[Server-devel] Best XSCE strategy for us in Pacific with XO-1.5 2GB Testing XSCE 3 on XO 1.5 2GB os855

Mon Jun 17 20:21:11 EDT 2013

On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 3:12 PM, David Leeming
<david at leeming-consulting.com> wrote:
> In the Pacific Islands we have at least couple of recent deployments. I have
> been helping in the Solomons with a 200 XO deployment sponsored by a
> regional bank. They only received the shipment some weeks ago. In Fiji a few
> months ago, Ian Thomson supervised a larger deployment with the Ministry of
> Education and a regional university (USP). It seems that in both cases, we
> have been shipped XO-1.5s with only 2GB installed with release 11.3.1. I do
> not know the history of that.

This is a common situation. This initial purchase price seems daunting
so initial decision makers cut cost by purchasing 'lite' versions for
hardware without fully realizing that initial purchase seems to near
about 33% of the total cost per laptop when spread across the life of
the device. Your milage may vary but 33% of the cost is a reasonable
starting point for budget makers.... as the deployment grows and you
can share fixed expenses across more and more units.

> This is causing us a lot of headaches. The Journals become full as there is
> less than 100MB free space out of the box. There are work arounds but it’s
> less than optimal. We can delete Wikipedia-ES that gives us an extra 100MB,
> but then as we want to add our own favourite Activities that are not
> included in the release, we end up with the same issue. It’s a problem for
> children and teachers, even if they are taught to manage their Journals – I
> imagine it would be disruptive in class.

This is a interesting situation where the XSCE can really help. We
have been UY has been deploy an version of Sugar which uses Webdav.

With Webdev on on both the server and the client it allows users to
treat the XSCE as personal cloud storage. While it may not be optimal
it will provide the user experience of more space while connected.

> The above is really not an issue for this particular list but it is relevant
> because we would really like to experiment with XCSE, which requires release
> 13.1.0 as the starting point. Now we see that we can’t install 13.1.0 on the
> internal drive because the os image is too large (see attached). We
> understand that if we want the XOs to be upgradable, we can increase the
> internal memory but (a) it would take 100+ hours to do so on all the several
> hundred XOs, and (b) we understand that the compatibility of cards can be an
> issue, even within the same brand.

+1 I would start by adding an internal SD card to the machines you
intend to use as servers.

> The option of installing it on an external SD card is interesting, and I am
> going to try that. However, we want to add content storage too – so we’ll
> need a 32GB or 64GB card. Would be interested to know if anyone has tried
> with such a sized card. If we can do that, and have the content stored on
> the same card, it would be the best solution for us.

Bhagmalpur is using a 64GB external SSD. My Sameer could explain the
reason for the decision.

> The reason we are so interested in the XSCE is because it means the schools
> would not depend on a single non-XO machine for the school server. We would
> want a solution where it’s easy to swap if something goes wrong. These
> schools are very remote, and it will not possible to download large amounts
> of data during installs etc, neither do they have sustainable technical
> skills on hand.

I agree, inventory management seems to be the best argument in favor
of XOs as School Servers. As the deployment grows special purpose
hardware seems to be start looking better.

> For these reasons the XSCE on a bootable external memory card is the best
> strategy. As long as (a) we can use a 64GB card to include our content
> storage and (b) that it will boot on any XO-1.5 2GB machine without any
> preparation.

To whet your appetite, the team at XSCE has started talking to
hardware vendors about special purpose school servers. In July George,
Jerry, and Adam will have a first prototype on hand for the July
sprint in Winnipeg :)

> David Leeming
>
> Solomon Islands
>
>
>
> From: David Leeming [mailto:david at leeming-consulting.com]
> Sent: Monday, 17 June 2013 8:58 p.m.
> To: 'George Hunt'; 'David Farning'
> Cc: 'Jerry Vonau'; 'server-devel'
> Subject: RE: [Server-devel] Testing XSCE 3 on XO 1.5 2GB os855
>
>
>
> Still trying to set up my XO-1.5 2GB ready for XSCE, which as per advice
> requires the 13.1.0 release as starting point.
>
>
>
> I downloaded the 13.1.0 files as per
>
>
>
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Release_notes/13.1.0#XO-1.5
>
>
>
> 31036o1.zd
>
> 31036o1.zd.zsp.fs1.zip
>
>
>
> Copied to a newly formatted 1GB USB stick, and checked the zd file md5sum
> matched
>
> Renamed the zip to fs1.zip
>
>
>
> Tried it:
>
>
>
> Fails as per attached. Renaming the fs1.zip as fs.zip makes no difference.
>
>
>
> Tried on a 2GB stick, also reformatted. No luck. Firmware seems OK.
>
>
>
> Something I am missing about the 2GB version of the XO-1.5 ???
>
>
>
> David Leeming
>
>
>
> From: George Hunt [mailto:georgejhunt at gmail.com]
> Sent: Friday, 14 June 2013 8:41 p.m.
> To: David Farning
> Cc: David Leeming; Jerry Vonau; server-devel
> Subject: Re: [Server-devel] Testing XSCE 3 on XO 1.5 2GB os855
>
>
>
> There were kernel problems with 11.3.1 which kept us from getting the XO-1.5
> to become an XSCE.  It was only with the 13.1.0 release, that we were able
> to get the network adapters to work properly after a reboot.
>
>
>
> So I'm afraid that everyone will save a lot of time, and pain, in the long
> run, if the install procedure is followed exactly.
> (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Holt/XS_Community_Edition/0.3/Installing)
>
>
>
> We were not able to test adequately the offline install for subsequent XSCE
> installations to have it be part of the 0.3 release. But for situations
> where internet access is slow, and expensive, it is possible to use a USB
> stick to transfer the rpm packages contained in the /var/yum/cache from the
> first XSCE to the next one, and greatly speed up the install process. (And
> if you leave a USB stick in the XSCE, during the first install, it is our
> intention, and design, that the /var/yum/cache will be copied to that USB
> stick during the install process on that first machine -- and then used
> automatically on a subsequent install)
>
>
>
> George
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 10:31 PM, David Farning
> <dfarning at activitycentral.com> wrote:
>
> Hmm, that is an interesting point that we kind of took for granted.
>
> Our goal with the 'reference' hardware and software is to provide a
> known set of stuff which 'just works.' While other hardware, software,
> and features might work... they have not been tested.
>
> Maybe george or jerry have a good answer for you.
>
> At the risk of carbon dating myself... I grew up in the era where my
> nerdy friends and I drooled over the pages of 'Computer Shopper' for a
> 9.6 kbit/s modem. Auto Resume for stalled downloads was a life saver:)
>
> Now, for simplicity, our testing involves reflashing everything to get
> back to a known state. As you point out, that is probably not the best
> assumption for low bandwidth areas.
>
> On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 8:36 PM, David Leeming
> <david at leeming-consulting.com> wrote:
>> Sorry just realised the XO is only installed with 11.3.1 (os855)
>>
>>
>>
>> However, is it still possible to work around? It’s not easy or cheap to
>> download the os file.
>>
>>
>>
>> David
>>
>>
>>
>> From: David Leeming [mailto:david at leeming-consulting.com]
>> Sent: Friday, 14 June 2013 12:28 p.m.
>> To: 'server-devel'
>> Subject: Testing XSCE 3 on XO 1.5 2GB os855
>>
>>
>>
>> Testing XSCE 3 on XO 1.5 2GB os855
>>
>>
>>
>> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Holt/XS_Community_Edition/0.3/Installing
>>
>>
>>
>> I get as far as step 13, after the SD card (I am testing with an 8GB card)
>> successfully configures.
>>
>>
>>
>> When I enter “bootstrap-xo” is replies
>>
>>
>>
>> Not an XO please run ‘xs-config’
>>
>>
>>
>> Tried to do that but
>>
>>
>>
>> xs-config: command not found
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> David Leeming
>>
>> Solomon Islands
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Server-devel mailing list
>> Server-devel at lists.laptop.org
>> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/server-devel
>>
>
>
>
> --
> David Farning
> Activity Central: http://www.activitycentral.com
>
>

--
David Farning
Activity Central: http://www.activitycentral.com