OLPC Laptop - an open source substandard ? ( ticket #46 )

[Alex Gibson]

Andi wrote:
> Hi Jim, Hi list,
>
> Jim Gettys wrote:
>> Unless that investment can be done in parallel, this change translates
>> into delay and cost.  Right now, there are only one set of people
>> familiar with the mesh code, working under a tight deadline.  We're not
>> about to tell them to delay the overall project by switching horses in
>> midstream.
>>
>> So to break the conundrum there also have to be people willing to
>> actually do the work, as the primary firmware team is working on getting
>> us code we can use and deploy.
> ...
>> As in the base system BIOS/firmware situation, the right way to look at
>> this is we know the desired/needed end-state, and to take steps toward
>> that state as time and resources permit.
>
> That's good news.
> Basically you say that you will *support* a parallel development, if
> there are people willing to do a parallel development.
> OK.
> What's needed to start:
> - a cheap and easy to get development environment:
>   Since a BTest-1 Systems is still a hard to get thing...
>   In what cheap device, *sold* *worldwide*, is the Marvell Libertas
>   88W8388 chip in a to the Gen1-System compatible manner build in ?
>   Candidates:
>   - Xbox 360 WifiAdapter http://wiki.free60.org/WifiAdapter
>     Start at 65 EUR
>   Could someone ask Marvell kindly about that please ?
>
> If we have OLPC Gen1-System compatible development hardware we could
> evaluate the Marvell RTOS alternatives http://ecos.sourceware.org/ and
> http://www.tinyos.net/
>
>
> Andi 

Its a pity the gumstix.com guys used the 88W8385
as their wifi stix board would have been perfect  
http://gumstix.com/store/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=172
(I have a couple on my desk)

There is  an olsr package now available in their standard buildroot.

But I don't think they do yet have that opensource driver they mention.
They ran into the same problem with the firmware.

May be worth while for someone to have a chat with them.


Alex