[Server-devel] stability of XS 0.5

[Martin Langhoff]

On Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 3:12 PM, Sameer Verma <sverma at sfsu.edu> wrote:
> Sure! I have a Fujitsu P2120 (Transmeta Crusoe ~900MHz proc, 384MB
> RAM) that I've been using for testing. We use it at all the OLPC-SF
> meetings. XS 0.4 works fine on it "right out of the box", but no such
> love with 0.5, hence the concern. I've been following your thread on
> the built-in wireless card confusion and it looks like I may have the
> same issue.

Is that the only issue? What does the output of iwconfig look like? Do
you have an AA?

In other words, bugreports and/or reports to this list can give me
enough hints to fix it. I depend on you reporting it...

> We can always dig up a relatively modern P4 for testing. What
> additional hw would this be?

The machine you have is low end, but it should do for small groups -
no need for a P4. Was thinking of an AA and/or an XO if you don't have
them. Depends on what you're testing.

> Don't get me wrong. I really appreciate your efforts. On my recent
> trip to India (http://opensource.sfsu.edu/node/593), I realized the
> immense importance of the school server in environs with no Internet
> backhaul. Khairat, India's first pilot, has a server, but its an old
> build (160 or 161, I think) and they recently lost their backhaul, so
> they don't use it anymore. The teacher asked for a lot of things that
> could be fixed easily with the current XS feature set.

Interesting to hear that. Do you think you could write up a brief
summary of the things that teacher asked for...? (the slides linked,
while interesting, don't seem to refer to this...)

> In other
> schools where they might consider getting XOs, the immense cost of
> backhaul will kill the effort before it gets off the ground. The XS
> fills that gap. This reminds me: We should explore sneakernet-like
> e-mail at some point, but I digress.

Have you got an XO? I really need someone to help me experiment with
booting F9 off an SD card (backporting whatever cleverness has been
applied to F10) so we can put  XS-0.6 on SD cards and say: XO + SD
card + external USB HD = XS!

(I don't think the XO will boot from an ext USB HD...)

> The offline nature of content and software (wikislice, moodle, etc.)
> is going to be instrumental in getting XOs to poorer school districts
> that cannot afford backhaul connectivity.. In fact, I think the role
> of the school server is undersold and overshadowed by the XO's
> capabilities and eye candy.

Of course I agree, the XS is the sexiest part of OLPC, and we're the
only ones that have noticed ;-) Is it feasible to make Wikislices with
cjb's toolchain for the various languages in India?

> I'm just concerned that folks like Manoocher
> (http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/grassroots/2008-December/000953.html)
> might get misled by the "stable" monkier only to find out that the 0.5
> ISO has issues.

Reasonable point. It does say stable, and it also says "0.5" ;-)

And we can also say that 0.4 is not very "stable" either -- I know
quite a few scenarios where it has significantly more trouble than
0.5.

cheers,



m
-- 
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 martin at laptop.org -- School Server Architect
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