Devel Digest, Vol 41, Issue 37

Tue Jul 21 05:03:55 EDT 2009

> At the moment, OLPC is doing approximately zero work on Windows.  That
> wasn't true last year.  I spent several months last year making it
> possible to boot Windows from Open Firmware.  The reason I did that was
> to prevent Microsoft from "taking over" the XO machine.

Hey Mitch! Great to hear. This actually proves that Nicholas is pro-open source.

May I have permission to post this email or portions of it to Slashdot?

All the best,

-Naz

On 7/21/09, devel-request at lists.laptop.org
<devel-request at lists.laptop.org> wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Re: is anyone actually doing Windows on XO work here?
>       (Carlos Nazareno)
>    2. Re: [Sugar-devel] help about the get_preview function of
>       activity.Activity class to take screenshots (Tomeu Vizoso)
>    3. Re: is anyone actually doing Windows on XO work here? (Bastien)
>    4. Re: is anyone actually doing Windows on XO work here?
>       (Martin Langhoff)
>    5. Re: is anyone actually doing Windows on XO work here?
>       (Mitch Bradley)
>    6. Re: is anyone actually doing Windows on XO work here?
>       (James Cameron)
>    7. Re: is anyone actually doing Windows on XO work here?
>       (Carlos Nazareno)
>    8. Re: Availability of XO-1.5 ATest-2 machines (Martin Langhoff)
>    9. Re: is anyone actually doing Windows on XO work here? (Bastien)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:47:15 +0800
> From: Carlos Nazareno <object404 at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: is anyone actually doing Windows on XO work here?
> To: Bastien <bastienguerry at googlemail.com>
> Cc: devel <devel at lists.laptop.org>
> Message-ID:
> 	<c58c2c4a0907210047u1312f2d7u537fe82cacd2bff1 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
>>> I'm sick and tired of the this OLPC-MS FUD (Fear-Uncertainty-Doubt) on
>>> Slashdot (one of the highest-traffic websites, so high that getting
>>> linked on the frontpage is like being DDOSed) and it would be great if
>>> the record on this could be set straight so that the MS FUD inanity on
>>> Slashdot can be ended as it's destroying the image of OLPC.
>
>
>> I'm sick of it as well, but I think there is nothing to do.
>
> There is. If we could get what the story really is, anytime there's a
> post on Slashdot on OLPC, we can just post the straight beans there.
> The particular story I posted is still active right now, and if anyone
> makes a post, I've got moderator points right now and can mod it up.
>
> The thing is, most of the people on Slashdot (aka the Internet
> Geek/Nerd Community) who post about OLPC topics know nothing about
> what's going on as they just get their info from 3rd-hand sources and
> haven't even touched an XO.
>
> Since we know a little bit more, it would be very informative to the
> world at large to set the story straight at these forums.
>
> --
> carlos nazareno
> http://twitter.com/object404
> http://www.object404.com
> --
> user group manager
> phlashers: philippine flash actionscripters
> adobe flash/flex/air community
> http://www.phlashers.com
> --
> interactive media specialist
> zen graffiti studios
> http://www.zengraffiti.com
> --
> "if you don't like the way the world is running,
> then change it instead of just complaining."
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2009 10:03:34 +0200
> From: Tomeu Vizoso <tomeu at sugarlabs.org>
> Subject: Re: [Sugar-devel] help about the get_preview function of
> 	activity.Activity class to take screenshots
> To: sumit singh <sumit.coder at gmail.com>
> Cc: devel at lists.laptop.org, sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org,	Martin
> 	Sevior <msevior at gmail.com>
> Message-ID:
> 	<242851610907210103l4898f05fk607a6deeeeb84cb0 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 01:08, sumit singh<sumit.coder at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Martin and Tomeu,
>>
>> Martin, thanx a lot for such a detailed answer. I have got what you want
>> to
>> say. But the problem with me right now is that I think the get_preview
>> function is available only in the latest release of sugar 0.84 because I
>> am
>> on 0.82, and my xo gives an error -- " Activity module does not have an
>> attribute get_preview" . Is it so that the function has been added after
>> 0.82 ? If yes, then is there any way on 0.82 build to take screenshots
>> programatically.
>>
>> There is one strange thing which I am encountering right now. Though the
>> log
>> gives an error that get_preview function is not present but when I ran
>> write
>> 63.xo on the machine ( after replacing sugar.graphics.colorbutton with
>> gtk.colorButton? in toolbar.py ) , closed it and then again tried to
>> restart
>> the activity from the journal , I was able to see the following preview
>> which I am attaching with this mail, that was what was there on my
>> activity
>> screen before I closed it.
>>
>> Though I am not very much sure, but this should have happened because of
>> the
>> save function in activity.Activity class , here is the link-
>> http://api.sugarlabs.org/sugar.activity.activity-pysrc.html , which calls
>> the get_preview function of sugar, which is a bit contradictory, if we
>> consider the result of the logs. Am I wrong in the way I am understanding
>> this? Kindly give your comments.
>
> You are asking good questions ;)
>
> In Sugar < 0.84, the only way to get a screenshot of activities was
> asking the X server for the current contents of the screen. This was
> pretty slow and also required that the activity was covering the whole
> screen during that operation (so the user couldn't invoke the frame,
> nor switch activities, etc.).
>
> In Sugar 0.84, we upgraded to a newer version of gtk+ that adds API
> for redrawing a window in a pixbuf. This is faster and can be done at
> any moment. But the abiword shipped with 0.84 did things a bit
> differently so that gtk+ API didn't worked properly, then Martin
> Sevior kindly implemented an additional function that did the job in
> the meantime.
>
> This is the slow method for retrieving previews as was implemented in
> the s.g.w.Window class:
>
> def get_canvas_screenshot(self):
>     if not self.canvas:
>         return None
>     window = self.canvas.window
>     width, height = window.get_size()
>     screenshot = gtk.gdk.Pixbuf(gtk.gdk.COLORSPACE_RGB,
> has_alpha=False, bits_per_sample=8, width=width, height=height)
>     screenshot.get_from_drawable(window, window.get_colormap(), 0, 0,
> 0, 0, width, height)
>     return screenshot
>
> Regards,
>
> Tomeu
>
>> Regards,
>> sumit.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 6:58 PM, Martin Sevior <msevior at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi Sumit,
>>>
>>> I just fixed the example code in the pyabiword module of abiword to
>>> give an example
>>> of how this works.
>>>
>>> The important line in this example is:
>>>
>>> ?i.props.pixbuf = abi.render_page_to_image(1)
>>>
>>> The converts page number 1 to a GdkPixbuf. Once you have a GdkPixbuf,
>>> in this case in
>>> a Gtk.Image you can convert it to whatever format you wish.
>>>
>>> From the PyGtk reference manual http://www.pygtk.org/docs/pygtk/
>>> ?you convert ?this to an image with:
>>>
>>>
>>> http://www.pygtk.org/docs/pygtk/class-gdkpixbuf.html#method-gdkpixbuf--save
>>>
>>> So if you wanted the GdkPixbuf directly you would do:
>>>
>>> PagePixbuf = abi.render_page_to_image(1)
>>> PagePixbuf.save(filename,"png")
>>>
>>> Where "filename" is the name of the file you wish to store to.
>>>
>>> Cheers!
>>>
>>> Martin
>>>
>>> PS. here is test.py which shows the feature in action (thanks for the
>>> patch tomeu!)
>>>
>>> ----------------------------------------------------------
>>> #!/usr/bin/python
>>>
>>> import sys
>>> import pygtk
>>> pygtk.require('2.0')
>>> import gtk
>>> import abiword
>>>
>>> window = gtk.Window()
>>> window.set_default_size(640, 480)
>>> window.connect('delete-event', gtk.main_quit)
>>>
>>> box = gtk.VBox()
>>> window.add(box)
>>> box.show()
>>>
>>> abi = abiword.Canvas()
>>> box.add(abi)
>>> abi.show()
>>>
>>> window.show()
>>>
>>> b = gtk.Button('render page')
>>> box.add(b)
>>> b.show()
>>>
>>> i = gtk.Image()
>>> box.add(i)
>>> i.show()
>>>
>>> def _clicked_cb(widget, abi, i):
>>> ? ?i.props.pixbuf = abi.render_page_to_image(1)
>>>
>>> b.connect('clicked', lambda widget: _clicked_cb(widget, abi, i))
>>>
>>> gtk.main()
>>> --------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> On Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 10:43 PM, sumit singh<sumit.coder at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> > Hi everyone,
>>> >
>>> > Can anyone please guide me about the proper use of the get_preview
>>> > function
>>> > of the activity.Activity class of sugar. I had a look at its api, it
>>> > seems
>>> > to be returning a dictionary sort of thing which is called as the png
>>> > image.
>>> > What I want to do is to save this image somewhere in the datastore and
>>> > show
>>> > this image later to the user in my activity. So, what I want to ask is
>>> > to
>>> > how to load this information in the form of an image later on
>>> > programatically. Can we load it using the gtk.image widget and what is
>>> > the
>>> > right procedure to save this information.
>>> >
>>> > Regards,
>>> > sumit
>>> >
>>> > _______________________________________________
>>> > Sugar-devel mailing list
>>> > Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
>>> > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
>>> >
>>> >
>>
>>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2009 10:01:58 +0200
> From: Bastien <bastienguerry at googlemail.com>
> Subject: Re: is anyone actually doing Windows on XO work here?
> To: Carlos Nazareno <object404 at gmail.com>
> Cc: devel <devel at lists.laptop.org>
> Message-ID: <87ocrexxpw.fsf at bzg.ath.cx>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
>
> Carlos Nazareno <object404 at gmail.com> writes:
>
>> The thing is, most of the people on Slashdot (aka the Internet
>> Geek/Nerd Community) who post about OLPC topics know nothing about
>> what's going on as they just get their info from 3rd-hand sources and
>> haven't even touched an XO.
>
> That's my point.  We can fix this issue by raising an army of small
> hands that will vote on your (correct) slashdot comment, spread the
> correct vision, etc.  Or we can hope that OLPC will fix this issue by
> taking care of what people imagine and try to deliver strong messages
> on what's really going on.
>
> The first "fix" isn't worth the energy - because of course, everyone
> claims to know about what's really going on.
>
> The second fix would be the best one, but OLPC is in a position where
> any advice coming from the community is not heard.  Maybe there are too
> many of them.  Or maybe OLPC turned a bit parano?d about the community.
>
>> Since we know a little bit more, it would be very informative to the
>> world at large to set the story straight at these forums.
>
> Yes.  But what would be the information?
>
>   "OLPC supports both the use of free and proprietary softwares on its
>   hardware."
>
> Nothing really new, and nothing that prevents nerds from taking it in
> the wrong sense.
>
> --
>  Bastien
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:24:14 +1200
> From: Martin Langhoff <martin.langhoff at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: is anyone actually doing Windows on XO work here?
> To: Bastien <bastienguerry at googlemail.com>
> Cc: devel <devel at lists.laptop.org>, Carlos Nazareno
> 	<object404 at gmail.com>
> Message-ID:
> 	<46a038f90907210124lec589f9t3633b903b185a36 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 8:01 PM, Bastien<bastienguerry at googlemail.com>
> wrote:
>> That's my point. ?We can fix this issue by raising an army of small
>> hands that will vote on your (correct) slashdot comment, spread the
>> correct vision, etc. ?Or we can hope that OLPC will fix this issue by
>> taking care of what people imagine and try to deliver strong messages
>> on what's really going on.
>>
>> The first "fix" isn't worth the energy - because of course, everyone
>> claims to know about what's really going on.
>
> Why not? Does anybody wait for Linus Torvalds before fighting anti-linux
> FUD?
>
>> The second fix would be the best one, but OLPC is in a position where
>> any advice coming from the community is not heard. ?Maybe there are too
>> many of them. ?Or maybe OLPC turned a bit parano?d about the community.
>
> Or maybe OLPC is a tiny *tiny* group of people, utterly swamped with
> HW, SW, deployment efforts, manufacturing logistics, working with
> governments, etc...?
>
> cheers,
>
>
>
> m
> --
>  martin.langhoff at gmail.com
>  martin at 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
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2009 22:33:14 -1000
> From: Mitch Bradley <wmb at laptop.org>
> Subject: Re: is anyone actually doing Windows on XO work here?
> To: devel at lists.laptop.org
> Message-ID: <4A657D4A.3010306 at laptop.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
>>
>> Now AFAIK, there's little to no Windows work being done in-house by
>> the OLPC team, and it's all or mostly at Microsoft's side that the
>> work's being done.
>>
>
> At the moment, OLPC is doing approximately zero work on Windows.  That
> wasn't true last year.  I spent several months last year making it
> possible to boot Windows from Open Firmware.  The reason I did that was
> to prevent Microsoft from "taking over" the XO machine.  Their plan was
> to purchase machines and instruct the factory to reflash their SPI FLASH
> boot ROM with a conventional BIOS - which would have prevented OLPC's
> Linux from working.  It would have been possible to boot a different
> Linux distro from that BIOS, but it would not have been bootable from
> NAND FLASH, the OLPC security would not have been available, OLPC's
> special power management would not have worked, and the OFW-resident
> management features like diagnostics and NAND update would have been
> lost.  Essentially it would have been a one-way ticket to Microsoft land.
>
> That one-way road was unacceptable to Nicholas.  He insisted that, if
> any machines were to be able to run Windows, they must be able to dual-boot.
>
> Microsoft already had the one-way solution working, with only the barest
> amount of involvement from the OLPC team - essentially, I answered a few
> questions that Microsoft's rep posed to me.  The time I spent doing that
> was comparable to the time I spent answering similar questions from
> people porting other operating systems, such as Minix, Plan 9, and ReactOS.
>
> The big chunks of time that I spent on Microsoft-related stuff were not
> to make Windows run on the XO - that was already a done deal.  I spent
> the time to enable OFW to dual-boot Windows and Linux, thus preventing
> "Windows only" XOs.
>
> That work paid off in another way for XO-1.5.  The ACPI infrastructure
> necessary to run Windows on XO-1 let us to use a more "standard" Linux
> kernel for XO-1.5.  That's good in that it helps our chances of meeting
> our tight schedule with our modest system software resources, and
> reduces the amount of upstream merging that we must do.  It's bad from
> the standpoint that XO-1.5 is looking more and more like a conventional
> PC, thus bringing it dangerously close to the "black hole" of the PC
> industry that sucks everything into the commodity ecosystem in which
> Intel has near-total control over the evolution of the system architecture.
>
> It's possible - even likely - that I will have to spend some time in the
> next few months to make Windows boot on XO-1.5.  I expect that will go
> quite quickly compared to the last effort, as the XO-1 work should carry
> over.
>
> Mitch
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 6
> Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2009 18:39:30 +1000
> From: James Cameron <quozl at laptop.org>
> Subject: Re: is anyone actually doing Windows on XO work here?
> To: devel at lists.laptop.org
> Message-ID: <20090721083930.GL31347 at us.netrek.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> On Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 10:33:14PM -1000, Mitch Bradley wrote:
>> That one-way road was unacceptable to Nicholas.  He insisted that, if
>> any machines were to be able to run Windows, they must be able to
>> dual-boot.
>
> Good work, both of you.
>
> --
> James Cameron
> http://quozl.linux.org.au/
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 7
> Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2009 16:40:45 +0800
> From: Carlos Nazareno <object404 at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: is anyone actually doing Windows on XO work here?
> To: Bastien <bastienguerry at googlemail.com>
> Cc: devel <devel at lists.laptop.org>
> Message-ID:
> 	<c58c2c4a0907210140ude51528l5d30ab5c63485804 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
>> That's my point.  We can fix this issue by raising an army of small
>> hands that will vote on your (correct) slashdot comment, spread the
>> correct vision, etc.
>
> No need for anyone here to have mod points on Slashdot actually. If
> anyone here just says something informative and not FUD, and clarifies
> where they're getting their information from, reader moderators will
> mod the comment up and it will become more visible to readers, thus
> fixing FUD ;)
>
> I'm more than happy to post stuff, having a Slashdot account. I just
> don't know what to post exactly as stuff is not yet clarified.
>
> Cheers!
>
> -Naz
>
> --
> carlos nazareno
> http://twitter.com/object404
> http://www.object404.com
> --
> user group manager
> phlashers: philippine flash actionscripters
> adobe flash/flex/air community
> http://www.phlashers.com
> --
> interactive media specialist
> zen graffiti studios
> http://www.zengraffiti.com
> --
> "if you don't like the way the world is running,
> then change it instead of just complaining."
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 8
> Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:43:26 +1200
> From: Martin Langhoff <martin.langhoff at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: Availability of XO-1.5 ATest-2 machines
> To: Tiago Marques <tiagomnm at gmail.com>
> Cc: "Richard A. Smith" <richard at laptop.org>, devel at lists.laptop.org,
> 	Chris Ball <cjb at laptop.org>, Carlos Nazareno <object404 at gmail.com>
> Message-ID:
> 	<46a038f90907210143s11d7c19bl5daee5d13920e586 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 6:37 AM, Tiago Marques<tiagomnm at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Apple quotes 7 hours of "wireless productivity", not just leaving the
>> thing idling - they deliver more than 8 hours. Notice the praise and
>> good word of mouth.
>
> On a finished HW+SW combo after lots of testing. At very early stages
> they'd have said something really useful like "we're trying to get
> more than 25 minutes battery life".
>
> And then sold about 10 units in the market.
>
> cheers,
>
>
>
> m
> --
>  martin.langhoff at gmail.com
>  martin at 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
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 9
> Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2009 10:45:07 +0200
> From: Bastien <bastienguerry at googlemail.com>
> Subject: Re: is anyone actually doing Windows on XO work here?
> To: Mitch Bradley <wmb at laptop.org>
> Cc: devel at lists.laptop.org
> Message-ID: <87ocretob5.fsf at bzg.ath.cx>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> Thanks *very much* for these explanations.
>
> I hope this kind of information can find its way through the OLPC blog,
> maybe with a little more context.  Then we can fight the FUD by linking
> to these explanations.
>
> Coyping sj, as I think he's responsible for OLPC's blog, but I might be
> wrong about this.
>
> Mitch Bradley <wmb at laptop.org> writes:
>
>>>
>>> Now AFAIK, there's little to no Windows work being done in-house by
>>> the OLPC team, and it's all or mostly at Microsoft's side that the
>>> work's being done.
>>>
>>
>> At the moment, OLPC is doing approximately zero work on Windows.  That
>> wasn't true last year.  I spent several months last year making it
>> possible to boot Windows from Open Firmware.  The reason I did that was
>> to prevent Microsoft from "taking over" the XO machine.  Their plan was
>> to purchase machines and instruct the factory to reflash their SPI FLASH
>> boot ROM with a conventional BIOS - which would have prevented OLPC's
>> Linux from working.  It would have been possible to boot a different
>> Linux distro from that BIOS, but it would not have been bootable from
>> NAND FLASH, the OLPC security would not have been available, OLPC's
>> special power management would not have worked, and the OFW-resident
>> management features like diagnostics and NAND update would have been
>> lost.  Essentially it would have been a one-way ticket to Microsoft land.
>>
>> That one-way road was unacceptable to Nicholas.  He insisted that, if
>> any machines were to be able to run Windows, they must be able to
>> dual-boot.
>>
>> Microsoft already had the one-way solution working, with only the barest
>> amount of involvement from the OLPC team - essentially, I answered a few
>> questions that Microsoft's rep posed to me.  The time I spent doing that
>> was comparable to the time I spent answering similar questions from
>> people porting other operating systems, such as Minix, Plan 9, and
>> ReactOS.
>>
>> The big chunks of time that I spent on Microsoft-related stuff were not
>> to make Windows run on the XO - that was already a done deal.  I spent
>> the time to enable OFW to dual-boot Windows and Linux, thus preventing
>> "Windows only" XOs.
>>
>> That work paid off in another way for XO-1.5.  The ACPI infrastructure
>> necessary to run Windows on XO-1 let us to use a more "standard" Linux
>> kernel for XO-1.5.  That's good in that it helps our chances of meeting
>> our tight schedule with our modest system software resources, and
>> reduces the amount of upstream merging that we must do.  It's bad from
>> the standpoint that XO-1.5 is looking more and more like a conventional
>> PC, thus bringing it dangerously close to the "black hole" of the PC
>> industry that sucks everything into the commodity ecosystem in which
>> Intel has near-total control over the evolution of the system
>> architecture.
>>
>> It's possible - even likely - that I will have to spend some time in the
>> next few months to make Windows boot on XO-1.5.  I expect that will go
>> quite quickly compared to the last effort, as the XO-1 work should carry
>> over.
>>
>> Mitch
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Devel mailing list
>> Devel at lists.laptop.org
>> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
>>
>
> --
>  Bastien
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Devel mailing list
> Devel at lists.laptop.org
> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
>
>
> End of Devel Digest, Vol 41, Issue 37
> *************************************
>

-- 
carlos nazareno
http://twitter.com/object404
http://www.object404.com
--
user group manager
phlashers: philippine flash actionscripters
adobe flash/flex/air community
http://www.phlashers.com
--
interactive media specialist
zen graffiti studios
http://www.zengraffiti.com
--
"if you don't like the way the world is running,
then change it instead of just complaining."