[Trac #1328] Look and feel enhancements for the booting process

[Zarro Boogs per Child]

#1328: Look and feel enhancements for the booting process
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 Reporter:  wmb at firmworks.com    |        Owner:  wmb at firmworks.com
     Type:  enhancement          |       Status:  new              
 Priority:  low                  |    Milestone:  CTest            
Component:  ofw - open firmware  |   Resolution:                   
 Keywords:                       |  
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Comment (by follower):

 Regarding: b) A startup sound

 It really struck me the first time I powered up my first XO B2 how *quiet*
 it was. Being used to OS X (start-up sound at power-on) and Windows (beeps
 at PC power on and sound at Windows start) the silence was particularly
 noticable.

 It's possibly worth considering a "startup sound" can indicate a number of
 things depending on the stage at which it plays:

  1) Successful power-on

  2) Successful system-test

  3) The machine is now ready to be used

 Looking at various kids toy "laptops" they (at least the two samples I
 just looked at) often start with a sound as soon as they turn on--in this
 case with variations on "Hello" and a musical tune. As was remarked on IRC
 the other day, using anything with speech in it creates major
 internationalisation issues so is probably not a candidate for inclusion.

 The key theme of the two toy laptops I looked at was the startup sound was
 uplifting and welcoming.

 While playing with TamTam it struck me that a globally relevant and
 welcoming sound could be:

    * the sound of a child (or children) laughing.

 Can you imagine a child turning on their XO-1 for the first time and
 hearing it giggle? Who do you think might giggle next? I think that's a
 pretty good introduction.

 There are some other aspects that probably need to be considered:

   * A child's laugh or giggle also helps brand the laptops as "not for
 adults"--it would be "unprofessional" after all.

   * What would the sound of a classroom of laptop's sound like? Possibly
 not what a teacher wants to hear every morning!

   * But, if much use is going to be made of system suspension to enable
 the mesh network and so forth, then system startup should be relatively
 rare making the previous issue less significant.

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Ticket URL: <http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/1328#comment:3>
One Laptop Per Child <http://laptop.org/>