[sugar] Sugar USB testing

Sun Oct 5 17:32:00 EDT 2008

Here are a few more details:

We tried a Fedora 9 LiveCD also and it never fully booted.

The TinyLinux we used was Puppy Linux.  It was remarkably faster then Fedora
and Ubuntu.

My notes and a link to Walter's notes are here:
http://schoolkey.net/blog/2008/10/04/sugar-pups

Thanks,
Caroline

On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 12:37 PM, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com>wrote:

> CCing the Sugar list.
>
> It seems that one of the problems we will be encountering with generic
> spins is footprint. Even a standard Ubuntu without Sugar was seeming
> too fat to load from a LiveCD on a Pentium 4 with 256K of DRAM.
> Although we didn't try it, I expect Fedora would present similar
> challenges. I don't know how feasible it is to make a lean Fedora for
> these use cases: Maybe the subset of packages we grab for the OLPC
> image only. I defer to the magic that Dennis and Greg can yield.
> Meanwhile, it is probably worth looking at some of the purposefully
> small distros, such as TinyLinux, to see how bloated they get when we
> build Sugar on top of them. It may be a good interim-term solution.
>
> -walter
>
> On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 12:24 PM, Caroline Meeks
> <caroline at solutiongrove.com> wrote:
> > Yes, I'm absolutely willing to test any and all USB work!  I have several
> > test computers at home and when we get something that works on everything
> > here I can go into Shaw any Friday morning.
> >
> > Thank you for your help.
> >
> > Caroline
> >
> > On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 12:18 PM, David Farning <dfarning at sugarlabs.org>
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> Yes, the Sugar spin is really an early beta.  The engineers at Redhat
> were
> >> still working on it Thursday night to get it ready for you and another
> >> Boston area deployment to test.
> >>
> >> Are you willing to try again this Friday?  We can leverage your
> >> willingness to test the spin as an incentive for the Redhat engineers to
> >> improve the spin for another release later this week.
> >>
> >> thanks
> >> david
> >>
> >> On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 10:32 AM, Caroline Meeks
> >> <caroline at solutiongrove.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> hmm new sugar-spin did not boot my home 4GB Pentium 4 successfully.  So
> >>> it may not be ready for prime time yet.
> >>>
> >>> On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 11:28 AM, Caroline Meeks
> >>> <caroline at solutiongrove.com> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Cool, I have a Fedora CD and i also just burned the new sugar-spin.
> >>>>
> >>>> I have bootable USBs of other things.
> >>>>
> >>>> So I think we will have the tools we need for diagnosis.
> >>>>
> >>>> See you soon.
> >>>>
> >>>> On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 11:22 AM, Walter Bender <
> walter.bender at gmail.com>
> >>>> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I recommend the Fedora CD for today. If I get a chance, I'll try to
> >>>>> make a LiveUSB of the same image as well.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> -walter
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 10:59 AM, Caroline Meeks
> >>>>> <caroline at solutiongrove.com> wrote:
> >>>>> > Hi David,
> >>>>> >
> >>>>> > Any luck with the USB? How is it going?
> >>>>> >
> >>>>> > Walter and I will be at the school today and we will try the Fedora
> >>>>> > CDs and
> >>>>> > the joyride CD.
> >>>>> >
> >>>>> > Anythign else you want us to try while we are there?
> >>>>> >
> >>>>> > Thanks,
> >>>>> > Caroline
> >>>>> >
> >>>>> > On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 7:17 PM, David Farning
> >>>>> > <dfarning at sugarlabs.org>
> >>>>> > wrote:
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >> On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 5:35 PM, Caroline Meeks
> >>>>> >> <caroline at solutiongrove.com> wrote:
> >>>>> >>>
> >>>>> >>> Hi David,
> >>>>> >>>
> >>>>> >>> Since I don't have an exact duplicate of the machine here,
> Friday's
> >>>>> >>> trip
> >>>>> >>> will be devoted to figuring out the answers to your questions.
> >>>>> >>>
> >>>>> >>> Let me test my understanding. Are these statements true? -
> >>>>> >>>
> >>>>> >>>  The XO hardware only has 256MB of RAM so in theory Sugar should
> >>>>> >>> work on
> >>>>> >>> a Pentium 4 with 256MB RAM
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >> This is not necessarily true.  The xo runs a heavily modified
> >>>>> >> version of
> >>>>> >> Fedora.  We are putting Sugar on top of stock Fedora, Debian, and
> >>>>> >> Ubuntu
> >>>>> >> distributions.  The trade off is engineering time vs. size.  It
> take
> >>>>> >> a
> >>>>> >> tremendous amount of engineering time to maintain a modified
> >>>>> >> distribution.
> >>>>> >> By using stock distributions as our base we greatly reduce the
> >>>>> >> effort needed
> >>>>> >> to push Sugar through the distribution channels.
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >>>
> >>>>> >>> The JoyRide live CD you were giving out at the conference will
> >>>>> >>> likely not
> >>>>> >>> work unless there is more then 300MB of RAM
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >> I am not sure of the specific needs of the version of Sugar we
> >>>>> >> distributed.  Rather then try to determine if a older CD works,
> >>>>> >> let's see if
> >>>>> >> stock fedora, ubuntu and debian work on your equipment.
> >>>>> >>>
> >>>>> >>> Let me know what information you'd like me to collect on Friday.
> >>>>> >>>  Here
> >>>>> >>> are my thoughts.
> >>>>> >>>
> >>>>> >>> Goal 1 - See if we can get Sugar to run stable on the Shaw
> Computer
> >>>>> >>> Lab
> >>>>> >>> computers.  Sounds like  I can probably just burn a bunch of CDs
> >>>>> >>> and use
> >>>>> >>> those.  What do you want me to test?
> >>>>> >>>
> >>>>> >>> The distributions listed on this page:
> >>>>> >>> http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Supported_systems
> >>>>> >>> Are the various ones for different Linux Distros full system or
> are
> >>>>> >>> they
> >>>>> >>> just the files you need to add Sugar to an existing Linux
> install?
> >>>>> >>>
> >>>>> >>> Fedora This one? http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora i686 -
> Live
> >>>>> >>> CD
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >> Yes, the live cd would be the place to start.
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >> 6.3. x86 Specifics for Fedora
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >> This section covers specific information about Fedora and the x86
> >>>>> >> hardware
> >>>>> >> platform.
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >> 6.3.1. Hardware requirements for x86
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >> In order to use specific features of Fedora 9 during or after
> >>>>> >> installation, you may need to know details of other hardware
> >>>>> >> components such
> >>>>> >> as video and network cards.
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >> 6.3.1.1. Processor and memory
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >> The following CPU specifications are stated in terms of Intel
> >>>>> >> processors.
> >>>>> >> Other processors, such as those from AMD, Cyrix, and VIA that are
> >>>>> >> compatible
> >>>>> >> with and equivalent to the following Intel processors, may also be
> >>>>> >> used with
> >>>>> >> Fedora.
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >> Fedora 9 requires an Intel Pentium or better processor, and is
> >>>>> >> optimized
> >>>>> >> for Pentium 4 and later processors.
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >> Recommended for text-mode: 200 MHz Pentium-class or better.
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >> Recommended for graphical: 400 MHz Pentium II or better.
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >> Minimum RAM for text-mode: 128MiB.
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >> Minimum RAM for graphical: 192MiB.
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >> Recommended RAM for graphical: 256MiB.
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >> According to the release notes Fedora should work with 256MB
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >>>
> >>>>> >>> Ubuntu - http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >>  Yes again.
> >>>>> >>>
> >>>>> >>> UbuntuMobile - Where is the best place to get an iso?
> >>>>> >>>
> >>>>> >>>
> http://linux.softpedia.com/get/System/Operating-Systems/Other/Ubuntu-MID-39213.shtml
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >> For now let's forget about Gnome Mobile.
> >>>>> >>>
> >>>>> >>> Sugar - Where can I get an iso for a live CD that will has a
> chance
> >>>>> >>> of
> >>>>> >>> working on 256MB of RAM? Should I use any of these?
> >>>>> >>> http://dev.laptop.org/pub/livebackupcd/
> >>>>> >>>
> >>>>> >>>
> >>>>> >>>
> >>>>> >>>
> >>>>> >> I will send you links to newer Live CD by Thursday evening.
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >>>
> >>>>> >>> Goal 2 - Demoing Sugar capability to the Shaw School Staff.
> >>>>> >>>
> >>>>> >>> It turns out the technology teacher Marian is out this Friday so
> >>>>> >>> the goal
> >>>>> >>> of showing the collaborative features maybe next week.  However,
> >>>>> >>> doing a
> >>>>> >>> demo for adults on a wired network shouldn't be that hard right?
> Is
> >>>>> >>> there
> >>>>> >>> some Jabber server that adults who own XOs are using that we
> could
> >>>>> >>> use for
> >>>>> >>> the demo?
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >> I was asked at least ten times about the availability of Jabber
> >>>>> >> servers
> >>>>> >> for test purposes at Openminds.  As a result, I am looking into
> >>>>> >> setting up a
> >>>>> >> jabber server so each community of Sugar users will have access to
> a
> >>>>> >> community specific server.  Once that is in place it should not be
> >>>>> >> too hard
> >>>>> >> to set a batch of USB keys or Live CDs to go to that server by
> >>>>> >> default.
> >>>>> >>>
> >>>>> >>> Goal 3 - Testing speed and durability of Sugar on a USB Key.
> >>>>> >>>
> >>>>> >>> I can do initial testing of that from here. We don't have to do
> >>>>> >>> that at
> >>>>> >>> the Shaw but if we had a USB that would be good.
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >> This would be of great value to our developers.
> >>>>> >>>
> >>>>> >>> Thanks!
> >>>>> >>> Caroline
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >> Would you be interested in moving this conversation to  our
> mailing
> >>>>> >> list
> >>>>> >> at iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org so we can publicly archive this
> >>>>> >> conversation.
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >> Thanks
> >>>>> >> david
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >
> >>>>> >
> >>>>> >
> >>>>> > --
> >>>>> > Caroline Meeks
> >>>>> > Solution Grove
> >>>>> > Caroline at SolutionGrove.com
> >>>>> >
> >>>>> > 617-500-3488 - Office
> >>>>> > 505-213-3268 - Fax
> >>>>> >
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> --
> >>>>> Walter Bender
> >>>>> Sugar Labs
> >>>>> http://www.sugarlabs.org
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> --
> >>>> Caroline Meeks
> >>>> Solution Grove
> >>>> Caroline at SolutionGrove.com
> >>>>
> >>>> 617-500-3488 - Office
> >>>> 505-213-3268 - Fax
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> Caroline Meeks
> >>> Solution Grove
> >>> Caroline at SolutionGrove.com
> >>>
> >>> 617-500-3488 - Office
> >>> 505-213-3268 - Fax
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Caroline Meeks
> > Solution Grove
> > Caroline at SolutionGrove.com
> >
> > 617-500-3488 - Office
> > 505-213-3268 - Fax
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Walter Bender
> Sugar Labs
> http://www.sugarlabs.org
>

-- 
Caroline Meeks
Solution Grove
Caroline at SolutionGrove.com

617-500-3488 - Office
505-213-3268 - Fax
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