date:20090528

On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 02:07, Bastien bastiengue...@googlemail.com wrote:
 Tomeu Vizoso to...@sugarlabs.org writes:

 On Sun, May 24, 2009 at 13:31, Bastien bastiengue...@googlemail.com wrote:
 +1 on the overall.

 Building Sugar from source should be as easy as:

 ,
 | ~$ git://git.sugarlabs.org/sugar-core/mainline.git
 | ~$ ./configure
 | ~$ make
 | ~$ sudo make install
 `

 Well, that works for the sugar shell provided you have all the
 dependencies installed. The point of jhbuild is precisely to get you
 an environment where all the dependencies of the software you are
 interested in are installed without breaking your regular desktop.

 Sorry to be dull here... IIUC, what you describe is the main difference
 between jhbuild and, say, apt-get install sugar on Ubuntu: in the later
 case, dependancies are taken care of by the .deb package whereas in the
 jhbuild case they are all integrated in the jhbuild source?  Does that
 make sense?

Agreed, jhbuild is necessary because we cannot expect all the
dependencies are installed in the distro. It would be great if we
could depend on stuff already in distros that are 1 year old, but we
are currently seeing how the rest of the Linux desktop world are
converging more towards our needs, so there's quite a bit of benefit
by staying at the bleeding edge.

Regards,

Tomeu

 Please note that we don't need to use sudo as all dependencies are
 installed in a user-writable directory.

 Ok.  Thanks for the explanations.

 --
  Bastien

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Progress with SoaS boot-helper

On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 16:49, Luke Faraone l...@faraone.cc wrote:
 Hi all,

 This is turning into a larger project than I'd originally imagined.

 Since the current process of using LVM loop-mounted partitions prevents us
 from mounting the SoaS filesystem outside of SoaS itself, we had to come up
 with a new method of installing SoaS that *can* be read by a running OS.
 I've done some work on modifying Canonical's Live USB creator to support
 this, but it will take some time.

Hi Luke, can you point us to a link where we can learn more about what
you are trying to accomplish?

Thanks,

Tomeu

 We've decided to set up the partitions on devices as descried on the wiki
 (permalink). This has the additional benefit of additional stability
 (loop-mounted filesystems are inherently more fragile), as well as
 (hopefully) increased compatability with older and odder BIOSes that only
 support USB-ZIP booting, rather than the more modern USB-HDD.

 There should be a decently stable version of the USB creator with these
 changes around by mid to late June, however it might need to be pushed back
 until the next SoaS release.

 There is little to no risk with implementing it late in the SoaS release
 schedule, if it was to be ready before then, since it is currently a
 non-essential component; there exist many other ways to create a SoaS stick,
 and the creator would be able to work with existing SoaS images without a
 problem.

 --
 Luke Faraone
 http://luke.faraone.cc

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Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] journal criticism

2009-05-28 Thread Albert Cahalan

James Zaki writes:

 Understanding hierarchical file structures use the concepts of containers
 and recursion with no limits (except for total capacity). It is not
 naturally intuitive, like a tree where branches get smaller from the trunk
 with fruit/leaves only at the end nodes.

 Empirically I've seen many new people approach computers (non-tech
 elder-relatives included), and hierarchical structures are not initially
 utilised. It was a secondary focus that had to be learnt out of necessity.

Perhaps the concept is easier to learn as a child. If you've gone
many decades without it (non-tech elder relatives) and gotten set
in your ways, you may be at a disadvantage.

Let's not leave the next generation at a disadvantage too.

 Perhaps an activity/game could be made that teaches the concepts
 of a hierarchical file structure.

That won't get enough use. Learning to deal with the general features
of modern computing is much of the reason why the XO even exists, yet
the children are denied the opportunity to learn about directories.
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Re: [Sugar-devel] Documentation [WAS: Re: [Localization] Help activity]

On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 21:47, Sayamindu Dasgupta sayami...@gmail.com wrote:
 [Jumping into the discussion midway]:

 From an l10n point of view, I would highly recommend adopting (and
 perhaps extending) the GNOME documentation framework. It is docbook
 based, which is a format pretty easy to pick up (and I believe
 OpenOffice.org can also export to docbook - though I have never tried
 it out).

Well, I think it was a decision by the people who wrote the manual to
use floss manuals, I guess it would be up to them which tool they use.
And in the same way, translators would choose the tools that best suit
them. I think that floss manuals has already tools for translation and
also think that people have worked on a translation to spanish, Maybe
we should ask to those people which was their experience with the
floss manuals tool set?

Regards,

Tomeu

 Many programmers and documentation people should This would
 easily let us

 a) generate PO files out of the documentation files
 b) merge back translations easily
 c) generate multiple format files (PDF, epub, rtf, etc)

 It would be even more incredible if our documentation system can be
 integrated with the work being done at http://tutorius.org/ :-)

 A random google search brought up the story of a project which had
 used twiki initially, and then had moved on to docbook:
 http://www.ipcop.org/1.2.0/en/authors_guide/html/what-is-docbook.html

 Also, converting existing material might not be _that_ difficult: see
 http://deplate.sourceforge.net/


 Thanks,
 Sayamindu


 On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 2:29 PM, Tomeu Vizoso to...@sugarlabs.org wrote:
 [forwarding to sugar-de...@lists.sugarlabs.org]

 2009/5/14 Diogo Serra @ IPLEIRIA diogo.se...@ipleiria.pt:
 Hy there,

 Where i can find the *.po  of Help activity ?

 Thanks
 --
 Diogo Serra
 Programação e Desenvolvimento

 Campus 5 - Rua das Olhalvas
 2414 - 016 Leiria - PORTUGAL
 Tel.: (+351) 244 845 052 | Fax: (+351) 244 845 059
  | diogo.se...@ipleiria.pt | http://ued.ipleiria.pt



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 --
 Sayamindu Dasgupta
 [http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ramblings]

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Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Journal criticism

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On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 04:58:17AM -0400, Albert Cahalan wrote:
Tomeu Vizoso writes:
 I think it's very important if we want to keep pushing Sugar that we 
 distinguish between design decisions and bugs and unimplemented 
 features. If we bring down good design ideas not by themselves but 
 because of its implementation status, we risk ending up with nothing 
 that brings new value compared to existing desktops.

You say that like it would be a bad thing. The existing desktops
are at least time-tested. Learning to deal with the common features
of modern desktop systems is very valuable for children.

I flat out disagree that Sugar should be a learning experience towards 
using alternative user interfaces.

In that mindset we should mimic Word, Excel and the Windows desktop, not 
for the quality of their interface designs, but simply because they are 
expremely popular so getting acquainted to them is very valuable for 
children.


Kind regards,

  - Jonas

- -- 
* Jonas Smedegaard - idealist og Internet-arkitekt
* Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

  [x] quote me freely  [ ] ask before reusing  [ ] keep private
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Re: [Sugar-devel] Kartik - internship outside GSoC

On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 14:18, kartik rustagi kashes...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hello everyone,
 Sorry for replying after this long a duration. Exams followed by physical
 damage to my machine consumed a lot of time.
 I will like to start my internship under Sugarlabs ASAP. Can any one please
 provide me a link to all the ideas that were discussed at the recent Sugar
 meetup (in Paris I guess) and the results of those discussions if possible.
 I will have a look at those ideas and will like to finalize the one I will
 be working on as soon as possible (in a day or two maximum). The idea
 regarding sharing of activities is also in the loop.

Hi, Kartik,

see http://erikos.sweettimez.de/?p=678

We are still discussing all this and trying to put names to each task,
but those are some ideas of what we would like to work on during this
release.

I would like to propose you one task that will bring enormous value
and that I think could fit well with your previous experience:

quote
Groups

* tagging buddies to build up relations, tagging can happen by a
teacher tagging a class or the learner can tag himself
/quote

We have a problem with schools that have thousands of children logged
in their jabber server, as we have very limited functionality for
searching and browsing contacts. This impacts the usability of
collaboration in the classroom.

I think that the presence service is already sending a tags property
along the rest of the presence information. I think that we should
have a way for a person to set its own tags, and also for adding tags
to its contacts.

Does this feature interest you?

Regards,

Tomeu

 Thank You



 On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 12:20 AM, David Farning dfarn...@sugarlabs.org
 wrote:

 Kartik,
 That all looks pretty straightforward.  When you get the project
 worked out Jameson can sign as training officer.  It looks like the
 third page should be sent by Jameson directly to your school.

 thanks
 david

 On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 11:25 AM, kartik rustagi kashes...@gmail.com
 wrote:
  Please find the scanned structure of the documents which are required as
  a
  proof of Internship at my school. It will be best if the documents are
  mailed directly to me since that will be the most reliable.
 
  On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 4:50 AM, kartik rustagi kashes...@gmail.com
  wrote:
 
 
 
  My own, completely personal opinion on dissimilar activity
  collaboration
  is that it is a solution searching for a problem. I understand that
  there
  are real use cases, but I haven't seen one that's nearly as compelling
  as
  the viral-activity idea (idea 2 of the ones I sent). This is just me
  commenting, I hope that others with opposing viewpoints will also
  comment.
 
  If that is indeed the case then I will go with viral-activity idea. Any
  idea who put up the dissimilar activity collaboration idea on the idea
  list.
  Maybe he/she might have a different outlook towards it. Suggestions on
  this
  are requested :)
 
 
  As to Groupthink, I think that it would be ill-advised to try to force
  you and Bemasc to work together without a very clear delineation of
  responsibility which minimizes dependencies. I also think it would be
  very
  hard to draw such a line, though you're welcome to prove me wrong on
  this
  latter point.
 
  I completely agree with you. The reason why I mentioned Groupthink was
  because I seriously appreciated it and wanted to do something like this
  for
  Sugar (according to my capabilities).
  Few more suggestions on the project idea and then I will start making
  the
  proposal.
 
 
  On Sun, Apr 26, 2009 at 8:34 PM, Jameson Quinn
  jameson.qu...@gmail.com
  wrote:
   I hope we can do this for you, and would be really happy if it
   comes
   through. However, as much as it pains me, I think you will have to
   go
   through some of the application process over again. We don't need
   to
   interview you again, once is plenty and you did well. But we do
   need a
   specific proposal, with clear deliverables - which could easily
   take a
   week
   or more for you to create - and then at least a few days for us to
   evaluate
   the merits of such a proposal and our ability to support it.
   Otherwise, how
   can we meaningfully evaluate whether you've completed your
   internship?
  
   I suspect that we'd be ready to accommodate whatever reasonable
   calendar you
   set up for those steps.
  
   Jameson
  
   2009/4/26 kartik rustagi kashes...@gmail.com
  
   Hi David,
   I talked to few of my seniors and the Training and Placement Cell
   at
   my school and they told me that the only official letter I will be
   needing are:
   1) 'Joining Letter' which will state the date I will be starting
   my
   internship and my supervisor (mentor) at the organization. This
   letter
   should preferably on the letter head of the organization or should
   have some other kind of authentication.
   2)  And at the end of training I will need a completion
   certificate.
  
   I will

Re: [Sugar-devel] Open Video with Dailymotion

On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 00:15, Benjamin M. Schwartz
bmsch...@fas.harvard.edu wrote:
 Dailymotion, after creating an Ogg Theora video site optimized for
 Sugar+XO at http://olpc.dailymotion.com/, have gone one step further to
 expand Ogg Theora support across their entire video sharing system.  You
 can try it out at http://openvideo.dailymotion.com/

 Dailymotion OpenVideo uses the video tag, which requires Firefox 3.5 or
 similarly recent webkit-based browsers, and it won't work without it.
 What is the status of video in Browse?  If we can get video support,
 then we will have a complete video sharing service at our disposal,
 working out-of-the-box.

Possible integration issues aside, it depends on the xulrunner version
in the underlying distro. Does Sugar ship in any distro which already
has firefox 3.5?

Regards,

Tomeu

 --Ben


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Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] journal criticism

2009-05-28 Thread James Zaki

Not sure where my complete email went... something to do with awaiting
approval I think.
But just for clarity to all, I said the arrowed  text.



2009/5/28 Albert Cahalan acaha...@gmail.com

 James Zaki writes:

  Understanding hierarchical file structures use the concepts of containers
  and recursion with no limits (except for total capacity). It is not
  naturally intuitive, like a tree where branches get smaller from the
 trunk
  with fruit/leaves only at the end nodes.
 
  Empirically I've seen many new people approach computers (non-tech
  elder-relatives included), and hierarchical structures are not initially
  utilised. It was a secondary focus that had to be learnt out of
 necessity.

 Perhaps the concept is easier to learn as a child. If you've gone
 many decades without it (non-tech elder relatives) and gotten set
 in your ways, you may be at a disadvantage.

 Let's not leave the next generation at a disadvantage too.

  Perhaps an activity/game could be made that teaches the concepts
  of a hierarchical file structure.

 That won't get enough use. Learning to deal with the general features
 of modern computing is much of the reason why the XO even exists, yet
 the children are denied the opportunity to learn about directories.

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Gears in Browse

2009/5/28 Lucian Branescu lucian.brane...@gmail.com:
 For both Webified and Karma, Gears support in Browse is necessary (or
 at least preferred), but AFAIK there is currently no strategy to get
 it running.

I have managed to get it running in Browse some months ago by
expanding the .xpi and installing the files in a couple of different
directories. I could help you find which are those dirs.

 Since Browse uses xulrunner, it should be possible to use the Firefox
 version of Gears, with possible modifications. However, I could not
 find any documentation about XUL/Firefox extensions running on Browse.

Not all extensions can run in Browse, as some will use stuff only
present in firefox, thunderbird, etc. But Google Gears only depends on
stuff in xulrunner so it works fine once it's properly installed.

 On a related note, Sebastian Dzillas has done some work on packaging
 Gears in a .rpm for Firefox. The work is not complete, as the
 extension tries to write in places owned by root, instead of the local
 user profile. My project would probably need to be able to
 move/edit/delete the Gears profile for Journal integration (search
 your .mozilla default profile for the folder 'Google Gears for
 Firefox' after installing Gears in Firefox).

You mean that GG tries to write in /usr if it has been installed in
/usr? That sounds wrong and may be configurable or fixable.

Regards,

Tomeu

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Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] classroom presenter, iTalc for sugar (possible ports for LinuxTag Berlin showoff)

On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 08:17, David Van Assche dvanass...@gmail.com wrote:
 Hi,
    At LinuxTag Berlin, there are 3 areas that are of particular interest to
 me, and might be considered novelties in the way sugar can/will be presented
 there. From one side, I will be representing sugar packaging on the openSUSE
 platform, and being part of the opensuse-edu team, we will show off not only
 the live suse sugar cd/usb stick, but also the tight integration (including
 desktop launch icon) of sugar within the openSUSE 11.1 educational spin.
 Since kiwi-ltsp (A mature variant of LTSP 5) is quite integrated in the
 educational desktop, as is ejabberd, we will show off LTSP sugarised, with
 the approximately 50 sugar activities that have been packaged for openSUSE.
 Within the LTSP framework, we often use an application called iTalc, which
 allows for the remote administration (vnc on steroids) of desktop sessions,
 locking of sessions, passing around of sessions (for the classroom
 environment) as well as, intra station messaging (in case a particular
 station needs administrative help/training/support.) Right now, it runs
 great on the administrator machine, which doesn't need to and won't run
 Sugar. Basically from this view one can see screenshots of each desktop and
 by clicking on the desktop in question, one takes over or shares that
 session with that particular sugar user. There is more explanation and
 screenshots here: http://italc.sourceforge.net/
 On the client side, it would be nice for someone to study how hard it would
 be to port to sugar. Its not massively important since it runs from gnome,
 but for scenarios where sugar is the only Desktop Environment, it would be
 nice to have this kind of controlling mechanism for the teacher/admin. For
 example, the teacher could collaboratively work on one session connected to
 a projector, and pass that session on friom student to student, with each of
 them carrying out some task. I have seen it used this way under Gnome with
 great success, and as Sugar is collaborative by nature, it seems like a
 perfect fit. So any sugar porting takers?

 On another note, I have successfully tested the home made whiteboard option
 using a wiimote and infra red pens. This approach allows for the building of
 an interactive whiteboard for under 50 euros. Unfortunately, the best
 software to use for something like this is classroom presenter, originally
 windows software allowing one to open a powerpoint/impress presenation and
 then draw upon that using the infra red pen. Classroom presenter was ported
 to sugar at one point. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Classroom_Presenter , but
 I'm not sure about its current status, only that it doesn't currently work.
 Again, it would be nice to fix this activity so we can show it off at
 LinuxTag and show people how to create a cheap sugarised interactive
 whiteboard for under 50 euros. If someone is interested in getting this
 activity working again for Sugar, that would be great.

Maybe the activity team needs to adopt Classroom presenter? Or we
could reactivate its original developers?

Regards,

Tomeu

 kind Regards,
 David (nubae) Van Assche
 www.nubae.com

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Fwd: journal criticism (was Re: Re: Re: [IAEP] [RELEASE] TurtleArt-51)

On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 10:41, James Zaki james.z...@gmail.com wrote:
 I did not know there was much debate about this, because for me the journal
 in its current state made sense for the target audience of sugar.

 Understanding hierarchical file structures use the concepts of containers
 and recursion with no limits (except for total capacity). It is not
 naturally intuitive, like a tree where branches get smaller from the trunk
 with fruit/leaves only at the end nodes.

I guess there are some concepts that may take some time to grasp, but
what I'm most concerned is not about not being able to understand
those, rather that for someone who is putting all her energy on music
creation or geometry exploring, having to set aside some of her mind
into keeping track of where the files are put may not be so great.
Even more when computers can help a lot with information finding and
retrieval.

I like to think that Sugar is not striving towards simplicity but
rather to remove as many obstacles as possible in the path to
learning. Data handling is an area where current computers are failing
people and where we can do much better.

Regards,

Tomeu

 Empirically I've seen many new people approach computers (non-tech
 elder-relatives included), and hierarchical structures are not initially
 utilised. It was a secondary focus that had to be learnt out of necessity.
 At the time I would say this was due to a lack filters at their disposal.

 Tools such as GoogleDesktop or, more evidently, OS X  Spotlight are
 conceptually more approachable to a beginner/non-tech person, and further
 defers the need to learn about their tool rather than just using it
 effectively immediately.

 Perhaps an activity/game could be made that teaches the concepts of a
 hierarchical file structure. It could demonstrate inifite recursion with
 inifinite capacity at each node, but reward good storage somehow. Once
 they complete the game to a certain level, then they can unlock heirarchical
 file structures in journal?  But I think there is enough on everyone plates
 for now before this gets considered.

 Cheers,
 James



 2009/5/27 Tomeu Vizoso to...@sugarlabs.org

 [forgot to add IAEP and sugar-devel]

 -- Forwarded message --
 From: Tomeu Vizoso to...@sugarlabs.org
 Date: Wed, May 27, 2009 at 12:11
 Subject: journal criticism (was Re: Re: Re: [IAEP] [RELEASE] TurtleArt-51)
 To: fors...@ozonline.com.au
 Cc: Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.com


 Hi all,

 see my replies inline below. To everybody who would like to join this
 conversation: please change the subject line accordingly or this
 thread will become hard to follow.

 On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 04:54,  fors...@ozonline.com.au wrote:
  Hi Tomeu  Walter
 
  I am happy to expand this to the list. I have raised the journal once or
  twice before but mainly kept quiet not wanting to be trollish.
 
  http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2008-August/001475.html
   more but i cant easily find
 
 
  The journal and sharing are probably the two central things that
  distinguish sugar as as a purpose built learning platform. The team have a
  huge investment of time and energy and are rightly proud of their
  achievement. That presents a problem for constructive discussion around the
  journal, the last thing I want to do is be trollish and destructive.
 
  For me, the workings behind the journal are hidden and there is a lack
  of tools to make it do different things when the default operation is not
  what you want. Also temporal and tagging is fine as a primary method of
  storage but hierarchical storage is not offered as an alternate method.
 
  in addition to today's filename issue, other problems that I can
  remember:
  altering the filenames and extensions of email attachments

 Could you please expand on this use case?

  offline web pages do not navigate because the directory structure is
  lost

 This is scheduled to be addressed in 0.86 by downloading the page as a
 zip file and storing that in the journal.

  can't inspect or alter mime to force something to open

 This could be fixed in the journal easily, with no need to refactor or
 throw out anything. We need more people to help us with developing
 Sugar further.

  journal spam

 In 0.84 landed several modifications that should improve this somehow,
 have you seen if that helped?

  (I haven't found a way to select a block so every spam item has to be
  individually deleted

 Would be awesome to be able to operate on multiple items at once, but
 unfortunately it hasn't been implemented yet.

  resume by default will probably cause students to lose work)

 Versioning in the journal is scheduled for 0.86, which should address this
 one.

  accidental overwriting of files through autosave

 Same as in the previous one, if I understand it correctly.

  Thanks for the feedback.
 
  Adding Tomeu, but we should probably expand the discussion to the list.
 
  I cannot argue with you that the fact that the Journal

Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Journal criticism

On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 12:07, Albert Cahalan acaha...@gmail.com wrote:
 2009/5/28 NoiseEHC noise...@freemail.hu:

 I think it's very important if we want to keep pushing Sugar that we
 distinguish between design decisions and bugs and unimplemented
 features. If we bring down good design ideas not by themselves but
 because of its implementation status, we risk ending up with nothing
 that brings new value compared to existing desktops.


 You say that like it would be a bad thing. The existing desktops
 are at least time-tested. Learning to deal with the common features
 of modern desktop systems is very valuable for children.


 This relies on the assumption that 8 years from now when children grow up we
 will still use directories. I do not dare to predict the future so I will
 leave it to you... :)

 In graphical environments alone, directories are over 25 years old.
 Since 8 is less than a third of that, there is only one safe bet.

 It'd be way more than 25 years, except that we didn't even have
 graphical environments much beyond that. Directories go back
 about 40 years. 8 years is just another 20%.

 This isn't the Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 feature set.
 This is a concept that is pretty fundamental in computing.
 It crosses platforms, it's in our network protocols, and it's even
 required for all the programming languages that implement Sugar.

 The following things unfortunately cannot be done with a flat filesystem
 view:
 1. Revision based view.
 2. Tagging.

 First, I think you didn't mean flat. That's the Journal.
 Second, both flat and tree systems can handle that.

 It is a totally different problem that the current Journal barely implements
 those things but dropping it in favor of time-tested solutions is a
 mistake IMHO. (Note that no filesystem solves those problems I have
 mentioned.)

 No filesystem should! It looks like GNOME 3.0 will get you those
 features on top of a plain old UNIX-style filesystem tree though,
 without making the filesystem incompatible with both software
 and humans.

As I said earlier, I would like to see hierarchical views of
filesystems in Sugar. They are waiting for someone to implement them.

I think we are beating a dead horse here.

http://coreygilmore.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/beating_a_dead_horse.jpg

Regards,

Tomeu
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Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] journal criticism

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On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 12:29:23PM +0200, James Zaki wrote:
Not sure where my complete email went... something to do with awaiting
approval I think.

[actual content snipped]

Please subscribe to the lists that you post to, to bypass our spam 
screening process which causes delays and risk of lost emails.


Kind regards,

Jonas (one of only two list moderators - more volunteers appreciated!)

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Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Journal criticism

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On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 06:18:35AM -0400, Albert Cahalan wrote:
On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 5:49 AM, Jonas Smedegaard d...@jones.dk wrote:
 On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 04:58:17AM -0400, Albert Cahalan wrote:
Tomeu Vizoso writes:

 I think it's very important if we want to keep pushing Sugar that 
 we distinguish between design decisions and bugs and unimplemented 
 features. If we bring down good design ideas not by themselves but 
 because of its implementation status, we risk ending up with 
 nothing that brings new value compared to existing desktops.

You say that like it would be a bad thing. The existing desktops are 
at least time-tested. Learning to deal with the common features of 
modern desktop systems is very valuable for children.

 I flat out disagree that Sugar should be a learning experience 
 towards using alternative user interfaces.

 In that mindset we should mimic Word, Excel and the Windows desktop, 
 not for the quality of their interface designs, but simply because 
 they are expremely popular so getting acquainted to them is very 
 valuable for children.

To the extent that there are common features that are highly
unlikely to change across versions or even OSes, definitely.

MacOS System 6, MacOS X, OS/2 Warp, and Windows Vista
have certain basic features in common. It's a safe bet to say that
most of these features will remain in the computers of 2017.

Actually, I am not so sure about that: I suspect user interfaces (as 
well as many other features of our society) do not evolve linear, but 
more and more rapidly transform.

So I am willing to challenge you in that bet. :-D

I suggest, for simplicity sake in our later judgement, that we limit the 
bet to do all popular computer desktop environments still use (and 
directly expose to the edn user) a hierarchical file system in 2017, as 
they did in 2009?

And I propose a symbolic item from looser to winner, with a fun 
punishment twist added: One bottle of bewerage of the winner's choosing, 
delivered personally at the winner's door step.

How does that sound?


Kind regards,

  - Jonas

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Re: [Sugar-devel] classroom presenter, iTalc for sugar (possible ports for LinuxTag Berlin showoff)

2009-05-28 Thread James Zaki

I am very interested in the digital whiteboard at LinuxTag. I will be going,
and would love to be a part of it if you need some help.

Once I get my system(s) back up (tagging fedora bugs along the way). I will
try take a look into the Classroom presenter activity.


2009/5/28 David Van Assche dvanass...@gmail.com

 Hi,
At LinuxTag Berlin, there are 3 areas that are of particular interest to
 me, and might be considered novelties in the way sugar can/will be presented
 there. From one side, I will be representing sugar packaging on the openSUSE
 platform, and being part of the opensuse-edu team, we will show off not only
 the live suse sugar cd/usb stick, but also the tight integration (including
 desktop launch icon) of sugar within the openSUSE 11.1 educational spin.
 Since kiwi-ltsp (A mature variant of LTSP 5) is quite integrated in the
 educational desktop, as is ejabberd, we will show off LTSP sugarised, with
 the approximately 50 sugar activities that have been packaged for openSUSE.
 Within the LTSP framework, we often use an application called iTalc, which
 allows for the remote administration (vnc on steroids) of desktop sessions,
 locking of sessions, passing around of sessions (for the classroom
 environment) as well as, intra station messaging (in case a particular
 station needs administrative help/training/support.) Right now, it runs
 great on the administrator machine, which doesn't need to and won't run
 Sugar. Basically from this view one can see screenshots of each desktop and
 by clicking on the desktop in question, one takes over or shares that
 session with that particular sugar user. There is more explanation and
 screenshots here: http://italc.sourceforge.net/
 On the client side, it would be nice for someone to study how hard it would
 be to port to sugar. Its not massively important since it runs from gnome,
 but for scenarios where sugar is the only Desktop Environment, it would be
 nice to have this kind of controlling mechanism for the teacher/admin. For
 example, the teacher could collaboratively work on one session connected to
 a projector, and pass that session on friom student to student, with each of
 them carrying out some task. I have seen it used this way under Gnome with
 great success, and as Sugar is collaborative by nature, it seems like a
 perfect fit. So any sugar porting takers?

 On another note, I have successfully tested the home made whiteboard option
 using a wiimote and infra red pens. This approach allows for the building of
 an interactive whiteboard for under 50 euros. Unfortunately, the best
 software to use for something like this is classroom presenter, originally
 windows software allowing one to open a powerpoint/impress presenation and
 then draw upon that using the infra red pen. Classroom presenter was ported
 to sugar at one point. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Classroom_Presenter , but
 I'm not sure about its current status, only that it doesn't currently work.
 Again, it would be nice to fix this activity so we can show it off at
 LinuxTag and show people how to create a cheap sugarised interactive
 whiteboard for under 50 euros. If someone is interested in getting this
 activity working again for Sugar, that would be great.

 kind Regards,
 David (nubae) Van Assche
 www.nubae.com

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Re: [Sugar-devel] LinuxDay Conference?

On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 13:32, Bastien bastiengue...@googlemail.com wrote:
 http://2009.linuxdays.ch/fr/content/programme

 Clearly business-oriented, but they have a thematic on Education
 where Sugar could sneak in.

 PS: Btw, I have the feeling this list is not the right place for such
 announcements.  Do we have something like a marketing list?  Or shall I
 sent this to Sean so that he filters/dispatch the info more accurately
 than I would do?

You have the right feeling ;)

General: http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Marketing: http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/marketing

Regards,

Tomeu

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Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] journal criticism

2009-05-28 Thread Eben Eliason

On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 5:34 AM, Albert Cahalan acaha...@gmail.com wrote:
 James Zaki writes:

 Understanding hierarchical file structures use the concepts of containers
 and recursion with no limits (except for total capacity). It is not
 naturally intuitive, like a tree where branches get smaller from the trunk
 with fruit/leaves only at the end nodes.

 Empirically I've seen many new people approach computers (non-tech
 elder-relatives included), and hierarchical structures are not initially
 utilised. It was a secondary focus that had to be learnt out of necessity.

 Perhaps the concept is easier to learn as a child. If you've gone
 many decades without it (non-tech elder relatives) and gotten set
 in your ways, you may be at a disadvantage.

 Let's not leave the next generation at a disadvantage too.

 Perhaps an activity/game could be made that teaches the concepts
 of a hierarchical file structure.

 That won't get enough use. Learning to deal with the general features
 of modern computing is much of the reason why the XO even exists, yet

I'm pretty sure most of us agree, and that you already know, that this
is precisely not the case. Sugar was not designed so kids could learn
to use computers. It was designed so kids could learn. Learning about
computers is certainly a subset of that goal, but by no means the
primary one as you suggest.

/me notes the name of the list...

 the children are denied the opportunity to learn about directories.

An activity which presents these topics would provide such an
opportunity for those kids inclined to explore it, would it not? It
seems that you are confusing opportunity with obligation.

Incidentally, I would actually like to see some changes come about to
the underlying data structures of the Journal so that it isn't so
completely alienated from the filesystem itself. I think many others
would too, but I don't think that forcing that on kids is particularly
useful. Still, making underlying changes to provide the opportunity
for kids to dig in deeper — via an activity, or via the command line —
is a worthy goal.

Eben


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[Sugar-devel] Fwd: [IAEP] Testing Soas

2009-05-28 Thread Frederick Grose

Hi Tom,
Your work on the VMware page,  http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/VMware, has been
helpful.  Others may want to collaborate with you there.

Please also look at http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/BugSquad and its subpages.
 You could help in verifying and sorting out problems reported in our bug
tracking system.

Thanks for your contributions!   --Fred


Forwarded conversation
Subject: [IAEP] Testing Soas


From: *Thomas C Gilliard* satel...@bendbroadband.com
Date: Tue, May 26, 2009 at 12:26 PM
To: feedb...@sugarlabs.org


I have been trying to help test with the resources and skills that I have.

I am using VMWorkstation 6.5.2 for testing snapshots
burning CD's and attempting Boots with them
I have available to my use:

3 Dell Computers:
520n = Ubuntu 9.04
530n = Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (VMworkstation)
Dimension 2350 XPPro SP2  (VMworkstation)
hp e-pc 1200 (with USB 1.0 only) Fedora 11 (leonidas) from upgraded
Preview net  install
Netbook:
EePC900 first linux edition
HP Laptop: Multimedia x1000 =Vista
Last version of Apple Powerbook G4

I have been helping nubae testing his sugarSUSE builds
I have been working on an alternate boot able
1 or 2 USB stick VMPlayer solution to archive
Persistent SUGAR entities.
(VMWARE on wiki)

I am retired and want to help;
Please point me in other ways that I can help.

Tom Gilliard
satellit
Bend, OR
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From: *Walter Bender* walter.ben...@gmail.com
Date: Tue, May 26, 2009 at 12:37 PM
To: Thomas C Gilliard satel...@bendbroadband.com
Cc: feedb...@sugarlabs.org


This is all very valuable help. Thank you.
Can you tell me a bit more about your background and interests? There
are many different ways to get involved--getting deeper into testing
being one obvious one. But outreach, curriculum development,
documentation, support, etc. are all in need of more hands as well.

(I presume you've visited the
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs/Getting_Involved page in the
wiki?)
Thanks for all the help to date. Look forward to hearing from you.

regards.

-walter

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http://www.sugarlabs.org
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[Sugar-devel] Fwd: [IAEP] IRC application Autojoin feature does not work on Soas2-20090524 (Soas-1)

2009-05-28 Thread Frederick Grose

Forwarding to sugar-devel.
NOTE:  Mail sent to feedb...@sugarlabs.org is forwarded to
i...@lists.sugarlabs.org subscribers and appears with the [IAEP] prefix and
footer, but the post is not in the IAEP Archives,
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/.


Forwarded conversation
Subject: [IAEP] IRC application Autojoin feature does not work on
Soas2-20090524 (Soas-1)


From: *Thomas C Gilliard* satel...@bendbroadband.com
Date: Tue, May 26, 2009 at 3:24 PM
To: feedb...@sugarlabs.org


Where do I set the autojoin features of the latest Soas -1 iso burned to
a CD

I check the box on the tab for #opensuse-edu and it does not re-connect
when I turn it back on.


Is there an overiding config file? Or is this a bug?

Tom Gilliard
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From: *Caroline Meeks* solutiongr...@gmail.com
Date: Tue, May 26, 2009 at 3:41 PM
To: Thomas C Gilliard satel...@bendbroadband.com
Cc: feedb...@sugarlabs.org


Are you running from a CD or a USB?  I think the CD can not record any
changes so it can't remember anything.
-- 
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Solution Grove
carol...@solutiongrove.com

617-500-3488 - Office
505-213-3268 - Fax

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Re: [Sugar-devel] disabling tap to click

2009-05-28 Thread Daniel Drake

2009/5/28 roshan karki ros...@olenepal.org:
 The problem with gsynaptics is I don't have any section with synaptic as
 identifier in xorg.conf

Yes, the XO ships with the standard PS/2 driver, so the touchpad runs
in the PS/2 emulation mode. This works but means you don't have
control over the more advanced features of the new touchpad, such as
enabling/disabling tap-to-click. And as you have noted, the new
touchpad has tap-to-click enabled in the PS/2 emulation mode.

If you do want that extra control, you have to install and configure
the synaptics driver to suit your needs.
If my recollection is correct, OLPC did not do this for 8.2.1 as it
was decided that the change was too major for a bug-fix release, and
while the sudden change is a little undesirable, it was hoped that
kids being kids would adapt without problems.

Daniel
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[Sugar-devel] Fwd: [IAEP] IRC application Autojoin feature does not work on Soas2-20090524 (Soas-1)]

2009-05-28 Thread Frederick Grose

Forwarded conversation
Subject: Re: [IAEP] IRC application Autojoin feature does not work on
Soas2-20090524 (Soas-1)]

From: *Thomas C Gilliard* satel...@bendbroadband.com
Date: Tue, May 26, 2009 at 4:00 PM
To: feedb...@sugarlabs.org

Caroline;

I tried a burned CD of .iso.

There is no memory in computer for changes made while running?

SUGAR remembers  user name at sign on and changes of colors if not turned
off,
If do a reboot after change name or colors from controlpanel it goes to a
blue autologin screen
and comes back with the changes. Is this a feature of Control Panel and not
applications?
why not auto join in IRC?

Regards;
Tom Gilliard

Caroline Meeks wrote:
 Are you running from a CD or a USB?  I think the CD can not record any
 changes so it can't remember anything.

 On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 3:24 PM, Thomas C Gilliard 
 satel...@bendbroadband.com wrote:

   Where do I set the autojoin features of the latest Soas -1 iso burned
to a
 CD

 I check the box on the tab for #opensuse-edu and it does not re-connect
 when I turn it back on.

 Is there an overiding config file? Or is this a bug?

 Tom Gilliard

-- Forwarded message --
From: Caroline Meeks solutiongr...@gmail.com
To: Thomas C Gilliard satel...@bendbroadband.com
Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 15:41:08 -0400
Subject: Re: IRC application Autojoin feature does not work on
Soas2-20090524 (Soas-1)
Are you running from a CD or a USB?  I think the CD can not record any
changes so it can't remember anything.

On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 3:24 PM, Thomas C Gilliard 
satel...@bendbroadband.com wrote:

 Where do I set the autojoin features of the latest Soas -1 iso burned to a
 CD

 I check the box on the tab for #opensuse-edu and it does not re-connect
 when I turn it back on.

 Is there an overiding config file? Or is this a bug?

 Tom Gilliard

-- 
Caroline Meeks
Solution Grove
carol...@solutiongrove.com

617-500-3488 - Office
505-213-3268 - Fax

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From: *Caroline Meeks* solutiongr...@gmail.com
Date: Tue, May 26, 2009 at 4:11 PM
To: Thomas C Gilliard satel...@bendbroadband.com
Cc: feedb...@sugarlabs.org

Yeah you have a point, I'm not sure.  When I get a chance I'll try to test
on a USB.  Maybe ask in #Sugar?

-- 
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 505-213-3268 - Fax

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Gears in Browse

2009/5/28 Tomeu Vizoso to...@sugarlabs.org:
 2009/5/28 Lucian Branescu lucian.brane...@gmail.com:
 For both Webified and Karma, Gears support in Browse is necessary (or
 at least preferred), but AFAIK there is currently no strategy to get
 it running.

 I have managed to get it running in Browse some months ago by
 expanding the .xpi and installing the files in a couple of different
 directories. I could help you find which are those dirs.
I tried that, but it didn't work. I welcome help :)

 Since Browse uses xulrunner, it should be possible to use the Firefox
 version of Gears, with possible modifications. However, I could not
 find any documentation about XUL/Firefox extensions running on Browse.

 Not all extensions can run in Browse, as some will use stuff only
 present in firefox, thunderbird, etc. But Google Gears only depends on
 stuff in xulrunner so it works fine once it's properly installed.
I know not all extensions can run in Browse, but AFAIK Gears doesn't
target the firefox .xul. It's quite non-invasive in all browsers in
fact.

 On a related note, Sebastian Dzillas has done some work on packaging
 Gears in a .rpm for Firefox. The work is not complete, as the
 extension tries to write in places owned by root, instead of the local
 user profile. My project would probably need to be able to
 move/edit/delete the Gears profile for Journal integration (search
 your .mozilla default profile for the folder 'Google Gears for
 Firefox' after installing Gears in Firefox).

 You mean that GG tries to write in /usr if it has been installed in
 /usr? That sounds wrong and may be configurable or fixable.
I think /usr, I didn't check. I will today.

Yes, it certainly is fixable, but I'm not sure it is also
configurable. I'd hate to have to patch and compile Gears for the .rpm
I'll investigate some more

 Regards,

 Tomeu

Thanks!

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[Sugar-devel] How to get sugar config values without a console?

I'm working on olpc-update-query, a script that runs without a tty
(from NM hooks and cron) and needs to query Sugar configuration stuff.
To make things more complicated, it runs as root :-/

It's a good thing that we have sugar-control-panel, but at least on
0.82 it doesn't work unless you're in Terminal. Strangely enough, it
tries to load gtk.

Is there a better way to do what I am hoping to do, in a portable way
(that works on 0.82, 0.84, 0.86)? Or should I fall back on yaml
linbraries for 0.82 and gconf cli for 0.84?

cheers,



m
-- 
 martin.langh...@gmail.com
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 - ask interesting questions
 - don't get distracted with shiny stuff  - working code first
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Re: [Sugar-devel] Gears in Browse

2009/5/28 Lucian Branescu lucian.brane...@gmail.com:
 For both Webified and Karma, Gears support in Browse is necessary (or
 at least preferred), but AFAIK there is currently no strategy to get
 it running.

If I understand correctly, the 'HTML5' extensions push means that the
core gecko gets facilities that look almost exactly like
GoogleGears... because they are GG-derived code.

So I suspect that if we get a new-enough xulrunner, this problem goes away :-)

cheers,


m
-- 
 martin.langh...@gmail.com
 mar...@laptop.org -- School Server Architect
 - ask interesting questions
 - don't get distracted with shiny stuff  - working code first
 - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff
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Re: [Sugar-devel] Gears in Browse

Not really. HTML 5 only brings an SQLite database accessible from JavaScript.

Gears has other features that aren't present in Gecko proper (yet):
- LocalServer - a way to transparently persist resources locally
- WorkerPool - threads. The WHATWG HTML 5 spec does include provisions
for WebWorkers, but they aren't really supported anywhere yet
- Geolocation - no equivalent
- Desktop - shortcuts, file access, etc - not very relevant for Sugar,
at least not without modifications

However, even if Gecko had all the features Gears already has, there
are web applications that rely on Gears APIs specifically. Wrappers
would be needed and they usually aren't quite complete.

It's better to just try to get Gears working, at least for my project.
I guess Karma could use a JavaScript ORM that can use both Gears and
HTML 5 storage as a backend.

2009/5/28 Martin Langhoff martin.langh...@gmail.com:
 2009/5/28 Lucian Branescu lucian.brane...@gmail.com:
 For both Webified and Karma, Gears support in Browse is necessary (or
 at least preferred), but AFAIK there is currently no strategy to get
 it running.

 If I understand correctly, the 'HTML5' extensions push means that the
 core gecko gets facilities that look almost exactly like
 GoogleGears... because they are GG-derived code.

 So I suspect that if we get a new-enough xulrunner, this problem goes away :-)

 cheers,


 m
 --
  martin.langh...@gmail.com
  mar...@laptop.org -- School Server Architect
  - ask interesting questions
  - don't get distracted with shiny stuff  - working code first
  - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Progress with SoaS boot-helper

2009-05-28 Thread Caroline Meeks

On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 5:28 AM, Tomeu Vizoso to...@sugarlabs.org wrote:

 On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 16:49, Luke Faraone l...@faraone.cc wrote:
  Hi all,
 
  This is turning into a larger project than I'd originally imagined.
 
  Since the current process of using LVM loop-mounted partitions prevents
 us
  from mounting the SoaS filesystem outside of SoaS itself, we had to come
 up
  with a new method of installing SoaS that *can* be read by a running OS.
  I've done some work on modifying Canonical's Live USB creator to support
  this, but it will take some time.

 Hi Luke, can you point us to a link where we can learn more about what
 you are trying to accomplish?


I think this is Ticket 598 to support the Gardner Pilot.  the use case is
here:
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Gardner_Pilot_Academy#Critical_Path_Technical_Issues

Let me know if I'm wrong about this!

Thanks,
Caroline



 Thanks,

 Tomeu

  We've decided to set up the partitions on devices as descried on the wiki
  (permalink). This has the additional benefit of additional stability
  (loop-mounted filesystems are inherently more fragile), as well as
  (hopefully) increased compatability with older and odder BIOSes that only
  support USB-ZIP booting, rather than the more modern USB-HDD.
 
  There should be a decently stable version of the USB creator with these
  changes around by mid to late June, however it might need to be pushed
 back
  until the next SoaS release.
 
  There is little to no risk with implementing it late in the SoaS release
  schedule, if it was to be ready before then, since it is currently a
  non-essential component; there exist many other ways to create a SoaS
 stick,
  and the creator would be able to work with existing SoaS images without a
  problem.
 
  --
  Luke Faraone
  http://luke.faraone.cc
 
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Solution Grove
carol...@solutiongrove.com

617-500-3488 - Office
505-213-3268 - Fax
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Re: [Sugar-devel] Gears in Browse

AFAIK it's not in the spec (yet), but there was some talk about it. In
any case, it's certainly not in browsers.

2009/5/28 Martin Langhoff martin.langh...@gmail.com:
 2009/5/28 Lucian Branescu lucian.brane...@gmail.com:
 Not really. HTML 5 only brings an SQLite database accessible from JavaScript.

 Gears has other features that aren't present in Gecko proper (yet):
 - LocalServer - a way to transparently persist resources locally

 I thought HTML5 had some offline resource facility.

 cheers,



 m
 --
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  mar...@laptop.org -- School Server Architect
  - ask interesting questions
  - don't get distracted with shiny stuff  - working code first
  - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Gears in Browse

2009/5/28 Martin Langhoff martin.langh...@gmail.com:
 2009/5/28 Lucian Branescu lucian.brane...@gmail.com:
 Not really. HTML 5 only brings an SQLite database accessible from JavaScript.

 Gears has other features that aren't present in Gecko proper (yet):
 - LocalServer - a way to transparently persist resources locally

 I thought HTML5 had some offline resource facility.

What we ship on XO 8.2.x is xulrunner 1.9 (FF3.0). If we were to ship
xulrunner 1.9.1 (which is what the F11-based builds ship anyway) then
we'd get support for the tools listed here
http://wiki.whatwg.org/wiki/Implementations_in_Web_browsers

From that URL, my understanding is that you get all the things you
need from gecko itself.


m
-- 
 martin.langh...@gmail.com
 mar...@laptop.org -- School Server Architect
 - ask interesting questions
 - don't get distracted with shiny stuff  - working code first
 - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff
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Re: [Sugar-devel] How to get sugar config values without a console?

On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 4:48 PM,  p...@laptop.org wrote:
 if you're root, use the force:

you are truly evil :-)



m
-- 
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 mar...@laptop.org -- School Server Architect
 - ask interesting questions
 - don't get distracted with shiny stuff  - working code first
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Re: [Sugar-devel] Gears in Browse

Heh, I didn't know LocalStorage had been in Firefox for so long. I was
under the impression it was at the same stage as Webkit. Thanks for
the link.

Again, this should be sufficient for Karma-in-Firefox.

But many websites already use Gears specifically, and I need them to
work for Webified.

2009/5/28 Martin Langhoff martin.langh...@gmail.com:
 2009/5/28 Martin Langhoff martin.langh...@gmail.com:
 2009/5/28 Lucian Branescu lucian.brane...@gmail.com:
 Not really. HTML 5 only brings an SQLite database accessible from 
 JavaScript.

 Gears has other features that aren't present in Gecko proper (yet):
 - LocalServer - a way to transparently persist resources locally

 I thought HTML5 had some offline resource facility.

 What we ship on XO 8.2.x is xulrunner 1.9 (FF3.0). If we were to ship
 xulrunner 1.9.1 (which is what the F11-based builds ship anyway) then
 we'd get support for the tools listed here
 http://wiki.whatwg.org/wiki/Implementations_in_Web_browsers

 From that URL, my understanding is that you get all the things you
 need from gecko itself.


 m
 --
  martin.langh...@gmail.com
  mar...@laptop.org -- School Server Architect
  - ask interesting questions
  - don't get distracted with shiny stuff  - working code first
  - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Gears in Browse

2009/5/28 Lucian Branescu lucian.brane...@gmail.com:
 Heh, I didn't know LocalStorage had been in Firefox for so long. I was
 under the impression it was at the same stage as Webkit. Thanks for
 the link.

 Again, this should be sufficient for Karma-in-Firefox.

 But many websites already use Gears specifically, and I need them to
 work for Webified.

I'm also interested in knowing better how to support extensions in
Browse. I can dedicate a couple of hours today to get GG running in
Browse.

Regards,

Tomeu

 2009/5/28 Martin Langhoff martin.langh...@gmail.com:
 2009/5/28 Martin Langhoff martin.langh...@gmail.com:
 2009/5/28 Lucian Branescu lucian.brane...@gmail.com:
 Not really. HTML 5 only brings an SQLite database accessible from 
 JavaScript.

 Gears has other features that aren't present in Gecko proper (yet):
 - LocalServer - a way to transparently persist resources locally

 I thought HTML5 had some offline resource facility.

 What we ship on XO 8.2.x is xulrunner 1.9 (FF3.0). If we were to ship
 xulrunner 1.9.1 (which is what the F11-based builds ship anyway) then
 we'd get support for the tools listed here
 http://wiki.whatwg.org/wiki/Implementations_in_Web_browsers

 From that URL, my understanding is that you get all the things you
 need from gecko itself.


 m
 --
  martin.langh...@gmail.com
  mar...@laptop.org -- School Server Architect
  - ask interesting questions
  - don't get distracted with shiny stuff  - working code first
  - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff

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[Sugar-devel] Journal criticism (or not)

2009-05-28 Thread James Simmons

My two cents:

When I started programming computers 30+ years ago data was stored in 
punch cards and reels of tape.  Disk storage was available, but too 
expensive to use to store large amounts of data.  (I didn't hear the 
word gigabyte until the late 80's).  In classes at college I studied 
database management systems.  The book had ONE chapter on relational 
databases.  There was some question back then if one of these could 
actually be built.

For versioning of files we used something called a GDG (generation data 
group).

The first interactive computer system I got to use was VM.  Everyone in 
the system had the illusion of having a whole mainframe to himself.  If 
you wanted to send someone else some COBOL code you'd use the spool 
punch command, because that was virtually like having the machine punch 
up a deck of 80 column cards and handing that deck to the person.  We 
used fixed length records for most things, because there was no way to 
make a variable length punched card.

Later, at the same time I got my first PC, I also started programming 
IBM's new AS400, which had libraries, files, and members.  Everything on 
the box had those three levels of hierarchy: no more, no less.

Everything I have listed above is still in use today.  Most of them 
predate hierarchical folders.

Now the thing about Sugar is that it is NOT about teaching the kid how 
to use a computer.  It's about teaching him everything, using the 
computer to help.  It's about teaching art with Colors, music with Tam 
Tam, creative writing with Write, math with a whole bunch of Activities, 
History, Language, and Literature with the various reading Activities, 
etc.  Learning about computers is in there too, with Pippy, etc. but 
it's not the main focus.

I think of the Journal as a DBMS that stores and organizes various kinds 
of objects.  Sure, it uses files and directories underneath but so does 
a DBMS and nobody thinks of a DBMS that way except the guy who wrote it.

The Journal is a real selling point for Sugar.  My criticism of the 
Journal is:

1).  It doesn't live up to its potential.  It should be MORE like it 
already is.
2).  It should stop pretending that other ways of organizing files (on 
thumb drives) are as good as it is.  They are not.  They are crude 
visitors from a foreign land and should be treated as such.

James Simmons


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Re: [Sugar-devel] Running Sugar with sugar-jhbuild - questions

2009-05-28 Thread Bastien

I did a fresh install of sugar-jhbuild.

./sugar-jhbuild depscheck doesn't advertize the need for
python-distutils-extra.  Recent bug reports about this:

http://dev.sugarlabs.org/ticket/902
http://dev.sugarlabs.org/ticket/898

Another problem: sugar-jhbuild still doesn't recognize my keyboard 
to be AZERTY. Is anyone successfully using a non-QWERTY keyboard?

I want to make screencasts but would prefer to fix this before.

Thanks!

-- 
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Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] classroom presenter, iTalc for sugar (possible ports for LinuxTag Berlin showoff)

2009-05-28 Thread David Van Assche

Hi,
  Caroline, that is exactly how iTalc works. The teacher can pass on the
session to one or groups of students, so it becomes a great way for everyone
to join in. If you are going to be at LinuxTag, I can do a quick demo so u
can see how this would work in a real teaching environment. I have also been
testing the wiimote whiteboard solution, which is truly outstanding. The
solution works better than I had projected (no pun intended) and though I
have not been able to run it inside Sugar yet, Classroom Presenter is a
great tool for this. Basically its like having a really big touchpad on the
projection screen, and up to 4 people can use the infra red pens at once.
Again, this allows for some pretty neat collaborative abilities. Tony
Anderson is working on the next version of Classroom presenter which should
also be able to read out slides. He will be at LinuxTag, and hopefully we
can put together some kind of demonstration of how the wiimote works with
it. Same goes for iTalc and LTSP. So its all looking good... The wiimote
whiteboard software runs on Linux, Windows and Mac (more info here:
http://www.uweschmidt.org/wiimote-whiteboard) with up to 2 concurrent pens,
smoothing callibration (how straight a line u can draw) and basically turns
an infra red pen into a mouse pointer. By using single click and double
click u can pretty much control the computer from the projector screen,
including doing really neat stuff in gimp, sugar-paint, inkscape, and
classroom presenter. Even things like google earth being controlled this way
is very very cool. The cost of all the necessary items is under 50 euros, so
this is truly an amazing solution that can be adopted in 3rd world countries
too. For the same functionality, you'd normally be paying thousands of
euros, and the stuff would still require extra licenses, etc. All the
software to run this is free, and I hope we can get some more testing done
in this area at LinuxTag, including a moodle tutorial, and how/where to get
the software.

On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 2:06 PM, Caroline Meeks solutiongr...@gmail.comwrote:

 +1 on the importance of iTalc like functionality.  If that is something
 Windows/Apple can do and Sugar  can't its going to hurt adoption.

 It would be cool if students could also become the presenters so the
 teacher could ask a student in the room to explain how a problem was done
 and pass control over to that student for a while.

 On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 2:17 AM, David Van Assche dvanass...@gmail.comwrote:

 Hi,
At LinuxTag Berlin, there are 3 areas that are of particular interest
 to me, and might be considered novelties in the way sugar can/will be
 presented there. From one side, I will be representing sugar packaging on
 the openSUSE platform, and being part of the opensuse-edu team, we will show
 off not only the live suse sugar cd/usb stick, but also the tight
 integration (including desktop launch icon) of sugar within the openSUSE
 11.1 educational spin. Since kiwi-ltsp (A mature variant of LTSP 5) is quite
 integrated in the educational desktop, as is ejabberd, we will show off LTSP
 sugarised, with the approximately 50 sugar activities that have been
 packaged for openSUSE. Within the LTSP framework, we often use an
 application called iTalc, which allows for the remote administration (vnc on
 steroids) of desktop sessions, locking of sessions, passing around of
 sessions (for the classroom environment) as well as, intra station messaging
 (in case a particular station needs administrative help/training/support.)
 Right now, it runs great on the administrator machine, which doesn't need to
 and won't run Sugar. Basically from this view one can see screenshots of
 each desktop and by clicking on the desktop in question, one takes over or
 shares that session with that particular sugar user. There is more
 explanation and screenshots here: http://italc.sourceforge.net/
 On the client side, it would be nice for someone to study how hard it
 would be to port to sugar. Its not massively important since it runs from
 gnome, but for scenarios where sugar is the only Desktop Environment, it
 would be nice to have this kind of controlling mechanism for the
 teacher/admin. For example, the teacher could collaboratively work on one
 session connected to a projector, and pass that session on friom student to
 student, with each of them carrying out some task. I have seen it used this
 way under Gnome with great success, and as Sugar is collaborative by nature,
 it seems like a perfect fit. So any sugar porting takers?

 On another note, I have successfully tested the home made whiteboard
 option using a wiimote and infra red pens. This approach allows for the
 building of an interactive whiteboard for under 50 euros. Unfortunately, the
 best software to use for something like this is classroom presenter,
 originally windows software allowing one to open a powerpoint/impress
 presenation and then draw upon that using the infra red pen. Classroom

Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Journal criticism

2009-05-28 Thread NoiseEHC

There are 3 different ideas when we are talking about Journal vs 
Directories:
1. Whether we are limiting the user to use exactly one filtering 
category for his/her documents (and lets call them Files and the filter 
the Files' Directory) or we allow multiple filters (and call them Tags).
2. Whether we are showing the user a open/save dialog which has a 
Directory tree and File list or we just ask for a name and some tags for 
save and let the user filter open.

3. Whether the document store is a filesystem or a database.

so remembering these points, answers are inlined:

Albert Cahalan wrote:

In graphical environments alone, directories are over 25 years old.
Since 8 is less than a third of that, there is only one safe bet.

It'd be way more than 25 years, except that we didn't even have
graphical environments much beyond that. Directories go back
about 40 years. 8 years is just another 20%.
  


I am sure that 100 years ago when the car was invented, because humanity 
has been used horses for 5000 years and the next 100 years is only 2% of 
that, people predicted that we will still ride horses now



This isn't the Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 feature set.
This is a concept that is pretty fundamental in computing.
It crosses platforms, it's in our network protocols, and it's even
required for all the programming languages that implement Sugar.

  


Having a filesystem does not conflict with that the user will never ever 
see one (3. is a differ idea than 2.).



The following things unfortunately cannot be done with a flat filesystem
view:
1. Revision based view.
2. Tagging.



First, I think you didn't mean flat. That's the Journal.
Second, both flat and tree systems can handle that.
  


I meant flat filesystem so I have written exactly that. I meant a 
filesystem which can be drawn on a 2D surface in a tree (where the files 
are leafs). Contrast it to a multidimensional filesystem where a File 
can have multiple Directories and which stores all the versions. See I 
do not want to argue over semantics so if we will have some system which 
can handle this multidimensional storage then we can call it a 
filesystem if you insist. After all a filesystem is just a database 
which maps names to disc block numbers (and the canceled WinFS was 
marketed as a filesystem after all). What is sure that this future 
filesystem will have a completely different access semantics that for 
example ext2.



It is a totally different problem that the current Journal barely implements
those things but dropping it in favor of time-tested solutions is a
mistake IMHO. (Note that no filesystem solves those problems I have
mentioned.)



No filesystem should! It looks like GNOME 3.0 will get you those
features on top of a plain old UNIX-style filesystem tree though,
without making the filesystem incompatible with both software
and humans.
  


Have you noticed that as the world evolved, filesystems gained 
unimaginable capabilities like resource forks, extended attributes, 
access control lists, transactions?
Is your point that we should drop the Journal just to be compatible with 
those softwares that possibly no child will ever use?


I would vote to make the Journal more usable rather than trying to stop 
the world.


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Re: [Sugar-devel] Gears in Browse

Slightly off-topic, a new Gears has been released
http://gearsblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/gears-05210-released.html

The Blob builder API is very interesting, as it possibly allows
altering arbitrary files from JavaScript.
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Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Journal criticism

2009-05-28 Thread Sean DALY

I, too, encounter difficulty finding elements in the Journal but
haven't found time yet to contribute to a feature discussion.

just 2 cents about hierarchical representation: it certainly has uses.
The coolest one I ever saw was 8 years ago by a company (trying to
remember the name) that provides intranet search to corporations:
users enter text in a Google-like box; the bottom half of the screen
shows hit-parade results (links) by relevancy, but the top half
dynamically generated a hierarchy by type: text file (subclassed by
format upon drilling down), media file, intranet web page, database
result (interrogation by prebuilt connectors), etc.

Clicking on any hierarchy entry regenerated the hit-parade by that type.

Private tagging was possible, tied to the user's profile but exportable.

Viewing rights were handled too; if unavailable to the profile, the
link would be greyed but the info source within the company shown, so
the user could militate for access (as opposed to not knowing its
existence).

Related: I heard Steve Jobs say in 1998 that folders were great for
small numbers of files, but it didn't scale... so he had resorted to
e-mailing files to himself, with different accounts and keywords in
the subject lines... and sort/filter available in mail software.
Today, OSX uses Spotlight which indexes not just text, but media
file metadata, a subject dear to my heart (the Ogg container is
well-suited to that).

However, since I find Spotlight windows a pain (the commandline
version is often faster), I continue to use the system I've used these
past ten years: e-mailing documents between my accounts adding as many
keywords as I can and searching in different ways (gmail search is not
bad but could actually be quite a lot better). I think the Journal
will be fine if additional search options are very carefully
selected... and as much metadata as possible is pulled out of media
files. I have found exiftool to be wonderful in this respect

Sean



On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 1:19 PM, Jonas Smedegaard d...@jones.dk wrote:
 -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
 Hash: RIPEMD160

 On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 06:18:35AM -0400, Albert Cahalan wrote:
On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 5:49 AM, Jonas Smedegaard d...@jones.dk wrote:
 On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 04:58:17AM -0400, Albert Cahalan wrote:
Tomeu Vizoso writes:

 I think it's very important if we want to keep pushing Sugar that
 we distinguish between design decisions and bugs and unimplemented
 features. If we bring down good design ideas not by themselves but
 because of its implementation status, we risk ending up with
 nothing that brings new value compared to existing desktops.

You say that like it would be a bad thing. The existing desktops are
at least time-tested. Learning to deal with the common features of
modern desktop systems is very valuable for children.

 I flat out disagree that Sugar should be a learning experience
 towards using alternative user interfaces.

 In that mindset we should mimic Word, Excel and the Windows desktop,
 not for the quality of their interface designs, but simply because
 they are expremely popular so getting acquainted to them is very
 valuable for children.

To the extent that there are common features that are highly
unlikely to change across versions or even OSes, definitely.

MacOS System 6, MacOS X, OS/2 Warp, and Windows Vista
have certain basic features in common. It's a safe bet to say that
most of these features will remain in the computers of 2017.

 Actually, I am not so sure about that: I suspect user interfaces (as
 well as many other features of our society) do not evolve linear, but
 more and more rapidly transform.

 So I am willing to challenge you in that bet. :-D

 I suggest, for simplicity sake in our later judgement, that we limit the
 bet to do all popular computer desktop environments still use (and
 directly expose to the edn user) a hierarchical file system in 2017, as
 they did in 2009?

 And I propose a symbolic item from looser to winner, with a fun
 punishment twist added: One bottle of bewerage of the winner's choosing,
 delivered personally at the winner's door step.

 How does that sound?


 Kind regards,

  - Jonas

 - --
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 * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

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[Sugar-devel] The moodle-Print User Experience

2009-05-28 Thread Vamsi Krishna Davuluri

Hi,


I was wondering about the best moodle user experience. The three procedures
I've sketched out are:
1) Follow the roots of the advanced assignment upload module, and let
printing be added by the teacher as an activity for a specific period.
Or
2) Make printing a default resource for every course once the course is
established
Or
3) Provide a printing option for every registered user, and provide him/her
with a printing option which also follows the roots of assignment upload,
   But very loosely. This will of course require a good deal of work
regarding permissions on which teacher can assess what.

Personally, I prefer 1.

Some teachers might not want the students to print in their courses, but
might want them to for a specific duration. - more or less completely
An art course might want printing for the entire duration though, so perhaps
an option when establishing the course to add the print module by default.

Or a (4) , which I am open for. My knowledge with moodle and its deployed
environment is very limited, so I would like some advice here.

Thanks

Vamsi Krishna Davuluri
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Re: [Sugar-devel] Running Sugar with sugar-jhbuild - questions

2009-05-28 Thread Edward Cherlin

On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 9:25 AM, Bastien bastiengue...@googlemail.com wrote:
I did a fresh install of sugar-jhbuild.

Likewise.

./sugar-jhbuild depscheck doesn't advertize the need for
python-distutils-extra. Recent bug reports about this:

http://dev.sugarlabs.org/ticket/902
http://dev.sugarlabs.org/ticket/898

The only dependency problem I ran into was a conflict between
olpc-sound and csound, which I was able to remove without breaking
anything. I am quite pleased with the recent improvements. I had not
been able to compile sugar-jhbuild successfully for weeks.

However, I had to invoke 'force checkout' several times, because of
missing .git directories.

Another problem: sugar-jhbuild still doesn't recognize my keyboard
to be AZERTY. Is anyone successfully using a non-QWERTY keyboard?

Yes. You are in a new X session that doesn't know what your main
session is doing, so you have to tell it what you want. I often switch
keyboards, so I create scripts that I can use in Terminal. My ru
script is

#!/bin/bash
setxkbmap ru

My asdf and фыва scripts both contain

setxkbmap dvorak

while my aoeu script contains

setxkbmap us

for when I want to let others type without confusion.

You want 'setxkbmap fr'.

I want to make screencasts but would prefer to fix this before.

Thanks!

--
Bastien
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Re: [Sugar-devel] Kartik - internship outside GSoC

2009-05-28 Thread kartik rustagi

So its decided that I will be working on Groups, as was suggested by tomeu
earlier. I will be needing a Joining letter from Sugar. I mailed the blank
format in a previous mail. It will be great if its print out is taken,
filled and then a scanned copy mailed to me. Sugar can also provide its own
Joining Letter too (I will prefer if both can be done). If any thing is
required from my side, kindly let me know.
Also can any one please tell me how I should report my progress and who will
be my mentor?

Thank You

On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 3:48 PM, Tomeu Vizoso to...@sugarlabs.org wrote:

 On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 14:18, kartik rustagi kashes...@gmail.com wrote:
 
  Hello everyone,
  Sorry for replying after this long a duration. Exams followed by physical
  damage to my machine consumed a lot of time.
  I will like to start my internship under Sugarlabs ASAP. Can any one
 please
  provide me a link to all the ideas that were discussed at the recent
 Sugar
  meetup (in Paris I guess) and the results of those discussions if
 possible.
  I will have a look at those ideas and will like to finalize the one I
 will
  be working on as soon as possible (in a day or two maximum). The idea
  regarding sharing of activities is also in the loop.

 Hi, Kartik,

 see http://erikos.sweettimez.de/?p=678

 We are still discussing all this and trying to put names to each task,
 but those are some ideas of what we would like to work on during this
 release.

 I would like to propose you one task that will bring enormous value
 and that I think could fit well with your previous experience:

 quote
 Groups

* tagging buddies to build up relations, tagging can happen by a
 teacher tagging a class or the learner can tag himself
 /quote

 We have a problem with schools that have thousands of children logged
 in their jabber server, as we have very limited functionality for
 searching and browsing contacts. This impacts the usability of
 collaboration in the classroom.

 I think that the presence service is already sending a tags property
 along the rest of the presence information. I think that we should
 have a way for a person to set its own tags, and also for adding tags
 to its contacts.

 Does this feature interest you?

 Regards,

 Tomeu

  Thank You
 
 
 
  On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 12:20 AM, David Farning dfarn...@sugarlabs.org
  wrote:
 
  Kartik,
  That all looks pretty straightforward.  When you get the project
  worked out Jameson can sign as training officer.  It looks like the
  third page should be sent by Jameson directly to your school.
 
  thanks
  david
 
  On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 11:25 AM, kartik rustagi kashes...@gmail.com
  wrote:
   Please find the scanned structure of the documents which are required
 as
   a
   proof of Internship at my school. It will be best if the documents are
   mailed directly to me since that will be the most reliable.
  
   On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 4:50 AM, kartik rustagi kashes...@gmail.com
   wrote:
  
  
  
   My own, completely personal opinion on dissimilar activity
   collaboration
   is that it is a solution searching for a problem. I understand that
   there
   are real use cases, but I haven't seen one that's nearly as
 compelling
   as
   the viral-activity idea (idea 2 of the ones I sent). This is just me
   commenting, I hope that others with opposing viewpoints will also
   comment.
  
   If that is indeed the case then I will go with viral-activity idea.
 Any
   idea who put up the dissimilar activity collaboration idea on the
 idea
   list.
   Maybe he/she might have a different outlook towards it. Suggestions
 on
   this
   are requested :)
  
  
   As to Groupthink, I think that it would be ill-advised to try to
 force
   you and Bemasc to work together without a very clear delineation of
   responsibility which minimizes dependencies. I also think it would
 be
   very
   hard to draw such a line, though you're welcome to prove me wrong on
   this
   latter point.
  
   I completely agree with you. The reason why I mentioned Groupthink
 was
   because I seriously appreciated it and wanted to do something like
 this
   for
   Sugar (according to my capabilities).
   Few more suggestions on the project idea and then I will start making
   the
   proposal.
  
  
   On Sun, Apr 26, 2009 at 8:34 PM, Jameson Quinn
   jameson.qu...@gmail.com
   wrote:
I hope we can do this for you, and would be really happy if it
comes
through. However, as much as it pains me, I think you will have
 to
go
through some of the application process over again. We don't need
to
interview you again, once is plenty and you did well. But we do
need a
specific proposal, with clear deliverables - which could easily
take a
week
or more for you to create - and then at least a few days for us
 to
evaluate
the merits of such a proposal and our ability to support it.
Otherwise, how
can we meaningfully evaluate whether you've completed your

Re: [Sugar-devel] Progress with SoaS boot-helper

 2009/5/28 Caroline Meeks solutiongr...@gmail.com

 On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 5:28 AM, Tomeu Vizoso to...@sugarlabs.org wrote:

  Hi Luke, can you point us to a link where we can learn more about what
 you are trying to accomplish?

 I think this is Ticket 598 to support the Gardner Pilot.  the use case is
 here:
 http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Gardner_Pilot_Academy#Critical_Path_Technical_Issues


Yes, that's an accurate description of the goals for this project.

An installable boot helper would provide functionality not avaliable in a
normal boot-helper ISO, namely increasing boot time (time between a student
inserting a SoaS stick and getting up and running) in addition to less
down-time in between switches (as the machine would be able switch to
another user/SoaS stick without rebooting).

It would also be trivial to enable features such as on-server backups, live
SoaS upgrades and repairs, and centralized administration by the IT staff.

The boot-helper is related to a new installer method for this reason: our
current method of formatting and installing SoaS on USB sticks cannot be
read by the boot-helper. LVM snapshots are difficult to read outside of the
context (in this case the kernel used in SoaS) in which they were created.
Therefore, I suggested that we simply have raw EXT3/whatever on the flash
drive, and mount them directly rather than using LVM.

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Gears in Browse

2009/5/28 Lucian Branescu lucian.brane...@gmail.com

  You mean that GG tries to write in /usr if it has been installed in
  /usr? That sounds wrong and may be configurable or fixable.
 I think /usr, I didn't check. I will today.

 Yes, it certainly is fixable, but I'm not sure it is also
 configurable. I'd hate to have to patch and compile Gears for the .rpm
 I'll investigate some more


Hm. It should be trivial to get that patch upstreamed, though, right?

As Google was/is (IIRC) a partner of OLPC, they should be happy to accept
patches that make it easier to use Google Gears with Sugar and the XO.

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Documentation [WAS: Re: [Localization] Help activity]

2009/5/28 Tomeu Vizoso to...@sugarlabs.org

 On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 21:47, Sayamindu Dasgupta sayami...@gmail.com
 wrote:
  [Jumping into the discussion midway]:
 
  From an l10n point of view, I would highly recommend adopting (and
  perhaps extending) the GNOME documentation framework. It is docbook
  based, which is a format pretty easy to pick up (and I believe
  OpenOffice.org can also export to docbook - though I have never tried
  it out).

 Well, I think it was a decision by the people who wrote the manual to
 use floss manuals, I guess it would be up to them which tool they use.
 And in the same way, translators would choose the tools that best suit
 them. I think that floss manuals has already tools for translation and
 also think that people have worked on a translation to spanish, Maybe
 we should ask to those people which was their experience with the
 floss manuals tool set?


We already have an export-to-XHTML option with FLOSS Manuals, and I think a
while ago there was talk of adding a docbook export function as well. I was
preparing a script to automate the creation of Debian .debs from those
dumps, but it got dropped by the wayside as it seemed that a docbook export
option was not forthcoming. CCing the FLOSS Manuals discussion list for
their take.

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Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] [SoaS] Important Schedule Changes - Please Read!

2009/5/26 Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.com

 On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 12:40 PM, Tomeu Vizoso to...@sugarlabs.org
 wrote:
  On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 18:38, Sean DALY sdaly...@gmail.com wrote:
  What we call beta - can't be announced as is working out of the box.
  I completely agree... nor can what we call v1 be announced as working
  out of the box if it can't :-(
 
  On the upside, little non-trivial software can be said to work out of
  the box for the general public.
 
  Regards,
 
  Tomeu

 We should be able to say with confidence that SoaS works everywhere
 that the Fedora LiveUSB works. No more, no less. And tell a story
 around that.


I'm hoping to do a little bit more: by formatting flash drives in a special
way we can gain compatability with a large number of BIOSes which are only
compatable with USB_ZIP, an older system which is very particular about what
it expects from a disk. There's very little potential for regression, and
this alternate formatting is (imho) easier to deal with.

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Running Sugar with sugar-jhbuild - questions

2009-05-28 Thread Sascha Silbe


On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 06:25:26PM +0200, Bastien wrote:


./sugar-jhbuild depscheck doesn't advertize the need for
python-distutils-extra.  Recent bug reports about this:

[...]

I got knocked out by a major infection imported from SugarCamp/Paris. 
About the same time (starting just before SugarCamp) the Gnome people 
hacked heavily on jhbuild and thus broke sugar-jhbuild (*). I'm slowly 
recovering now and started fixing sugar-jhbuild.



Another problem: sugar-jhbuild still doesn't recognize my keyboard to 
be AZERTY.
You're probably talking about sugar-emulator and thus Xephyr (sorry if 
it sounds like nitpicking, but it's an important distinction because it 
needs to be fixed in a different module with different maintainers).
This is Xephyr bug #19365 [1] / Sugarlabs bug #342 [2]. It's a major 
problem to several people, but nobody stepped up to fix it yet. It's a 
major change and at least I don't has enough time to do it. Maybe we 
should start collecting money and announce a bounty (**)...



Is anyone successfully using a non-QWERTY keyboard?
Using somewhat yes (minimal activity testing). Successfully would not be 
the right word for it, though.



I want to make screencasts but would prefer to fix this before.

Try running sugar as a session i.e. instead of Gnome, not inside Gnome.


(*) The error mentioned above is our fault, though. We added 
sugar-update-control without trying to build it on a pristine system.
(**) With a condition that it has been merged upstream, of course - 
otherwise it would bitrot like the old fix.

[1] http://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19365
[2] http://dev.sugarlabs.org/ticket/342

CU Sascha

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Re: [Sugar-devel] Running Sugar with sugar-jhbuild - questions

2009-05-28 Thread Sascha Silbe


On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 11:35:20AM -0700, Edward Cherlin wrote:


However, I had to invoke 'force checkout' several times, because of
missing .git directories.

Interesting. Where exactly? TurtleArt or something else?


setxkbmap us
You mean you can run this command inside Terminal inside sugar-emulator 
and the keyboard is working properly then? That would mean we've got a 
workaround now, i.e. very good news!


CU Sascha

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Re: [Sugar-devel] [IAEP] [SoaS] Important Schedule Changes - Please Read!

2009-05-28 Thread Walter Bender

If you can manage to do this, that'd be great.

-walter

On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 3:23 PM, Luke Faraone l...@faraone.cc wrote:
 2009/5/26 Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.com

 On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 12:40 PM, Tomeu Vizoso to...@sugarlabs.org
 wrote:
  On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 18:38, Sean DALY sdaly...@gmail.com wrote:
  What we call beta - can't be announced as is working out of the box.
  I completely agree... nor can what we call v1 be announced as working
  out of the box if it can't :-(
 
  On the upside, little non-trivial software can be said to work out of
  the box for the general public.
 
  Regards,
 
  Tomeu

 We should be able to say with confidence that SoaS works everywhere
 that the Fedora LiveUSB works. No more, no less. And tell a story
 around that.

 I'm hoping to do a little bit more: by formatting flash drives in a special
 way we can gain compatability with a large number of BIOSes which are only
 compatable with USB_ZIP, an older system which is very particular about what
 it expects from a disk. There's very little potential for regression, and
 this alternate formatting is (imho) easier to deal with.

 --
 Luke Faraone
 http://luke.faraone.cc




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Sugar Labs
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