Re: [Server-devel] Looking for new low power server hardware candidate
On 17 April 2012 23:39, Martin Langhoff martin.langh...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks for your notes. On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 10:04 PM, Sridhar Dhanapalan srid...@laptop.org.au wrote: But you have some economies of scale :-) do once per school vs do it on every machine in the school. The school XS can be shipped preconfigured, sidestepping the local configuration barrier. Thanks for those answers, they clarify a few things for me. I'm with you on the show an XS icon in the network neighbourhood part, but I don't see the configure XMPP server on _every_ XO as a good tradeoff, if I can prep an XS once (maybe in a central location). It's relatively easy to prep an XS + switch + APs + cat 5 cabling, label all the RJ-45 connectors, and ship it all in a big box. The hardest part is guessing the cat 5 lengths right ;-) -- much better to ship a crimping tool, cable, RJ-45s. Our deployment methodology appears to be different from the others I've seen in other countries. We are trying to scale *down*, not up. I have a rule here that no technology is introduced unless it can be deployed and managed by a non-technical person with minimal training. Shipping pre-configured servers and other infrastructure builds a dependency that will cause problems later down the track, and creates a burden on us. We generally do not have any support and only begrudging permission from education departments. We are working around this by building/configuring the technology so that the teachers and communities can totally own the deployment for themselves. Unfortunately the XS in its current state does not allow for this. Sridhar ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] Looking for new low power server hardware candidate
On 14 April 2012 01:37, Martin Langhoff martin.langh...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 12:28 AM, Sridhar Dhanapalan srid...@laptop.org.au wrote: appliance runs nothing more than ejabberd. There's no moodle, dhcp, dns or other services. How does the appliance get a domain name? IP addresses will suffice to begin with. Ideally, I think we'd want to have the servers be auto-detected on the network and available to select by the XO. Ideas to implement this include making them show in the Neighbourhood View and a selector in the Network CP applet. Then the children just set a collaboration server to connect to in the Network CP applet. They use the address of the appliance for their classroom. This achieves a segregation effect in a simple way. How do kids know what domain name to put in there? Isn't it a complex and error-prone step? Typing an IP address into the client is far less complicated than setting up and maintaining an XS server. Sridhar ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] Looking for new low power server hardware candidate
On Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 12:28 AM, Sridhar Dhanapalan srid...@laptop.org.au wrote: appliance runs nothing more than ejabberd. There's no moodle, dhcp, dns or other services. How does the appliance get a domain name? Then the children just set a collaboration server to connect to in the Network CP applet. They use the address of the appliance for their classroom. This achieves a segregation effect in a simple way. How do kids know what domain name to put in there? Isn't it a complex and error-prone step? cheers, m -- martin.langh...@gmail.com mar...@laptop.org -- Software Architect - OLPC - ask interesting questions - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] Looking for new low power server hardware candidate
On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 4:58 PM, rihowa...@gmail.com rihowa...@gmail.com wrote: On Apr 10, 2012, at 5:04 PM, Martin Langhoff wrote: On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 2:03 AM, George Hunt georgejh...@gmail.com wrote: I left my fitpc2 and msi servers in the Philippines, hoping they would be pressed into service in a classroom situation. So now I'm in the market for another toy. If you have time towork with us through some hitches, I'd recommend an ARM server. At this stage I'd say one of the Marvell/Globalscale Plug servers (dreamplug for example), or a trimslice. Either option will need a combination of the OS on internal SD/eMMC and the storage on an ext HDD (via USB probably). The Kirkwood based systems such plug computers can boot both the kernel and OS from a hard drive. I have been talking with one of he Fedora ARM team about this and am going to send them an email about what is involved and some other things about the kirkwood based devices. I'm one of the Fedora ARM people so feel free to ask here, there's a lot of work going on to simplify the process of creating images, there should be some more stuff coming soon for creation of images. I would suggest looking at ARMv7 devices as they tend to have more CPU power and memory which would be better for the server stuff. Personally I think the Trimslice H is going to one of the best models as you can put a decent HDD in there and have a self contained unit, although I would love a dual eth option. Peter [1] http://trimslice.com/web/models ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] Looking for new low power server hardware candidate
On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 5:24 AM, Peter Robinson pbrobin...@gmail.com wrote: think the Trimslice H is going to one of the best models as you can put a decent HDD in there and have a self contained unit, although I would love a dual eth option. It has a HDD bay! Yay! Wanna! m -- martin.langh...@gmail.com mar...@laptop.org -- Software Architect - OLPC - ask interesting questions - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] Looking for new low power server hardware candidate
On 12 April 2012 15:27, Martin Langhoff martin.langh...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 11:57 PM, Sridhar Dhanapalan srid...@laptop.org.au wrote: Why is it such a bad idea? The thought was to do away with registration, moodle and other unnecessary services and focus only on the XMPP server. You want to run a network of federated XMPP servers? It's madness. Rather, it's not madness, but until demonstrated/automated otherwise it's a high-maintenance-per-classroom setup. And the federated XMPP stuff isn't widely used == widely tested. We get obvious and clear bugs in parts of the XMPP implementation that are used (or should be used) _everywhere_. And this is on what is reportedly the best XMPP implementation available. My appetite for putting an exotic feature into use in the _middle_ of a deployment plan is... just not there. In any case, what's the upside of one-XS-per-classroom? Cost, administration, reliance on federated-XMPP all seem downsides/risks to me. Not federated - far simpler than that. The current XS requires administration - sysadmin admin to set up and moodle admin to manage registrations and set up segregation. This is not workable in our school environments, and hence we have stopped using XS schoolservers. The scenario that I'm thinking of is that each teacher (who has no technical skill whatsoever) receives an XS plug-and-play appliance, consisting of an XO with XS software installed. All the teacher has to do is to turn on the machine and connect it to the network. The appliance runs nothing more than ejabberd. There's no moodle, dhcp, dns or other services. Then the children just set a collaboration server to connect to in the Network CP applet. They use the address of the appliance for their classroom. This achieves a segregation effect in a simple way. I think this could be created with relatively little effort, as all we are doing is scaling back an XS. There is no additional configuration required such as federation. We have ideas to extend this scenario. For instance, the appliances could advertise themselves on the network, and then the children need only click on the server they want to be on. The teacher could plug a USB drive with content into the appliance, and have the children download exercises and upload homework. As I mentioned, this is just an idea right now. Sridhar ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] Looking for new low power server hardware candidate
When I took the picture in the following url, I was focusing on what it would take to run off of 12V deep cycle battery: http://schoolserver.wordpress.com/xs-installation/xs-0-7-running-on-xo-1-5/ I'm concerned with packaging, and physical robustness in a real school setting. Maybe we could get someone with ME skills to dream up a cheap package for all the accessory items. We probably don't need the DC to DC inverter and the usb hub. But then we don't have an extra port for sneaker-net, or an adult sized usb keyboard. At the fall 2011 summit, there was a general call for a turnkey XS that just worked. If we could solve the form factor problem, the XO1.75 might be a good solution. I think it was Sameer who was telling me that in Australia, they are thinking about one XS per classroom. In that setting, seems to me that XO1.75 (even with only 512MB memory) would be more than adequate. George On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 10:55 PM, John Watlington w...@laptop.org wrote: Why not an XO-1.75 ? On Apr 10, 2012, at 8:04 PM, Martin Langhoff wrote: On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 2:03 AM, George Hunt georgejh...@gmail.com wrote: I left my fitpc2 and msi servers in the Philippines, hoping they would be pressed into service in a classroom situation. So now I'm in the market for another toy. If you have time towork with us through some hitches, I'd recommend an ARM server. At this stage I'd say one of the Marvell/Globalscale Plug servers (dreamplug for example), or a trimslice. Either option will need a combination of the OS on internal SD/eMMC and the storage on an ext HDD (via USB probably). cheers, m -- martin.langh...@gmail.com mar...@laptop.org -- Software Architect - OLPC - ask interesting questions - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff ___ 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] Looking for new low power server hardware candidate
G'day George, The trouble with a full mechanical engineering treatment of this is that there's no telling what size each of the parts will be. For something similar I used a kitchen vegetable rack. This is a plastic shelf, with feet, with a square grid pattern. It is often used for potatos and onions in food storage here, since these two vegetables are best stored without light. The grid pattern allows equipment to be anchored using cable ties. It also has good airflow. Equipment can be anchored above and below the floor of the rack. Cables can be threaded through widened holes. You may be able to simplify your design a bit: 1. move from a USB HDD to a fast high spec SD card, saves one port, enough saving to avoid the USB hub and DC/DC inverter, 2. locate a USB hub that takes a 12V input, 3. decide on only one Ethernet interface. A minor thing; I would not have the input USB cable beyond the baseboard. It may be hit. -- 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] Looking for new low power server hardware candidate
On 04/11/2012 04:52 PM, James Cameron wrote: G'day George, The trouble with a full mechanical engineering treatment of this is that there's no telling what size each of the parts will be. For something similar I used a kitchen vegetable rack. This is a plastic shelf, with feet, with a square grid pattern. It is often used for potatos and onions in food storage here, since these two vegetables are best stored without light. The grid pattern allows equipment to be anchored using cable ties. It also has good airflow. Equipment can be anchored above and below the floor of the rack. Cables can be threaded through widened holes. You may be able to simplify your design a bit: 1. move from a USB HDD to a fast high spec SD card, saves one port, enough saving to avoid the USB hub and DC/DC inverter, 2. locate a USB hub that takes a 12V input, 3. decide on only one Ethernet interface. A minor thing; I would not have the input USB cable beyond the baseboard. It may be hit. We have been using MSI Windbox DE-220 at Nepal and it is performing good at deployment sites. -- Abhishek Singh System Engineer Open Learning Exchange (OLE) Nepal साझा शिक्षा ई-पाटी http://www.olenepal.org Tel: +977-1-551 ext. 102 signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] Looking for new low power server hardware candidate
On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 10:55 PM, John Watlington w...@laptop.org wrote: Why not an XO-1.75 ? Good point. And XO + AP + HDD would work fantastic. George, how many users per server? If 100, an XO-1.75 will do ok. Want to sign up for the Contributors Programme (search in the wiki for the URL). XO-1.75, Plug or Trimslice will do fine with a recent Fedora for ARM (from the upcoming F17 series) -- we just need to recompile the XS specific packages. Most of them will just work. AFAIK, ejabberd and xs-config will need some work, and I can help you with those. cheers, m -- martin.langh...@gmail.com mar...@laptop.org -- Software Architect - OLPC - ask interesting questions - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] Looking for new low power server hardware candidate
On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 1:53 PM, Martin Langhoff martin.langh...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 10:55 PM, John Watlington w...@laptop.org wrote: Why not an XO-1.75 ? Good point. And XO + AP + HDD would work fantastic. George, how many users per server? If 100, an XO-1.75 will do ok. Want to sign up for the Contributors Programme (search in the wiki for the URL). XO-1.75, Plug or Trimslice will do fine with a recent Fedora for ARM (from the upcoming F17 series) -- we just need to recompile the XS specific packages. Most of them will just work. AFAIK, ejabberd and xs-config will need some work, and I can help you with those. It might be worthwhile seeing what we can get into mainline Fedora for the XS releases so that as the new RHEL releases come along it will just work as well as be usable on ARM platforms. Peter ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] Looking for new low power server hardware candidate
On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 5:29 AM, George Hunt georgejh...@gmail.com wrote: When I took the picture in the following url, I was focusing on what it would take to run off of 12V deep cycle battery: http://schoolserver.wordpress.com/xs-installation/xs-0-7-running-on-xo-1-5/ That's very cool! I'm concerned with packaging, and physical robustness in a real school setting. Maybe we could get someone with ME skills to dream up a cheap package for all the accessory items. I can't speak much about ME, but I can suggest looking at some TP-LINK and Sapido branded small APs that take USB power. You can have a USB-powered HDD as well, and you still have a free USB port on the XO. At the fall 2011 summit, there was a general call for a turnkey XS that just worked. If we could solve the form factor problem, the XO1.75 might be a good solution. I'm exploring that path with a variant of the Dreamplug, but that won't happen overnight. I think it was Sameer who was telling me that in Australia, they are thinking about one XS per classroom. In that setting, seems to me that XO1.75 (even with only 512MB memory) would be more than adequate. One XS per classroom is a _bad_ idea for other reasons. One AP per classroom is a good idea, OTOH, and an XO-1.75 can probably handle a mid-sized school OK. cheers, m -- martin.langh...@gmail.com mar...@laptop.org -- Software Architect - OLPC - ask interesting questions - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] Looking for new low power server hardware candidate
On Apr 10, 2012, at 5:04 PM, Martin Langhoff wrote: On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 2:03 AM, George Hunt georgejh...@gmail.com wrote: I left my fitpc2 and msi servers in the Philippines, hoping they would be pressed into service in a classroom situation. So now I'm in the market for another toy. If you have time towork with us through some hitches, I'd recommend an ARM server. At this stage I'd say one of the Marvell/Globalscale Plug servers (dreamplug for example), or a trimslice. Either option will need a combination of the OS on internal SD/eMMC and the storage on an ext HDD (via USB probably). The Kirkwood based systems such plug computers can boot both the kernel and OS from a hard drive. I have been talking with one of he Fedora ARM team about this and am going to send them an email about what is involved and some other things about the kirkwood based devices. cheers, m -- martin.langh...@gmail.com mar...@laptop.org -- Software Architect - OLPC - ask interesting questions - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff ___ 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] Looking for new low power server hardware candidate
On 11 April 2012 22:59, Martin Langhoff martin.langh...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 5:29 AM, George Hunt georgejh...@gmail.com wrote: I think it was Sameer who was telling me that in Australia, they are thinking about one XS per classroom. In that setting, seems to me that XO1.75 (even with only 512MB memory) would be more than adequate. It's just an idea for us. We haven't actioned anything. One XS per classroom is a _bad_ idea for other reasons. One AP per classroom is a good idea, OTOH, and an XO-1.75 can probably handle a mid-sized school OK. Why is it such a bad idea? The thought was to do away with registration, moodle and other unnecessary services and focus only on the XMPP server. Cheers, Sridhar ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] Looking for new low power server hardware candidate
On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 11:57 PM, Sridhar Dhanapalan srid...@laptop.org.au wrote: Why is it such a bad idea? The thought was to do away with registration, moodle and other unnecessary services and focus only on the XMPP server. You want to run a network of federated XMPP servers? It's madness. Rather, it's not madness, but until demonstrated/automated otherwise it's a high-maintenance-per-classroom setup. And the federated XMPP stuff isn't widely used == widely tested. We get obvious and clear bugs in parts of the XMPP implementation that are used (or should be used) _everywhere_. And this is on what is reportedly the best XMPP implementation available. My appetite for putting an exotic feature into use in the _middle_ of a deployment plan is... just not there. In any case, what's the upside of one-XS-per-classroom? Cost, administration, reliance on federated-XMPP all seem downsides/risks to me. cheers, m -- martin.langh...@gmail.com mar...@laptop.org -- Software Architect - OLPC - ask interesting questions - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] Looking for new low power server hardware candidate
On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 2:03 AM, George Hunt georgejh...@gmail.com wrote: I left my fitpc2 and msi servers in the Philippines, hoping they would be pressed into service in a classroom situation. So now I'm in the market for another toy. If you have time towork with us through some hitches, I'd recommend an ARM server. At this stage I'd say one of the Marvell/Globalscale Plug servers (dreamplug for example), or a trimslice. Either option will need a combination of the OS on internal SD/eMMC and the storage on an ext HDD (via USB probably). cheers, m -- martin.langh...@gmail.com mar...@laptop.org -- Software Architect - OLPC - ask interesting questions - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] Looking for new low power server hardware candidate
I'd love to be involved in getting an arm server going. I have a dreamplug. Which distro are you thinking would be a good base? What sort of hitches? If there's discussion in the archives, I'll do reading to get up to speed. I might help if I knew when or who. George On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 8:04 PM, Martin Langhoff martin.langh...@gmail.comwrote: On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 2:03 AM, George Hunt georgejh...@gmail.com wrote: I left my fitpc2 and msi servers in the Philippines, hoping they would be pressed into service in a classroom situation. So now I'm in the market for another toy. If you have time towork with us through some hitches, I'd recommend an ARM server. At this stage I'd say one of the Marvell/Globalscale Plug servers (dreamplug for example), or a trimslice. Either option will need a combination of the OS on internal SD/eMMC and the storage on an ext HDD (via USB probably). cheers, m -- martin.langh...@gmail.com mar...@laptop.org -- Software Architect - OLPC - ask interesting questions - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
Re: [Server-devel] Looking for new low power server hardware candidate
Why not an XO-1.75 ? On Apr 10, 2012, at 8:04 PM, Martin Langhoff wrote: On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 2:03 AM, George Hunt georgejh...@gmail.com wrote: I left my fitpc2 and msi servers in the Philippines, hoping they would be pressed into service in a classroom situation. So now I'm in the market for another toy. If you have time towork with us through some hitches, I'd recommend an ARM server. At this stage I'd say one of the Marvell/Globalscale Plug servers (dreamplug for example), or a trimslice. Either option will need a combination of the OS on internal SD/eMMC and the storage on an ext HDD (via USB probably). cheers, m -- martin.langh...@gmail.com mar...@laptop.org -- Software Architect - OLPC - ask interesting questions - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff ___ 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] Looking for new low power server hardware candidate
Hi everyone, I left my fitpc2 and msi servers in the Philippines, hoping they would be pressed into service in a classroom situation. So now I'm in the market for another toy. I remember Sameer saying somewhere in the email compost that he had found new interesting server hardware, but a google search of my email heap was not successful. Does anyone have proposals for hardware that fills the XS requirements on the low power end of the spectrum? I've blogged about my school server experiences at http://schoolserver.wordpress.com. George ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
