Update.1 & testing

[Jim Gettys]

Update.1
========
Update 1 is about to start the release process. Update.1RC1 is almost
ready (by sometime Monday I hope). 

The first order of business for everyone with code in the build should
be to go through closed bugs for Update.1 and verify they are fixed
(you've been wondering what the little checkbox was for, haven't you)
that they are fixed in the Update.1 build. Please also close bugs that
you've fixed, but forgotten to close.

Suspend and resume is turned on (on MP systems); this will be ongoing
work to improve into the indefinite future.  See this as a work in
progress. Suspend and resume will only operate fully on mass production
machines, since prototypes had hardware problems.  On B4's, the plan for
RC1 is to allow manual sleep (momentary push of the power button will
suspend the machine), though that is not in Joyride 1551.

Rainbow security is enabled.  The Web browser has been updated to use
the technology in Firefox 3 Beta 2, which is significantly faster and
better at memory usage. Innumerable bugs have been fixed.  Performance
is significantly improved. Memory and file leakage of the system is
reduced.

Update.1RC1
-----------
Joyride 1551 is very, very close to Update.1RC1's contents, though has
some additional activities we do no plan to ship in Update.1 bundled on
the base system.  Those developers of you who read this over the weekend
before the Update.1RC1 build is available please make sure to update to
the the new firmware version (Q2D09), which is necessary to fix a number
of key bugs for suspend and resume. We hope the firmware process will be
automated in the real Update.1RC1 build.

RC2 will pick up additional translations and key bug fixes that missed
RC1. The community is working to complete the Spanish translation, which
was not complete by the string freeze date due to the holidays.  There
will therefore be a refresh of packages to complete the translations.
Activity developers should only be picking up translations (and fixes
for approved bugs).

RC3 is intended to pick up critical bug fixes discovered during testing,
and is the first candidate that is a real candidate for widespread
release.  We'll do an RC4 if necessary.

Testing
=======
Joyride will be reopened for the start of Update.2 development later
this week just after Update.1RC1 is available.  

As soon as RC1 is available, we will start a testing cycle:
        o suspend/resume cycling for reliability.  During the run up to
mass production the hardware/firmware was found to be able to reliably
suspend/resume at least 50,000 cycles (the length of the tests we were
willing to tolerate). We need to ensure there are not software or
firmware regressions in this area.
        o scaling tests - we need to ensure sane behavior of the systems
in circumstances such as 300 children resuming their laptops all at once
in the morning.
        o verification of power use in different use states, on our
power measurement systems.
        o wireless driver testing and upgrade testing
        o testing with the school server software
	o application testing: Kim Quirk has been hard at work with others on
getting together test plans for core applications.

Those with blocking issues or who can help with them should stay focused
on those tasks, and the first order of business is for everyone to go
through their fixed bugs and *verify* they are fixed.

Thank you all for your hard work! Many children all over the world
benefit immensely from your dedication

                                 - Jim


-- 
Jim Gettys
One Laptop Per Child