[Server-devel] Spreadsheet, Active Antenna, and this weekend

[Michail Bletsas]

Tony.

What you got, is the 8388 development board (which is functionaly 
equivalent to the active antenna).
It comes with an external antenna and a pigtail. It should be fairly 
obvious  how to connect the antenna to the pigtail and the pigtail to the 
board.
After that, all you have to do, is to plug the module into a USB port of 
the "schoolserver" machine.

Please note that the firmware on the module, self boots into mesh repeater 
mode (hence the term "active antenna") when the module gets powered and 
the host doesn't try to download firmware to it.
In practical terms that means that during reboots of the server the module 
will not be properly enumerated and will have to be removed and be plugged 
in again with the server fully running.

The wiki page http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Active_Antenna_Reprogramming has 
instructions on how to change the modules boot2 code so that it doesn't 
autoboot when attached to a server.

M.






Tony Pearson <tpearson at us.ibm.com> 
Sent by: server-devel-bounces at lists.laptop.org
02/14/2008 02:59 PM

To
server-devel at lists.laptop.org
cc
Bryan Berry <bryan.berry at gmail.com>
Subject
[Server-devel] Spreadsheet, Active Antenna, and this weekend







Team, 
I have gotten my active antenna from OLPC.  As soon as Julia or Michail 
provide me instructions 
on how to put it together, I can begin mesh testing. 

My current test configuration is: 

(internet)---(cable modem)---(Hub with WiFi)---(XS) ---Active Antenna--XO 

If necessary, I can try to get a second box to act as proxy, and some 
additional NIC cards and 
cross over cables.  Let me know if that is required, or if the tests are 
valid with the configuration above. 
Another option is that I can use my one box in two configurations.   

(internet)---(cable modem)---(Hub with WiFi)---(Squid) ---Active 
Antenna--XO 

This would mean testing the Squid box by itself, and the XS by itself, 
for those testcases focused on one or the other.  I will pull one of my 
other 
PCs out of the closet, and perhaps get that one to be my second box. 

SJ> You mentioned OLPC are doing mostly in Python.  While all of the XO 
client code is in Python, the 
XS server code, driven by Moodle, is in PHP.  And I have received some 
sample PERL scripts for 
the install from mis amigos en Uruguay.  I am agnostic to languages, but 
would like to think we standardize 
 to Python for client, and PHP for server side code for now. 

Greg> 
As for backing up the /home directory from the XO to the XS, I was 
envisioning a PHP page on the 
server that the student could navigate to, and this would perform the file 
upload.  It would require the 
students to take action to cause this to happen.  It sounds like an 
automated solution would be better, 
but how did you want this to be kicked off, once per day?   

Brian> 
I am looking at the spreadsheet you sent.   On "Software" I think you 
should add Fedora level, especially 
if Wad upgrades from Fedora 7 to Fedora 8, and also Linux kernel level. On 
"Content" can you provide URLs 
for all of these besides "Wikipedia.org" I know, but the others?  Do we 
have "OLPC Library Content" to 
test with?   What were you looking for under "Space Used"?  Did you mean 
memory RAM used, or 
disk MB used?  Please clarify. 

My thoughts on the Test Cases: 

"Apply image to XO from USB" -- I have my developer key, but was under the 
assumption that most XO 
do not have a developer key?  Do you want me to test this process with and 
without developer key? 
I need instructions on how to do "Apply Image from USB" as I have never 
done this before, and which 
images (I am running 653 now) you want me to test. 

"Chat with Other XO" -- Ok, to test chat before, I used my Thinkpad T60 
running QEMU using 
the website "xochat.org" to connect with my XO laptop.  If we have 
ejabberd running on the XS, would 
I connect my laptop and XO to "ejabberd" and have the XO over the mesh, 
and the Thinkpad over 
the Wi-Fi?  If not, I will need to borrow my friend's XO for a pure 
mesh-to-mesh test. 

"Can launch Squeak Activity from Moodle" -- is this the same as eToys, or 
did you mean the 
developers version of Squeak on the OLPC website? 

"Fill up the XOs hard drive" -- I love this one.  In general, I think we 
should also develop some 
tools that generate activity, this would help identify memory leaks and 
what logs needs to be 
tailed over time. 

"Remove activities manually"  -- what does this mean.  I have been able to 
add activities to my 
XO by downloading the XO files to my Journal and installing them, but the 
only way I have been 
able to remove them was dropping down into "Terminal" activity and hacking 
away at the file 
trees with "rm" commands.  Is there a better way to test this? 

"Type in Nepali, Save text in Nepali" -- as I mentioned before, Nepali 
text does not appear 
properly on my XO.   I had set up this test page (
http://www.990tony.com/olpc/index.php) 
which shows correctly on my Windows XP with both English and Nepali 
script, but on my XO 
the Nepali script shows up as little black-and-white rectengles.  Is there 
an image I need to 
install on my XO to be able to read both English and Nepali script? 

Thanks 




Tony Pearson
Senior Storage Consultant, IBM System Storage™
Telephone: +1 520-799-4309 |  tie 321-4309 |  Cell: +1 520 990-8669
email: tpearson at us.ibm.com |  GSA: http://tucgsa.ibm.com/~tpearson
Blog: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/InsideSystemStorage 
AKA: 990tony Paravane, eightbar specialist 


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