<div dir="ltr">Hola les reenvio las noticas de la Comunidad OLPC<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">Jim Gettys</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jg@laptop.org">jg@laptop.org</a>></span><br>
Date: Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 1:05 PM<br>Subject: [Community-news] OLPC News (2008-10-06)<br>To: Community News <<a href="mailto:community-news@laptop.org">community-news@laptop.org</a>><br><br><br>Community News<br>
A weekly update of One Laptop per Child October 5, 2008<br>
<br>
Rwanda officially launched of their laptop initiative last week.<br>
President Paul Kagame presided over the ceremony in conjunction with<br>
Education Minister Théoneste Mutsindashyaka. The event was attended by<br>
the Rwandan prime minister, the supreme court's chief justice, the<br>
entire cabinet, and leaders from civil society and the NGO community.<br>
Five hundred students and their teachers from the first laptop schools<br>
also were on hand. President Kagame, Minister Mutsindashyaka, Nicholas<br>
and David Cavallo spoke to the gathering. Kagame committed his office to<br>
bringing laptops to every primary school child in the country.<br>
<br>
A highlight for the children came when they lifted their XOs to take<br>
pictures of the president and discovered that they could also frame<br>
themselves into the shots, so that they would appear in the picture with<br>
Kagame.<br>
<br>
<br>
Afterward, the Rwandan core team, along with Juliano Bittencourt, Brian<br>
Jordan and David, led a workshop. The students developed projects<br>
depicting their own visions for What Rwanda will be like in the year<br>
2020. For the most part, they programmed in<br>
<br>
Scratch, using images they photographed, downloaded or drew. The adults<br>
were amazed by the kids' visions, and by how much they were able to<br>
construct in a very short period of time. The president's science and<br>
technology advisor was bowled over by their prowess, imagination, and<br>
strong optimism for the future, including their own roles in it.<br>
<br>
The Rwandan core team and steering committee participated in a separate<br>
workshop.<br>
<br>
David and Juliano made presentations, as did Richard Niyonkuru, the<br>
Rwandan government OLPC coordinator, Guy Serge Pompilus, the Haitian<br>
government OLPC coordinator, Tony Earls and Maya Carlson of Harvard<br>
School of Public Health and Bruce Baitke of Green WiFi.<br>
<br>
David and Juliano also spoke before a session of the East African<br>
Legislative Assembly, which was meeting in Kigali. They found tremendous<br>
enthusiasm among the parliament members. Several made strong commitments<br>
to bring OLPC to their countries. A few of them visited the Kakugu<br>
laptop school in Kigali the following day, which prompted further<br>
excitement.<br>
<br>
A day later, under the headline, "EAC MPs Want OLPC Adopted in All<br>
States," the New Timesof Kigali reported that delegates attending an<br>
East African Community inter-parliamentary relations seminar in the city<br>
called for adoption of the OLPC program by all five EAC members:<br>
Tanzania, Burundi, Kenya and Uganda, as well as Rwanda. We applaud their<br>
excellent judgment.<br>
<br>
Technology<br>
<br>
Starting October 13, all G1G1v2 XOs will be manufactured with release<br>
8.2. The image needs to pass the final Quanta tests next week. If no<br>
issues arise, the release is final. Congratulations and thanks to<br>
everyone who worked so hard to make this happen! Release party plans are<br>
in the works.<br>
<br>
The entire software development team continues to focus on the<br>
completion of the 8.2 release effort. The final work consists of<br>
significant testing, especially unstructured testing to identify<br>
potential problems in unexpected areas. This testing does tend to set<br>
off some false alarms as the team revisits features that haven't been<br>
examined recently!<br>
<br>
The team also began discussions on the structure and management of our<br>
future releases, especially the next minor release – 8.2.1 – that will<br>
focus on priority bug fixes, and the next major release – 9.1 – with<br>
important feature enhancements. As part of those discussions we're<br>
trying to expand our release timeline to include additional releases so<br>
we can better coordinate the work we need to do with our twice-yearly<br>
major release plan.con<br>
<br>
1. Greg Smith says we will spend the next week finalizing the<br>
documentation (e.g. <a href="http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Release_Notes/8.2.0" target="_blank">http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Release_Notes/8.2.0</a>),<br>
updating the wiki and preparing the release announcement. He has also<br>
kicked off release planning for <a href="http://8.2.1." target="_blank">8.2.1.</a> The current plan calls for a<br>
small maintenance release in November (subject to change). Targets for<br>
bug fixes and deployments are now being negotiated.<br>
<br>
Release 9.1 planning is also picking up. The goal is to agree on target<br>
features and major areas of work by the end of October.<br>
<br>
Testing:<br>
<br>
2. Joe Feinstein, Frances Hopkins, Mel Chua, Reuben Caron and Kim Quirk<br>
as well as many community developers and volunteers tested the final<br>
candidate builds this week for Release 8.2. Tests included<br>
laptop-specific features, bug fix verification, and system level testing<br>
with 44 laptops connected and registered to a school server. The ECO and<br>
final paperwork are finished for approval this build. Next week, we will<br>
continue with documentation and larger system tests in parallel with<br>
manufacturing final test.<br>
<br>
Support:<br>
<br>
3. Reuben worked with the Birmingham deployment as they prepare for<br>
their upcoming distribution of 14,000 XOs to 37 schools. Among other<br>
tasks, he helped them troubleshoot a production XS.4 installation.<br>
Reuben also worked on reviving and updating <a href="http://Jabber.laptop.org" target="_blank">Jabber.laptop.org</a> which he<br>
hopes will be operational soon.<br>
<br>
4. Adam Holt and Eben Eliason finalized changes for the stuffer sheets<br>
that have been updated for this year's G1G1 program. Adam and Mel are<br>
putting the finishing touches on how to upgrade to the latest 8.2 for<br>
the Release Notes.<br>
<br>
5. Aaron Royer, Seth Woodworth, SJ Klein, and Kim Quirk are exploring<br>
ways to involve the community in creative banners, ads, blogs, and<br>
informal press releases to help get the G1G1 message out this year: Give<br>
a laptop. Get a laptop. Change the world. Seth is pulling down images<br>
and video from our creative partners (eleven) and media from our<br>
deployments as well as our community (photographer Mike Lee and others).<br>
Soon most of this material will be made available to the community under<br>
open license (CC) to remix their own posters, flyers and other<br>
announcements about G1G1. See <a href="http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Community_media" target="_blank">http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Community_media</a><br>
for more information and to see some of the work.<br>
<br>
<br>
6. Over the last two weeks, Media Modifications updated the Sugar<br>
Almanac (<a href="http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar_Almanac" target="_blank">http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar_Almanac</a>) with working code<br>
examples on the use of Gstreamer for audio and video playback, how to<br>
track the mouse, and how to register your activity to open different<br>
mime types. Faisal Anwar continues to document best practices for using<br>
the presence service. He answered developers' questions such as: How do<br>
I setup a D-Bus Tube? How is data shared between activities through a<br>
D-Bus tube? He is preparing entries about Stream Tubes based on working<br>
code developed and tested on XOs. Please continue to contribute to the<br>
Almanac, a resource which shows how to put the right pieces together to<br>
build great sugar activities!<br>
<br>
<br>
SysAdmin:<br>
<br>
<br>
7. Henry Hardy reports that we had 22,000 unique visitors to<br>
<a href="http://wiki.laptop.org" target="_blank">wiki.laptop.org</a> on the 28thand 29thof September. This, and a bug in a<br>
newly installed wiki extension, caused serious performance issues on the<br>
wiki and affected other services such as web servers and email hosted on<br>
<a href="http://pedal.laptop.org" target="_blank">pedal.laptop.org</a>. Access from the largest bloc of Uruguay addresses was<br>
temporarily shut off in consultation with Emiliano and his team while we<br>
worked on a solution.<br>
<br>
Full service was restored on Thursday, October 2. C. Scott Ananian built<br>
a squid reverse proxy server on <a href="http://weka.laptop.org" target="_blank">weka.laptop.org</a> which has led to greater<br>
efficiency in handling wiki requests. Scot, along with Michael Stone,<br>
Erik Garrison and Chris Ball also devoted substantial efforts to<br>
testing, organization, diagnosis, and bug-fixing work for the 8.2<br>
release. Some individual investigations were done into post-8.2 release<br>
work.<br>
<br>
XS School Server Software:<br>
<br>
8. Martin Langhoff continued work on installation and configuration of<br>
Moodle on the XS school server. Douglas Bagnall continued work on<br>
characterizing the performance and capacity of the Ejabberd component,<br>
an important step for planning larger school deployments.<br>
<br>
Sugar / Activity Software:<br>
<br>
9. Sayamindu Dasgupta spent a significant part of this week isolating<br>
and fixing a few bugs in the language pack builder. Thanks to the<br>
members of the localization team for the testing they have been doing<br>
with the packs. A new effort to translate Sugar into Swedish has<br>
started. Thanks to Mattias Ohlsson for taking the initiative. Sayamindu<br>
also worked on the Khmer keyboard layout, trying to understand its<br>
special features, and figuring out the changes that are needed in the<br>
various OLPC packages in order to support the layout completely. He also<br>
added the Moon and PlayGo activities in Pootle so that they can be<br>
translated by our translations team. During the weekend, Sayamindu<br>
worked on an Image Viewer activity with basic zoom/rotate capabilities.<br>
The first release of the activity is available at<br>
<a href="http://dev.laptop.org/%7Esayamindu/bundles/imageviewer/ImageViewer-1.xo" target="_blank">http://dev.laptop.org/~sayamindu/bundles/imageviewer/ImageViewer-1.xo</a> He<br>
also helped Kushal Das, a volunteer from Pune, India get started in<br>
Sugar actvity development. Kushal has expressed interest in maintaining<br>
the Jukebox activity in his blog post<br>
(<a href="http://kushaldas.in/2008/10/03/want-to-play-your-favourite-songmovie-on-olpc/" target="_blank">http://kushaldas.in/2008/10/03/want-to-play-your-favourite-songmovie-on-olpc/</a>).<br>
<br>
10. Simon Schampijer worked on the move to gconf to store Sugar<br>
settings. Memory consumption on the XO looks good from a first glance.<br>
The old profile will be converted on update and the old profile API will<br>
be kept around during the transition phase.<br>
<br>
[1] <a href="http://www.gnome.org/projects/gconf/" target="_blank">http://www.gnome.org/projects/gconf/</a><br>
<br>
11. Marco Pesenti Gritti started to work on the sugar shell refactoring<br>
for 0.84. Lots of code cleanups and some fixes. The buildbot is being<br>
very useful for this work, as it keeps complaining about the things as<br>
we go. Marco also met with Benjamin and Riccardo about the icon caching<br>
strategy, we are considering several approaches, which has potential to<br>
consistently improve Sugar graphics performance. He started reviewing<br>
Tomeu simple datastore and had several conversations around Journal<br>
design. In parallel he kept an eye on 8.2 release blockers, in<br>
particular he fixed a CPU "leak" for each activity that was opened and<br>
then closed. Finally he continued to debug Browse memory usage and found<br>
that there is no regression compared to Update.1, which is a start.<br>
<br>
12. Tomeu continued work on the datastore replacement, basing on good<br>
feedback from Benjamin Schwartz and Marco Pesenti Gritti. The design has<br>
been further simplified, contributing greatly to increased robustness.<br>
Some discussion has started about the convenience of adding the notion<br>
of versions to the Journal for the next release and the different ways<br>
of doing so.<br>
<br>
13. Eben Eliason spent Monday working with Adam Holt et al. to finalize<br>
the design and copy for the instructional insert and letter, and<br>
produced final drafts of the documents ready for print. He then<br>
participated in meetings regarding the consolidation of the OLPC<br>
websites and their re-envisioning as both highly visual and dynamic<br>
spaces designed to attract the attention of casual browsers and<br>
potential G1G1 participants.<br>
<br>
Eben also continued to refine goals and designs looking forward to 9.1,<br>
including in depth discussions of the Journal and Datastore,<br>
particularly with regard to versioning and tagging. He hosted another<br>
open design meeting which delved into the current ideas for the bulletin<br>
board activity and overlay activity chat, in attempts to determine what<br>
possibilities may exist for early implementations of these features.<br>
<br>
12. Guillaume Desmottes tracked and fix memory leaks in Gabble's OLPC<br>
source code. The Gadget branch was finally merged to master. He<br>
discussed with Eben and Simon how Gadget should be integrated into<br>
Sugar. One of the missing feature of the current API was the ability to<br>
perform activity searches based on properties and participants at the<br>
same time. After some discussions with others Collaborans we agreed to<br>
refactor the Gadget/View API to use the recently merged Requests<br>
interface (aka the Requestotron). This should make the API more coherent<br>
with the rest of the Telepathy API and really more extensible for future<br>
features. He also made some improvements in Gadget and the sugar<br>
integration layer.<br>
<br>
Walter Bender's Sugar Digest can be found at:<br>
<a href="http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2008-October/001950.html" target="_blank">http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/iaep/2008-October/001950.html</a>.<br>
<br>
14. Erik Garrison spent the week researching post-8.2 work projects.<br>
These include UBIFS testing, libertas thin-firmware based mesh<br>
networking, X composite, grab key functionality, and datastore and<br>
Journal issues.<br>
<br>
Fedora Classic Desktop:<br>
<br>
15. Jeremy Katz released an updated test build of the Fedora/XO image,<br>
based on integration with the F10 beta release. This was a good step<br>
forward, but it also identified new and substantial issues. We're<br>
preparing for the launch of 100 or so volunteer testers next week to<br>
help accelerate the testing and development work on this project.<br>
<br>
Open Firmware:<br>
<br>
16. Mitch Bradley got multicast NAND updating to work directly from OFW<br>
(no need to boot a special kernel). This permits a deployment to<br>
simultaneously update a large number of laptops with minimal effort.<br>
There's still a fair amount of work to do before it will be ready for<br>
prime time. Outstanding issues include performance, security, and the<br>
user interface.<br>
<br>
New Touchpad:<br>
<br>
17. Richard worked on support for the new keyboard controller, which was<br>
changed at the same time as the touchpad. At first he believed that the<br>
EC was not going to be able to communicate with the keyboard controller<br>
while the main CPU was off. This seemed to mean that to determine which<br>
keyboard controller was present required either Open Firmware<br>
modifications or more invasive EC code modifications.<br>
<br>
However, at the end of the week Richard discovered while talking to John<br>
Watlington that some missed EC configurations were preventing the<br>
communication while the host CPU was off. No system firmware<br>
modifications will be necessary.<br>
<br>
In the meantime, Mitch has released a new firmware (Q2E19) which will be<br>
used in the laptop prototype pre-build this coming week. We hope to have<br>
laptops with the new touchpads at 1CC in just over a week.<br>
<br>
NAND Testing:<br>
<br>
18. Testing of alternative solutions for increasing the storage on the<br>
laptops continues. This week John added four more laptops testing the<br>
Sandisk SD cards. These are so fast that they have already overtaken all<br>
other devices under test in the amount of data written to the device in<br>
an attempt to wear it out/generate errors. Console logs are being<br>
obtained from a kernel crash which has been occurring on laptops running<br>
JFFS2 (both build 8.2-760 and 656), to aid in debugging.<br>
<br>
Networking:<br>
<br>
19. Ricardo and Ashish debugged association issues that are manifesting<br>
in saturated spectrum conditions. They are currently testing potential<br>
improvements and the potential trade-offs involved with operation in<br>
normal spectrum conditions. Ricardo also worked on updating driver and<br>
firmware documentation on the wiki, and setting up his wireless test bed<br>
at UFF in Rio so that he engage the students there in XO projects. *<br>
Worked on diagnosis and tested possible fixes for current wireless<br>
issues: wpa, scanning and resets of the wireless system (#7825, #8666<br>
and #8667).Ricardo updated some pages in the wiki regarding the wireless<br>
subsystem and projected a testbed for sparse network that is being<br>
installed at a University in Brazil (UFF)<br>
<br>
Though we are convinced that the key installation time was the root<br>
cause for some of the association problems to WPA access points (#7825),<br>
there are still other less severe problems in associating. Currently,<br>
we're testing fixes for a scenario where that the scanning routine is<br>
failing (#8667) and investigating what may cause the wireless subsystem<br>
may fail under hostile spectrum conditions (#8666).<br>
<br>
The UFF network testbed will study the (1) feasibility of a mesh network<br>
in connecting people in their houses and offices, (2) the effects of<br>
mobility, (3) validate connectivity models as the gateway mechanisms,<br>
like MPP or MAP, designed to connect XOs to a wired network and (4) will<br>
support a lot of student projects at the University.<br>
<br>
20. Deepak Saxena attended an Embedded Linux Developers' Conference and<br>
gave a keynote on "Linux Power Management Challenges for the XO and<br>
Beyond."<br>
<a href="http://dev.laptop.org/%7Edsaxena/conference_slides/mvista_vision2008_power_challenges.pdf" target="_blank">http://dev.laptop.org/~dsaxena/conference_slides/mvista_vision2008_power_challenges.pdf</a><br>
<br>
And in Other News…<br>
<br>
Nikos Passalis, a senior at Neapolis High School in Thessaloniki,<br>
Greece, won the special EIROforum CERN award in the 20th European Union<br>
Contest for Young Scientists, which was held this year in Copenhagen.<br>
Passalis's winning entry was a program that utilizes XOs to form<br>
distributed systems. According to the official contest site, the<br>
program's "most important features are: the remote control of the<br>
laptop's projects, its fully automated operations without involving the<br>
user, the great fault tolerance combined with self-fix features if a<br>
problem is detected and the smart energy management. The modifications<br>
to the computer's software are very few, so it is easy to use and<br>
functionalities are untouched. Also, this makes its application easier.<br>
Moreover, features like virtual partitions in Ram memory, buffering<br>
techniques, temperature monitoring, etc. were implemented in order to<br>
reduce the computer's hardware load to minimum and not affect its<br>
expected lifetime. Finally, the program was optimized in order to<br>
minimize the computer's load during its operation. "<br>
<br>
Congratulations, Nikos.<br>
<br>
More at <a href="http://www.eurocontest.dk/" target="_blank">http://www.eurocontest.dk/</a><br>
<br>
<br>
Brian Berry sent a link to an early evaluation of the OLPC project in<br>
Nepal: <a href="http://blog.olenepal.org/index.php/archives/321" target="_blank">http://blog.olenepal.org/index.php/archives/321</a>.<br>
<font color="#888888"><br>
--<br>
Jim Gettys <<a href="mailto:jg@laptop.org">jg@laptop.org</a>><br>
One Laptop Per Child<br>
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<br></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Rafael Ortiz <br>
</div>