[Server-devel] XSCE Update
It has taken a while to recover from the Sprint in Winnipeg So this week's update is about the some of the independant projects and communities that become part of XSCE. -- Internet in a Box ( http://internet-in-a-box.org/ ) We have heard several references to IIAB in these updates. But what is IIAB? From the website The device includes Wikipedia in 40 languages, a library of 40,000 e-books, most of the world's open source software and source code, hundreds of hours of instructional videos, and world-wide mapping down to street level. Please see the video on the site for more information. The really clever part of IIAB is how they adapt major sites like openstreetmaps and wikipedia for offline rendering on a low power machine. -- Pathagar ( https://github.com/PathagarBooks/pathagar ) Pathagar is a simple book server which uses the open OPDS Catalog format. For this iteration, we are limiting Pathagar to use as a book server. With your help we can catalog and server other forms of digital media. Pathathgar is clever in that the catalog can be access via a web browser or custom activities like getbooks. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtRvMGEQrI0 ) -- Calibre ( http://calibre-ebook.com/ ) Calibre is a free and open source e-book library management application developed by users of e-books for users of e-books. Whenever teachers talk about elibraries, one of their first questions is how do we set up and curate our library? Calibre is a multiplatform tools which works nicely with OPDS. If you are a teacher looking to help, we could really use a written or video tutorial showing other teachers how to setup and manage their ebook library! -- VillageTelco ( http://villagetelco.org/ ) The Village Telco is an initiative to build low-cost community telephone network hardware and software that can be set up in minutes anywhere in the world. The crossover between a village telephone network and a school or village 'ISP' is surprisingly high. VillageTelco make school setup easier by reducing the need for a onsite network engineer to set up the wireless network. If you, or anyone you know, is involved in a project which might add value to XSCE please let us know so we can have make your work available to students and teachers around the world. Now for the Heartfelt thanks XSCE is a free software project which depends on project like those above who are willing to share their work with the world. Thanks to these project for their willingness to lead from the front. -- 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] XSCE Update day 3
Today, we are focusing on integration of Internet In a Box, the rpm's, and the 600GB of external hard drive data and hardened up objectives for the rest of the week. We discussed French/Creole/Spanish translation of IIAB GUI? Braddock will try to send the English phrases (several hundred) to Holt next week sometime, so http://translate.sugarlabs.org might even support wider translations. The data set Braddock sent to George last week is not a final release. Braddock will forward updates, or a new drive, by Aug 15 hard drive in NYC / Aug 25 hard deadline (flight!) for Haiti. Aug 5 XSCE 0.4 target: is http://schoolserver.org/0.4/Road_Map real? Today's discussion developed a more detailed punch list of features, responsibilities as we move forward to the feature freeze Aug 5: (following is cut and paste of meeting minutes) 1. Specific scope, testing, and documentation for 0.4. 1. Offline USB install -- Jerry: GO/NOGO 1. Next Steps: Working on finals script. 2. Documentation:. Not yet 3. Testing: ? 2. Install image -- Jerry: GO/NOGO -- promising -- it boots? 1. Document: Not yet 2. Testing: Not yet 3. External USB hard drives (currently have power issues) -- Not Assigned Yet: GO/NOGO verify on 13.2. This might be hard drive specific. Must recommend type of hard drive/frame or external drive. Testing may actually occur during testing of IIAB (item d.) 4. Internet in a Box -- George: GO/NOGO 1. Documentation: Not Yet 2. Testing: Not yet 5. Pathagar -- Lion: GO/NOGO 1. Documentation: Not Yet 2. Testing: Not yet 6. Ansible --Santi: GO/NOGO don’t comment out from set up until jerry is done with offline install? 7. WebDAV to submit work from the Journal -- Ajay: GO/NOGO design docs. use case? 8. Monit -- Santi: GO/NOGO 1. Documentation: Not Yet GO 2. Testing: Not yet 9. Dansguardian modularity (currently it's entwined with Squid ports) -- -- need to be able to disable dansguardian without disabling sqid. Santi: GO/NOGO 10. Performance Statistics Collection -- George/Anish: GO/NOGO 11. Activity Update (separate from the Activity Server) -- ???: GO/NOGO 1. 12. Content updater -- Jerry: GO/NOGO 13. Printing -- George: GO/NOGO 1. Include rpm but don’t enable. ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
[Server-devel] XSCE Update day 2
We are in the early afternoon of day two here in Gimli. We are still in a camper trailer with limited 3G access. George is suggesting that we turn of the power and try to survive on the trailer's 12 volt battery power The big new is that Aneesh Dogra will be picking up Pathagar ( http://www.olpcsf.org/node/126 ) and beating it into shape. Pathage is a simple book server which is a critical piece of the puzzle. The book server presents a four way question of which came first the chicken or the egg :( 1. Well curated book collections. Unless librarians and teacher know that real live students will be benefiting from their work, it is hard to engage them in curating digital libraries. 2. Working book collection software. Unless hackers know that real live students will be benefiting from their work, it is hard to engage them in writing the software. 3. Publishers support. Unless publishers know that real live students will be benefiting from their catalog, it is hard to engage them in sharing their catalog. 4. Impact on students. Without book collections, book server software, and publisher support, it is hard to have a significant impact. This presents an implement challenge. We can't just say, Step one done, let's move on to step two. Instead, we iterate back and forth. Adding one brick at a time to build up the four walls. The other technical advance is Jerry's progress on the off line installer. As we saw with David Leeming. Installing MUST just work. If someone wants to try XSCE and the install fails, it is going to be very hard to convince them to try again. Please see the Purchase Funnel at ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchase_funnel ) Finally, on the community side. We have 10+1 people from around the globe participating in the sprint to make this project a success. A couple of hours ago, during our daily call I thought I was going to lose my mind:) Each sprint the number of people and number of moving parts increases. It can be stressful to trust the culture that we have worked hard to nurture... rather than micromanage and piss everyone off:( -- 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] XSCE update
This has been another interesting week for the XSCE. Technically -- The biggest advancement as been translating XSCE to Ansible ( http://www.ansibleworks.com/ ) For the past couple of months, George, Jerry, and Tim have been busy modularizing the server into a series of services and plugins. This modularizing has set the stage for the translating XSCE to ansible. As a proof of concept Santi has translated about 25% of the current plugins. Outreach, User Requirements -- AC started a discussion on the value of OpenVPN, remote management, and the need for someone to provide an openVPN server as a service to the community. Several people, especially James, add valuable thoughts to the thread. -- thanks James. Sprint preparations -- The quarterly XSCE ( http://schoolserver.org/ ) sprint kicks off next week in Winnipeg, Canada. Please stay posted for: - Daily email updates on these lists. - Constant chatter on IRC #schoolserver channel. - A daily voice call via skype. Details to follow. - A wrapup unleashkids hangout. Details to follow. A good old fashioned bake off -- In other interesting news, I am hearing an increase in talk about OLPC-AU's One Network project. Maybe we can get some examples of XSCE, OLPC-XS 0.7, One Network, and Dextrose Server together in one place for a bake off :) On a serious note, this is awesome for XSCE. We can: 1. Work like hell to be the best foundation for these projects. The way the linux kernel has become the goto kernel for many downstreams. 2. Try to be fair and balanced so that downstreams collaborate on the common core while competing on value adds. The way android has become the platform of choice for many phone and tablet vendors. -- 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] XSCE Update
Sorry, the first try went to the wrong list :( Time for the second installment to the XSCE Update. - Deployments- 1. Bhagmalpur, India - http://bhagmalpur.wordpress.com/ . The update to XSCE is complete in Bhagmalpur. It will be interesting to see what Sameer concluded based on the statistics generation system. -- Thanks Sameer and Anish 2. Haiti - http://haitidreams.wordpress.com/ . Haiti was the first 'real world test' for XSCE started a couple of months ago. Many of the ideas for XSCE come from George's and Adam's experiences maintaining the deployment. -- Thanks George and Adam 3. OLPC Australia - https://www.laptop.org.au/ . Much of the planning for XSCE comes from the experience of Jerry, the lead developer of OLPC AU. Jerry lives in Canada while maintaining a 5000 unit deployment which is is the process of expanding to 50,000 XO4s. -- Thanks Jerry 4. Solomon Islands - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Solomon_Islands . Working with David has been a great help to the project. For the past couple of weeks, David has been asking a series of questions about testing and deploying XSCE in the Solomon Islands. Many of the questions involve working in a low bandwidth environment. We hope we learn from his questions and can create something which meets his needs. -- Thanks David 5. Dominican Republic - http://olpcdr.wordpress.com/ . Last week Ruben, from OLPC-A, joined the #schoolserver mailing list to ask some questions about deploying XSCE in the Dominican Republic. I hope this is a sign of growing cooperation between OLPC-A and XSCE. -- Thanks Ruben -Development - Santiago started using our new gIt workflow as documented at http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Holt/XS_Community_Edition/0.4/Hacking . We hope the recent modularization and the new workflow will make it easier for deployment to upstream their hard work with needing to understand the entire system. If you are interested in tracking progress please see https://sugardextrose.org/projects/xsce/repository . -- Thanks Santi, Tim, George - What does the SchoolServer Serve? :) - For a general overview of the School Server please see http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Holt/XS_Community_Edition . More specifically, a number of existing projects are working with XSCE to provide their content. XSCE's plug in design allow these projects to easily prepare their project for inclusion in XSCE 1. Internet in a Box - http://internet-in-a-box.org/ . It looks like IIAB will ship as an add on with 0.4 in Sept. -- Thanks Braddock 2. Pathagar. - https://github.com/PathagarBooks/pathagar . Pathagar is a simple book server for making custom libraries available to deployments. Pathagar is interesting because it allow curators to use widely available, cross platform tools such as http://calibre-ebook.com/ to maintain those libraries. -- Thanks Seth As always, please help us met your deployment or project's needs. -- David Farning Activity Central: http://www.activitycentral.com -- David Farning Activity Central: http://www.activitycentral.com ___ Server-devel mailing list Server-devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
