the postgres cycles and swap that killed it! We could hardly
get past 20 simultaneous or so.

The landing page should be something less heavier than Moodle, unless
of course you have hefty servers and don't care of the hits that
postgres+PHP will bring. For instance, running Pathagar
(python-django) on a sqlite backend on a SheevaPlug took hits upto
about 500 simultaneous users (spread using a gaussian distribution
over 60 seconds) before it started to fail. I suspect a XO-1 running
Pathagar will outperform a XO-1 running Moodle.

cheers,
Sameer

> Tony
>
>
>
> On 07/29/2013 07:56 PM, Sameer Verma wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 11:56 AM, Tony Anderson  wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> The XS-0.7 release of the school server software is built with CentOS
>>> 6.2.
>>> The main problem is that CentOS does not support the ARM isa.
>>> XSCE, as I understand it, arose to fill an urgent need to implement the
>>> school server on ARM to reduce the power requirements of the school
>>> server.
>>>
>>> Also in my understanding, XSCE was ported to run on the Fedora base used
>>> on
>>> the XO for Sugar. This was needed to enable XO hardware to be
>>> used for the school server.
>>
>> Another reason for the XSCE push was to make the server less
>> monolithic and allow deployments to select components. For instance,
>> Moodle is integral to XS 0.7. Most projects (to my understanding) use
>> the admin pages in Moodle (added to stock Moodle by OLPC) and not
>> Moodle itself. Most people on this list do not have a good exposure to
>> the continued use of Moodle in an institution (I use it at work every
>> day), so Moodle has failed to take root. In my opinion, for Moodle to
>> take root, it needs to come populated with sample courses and a set of
>> simple directions to add more. From what I gather, there are NO
>> instructions/documentation on the use of Moodle in the OLPC context.
>> This is most likely because we all hit the 24 hour limit per day :-)
>> Is it salvageable? Yes! We need a good set of courses and a repo to
>> host at and download from. A Youtube search for "moodle backup
>> restore" will show you how easy it is.
>>
>> Moving along, XSCE hopes to provide a menu approach to select the
>> services you need (Pathagar, Drupal, ). That
>> requirement, along with AU's need to have a server per classroom (XO
>> based server)  got mixed up in the granularity requirement.
>>
>>> In short, there is no reason to do anything to run the school server on
>>> the
>>> Intel isa, just use XS-0.7.
>>
>> As of now, this is true. XS 0.7 is rock solid, and it's stability
>> comes from the CentOS/RHEL underpinnings. Once XSCE is able to provide
>> a menu to "remove Moodle, add Pathagar" AND provide a CentOS base, the
>> reasons for XSCE may get stronger.
>>
>> In case you were wondering, I am NOT a fan of using Fedora for a
>> server. Stability and upgrade paths are my primary concerns.
>>
>> cheers,
>> Sameer
>>>
>>> In my understanding, the Sugar Desktop runs on Fedora on both Intel and
>>> ARM
>>> architectures. The fact that Sugar is extensively tested and supported in
>>> the Fedora environment probably outweighs any stability advantag

Re: [Server-devel] Server-devel Digest, Vol 75, Issue 25

[Sameer Verma]

On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 11:56 AM, Tony Anderson  wrote:
> Hi,
>
> The XS-0.7 release of the school server software is built with CentOS 6.2.
> The main problem is that CentOS does not support the ARM isa.
> XSCE, as I understand it, arose to fill an urgent need to implement the
> school server on ARM to reduce the power requirements of the school server.
>
> Also in my understanding, XSCE was ported to run on the Fedora base used on
> the XO for Sugar. This was needed to enable XO hardware to be
> used for the school server.

Another reason for the XSCE push was to make the server less
monolithic and allow deployments to select components. For instance,
Moodle is integral to XS 0.7. Most projects (to my understanding) use
the admin pages in Moodle (added to stock Moodle by OLPC) and not
Moodle itself. Most people on this list do not have a good exposure to
the continued use of Moodle in an institution (I use it at work every
day), so Moodle has failed to take root. In my opinion, for Moodle to
take root, it needs to come populated with sample courses and a set of
simple directions to add more. From what I gather, there are NO
instructions/documentation on the use of Moodle in the OLPC context.
This is most likely because we all hit the 24 hour limit per day :-)
Is it salvageable? Yes! We need a good set of courses and a repo to
host at and download from. A Youtube search for "moodle backup
restore" will show you how easy it is.

Moving along, XSCE hopes to provide a menu approach to select the
services you need (Pathagar, Drupal, ). That
requirement, along with AU's need to have a server per classroom (XO
based server)  got mixed up in the granularity requirement.

>
> In short, there is no reason to do anything to run the school server on the
> Intel isa, just use XS-0.7.

As of now, this is true. XS 0.7 is rock solid, and it's stability
comes from the CentOS/RHEL underpinnings. Once XSCE is able to provide
a menu to "remove Moodle, add Pathagar" AND provide a CentOS base, the
reasons for XSCE may get stronger.

In case you were wondering, I am NOT a fan of using Fedora for a
server. Stability and upgrade paths are my primary concerns.

cheers,
Sameer
>
> In my understanding, the Sugar Desktop runs on Fedora on both Intel and ARM
> architectures. The fact that Sugar is extensively tested and supported in
> the Fedora environment probably outweighs any stability advantage of CentOS.
>
> Tony
>
> On 07/29/2013 06:00 PM, server-devel-requ...@lists.laptop.org wrote:
>>
>> We are mixing our channels abit here.


 A Sugar based desktop on CentOS is pretty unlikely. As Peter noticed,
 there are many dependencies necessary for a recent Sugar which are not
 present in CentOS. CentOS intentionally lagges fedora by several
 releases for stability. If someone wanted to do it badly enough, it
 would be possible to backport the fedora 18 GTK stack to CentSO

 A school server based on CentOS or Ubuntu LTS is more likely. The
 challenge is remaining compatible with XOs. For hardware
 compatibility, a XO requires recent OLPC-OS versions which are based
 on recent fedora version.

 The step necessary to make XSCE on CentOS run on _Commodity_X86_
 hardware are not that great. The problem is that it would require
 maintain a non-XO branch in parallel with the XO compatible branch..
 Anyone have the time, energy, and flame retardant skin to tackle that?
>
>
> ___
> 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

Re: [Server-devel] [support-gang] XSCE Sprint

[Sameer Verma]

On Tue, Jul 9, 2013 at 9:53 AM, Gonzalo Odiard  wrote:
>
>>> 1 - An effective way to organize the digital library so that kids are
>>> attracted to find items they would like to download.
>>
>>
>> We hope that we can evolve, and incorporate Pathagar for this in the short
>> term.  I've asked if there are other  open source alternatives, and not
>> gotten any viable suggestions. Seth insists that Pathagar is only going to
>> work for books. I'd like a multimedia warehouse.
>>>
>>>
>
> OPDS, the protocol used by Pathagar, can manage any media.
>
> In sugar we use GetBooks activity to download books, but there are no
> limitations to use it to other media.
> In fact, Ceibal use a modified version to download music too.
>

True. As long as the http server has a mime type entry for the file,
it gets served. Pathagar hands over the download to the http server.
We've hosted both audio and video files on Pathagar. From what I
remember, the confusion about what Seth said was to do with the
possibility of automatically extracting metadata from epub files,
which does not exist in Pathagar currently, but can be incorporated
with little effort. Extracting such metadata from other media may or
may not work.

cheers,
Sameer

> Gonzalo
>
> ___
> support-gang mailing list
> support-g...@lists.laptop.org
> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/support-gang
>
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] [support-gang] Value of remote access to School Servers.

[Sameer Verma]

On Wed, Jul 3, 2013 at 2:10 AM, James Cameron  wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 03, 2013 at 02:06:04PM +0530, Anish Mangal wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Jul 3, 2013 at 1:54 PM, James Cameron  wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, Jul 03, 2013 at 12:45:35PM +0530, Anish Mangal wrote:
>> > James wrote:
>> > > Would the person accessing their XSCE remotely then establish
>> > > another tunnel to your OpenVPN server, or would your server do
>> > > inbound connection forwarding?
>> >
>> > Hmm. I'm not so clear on that. I can give the example of a setup in
>> > Bhagmalpur (a pilot we recently did).
>> >
>> > 1. There is an openVPN server hosted by Sameer.
>> > 2. The XSCE when connected to the internet dials into this open vpn
>> >server.
>>
>> Thanks, I understand the first two steps, and they sound good.
>>
>> > 3. I can login to the XSCE through the openVPN connection through
>> >ssh and administer remotely.
>>
>> How is this last step achieved?  There's much flexibility, so I'm
>> curious.  I imagine one of three methods:
>>
>> a.  does the user first SSH into an account on the OpenVPN server and
>> then SSH again to the XSCE, or;
>>
>> b.  does the user SSH to a particular port on the OpenVPN server that
>> is automatically forwarded to the XSCE, or;
>>
>> c.  does the XSCE have a routable IP address, courtesy of the OpenVPN
>> server, to which SSH is directed?
>>
>>
>>
>> I'm not sure... let me explain (perhaps Sameer or Santi can chime in)...
>>
>> I have a set of openVPN keys on may laptop through which I connect to the
>> openVPN server automatically (and a network called tun0 is created)
>>
>> I know the IP address of the XSCE in Bpur
>>
>> So, from my laptop, I just do ssh root@> network>
>>
>> Does it make things any clearer?
>
> Yes, this would be a case "d", where both the client (your laptop) and
> the server (the XSCE) have an unroutable address on a network that is
> unreachable except through OpenVPN.

True. Both "clients" get a private IP within the same subnet.

>
> By unroutable I mean one that cannot be reached from the public
> network.
>

True. In many cases, ISPs use private dynamic IPs, so getting to the
server becomes difficult.

> This is a good choice, because:
>
> - it allows the server hosting the OpenVPN to avoid dealing with
>   traffic unrelated to the task of remote access,
>
> - it allows the administrator of the OpenVPN server to set up packet
>   filtering rules to permit specific individuals to access specific
>   XSCEs,

Yes, there are several ways to segment out the traffic using packet
filtering on the server itself. The OpenVPN server acts like a hub
initially, but because of the layer 3 packet filtering, it can then
effective behave like a vLAN switch (although switching is a L2 tech).

>
> - it prevents access to either party from the public network.
>

Correct.

> Now that you have remote XSCE settled, have you considered remote XO
> access for hardware diagnosis and maintenance?  Write up of that
> feature is here:
>
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Firmware/Remote
>
> A relay using socat could be run on the XSCE for this purpose, and so
> a user of the OpenVPN service could reach an XO (or another XSCE) to
> analyse or fix non-booting scenarios.
>
> I know you already have the capability to deploy puppet for XO remote
> administration ... if the Linux kernel is running.
>
> --
> James Cameron
> http://quozl.linux.org.au/
>
>


Sameer
-- 
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Professor, Information Systems
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://commons.sfsu.edu/
http://olpcsf.org/
http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

[Server-devel] an anecdote from Bhagmalpur

[Sameer Verma]

An interesting anecdote from Bhagmalpur, India
(http://bhagmalpur.wordpress.com)

We just turned on the Internet two weeks ago (thx to Anish Mangal and
Kartik Perisetla), but power has been largely missing. The server and
Wi-Fi paraphernalia lives at my uncle's house. The kids miss the
access a lot. So, eventually they pooled money, bought a liter of
Diesel and showed up at my Uncle's house, asking him to run the
generator, so that they could get on the Internet!

What have we done! :-)

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Professor, Information Systems
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://commons.sfsu.edu/
http://olpcsf.org/
http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] Pathagar

[Sameer Verma]

On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 1:42 AM, Tony Anderson  wrote:
> Hi,
>
> When I looked at Pathagar originally, it only worked when connected to the
> internet. Has this changed?
>

It works on any interface, as long as you can get to it from the XO or
any other laptop. The books are preloaded within Pathagar and the
onboard sqlite database + django powers the rest. The OPDS catalog and
pages are available via a browser or via ReadBooks activity. The ones
we sent to Madagascar last week are on Marvell DreamPlugs running WLAN
side, disconnected from the Internet. Whenever someone does connect
the DreamPlug (via Ethernet) to the Internet in Madagascar, it sets up
a OpenVPN connection for us to be able to get back in and push
book/media updates via rsync.

You can try it out by grabing a VM here:
http://www.olpcsf.org/pathagar

The VM expects to get an IP address via DHCP over a bridged interface.

> What can Pathagar store? Is it limited to pdfs? As I remember, it created
> database entries with extensive (library standard) cataloging information.

It can store any file format, I suppose. I've tried audio and video
successfully. Minimal entries are the file itself, title, and author,
I think. You can add a whole bunch of other info if available. These
are: description, tags, language, publisher, rights ,ISBN, etc.


> Is that still required? In many cases, that information is not easily
> available (e.g. multimedia items).
>
Not required. Optional.

cheers,
Sameer

> Tony

___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] A Path to Pathagar.

[Sameer Verma]

On Tue, Jun 4, 2013 at 2:11 PM, Braddock  wrote:
> I'm curious how Pathagar may be applicable to our Internet-in-a-Box
> (http://internet-in-a-box.org).
>
> Can it scale to the 40,000 epub books in Project Gutenberg?
>

That's a good question. Scaling to hold the data should be ok. The
current database is sqlite, but can be swapped with postgres etc. The
scalability will be dependent on the sqlite database, the apache or
nginx web server, and of course the file system being able to serve up
files. i ran a load test on Pathagar on a Sheevaplug a couple of years
ago. It started to fail after 500 concurrent users downloading a book
over a period of 60 seconds, following a normal distribution.

So, the scalability will be a function of multiple things, but there's
only one way to find out!

cheers,
Sameer

> thanks,
> Braddock Gaskill
>
>
> On 06/04/2013 01:46 PM, David Farning wrote:
>
> One of the additions to XSCE 0.3 is the ability to add services to XSCE
> without having an intimate knowledge of the entire server. Our first real
> test of this is the inclusion of Pathagar as a bookserver.
>
> For the last three releases the XSCE project has focused on the basics:
> 1. Network connectivity within the classroom.
> 2. Internet access were available.
> 3. Modular structure.
>
> This has been the boring framework stuff which will enable the fun user
> facing stuff like Pathagar to work.
>
> Pathagar is a simple bookserver. In this case, simple means rugged and
> maintainable. Pathagar has three purposes; browse, search and download
> digital books from a server.
>
> In the basic use case a librarian or curator places digital books in a
> directory on the server. Students can then browse, search and download from
> their web browser or bookreader software.
>
> Technically, most of the pieces are in place:
> 1. I believe the XSCE needs a bit more work handle external storage. (Not
> barfing if the USB connection is bumped.)
> 2. Pathagar is fully functional.
>
> The remaining steps will be to:
> 1. Validate Fedora packaging.
> 2. Create the glue code to add Pathagar to XSCE is a plugin.
> 3. Validate loosely coordinated release.
> 4. Test, test, test.
>
> Technically this seems pretty straight forward.  The more open ended issues
> is curating content. A book server with no books is as useful as school
> server which doesn't serve.
>
> --
> 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
>
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] 12 Volt power system for School Servers.

[Sameer Verma]

On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 3:26 PM, James Cameron  wrote:
> On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 04:51:47PM -0500, David Farning wrote:
>> Any thoughts on powering the AP?
>
> They are all different.
>

Yep. The one we use in Bhagmalpur (India) and in Jamaica is the
Ubiquiti Picostation2 unit that runs off a PoE injector. Ours run off
110/220V AC, but an AP that can run over 48V PoE can use a DC-to-DC
PoE unit to power it from a 12V battery source.

cheers,
Sameer

> First, select an AP that says it has a 12V input.
>
> I would record the voltage without load emitted by the power supply
> supplied by the manufacturer.  This is a known maximum voltage that
> the AP can take.
>
> Then I would record the voltage on load.  This is a known minimum
> voltage.
>
> Then I would record the input voltage specifications of the access
> point using the manufacturer's documentation.  This is usually a
> typical voltage, but sometimes they include a maximum or minimum.  If
> there was no documentation, I'd ask them, though perhaps with no great
> expectation of success.
>
> Taking the minimum and maximum of those three values, I'd compare them
> to the lead-acid battery charge cycle operating range of 10V to 15V.
>
> If there remains any doubt (e.g. they haven't specified a maximum), I
> would attach the AP to a variable power supply and gradually ramp it
> up to 15V, checking for sudden drop of current (a blown fuse), or
> excessive operating heat.
>
> Once I'm happy, I would cut the cable as far from the device as
> possible, and reterminate it there.  Before cutting, I would discharge
> the power supply capacitors ... saves wear and tear on wire cutters.
>
> If the AP was USB powered Wifi dongle, the problem goes away.
>
> --
> James Cameron
> http://quozl.linux.org.au/
> ___
> 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

Re: [Server-devel] 12 Volt power system for School Servers.

[Sameer Verma]

On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 1:03 PM, David Farning
 wrote:
> Tony could you share more information about your work on 12 Volt power
> supplies for School Servers?
>
> Whenever I see a School Server setup containing a 12V Battery, an inverter,
> a power strip, and a couple of 120V to 12V power supplies to provide power
> for the server and the AP... my eyes start to tear up:(
>
> The situation I am looking at has power part of the day so we can recharge
> the battery. To keep things simple we would like to use a Trimslice or XO-4
> and off the shelf AP.
>
> Ideally we would like to have 'kit' that contained everything except that
> battery that can be set up and tested before arriving at the deployment.
>
> Thanks
>
> --
> David Farning
> Activity Central: http://www.activitycentral.com
>
> ___
> Server-devel mailing list
> Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
>

What about an off-the-shelf SoHo UPS unit?

cheers,
Sameer
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

[Server-devel] Use case survey for deployments

[Sameer Verma]

My student (Maryam El Baz) is helping me collect data on building
different use cases of OLPC deployment in the field. If you work with
a deployment and can take a few minutes, please fill out her survey.

http://verma.sfsu.edu/projects/olpc/usecases/

She will be collating all the information from this effort into a
report that we'll make available on wiki.laptop.org

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Professor, Information Systems
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://commons.sfsu.edu/
http://olpcsf.org/
http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] the plan for Puppet

[Sameer Verma]

Daniel,

This is immensely helpful!


On Wed, May 1, 2013 at 10:44 AM, Daniel Drake  wrote:
> On Wed, May 1, 2013 at 11:21 AM, Sameer Verma  wrote:
>> I was wondering if someone on this list (Daniel, or Martin, someone
>> who knows more about puppet) can speak to the design behind the
>> incorporation of Puppet in 0.7.
>
> The incorporation is minimal. The client was added to the base install.
> It is just one small step further in the "official blessing" of puppet
> as an XS maintenance tool that happened a few years ago.
>
> That really is sufficient to get puppet synchronization deployed. It
> is hard to get much more specific without excluding certain deployment
> scenarios. And it also depends what you want to actually use puppet
> for, there are many possible uses. But there is some potential
> guidance here: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XS_Puppet
>
> Note that our blessing of puppet is for synchronization of XS, not for
> synchronization of XOs.

Ah! That's the part I wasn't clear about.

>
>> Additionally, I'd like to hear more about services like xs-rsync that
>> are available on the server, but documentation is scattered. If/how
>> can activities be pushed to XOs seamlessly?
>
> That has to be done with xs-activity-server
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XS-activity-server
>
> And the XO image has to be configured to look at the school server for
> activities (easily done with olpc-os-builder).
>
> You can use puppet to feed activities into this system from a central
> server. The README is missing some details here. You (or puppet) puts
> the activities in /library/xs-activity-server/activities and then runs
> xs-regenerate-activities.
>
> The missing step here is automatic activity update; every XO user has
> to go to the control panel and choose to upgrade activities. Hopefully
> something that can be automated in future.

So, the trigger is still on the XO, as opposed to coming from the XS
or further up via Puppet.

>
>> RPM installations on the XO?
>
> That would be done by creating a new image in olpc-os-builder (with
> the RPMs added) and then offering it to XOs via xs-rsync.
>
> http://dev.laptop.org/git/users/martin/xs-rsync/tree/README describes
> the steps that you need to instruct puppet to take.
>

OK.

> Then XOs can upgrade manually (by running olpc-update on the command
> line with the school server URL). That can also happen automatically,
> with a bit more work. The XS oats server does not advertise updates to
> the XOs although some patches were posted for that a few years ago.
>
> The oatslite oats server (designed to be run on a central server, not
> on the XS) can be used to advise XOs that there is an OS update
> available on their school server, resulting in this upgrade process
> being fully automated.


OK. I'll look for it on the lists.

>
>> Pulling logs via ds-backup?
>
> Not sure what this means.

Recently, Richard Smith changed ds-backup.py to add powerlogs and
files in Documents to be pushed to the journal backups on the XS. I
suppose any other logs can be pushed from the XO/pulled by the XS
similarly...

>
> Overall these kinds of tasks are possible with these systems, but we
> lack one crucial item (automatic activity update), a bit of
> documentation and some polish. Note the pattern here that puppet is
> used to feed stuff to the XS, then XS/OLPC systems are used to feed
> stuff to the XO.
>

thanks,
Sameer

> Daniel
>
>
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

[Server-devel] the plan for Puppet

[Sameer Verma]

I was wondering if someone on this list (Daniel, or Martin, someone
who knows more about puppet) can speak to the design behind the
incorporation of Puppet in 0.7.

Additionally, I'd like to hear more about services like xs-rsync that
are available on the server, but documentation is scattered. If/how
can activities be pushed to XOs seamlessly? RPM installations on the
XO? Pulling logs via ds-backup? Should this be done via Puppet?

Any input/feedback would be very helpful.

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Professor, Information Systems
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://commons.sfsu.edu/
http://olpcsf.org/
http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] Yet another ARM board for a server

[Sameer Verma]

On Apr 22, 2013 11:46 PM, "Peter Robinson"  wrote:
>
>
> On 23 Apr 2013 01:21, "Sameer Verma"  wrote:
> >
> > Beagleboard Black at $45
> >
> >
http://marcin.juszkiewicz.com.pl/2013/04/22/death-to-raspberrypi-beaglebone-black-is-on-a-market/
>
> Why is it another server board? Just dumping links without an explanation
isn't very helpful. Its not really suitable as a server board at all. It
has 1 USB, no sata or WiFi and only 512mb of RAM. IMO it makes it about as
far from a respectable server board as possible. All XOs have a higher spec
than this.
>
> Peter

Low power ARM? Inexpensive? No moving parts? Easy to transport/smuggle? I
have a book server (Pathagar) running on a Raspberry Pi. It works quite
well and can serve a small deployment.

cheers,
Sameer
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

[Server-devel] Yet another ARM board for a server

[Sameer Verma]

Beagleboard Black at $45

http://marcin.juszkiewicz.com.pl/2013/04/22/death-to-raspberrypi-beaglebone-black-is-on-a-market/

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Professor, Information Systems
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://commons.sfsu.edu/
http://olpcsf.org/
http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

[Server-devel] Cubieboard - linux-sunxi

[Sameer Verma]

Another ARM board, courtesy of Robert Howard.

http://linux-sunxi.org/Cubieboard

cheers,
Sameer
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] [XSCE] Re: ds-backup

[Sameer Verma]

On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 5:47 AM, David Farning  wrote:

> This brings up the interesting issue of basing the XS-CE on a long
> term release. I have trying to sit on my hands for these discussion to
> see how they play out.
>
> I am pulled between two sides
>
> Stability -- Servers need to be inherently stable. Especially when we
> work at the scale that exists in large deployment. This seems to
> implies that something like CentOS would be the preferred OS. The
> added benefit is that we don't expend too many of our limited
> resources chasing upstream.
>
> New Hardware -- The other side of the coin is the desire to run on new
> hardware such as the XO4 or RaspberryPI. One of the ways long term
> releases achieve stability is letting new ideas and new drivers 'bake'
> in frequent release OS's like fedora.
>
> I wish I had a good answer to this.
>
> Dave
>
>
We are sorta married to Fedora, because of the Sugar dependency, but if I
had a choice to run a server, I'd run it on Debian. In fact, I have run
servers with incredible stability on Debian and Ubuntu. Services x86 and
ARM and should work for most of what we want to do. Most RPi distros run on
Debian.

Probably won't work for running Sugar UI and activities, but yes, the
Fedora dependency is a problem that no one wants to talk about :-(

Sameer


>  On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 5:00 AM, George Hunt 
> wrote:
> > Your analysis conforms with my experience. When I tried to carry
> mod_python
> > over into FC18, it conflicted with apache. I didn't spend much time
> thinking
> > about carrying apache along.
> >
> > I'm sort of looking forward to debugging my new version of ds-backup
> server,
> > which uses mod_wsgi. It seems like a relatively localized change.
> >
> > George
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 6:24 PM, Daniel Drake  wrote:
> >>
> >> On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 3:16 PM, George Hunt 
> wrote:
> >> > Hi Daniel,
> >> >
> >> > I noticed that you were working on ds-backup recently.  I was trying
> to
> >> > get
> >> > XSCE running on fc18, and encountered the issue of fedora dropping
> >> > mod-python (see https://fedorahosted.org/rel-eng/ticket/5165).
> >> >
> >> > Is it ok to just carry the fc17 version along in our repo, and try to
> >> > see if
> >> > it just works, or should we set a goal of rewriting to mod_wsgi?
> >>
> >> Carrying along an old mod_python might be tricky, I think F18 has a
> >> new apache version with some incompatibilities.
> >>
> >> I would port it to wsgi.
> >>
> >> Daniel
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
> 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

Re: [Server-devel] [support-gang] My first School Server Installation

[Sameer Verma]

On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 12:37 PM, George Hunt  wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I returned from Port Au Prince, Haiti 5 days ago, and I've been monitoring
> the 3G USB modem connection via openvpn. It's not perfect, but it looks
> like they are getting an average of 10 hours of internet connectivity per
> day. I configured opendns as a content filter, and some content in French
> on the SD card.
>
> Some additional information, and pictures are posted at
> http://schoolserver.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=509&action=edit&message=6
> .
>
> George
>
> ___
> support-gang mailing list
> support-g...@lists.laptop.org
> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/support-gang
>
>
Looks like that link is thru a logged in wordpress URL. The direct URL is
http://schoolserver.wordpress.com/2013/03/29/my-first-school-server-deployment/

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Professor, Information Systems
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://commons.sfsu.edu/
http://olpcsf.org/
http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] XSCE 0.2 - Network problems running xs-setup

[Sameer Verma]

On Fri, Mar 22, 2013 at 5:22 AM, Rodolfo D. Arce S.  wrote:
> Hello:
>
> I ran into a few problems when trying to install the XSCE 0.2. I
> downloaded the repo and installed, during the installation process i
> got this messages, but apparently everything was installed correctly.
>
> http://pastebin.com/srwDn6wX
>
> I'm running in a HP DV4 laptop with Fedora 17 (security spin, i'm
> downloading the std version), it's connected to the internet with the
> wi-fi, and during xs-setup, connection is lost for some time (20-30
> secs aprox), it stops and starts Networkmanager apparently, but is
> long enough for the script to fail at downloading the required
> software, and installation fails. I think is during xs-setup-network
>

I had this problem on my campus network three times in a row, but when
I do this at home, the NM restart comes back with DNS in a matter of a
few seconds. There is still a bit of a lookup loss, but it recovers
fairly quickly.

cheers,
Sameer

> http://pastebin.com/7YTFHLL7
>
> I'll be poking around to see if I can connect to internet with a
> cable, or pehaps give it a "sleep" to the script before downloading,
> if you could point me into wich file should i change.
>
> cheers
>
> --
> Rodolfo D. Arce S.
> http://people.sugarlabs.org/~rolf
> ___
> 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

Re: [Server-devel] Backup of XO 1.75 on XS 0.7

[Sameer Verma]

On Sat, Mar 9, 2013 at 10:44 PM,   wrote:
> Yes.. that the way I installed the XX 0.6 in the past - the xs-setup abc.org 
> will do the rest and it will appear as schoolserver.abc.org. In the past I 
> usually us CD to boot.My first time using USB!

Setting the doamin on 0.6 is different from doing so on 0.7

On 0.6 you would do: /etc/sysconfig/olpc-scripts/domain_config example.org
On 0.7 you would do: xs-setup example.org

Be sure to use the kickstart option on 0.7. Let it be
localhost.localdomain. Then run xs-setup example.org or whatever your
domain is and set the domain.

cheers,
Sameer

>
> Don't wan't to go back to O.6 :=( installtion. So maybe I need try other 
> computer to see what is the real problem.
>
>>-Original Message-
>>From: Sameer Verma [mailto:sve...@sfsu.edu]
>>Sent: Sunday, March 10, 2013 02:39 PM
>>To: tkk...@nurturingasia.com
>>Cc: server-devel@lists.laptop.org
>>Subject: Re: [Server-devel] Backup of XO 1.75 on XS 0.7
>>
> >From what I remember, the hostname is always schoolserver and the domain
>>gets set when you run xs-setup right after installation.
>>
>>Sameer
>>On Mar 9, 2013 10:25 PM,  wrote:
>>
>>> Yes, I installed the XS using the USB with 0.7 XS image download from the
>>> source. If I select "Install using kickstart" at the initial boot screen I
>>> won' be asked : Please name this computer. The hostname identifies the
>>> computer on the network. Leaving it as default: localhost.localdomain" I
>>> can't get a XS that will run ejabberdctl connected-users.
>>>
>>> At least ejebberd is working now :=) not ds-backup.sh. Will try a few more
>>> times once I get my energy back!
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> >-Original Message-
>>> >From: Sameer Verma [mailto:sve...@sfsu.edu]
>>> >Sent: Sunday, March 10, 2013 01:20 PM
>>> >To: tkk...@nurturingasia.com
>>> >Cc: server-devel@lists.laptop.org
>>> >Subject: Re: [Server-devel] Backup of XO 1.75 on XS 0.7
>>> >
>>> >On Sat, Mar 9, 2013 at 8:40 AM,   wrote:
>>> >> Has anyone have a successfully done a /usr/bin/ds-backup.sh to backup
>>> the XO 1.75 on a 0.7 XS? After hours of waiting nothing seems to have
>>> happen. My XO are successfully registered. My ds-backup.log and
>>> datastore.log has 0 byte.
>>> >>
>>> >> I do not have ejabberdctl errors now -I install from USB bypassing the
>>> olpcxs.ks file and using my full domain name (e.g. schoolsever.abc.org)
>>> to replace the default localhost.localdomain. Works for me this way.
>>> >>
>>> >> Am I missing anything ?
>>> >
>>> >Are you using these instructions?
>>> >http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XS_Installing_Software_0.7
>>> >
>>> >Sameer
>>> >
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] Backup of XO 1.75 on XS 0.7

[Sameer Verma]

>From what I remember, the hostname is always schoolserver and the domain
gets set when you run xs-setup right after installation.

Sameer
On Mar 9, 2013 10:25 PM,  wrote:

> Yes, I installed the XS using the USB with 0.7 XS image download from the
> source. If I select "Install using kickstart" at the initial boot screen I
> won' be asked : Please name this computer. The hostname identifies the
> computer on the network. Leaving it as default: localhost.localdomain" I
> can't get a XS that will run ejabberdctl connected-users.
>
> At least ejebberd is working now :=) not ds-backup.sh. Will try a few more
> times once I get my energy back!
>
>
>
> >-Original Message-
> >From: Sameer Verma [mailto:sve...@sfsu.edu]
> >Sent: Sunday, March 10, 2013 01:20 PM
> >To: tkk...@nurturingasia.com
> >Cc: server-devel@lists.laptop.org
> >Subject: Re: [Server-devel] Backup of XO 1.75 on XS 0.7
> >
> >On Sat, Mar 9, 2013 at 8:40 AM,   wrote:
> >> Has anyone have a successfully done a /usr/bin/ds-backup.sh to backup
> the XO 1.75 on a 0.7 XS? After hours of waiting nothing seems to have
> happen. My XO are successfully registered. My ds-backup.log and
> datastore.log has 0 byte.
> >>
> >> I do not have ejabberdctl errors now -I install from USB bypassing the
> olpcxs.ks file and using my full domain name (e.g. schoolsever.abc.org)
> to replace the default localhost.localdomain. Works for me this way.
> >>
> >> Am I missing anything ?
> >
> >Are you using these instructions?
> >http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XS_Installing_Software_0.7
> >
> >Sameer
> >
>
>
>
>
>
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] Backup of XO 1.75 on XS 0.7

[Sameer Verma]

On Sat, Mar 9, 2013 at 8:40 AM,   wrote:
> Has anyone have a successfully done a /usr/bin/ds-backup.sh to backup the XO 
> 1.75 on a 0.7 XS? After hours of waiting nothing seems to have happen. My XO 
> are successfully registered. My ds-backup.log and datastore.log has 0 byte.
>
> I do not have ejabberdctl errors now -I install from USB bypassing the 
> olpcxs.ks file and using my full domain name (e.g. schoolsever.abc.org) to 
> replace the default localhost.localdomain. Works for me this way.
>
> Am I missing anything ?

Are you using these instructions?
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XS_Installing_Software_0.7

Sameer
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] XSCE 0.2 on XO-1

[Sameer Verma]

On Fri, Mar 8, 2013 at 11:32 AM, Jerry Vonau  wrote:
> On Fri, 2013-03-08 at 10:52 -0800, Sameer Verma wrote:
>> For what it's worth (and me not giving a rodent's behind) contrary to
>> popular consensus, I ran the XSCE instructions
>> (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Holt/XS_Community_Edition/0.2/Installing)
>> on a XO-1. A couple of attempts ran out of space, so I restarted with
>> a 12.1.0 image and removed /home/olpc/Library and emptied
>> /home/olpc/Activities, except for Browse and Terminal (Browse for the
>> cloud, and Terminal for everything else).
>>
>> On the third run, it ran all the way, and now manages to provide me
>> with network activities. erlang/ejabberd is running. So are squid,
>> avahi, dhcpd, named, and dhclient. httpd isn't so I'll peek in and see
>> why. Not quite sure what else to do/check to see how it works. Does it
>> have a web UI? If so, didn't spot that in the instructions.
>>
>> df -h tells me that rootfs mounted on / has 155M available. Perhaps
>> getting rid of GNOME etc. will free up more space.
>>
>> Why did I do it? Short answer: Because I can. Longish answer: I would
>> like to see a common methodology of installation and provisioning of
>> services on all platforms, irrespective of form factor or CPU arch. So
>> far, it's promising.
>>
>> cheers,
>> Sameer
>
> Maybe you can install a SD-card in the external slot and run the OS from
> there, that should take care of the space constringent.
>
> Jerry


Haven't tried, but that's always a possibility, or to mount the SD
card as extra storage, but still run the base OS from NAND. At some
point I'd like to load test the xsce and see how it holds up.

cheers,
Sameer
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

[Server-devel] XSCE 0.2 on XO-1

[Sameer Verma]

For what it's worth (and me not giving a rodent's behind) contrary to
popular consensus, I ran the XSCE instructions
(http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Holt/XS_Community_Edition/0.2/Installing)
on a XO-1. A couple of attempts ran out of space, so I restarted with
a 12.1.0 image and removed /home/olpc/Library and emptied
/home/olpc/Activities, except for Browse and Terminal (Browse for the
cloud, and Terminal for everything else).

On the third run, it ran all the way, and now manages to provide me
with network activities. erlang/ejabberd is running. So are squid,
avahi, dhcpd, named, and dhclient. httpd isn't so I'll peek in and see
why. Not quite sure what else to do/check to see how it works. Does it
have a web UI? If so, didn't spot that in the instructions.

df -h tells me that rootfs mounted on / has 155M available. Perhaps
getting rid of GNOME etc. will free up more space.

Why did I do it? Short answer: Because I can. Longish answer: I would
like to see a common methodology of installation and provisioning of
services on all platforms, irrespective of form factor or CPU arch. So
far, it's promising.

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Professor, Information Systems
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://commons.sfsu.edu/
http://olpcsf.org/
http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] XSCE wants to become a framework for the next 10 years

[Sameer Verma]

On Thu, Feb 28, 2013 at 4:10 PM, George Hunt  wrote:
> Tony, et al,
>
> The group of developers, working on the XSCE, are indeed attempting to build
> upon the good work that Daniel Drake did on the XS-0.7. But we are trying to
> extract the essential information from the history of the school server up
> to this point.
>
> The XS-0.6, based upon FC4, was released in the 2008 time frame.
> Nepal, Australia, Uruguay, perhaps for their own and different reasons,
> deviated from this released version 2008-2012.
> XS-0.7 was released for use in Nicaragua based upon Centos in early 2012.
>
> Our analysis of this history has been that the monolithic nature of the
> punji, anoconda build process is not helpful.  If the functionality of the
> school server could be dropped on top of a current fedora build, all of the
> hardware specific configuration would be handled by the general Fedora
> community -- our school server software doesn't need to change to accomodate
> arm, or x64.
>
> But as with any basic restructuring, starting from the ground up, we need to
> walk before we can run.  Whether it is reinventing the wheel or not --
> networking needs to work flawlessly. We have determined that one the the
> hardware platforms we need to support is the XO itself. The XO uses
> NetworkManager as it's networking frontend, so to be compatible, we have
> needed to learn how to configure NM.  Squid, ejabberd, and iptables need to
> play in all configurations of network adapters.

Get rid of NM and replace with scripts?

Sameer
>
> In addition, if we are thinking for the next 10 years, we wanted a more
> modular plugin-like structure for adding additional services.
>
> So I believe Tony, you are correct, we seem to be "reinventing the wheel".
> But it's my hope we are getting this wheel ready to carry a much heavier
> weight.  We are hoping that by the third quarter of this year, the XSCE
> might be to the point where it is a drop in replacement for XS-0.7. At that
> point your good suggestions might be extremely useful.
>
> We are trying to provide a software framework that is attractive and
> flexible enough, so that in the future, the next Nepal, Australia, Uruguay
> will not feel the need to go their own way.
>
> George
>
> ___
> 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

Re: [Server-devel] XS 0.7 and XO 1 & 1.75 registration

[Sameer Verma]

On Wed, Feb 27, 2013 at 4:55 AM,   wrote:
> It has been sometime since I played with the XS. Have a few problems:
>
> 1. Registered went OK with a XO 1 and can login automatically on the Moodle 
> but
> when try to force a manual back up with sudo /usr/bin/ds-backup.sh I get the 
> message: "Not Registered yet, nothing to do"
>

Try running  /usr/bin/ds-backup.sh as olpc user. Don't sudo

Sameer

> 2. Register with a XO 1.75 but this time won't login onto Moodle 
> automatically.
>
> Any advice ?
>
> ---
> T.K. Kang
>
>
>
>
> ___
> 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

Re: [Server-devel] Hardware for Schoolservers (EDIT)

[Sameer Verma]

On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 5:46 PM, German Ruiz  wrote:
> Hello everyone
>
> Sorry, last message was sent without finish.
>
> Just asking if anyone here knows about fanless server in the field, in any
> country, i was looking at the wiki[1], and the only information about
> hardware from this vendors [2][3], is in Afghanistan.
>
> We want to buy a few servers from this companies, to use in Nicaragua, but
> first i want to make sure that this ones works very good.
>
> Any suggestions?
>
> [1] http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XS_Recommended_Hardware#Hardware_known_to_work
> [2] http://www.logicsupply.com/categories/fanless_computers
> [3] http://www.aleutia.com/products/
> --
> German R S
>
>
> ___
> Server-devel mailing list
> Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
>

We use LogicSupply's SolidLogic LS-102 boxes in Jamaica. I use a
FitPC-1 in Bhagmalpur, India for about 25 XOs. The FitPC2 pulls about
15W at the AC brick. The LogicSupply box pulls 25W to 26W and the
FitPC-1 pulls 8W at the AC end.

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Professor, Information Systems
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://commons.sfsu.edu/
http://olpcsf.org/
http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] Feasibility of installing XS-0.7 on different mediums

[Sameer Verma]

XS on virtualbox.
http://schoolserver.wordpress.com/2012/05/01/school-server-holodeck-style/

Sameer
On Jan 10, 2013 12:54 PM, "Ajay Garg"  wrote:

> Hi all.
>
> I was wanting to have the XS-0.7 set-up, and have been using
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XS_Techniques_and_Configuration for reference
> purposes.
> The major purpose of me having the school-server installed, is to do
> activity-sharing via "ejabberd" presence-service.
>
>
>
> However, I have the following queries ::
>
> a)
> Is it "ok" to install the image on a VirtualBox?
>
> By "ok", I mean that I have been successfully able to install the image on
> a VirtualBox, but I am not sure if everything would work fine from thereon
> (for eg., connectivity of XOs to this "virtualized" image).
>
>
>
> b)
> Is it "possible" to have the school-server installed on any version of XO?
> If yes, would it be "ok" as well? :P
>
>
> If there are no definite answers for the above two, I would take it to
> mean that having it installed on a dedicated, non-virtualized, non-XO
> machine is the only "correct" way :)
>
>
> I would be grateful for any pointers :)
>
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Ajay Garg
> Dextrose Developer
> Activity Central: http://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

Re: [Server-devel] Pathagar- setting username and password?

[Sameer Verma]

On Wed, Dec 26, 2012 at 4:18 PM, George Hunt  wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I've been making heavy weather of getting Pathagar up and running on fc17.
> The pathagar package has a local command-line invoked http server ("python
> manage.py runserver") which seems to work once all of the dependencies are
> in place.  But getting apache wsgi-scripts to work has been another thing
> entirely.
>
> At this point, apache is serving pathagar, but I don't know how to set the
> administrative name and password for logging in. The README says that it
> will be requested during the creating-of-the-database step ("python
> manage.py syncdb"). But no such interaction occurs.
>
> I've tried to follow the code, but I get lost in django.core.management.
>
> Does anyone have experience which would apply?
>


When you run python manage.py syncdb it should ask you for a password
setup. Try deleting database.db and repeating. Grab the VM at
http://www.olpcsf.org/pathagar and pry within if it helps.

cheers,
Sameer

-- 
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Professor, Information Systems
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://commons.sfsu.edu/
http://olpcsf.org/
http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

[Server-devel] restoring from ds-backup

[Sameer Verma]

What's the approach to restoring a child's *entire* journal from the
backup in /library/users/ on the XS as pushed by /usr/bin/ds-backup.sh
on the XO?

cheers,
Sameer
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] Running complete Wikipedia offline

[Sameer Verma]

On Sun, Dec 16, 2012 at 4:36 AM, Daniel Drake  wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 9:28 PM, Sameer Verma  wrote:
>> I've been debating the possibility of running a *complete* copy of
>> Wikipedia (txt and images) offline on the XS. At this point, the
>> targets are English (https://en.wikipedia.org) and Hindi
>> (https://hi.wikipedia.org).
>>
>> The demand on the local server wouldn't be huge, given the relatively
>> small footprint at the school. Storage is cheap. This would be an
>> offline copy for one-way consumption, so I'm not looking for ways to
>> do local edits, and push these back upstream. I'd imagine the
>> Wikipedia dumps can be rsync'd once every x months over sneakernet.
>> Dump data is here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data_dumps
>
> When I was in Nepal we cloned Wiktionary onto the school server, and I
> imagine the process is similar for wikipedia. The way we did it was:
>
> Install mediawiki and configure it the same way that the "real"
> version is configured:
> http://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/
>
> Install the same plugins that are running on the real version:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Version
>
> Then import the db
> http://dumps.wikimedia.org/backup-index.html
>
> Then make a few local tweaks (e.g. disable registration/editing)
>
> Daniel
>
>

Thx, Daniel. Will work on things and get back.

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Professor, Information Systems
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://commons.sfsu.edu/
http://olpcsf.org/
http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] Running complete Wikipedia offline

[Sameer Verma]

On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 1:37 PM, Martin Langhoff
 wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 4:28 PM, Sameer Verma  wrote:
>> I've been debating the possibility of running a *complete* copy of
>> Wikipedia (txt and images) offline on the XS. At this point, the
>> targets are English (https://en.wikipedia.org) and Hindi
>> (https://hi.wikipedia.org).
>
> It would be trivial. Get the HTML-formatted dumps, serve them statically.
>

Got the XML dump for en-wiki

> My only comment is... let us know about the on-disk space usage once
> it's unpacked (du -sh /path/to/wikipedia )

sverma@elverma-xps13:~$ du -sh
/home/sverma/Downloads/enwiki-20121201-pages-articles.xml
40G /home/sverma/Downloads/enwiki-20121201-pages-articles.xml
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] Backup of schoolserver

[Sameer Verma]

On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 2:57 AM, vanessa ramos da cruz
 wrote:
> Hi everyone!
>
> I am locking for a way to make a backup of my XS 0.7 machine, for safety.
> I tried the Mondo rescue, that OLE Nepal uses, but i have any success with
> the istallation...

You are looking to do an entire backup or just the XO backups?

cheers,
Sameer
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

[Server-devel] Running complete Wikipedia offline

[Sameer Verma]

I've been debating the possibility of running a *complete* copy of
Wikipedia (txt and images) offline on the XS. At this point, the
targets are English (https://en.wikipedia.org) and Hindi
(https://hi.wikipedia.org).

The demand on the local server wouldn't be huge, given the relatively
small footprint at the school. Storage is cheap. This would be an
offline copy for one-way consumption, so I'm not looking for ways to
do local edits, and push these back upstream. I'd imagine the
Wikipedia dumps can be rsync'd once every x months over sneakernet.
Dump data is here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data_dumps

Has anyone thought of this or tackled it in any way? Would love some discussion.

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Professor, Information Systems
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://commons.sfsu.edu/
http://olpcsf.org/
http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

Re: [Server-devel] [Sugar-devel] offline a.sl.o

[Sameer Verma]

On Fri, Nov 30, 2012 at 2:59 AM, Martin Abente <
martin.abente.lah...@gmail.com> wrote:

> @sameer: What features (exactly) do you need from ASLO?
>
> IE, in Paraguay we just needed to provide a static repo of activities to
> feed the sugar updater. And we used this
> http://git.sugarlabs.org/dx-activities-server
>

This is pretty much what i'm looking for as well.

Sameer


> On Thu, Nov 29, 2012 at 10:46 PM, Dr. Gerald Ardito <
> gerald.ard...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Aleksey,
>> At the risk of asking a stupid question, what is the Sugar Network
>> functionality you are talking about?
>>
>> Thanks.
>> Gerald
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Nov 29, 2012 at 8:43 PM, Aleksey Lim wrote:
>>
>>> On Thu, Nov 29, 2012 at 08:20:23PM -0500, Dr. Gerald Ardito wrote:
>>> > This is very interesting.
>>> >
>>> > I have a kind of related question. Has there been any work done for a
>>> > non-internet based email server (and XO based client)?
>>> > I know that Tony Anderson (now in Rwanda) is working in a school with
>>> no
>>> > internet access, but with the need for email-type communication.
>>>
>>> Generally speaking, people (students and teachers) from Peruvian
>>> one-teachers offline schools might need the same "offline email".
>>> But the approach that was take for Sugar Network is not trying to create
>>> full featured/partial replacement of online environments (e.g., email,
>>> web, wikipedia, feedback reporting system, etc) but create one
>>> solid/robust system (that is capable for offline) with features:
>>>
>>> * content sharing (both ways, not only from deployers to deployments)
>>> * having reliable feedback from the field, i.e., fail reports, usage
>>>   statistics, questions
>>> * and social activity regarding the content in general (review,
>>> comments, etc)
>>>
>>> So, there is no direct offline-email analogy. But in my mind, designed
>>> Sugar Network functionality makes offline-email less needed (and not
>>> needed at all if we are talking about environments like rural schools
>>> with no any IT skilled people).
>>>
>>> --
>>> Aleksey
>>>
>>
>>
>> ___
>> Sugar-devel mailing list
>> sugar-de...@lists.sugarlabs.org
>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
>>
>>
>
> ___
> Sugar-devel mailing list
> sugar-de...@lists.sugarlabs.org
> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
>
>
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

[Server-devel] offline a.sl.o

[Sameer Verma]

Has anyone looked into running an offline copy of
activities.sugarlabs.orgon a server that isn't on the Internet (a la
XS)?

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Professor, Information Systems
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://commons.sfsu.edu/
http://olpcsf.org/
http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel

[Server-devel] gathering use cases

[Sameer Verma]

There are several use cases that may or may not get addressed when
designing a particular software stack to address a requirement.

The XS 0.7 is designed to be a single image install and comes with Moodle.
Given that I work with Moodle everyday, I see the pros and cons of it being
central on the XS. I am in fact fairly happy with its current design, but
also realize that it was built for a specific use case or three that OLPC
needed at the time.

There is also an effort (currently dubbed XS Community Edition) that is
attempting to address certain other use cases where Moodle and other
services could possibly become optional. We saw this at the OLPC SF
Community Summit. I hope it will grow up to be the next XS (but that's
another thread).

My concern is that perhaps, if we don't do our homework right, we will once
again build something that will fail to address a use case or two. Can one
design address all use cases? Maybe not. But it's good to know what those
use cases are.

To this end, I would like to collect data on different possible use cases
from all kinds of deployments. I have a student (cc'd) who is working on
this project currently. She will gather data from various deployments
(suitcase, boutique, MoE etc) as much as possible (with the cooperation of
projects, of course) and write a report on what we see out there. We'll
gladly make the report available once it is done.

Is this useful?

What should the scope be? Initially I had thought of the server side, but
that may be limiting. What should we gather?
Location, school, size, personnel, skills, electricity, Internet access,
language, sugar version, ...

Feedback?

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Professor, Information Systems
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://commons.sfsu.edu/
http://olpcsf.org/
http://olpcjamaica.org.jm/
___
Server-devel mailing list
Server-devel@lists.laptop.org
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel