September 2008 - olpc - Fedora mailing-lists

Fedora Live CD for Sugar
by Greg DeKoenigsberg 07 Oct '08

07 Oct '08

I have: * A livecd for Fedora 10 devel (rawhide) that allows a Sugar 0.82 boot option via GDM. We're missing activites, but as those make their way into rawhide for F10, we will close these gaps quickly. * A kickstart file that can be used by any Fedora user to generate such an image trivially. So. Where shall we host them? Somewhere in Fedora-land, or somewhere in Sugar-land? --g

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python performance-related issues in Sugar (was Re: Meeting minutes from yesterday)
by Tomeu Vizoso 29 Sep '08

29 Sep '08

On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 4:55 PM, Greg Dekoenigsberg <gdk(a)redhat.com> wrote: > > * Python bloat. Tomeu will send me a note regarding best practices on > cutting bloat out of python/pygtk apps, and gdk will send around to various > Python gurus. Sorry to be so late. Some performance related issues in Sugar where Python plays a role: - Activity (and other processes) startup time: mostly due to import time, loading tons of modules that we never actually use but that get referenced by real dependencies. This means loading tons of data into memory (code, comments, etc) plus executing tons of module initialization code. Lazy loading would help here, but if I understood correctly, it's unsafe at least in python 2.5. - Memory usage: the same dependencies creep happen, python processes don't share python code, resulting in lots of duplication. We are using a python launcher hack that preloads some modules in a python interpreter and then forks every time a process is requested. This saves some startup time and makes python processes save a good chunk of memory, but introduces subtle bugs all across the dependencies because modules were initialized in an environment very different from where they execute later. So, the Sugar developers would like to know if any other usage of python in the desktop has found these issues and what the conclusions are. Could you please share your experiences? Thanks, Tomeu

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Self Intro
by Karlie Robinson 29 Sep '08

29 Sep '08

Hello everyone. With a little nudge from Greg and some conversations with the Laptop.org team, I'm here. For those of you who don't know me, I'm a very unusual type of Fedora Ambassador and FLOSS advocate. I'm not a power user. I avoid a terminal window. The only code I can fudge my way through is HTML.... But I can talk Linux and Open Source for hours. [1,2] My role in the Fedora OLPC SIG will be directly tied to Fedora on SD. And know that you're in good hands as I'll put my best men on the task. [3] ~Karlie Robinson Rochester, NY, USA [1] http://on-disk.com/cms/index.php?wiki=RCSi [2] http://on-disk.com/cms/index.php?wiki=OLF_ResourceList [3] http://on-disk.com/cms/index.php?wiki=ohio_linux_fest_2007

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Re: [IAEP] Fedora Live CD for Sugar
by Marco Pesenti Gritti 28 Sep '08

28 Sep '08

On Sun, Sep 28, 2008 at 5:25 PM, <s.boutayeb(a)free.fr> wrote: > Quoting "C. Scott Ananian" <cscott(a)cscott.net>: > >> On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 4:16 PM, David Farning <dfarning(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> > On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 11:56 AM, Greg Dekoenigsberg <gdk(a)redhat.com> >> wrote: > >> > Once we have a live CD is it hard to generate a a live usb with >> > persistence. I was able to get a ubuntu live usb going with two partitions >> > one for storing the cd and another for dynamatic storage. >> > > > Maybe the following tutorial : > "USB Pendrive Linux install from Linux" > ( http://www.pendrivelinux.com/2007/05/16/usb-pendrivelinux-install-tutorial/ ) > gives some hints. > > From the tutorial : "Installation is simple and just requires copying the .img > to a USB device and then creating a live-rw partition if you wish to store your > changes." On a fedora system is just matter of: /usr/bin/livecd-iso-to-disk [--reset-mbr] [--noverify] [--overlay-size-mb <size>] <isopath> <usbstick device> And there is this for windows: https://fedorahosted.org/liveusb-creator Marco

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Work items: Fedora on XO testing plan
by Greg DeKoenigsberg 27 Sep '08

27 Sep '08

So I've just concluded a meeting with James Laska to figure out the plan. Here's what we've got so far, with owners. Comments welcome. Note: we hope to have some of these knocked out by next Tuesday, and the remainder by next Friday. 1. (jlaska) We will identify a number of high-level testing tasks that teams will take on. Examples so far: camera support (does the new F10 webcam stuff work with the XO cam?), power management, wireless (weird drivers upstream?), display/xrandr (does turning the XO sideways do something crazy?). There will be others, and we will share them when we've got a first draft. 2. (jkatz?) We need bulletproof docs that allow our testers to easily put the latest images onto their SD cards. 3. (gdk) Figure out and communicate exactly what spin we're using. i.e. GNOME. :) 4. (jlaska) Identify the dates for testable release candidates, and sync those as best as possible to anticipated F10 snapshot releases. 5. (gdk) Build a team structure on the wiki that is time-based, so that testers can commit to a 4-hour block anytime during the week and join a team that will work with them. Also identify additional roles like triagers and leaders which will entail broader responsibility, and recruit specifically for those roles. 6. (gdk) Further qualify leads by other criteria: having an SD writer (duh), having a second computer (for transferring images and communicating on irc, etc.), understanding bugzilla, etc. 7. (jlaska) Identify and document workflow for Fedora-on-XO bugs (use tracking bugs? how to verify "closed rawhide" bugs? etc.) --g

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Re: Fedora Live CD for Sugar
by Greg DeKoenigsberg 25 Sep '08

25 Sep '08

On Thu, 25 Sep 2008, David Farning wrote: > On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 11:56 AM, Greg Dekoenigsberg <gdk(a)redhat.com> > wrote: > > I have: > > * A livecd for Fedora 10 devel (rawhide) that allows a Sugar > 0.82 boot option via GDM. We're missing activites, but as > those make their way into rawhide for F10, we will close > these gaps quickly. > > * A kickstart file that can be used by any Fedora user to > generate such an image trivially. > > > Once we have a live CD is it hard to generate a a live usb with > persistence. I was able to get a ubuntu live usb going with two > partitions one for storing the cd and another for dynamatic storage. I was inarticulate. What I have is, in fact, a Live image, capable of being written to a USB key with persistence enabled. Fedora build tools basically make it trivial to build and maintain such images with default tools. --g

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Reminder: Fedora OLPC meeting
by Greg DeKoenigsberg 25 Sep '08

25 Sep '08

Today at 1pm Eastern US time. #fedora-olpc on freenode. See you there. :) --g

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Package splits between Fedora mainline and OLPC
by Peter Robinson 25 Sep '08

25 Sep '08

Hi All, Reviewing the mail that was sent back in August over the last couple of weeks I've made a number of updates to Robin's wiki page and filed a number of Fedora bugs or added the bugs to the wiki where needed as there's quite a bit of cross over in what I want to achieve for the Fedora Mini SIG. https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-olpc-list/2008-August/msg00036.html Now what I'd like to be able to do is work out what the status of the current fork list is. Of the packages listed in the posting above alot of them still have a OLPC cvs branch but I suspect that will hang around even when its merged back into the mainline. So is someone able to regenerate the split report so we can see where we are? Even if they don't have time to deal with the merging back in I can probably compare specs and file tickets linked against the tracking bug to get them merged if the spec files are essentially the same. Cheers, Peter

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Fedora kernel on XO progress -- initrd is loaded in the wrong by place by OpenFirmware
by Jeremy Katz 22 Sep '08

22 Sep '08

After going down a few more dead ends than I would have preferred, I've figured out the root cause of the problems booting the Fedora kernel on the XO. The base problem is that OFW always loads the initrd at 0x800000 which, while it used to be okay, isn't a safe assumption with current kernels. With the Fedora kernel images for example, this ends up being smack in the middle of the .bss and thus things explode. The correct thing to do with an initrd (according to Documentation/boot/x86/i386/boot.txt and manual verification with hpa) is to first check the value of initrd_addr_max (0x22c) in the header of the bzImage. initrd_addr_max is defined as the maximum safe address for a byte of the initrd, so you want to load the ramdisk at initrd_addr_max-len(ramdisk)+1. This then will make OFW's kernel loading match that of all the other bootloaders used on x86. It might also be worth checking some of the other newer things (especially the kernel_alignment field), but I've got no indication of them causing any problems at all right now with anything that anyone is actually doing in practice. Unfortunately, I have nowhere near the forth-fu to whip up a patch to fix the ramdisk load location. But I'm pretty sure that with such a patch, a standard Fedora kernel should be able to boot just fine on the XO hardware which would be a really big win for being able to run any of the variety of Fedora live images. Mitch -- any chance you could take a look or give me pointers in the correct direction? Thanks, Jeremy

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Re: Fedora kernel on XO progress -- initrd is loaded in the wrong by place by OpenFirmware
by Jeremy Katz 22 Sep '08

22 Sep '08

On Mon, 2008-09-22 at 11:23 -1000, Mitch Bradley wrote: > Here is the patch, assuming that the ramdisk memory is not subtracted > from the available memory size: [snip] > I tested it working with a stock OLPC build. > > You can put that patch in olpc.fth . I'll incorporate it into the next > OFW release. Awesome, and I've tested it with a Fedora kernel and it works there also. Thanks for the quick turnaround and the ability to just stick the patch into the olpc.fth file is awesome. For a "screenshot"... Fedora release 9.91 (Rawhide) Kernel 2.6.27-0.329.rc6.git2.fc10.i686 on an i586 (/dev/ttyS0) localhost.localdomain login: root Last login: Tue Sep 23 01:20:19 on ttyS0 [root@localhost ~]# dmesg |grep OLPC OLPC board with OpenFirmware CL1 Q2E17 Q2E OLPC board revision preC200000 (EC=52) PCI: Using configuration type OLPC Now to fixing the new things which popped up and are more firmly in the realm of kernel bugs... :-) Jeremy

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squid - minor (but annoying) bug #463129
by Martin Langhoff 21 Sep '08

21 Sep '08

Similar to the httpd bug I mentioned before -- trivial fix, and I've included a patch. If a fix percolates in F9, it saves me from having to shipping a custom squid for what amounts to... 10 characters :-) Squid init script test the wrong configfile https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=463129 Similar bug with apache2 - updated with the correct conffile after an initial misfire https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=204067 nudge nudge, wink wink... m -- martin.langhoff(a)gmail.com martin(a)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

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Arabeyes font packages
by subhodip biswas 19 Sep '08

19 Sep '08

Arabayes-core-fonts contain fonts which are split into Thabit and Mothanna fonts as per suggestion . These fonts are packaged against this ticket http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/8221 the review requests are : https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=461139 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=462711 Anybody willing to review them ? -- Regards Subhodip Biswas GPG key : FAEA34AB Server : pgp.mit.edu http://subhodipbiswas.wordpress.com http:/www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/SubhodipBiswas

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Meeting minutes from yesterday
by Greg DeKoenigsberg 19 Sep '08

19 Sep '08

In brief: * Localized spins. Making this a lesser priority because Fedora will be on its own dedicated SD card, and space is no longer as much of a concern. * SD Card recommendation: it will be the SanDisk Extreme III. * Resolving pyxcom / xulrunner issues in Fedora. Should be in rawhide shortly (caillon allegedly built on 9/16, we will be able to test soon.) * Activities. gregdek will get a count of (have / still need / etc.) Jeremy continues to build these at a rapid pace. * Python bloat. Tomeu will send me a note regarding best practices on cutting bloat out of python/pygtk apps, and gdk will send around to various Python gurus. * installation path -- priority 2, since we're focusing on sd card, not onboard install * bug tracker -- we have a great tracking bug for Fedora on XO: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/showdependencytree.cgi?id=461806&hide_resolved=1 See you next week. --g

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Meeting going on NOW
by Greg DeKoenigsberg 19 Sep '08

19 Sep '08

Sorry for no earlier reminder, folks. Discussing various Fedora / OLPC efforts. Agenda: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/OLPC/Tasks See you if you can make it. --g

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httpd - minor (but annoying) bug #204067
by Martin Langhoff 19 Sep '08

19 Sep '08

It's trivial, and I've posted a new config file for it that fixes the issue. https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=204067 if an httpd with this tiny fix percolates into updates, I won't have to carry a custom httpd rpm... :-) nudge nudge, wink wink... m ps: I could add a sneaky rm in a %post but deleting other packages' conffiles is... ugh! -- martin.langhoff(a)gmail.com martin(a)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

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OLPC vs Fedora packages
by Peter Robinson 17 Sep '08

17 Sep '08

Hi All, Is there a list or bugzilla tracking bug somewhere that tracks the divergent OLPC packages. I know there have been various lists in the past posted to p.f.o and mailing lists but I'm trying to work out for my own sanity (and so as not to double up on effort) whether there's a central spot where this is tracked. In particular for bugs where packages pull in extra not wanted dependencies such as perl. I know there have been various bugs filed in the past but are they tracked through an umbrella bug? Peter

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Re: Couple things I'm looking for help with... (revisor, GPG migration...)
by Martin Langhoff 12 Sep '08

12 Sep '08

On Fri, Sep 12, 2008 at 7:46 PM, Jeroen van Meeuwen <kanarip(a)kanarip.com> wrote: > the --isolinux-cfg helps here, doesn't it? Using ks=hd:LABEL=foo:ks.cfg in > one of the menu items should work like Chris and Jeremy mentioned... Yes it definitely does, thanks! We need a tiny patch to add a 2nd ks file - you'll see in the ticket I'd like to have one with "interactive" in it, and one without. >> Helping me figure out how to make a spin post-GPG-keys-change-drama - see >> http://marc.info/?l=fedora-devel-list&m=122109127113298&w=2 > I think I answered this; > http://marc.info/?l=fedora-devel-list&m=122114550831324&w=2 Indeed - thanks! Hadn't seen it when I posted :-) > All you really really need to do is make sure you include the new > fedora-release package for the new GPG keys to be on the installed system > and avoid needing to go through the transition of keys. Cool. > As far as the > installation is occurred, you'll hit BZ #998 (the installer doesn't verify > keys). >From what I read there, that'll just log warnings in install.log right? Good on Jeremy to reopen a <1000 bug. A while ago I managed to fix bug #33 (or around there) in Moodle. cheers, m -- martin.langhoff(a)gmail.com martin(a)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

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Re: Fedora on XO: testing!
by Rodrigo Padula de Oliveira 11 Sep '08

11 Sep '08

Greg Dekoenigsberg escreveu: > > On Thu, 11 Sep 2008, Rodrigo Padula de Oliveira wrote: > >> Greg Dekoenigsberg escreveu: >>> >>> If you have an XO and want to get Fedora running on it, this is the time >>> to try it. :) >>> >>> Jeremy has an image working, and has laid down the gauntlet: >>> http://katzj.livejournal.com/438184.html >>> >>> We have a testable image here: >>> http://katzj.fedorapeople.org/olpc/olpc-gnome.iso >>> >>> And we have a tracking bug to file bugs against: >>> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=FedoraOnXO >>> >>> We also need a more formalized test plan. Not super-formal, but a basic >>> set of tasks that should "just work". Actually, I wonder: how much of >>> the typical testing for Fedora could simply be replicated for the XO? I >>> will ask the Fedora test folks. >> >> Can i test on XO B4 machines ?? Works ? > > Doubtful. :( > I know I still owe you a proposal; I'm discussing it with Sugar folks. > Are you willing to lead a team of test folks in Brazil? > > --g > Yes, i would like to lead the tests and to organize a Brazilian Sugar Community! By now, i'm presenting many lectures in many Brazilian states spreading the OLPC and Sugar. Thanks -- Rodrigo Padula de Oliveira M.Sc. Student - COPPE/UFRJ Fedora Community Manager - Latin America http://www.proyectofedora.org

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Couple things I'm looking for help with... (revisor, GPG migration...)
by Martin Langhoff 11 Sep '08

11 Sep '08

Making a well tuned install menu. Not too complex, some minor patching of revisor and a shell script involved. You'll want good connectivity as testing involves building the CD :-) http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/8360 Helping me figure out how to make a spin post-GPG-keys-change-drama - see http://marc.info/?l=fedora-devel-list&m=122109127113298&w=2 cheers, m -- martin.langhoff(a)gmail.com martin(a)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

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Fedora on XO: testing!
by Greg DeKoenigsberg 11 Sep '08

11 Sep '08

If you have an XO and want to get Fedora running on it, this is the time to try it. :) Jeremy has an image working, and has laid down the gauntlet: http://katzj.livejournal.com/438184.html We have a testable image here: http://katzj.fedorapeople.org/olpc/olpc-gnome.iso And we have a tracking bug to file bugs against: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=FedoraOnXO We also need a more formalized test plan. Not super-formal, but a basic set of tasks that should "just work". Actually, I wonder: how much of the typical testing for Fedora could simply be replicated for the XO? I will ask the Fedora test folks. --g

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Creating a spin - any mechanisms around $product-release, $product-release-notes, $product-logos packages...?
by Martin Langhoff 10 Sep '08

10 Sep '08

I'm finishing off the F9 port of the OLPC School Server, and as part of that I'm preparing xs-release, xs-release-notes and xs-logos packages. As far as I can see, these are pulled because they provide system-release and system-logos. fedora-release-notes is pulled in by fedora-release, and perhaps by something depending on indexhtml (httpd?). My key question is: will anything in the Fedora machinery (anaconda, rpm, yum) be looking for a magic "product" name, and then try to use it to request $product-release? (I ask to be safe - recently got very confused by anaconda not upgrading Fedora-based spins due to mismatching 'product' between .discinfo and /etc/redhat-release . Knowing these special rules is important ;-) and I have not found yet any document laying out the subtle traps awaiting anyone doing a Fedora derivative as I am doing...) cheers, m -- martin.langhoff(a)gmail.com martin(a)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

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A few F9 upgrade things I need help with...
by Martin Langhoff 09 Sep '08

09 Sep '08

As part of the XS upgrade, I've ended up caught with a number of F9 oddities -- none of them a complete blocker, but definitely rought edges... - Cannot include beecrypt in Pungi/Revisor build - this is probably a bug worthy of filing in BZ but needs a bit of diagnosys. http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/8363 - Anaconda conflicts with xs-config - Filed as BZ 461550 http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/8366 - Anaconda crash during install with USB-disk-based ks.cfg BZ 461453 - this probably affects all USB-disk based installs. - Anaconda: Install from USB disk: only ISO picked up BZ 461548 - Anaconda: Install from USB disk: Awkward to provide a ks.cfg BZ 461549 All of these are - I think - worthwhile to whack for the ease-of-install experience with Fedora and the XS... cheers, m -- martin.langhoff(a)gmail.com martin(a)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

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Progress on a Fedora Spin...
by Sebastian Dziallas 08 Sep '08

08 Sep '08

...progress wherever you look... We've done quite a big step forward in minimizing the size of a Fedora Spin - thanks Jeremy! I've been creating spins over the day lately and with the latest commit on livecd-tools, I'm more than happy that the --instLangs argument for kickstart files does now work. What does this mean? Well, we're able to reduce the size of the final image heavily, so that we'll end up with more than 100 MB less of /usr/share stuff on the spin. Where are we now? I've been rebasing the spin to Rawhide (F10), which is still not that stable now, but I think this will change more soon than late. The latest image I built has a size of 323 MB (!) - excluding claws-mail due to some dependency issues in Rawhide right now. Apparently, there's still some cups and other stuff in there, so we might still get lower... I'm pretty excited and would really like to thank Jeremy for his work :) --Sebastian

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Sugar group?
by Marco Pesenti Gritti 08 Sep '08

08 Sep '08

Hello, now that we started to package activities, should we create a Sugar group in rawhide? It would be nice to be able to just "yum groupinstall Sugar"... Marco

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OLPC kernel patches not upstream yet...
by Jim Gettys 08 Sep '08

08 Sep '08

Jeremy Katz asked the reasonable question of the feasibility of Fedora carrying patches in advance of kernel.org, for stuff destined to eventual inclusion. I quickly checked with Andres on the current state of what isn't upstream in kernel.org. There are two big items left (for this round changes; if we can really get to things like fixing USB resume, there are likely more such in the future...). o The device tree patch; the hold up here is that there are multiple implementations of this on Sparc, PPC, and now x86, and no current agreement among the guilty on which should become the "standard" version. Until/unless the kernel community can come to consensus, this seems something not reasonable for a fedora patch. Andres would like to hear from davem in particular on this topic. And we *might* get more insight week after next after the kernel summit. o the touchpad driver for our ALPS touchpad. We're finally likely to be able to come up with something reasonable now that the EC code problem has been found, that won't be full of so many one off hack work-arounds. As this is a separate driver for unique hardware, this seems like something that could go into Fedora without likely headaches, if someone wants to keep it synchronized. But I think the standard touchpad driver does at least "work". Note that this presumes we're still using at least a OLPC .config file going forward as we don't have VESA support for booting in our firmware (we use fbdev), so a generic x86 Fedora kernel won't boot. We also don't want/need to carry the over whelming ton of device drivers, mostly for hardware that can never be plugged in, just for space reasons. It would certainly be nice someday if a generic x86 kernel could boot (and a standard Fedora desktop spin); I'm not exactly sure what that would entail at this point, but for now, this seems like a more speculative question and beyond the initial time frame for G1G1. I'm personally also by far mos comfortable using a kernel that is as close as possible to what we've been testing for our 8.2.0 release at this date, for support reasons. Jeremy also noted a bit of version skew between the fedora and olpc rpm spec file that could/should be resolved; there were a couple of trivial config file changes that enables something build from the OLPC kernel to be used in a Fedora spin (the squashfs patch, which all distros carry but isn't in kernel.org, and one other item that I forget). Andres, Deepak, did I miss anything? - Jim -- Jim Gettys <jg(a)laptop.org> One Laptop Per Child

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Fedora/OLPC weekly meeting tasks/agenda
by Greg DeKoenigsberg 07 Sep '08

07 Sep '08

Hi all. I've set up a simple page that will allow us to track what we've discussed from week to week: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/OLPC/Tasks It's crude, but effective. I'll be using this to drive the meetings. --g

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Notes from Friday's meeting
by Greg DeKoenigsberg 07 Sep '08

07 Sep '08

Sorry for being a bit late presenting these notes. I also apologize for the format -- I will be basically managing the task list and keeping notes there. The URL for the latest task list, as a reminder: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/OLPC/Tasks === Task Name Owner Priority Target Date Status/Notes Figuring out how to create small localized spins SebastianDziallas, gettys 1 Update on 9/12 How can we make small images by cutting out unnecessary language info, and make particular builds that are customized for particular languages? Sebastian and Jim continue to work on this. Recommending SD hardware for Fedora JeremyKatz 1 Update on 9/12 Microsoft has already done a lot of working figuring out which SD card will work best with their OS; we should leverage that work to figure out what SD we should be offering to G1G1 users as the Fedora add-on. pyxcom/xulrunner issues JeremyKatz / ChrisAillon 1 Update on 9/12 In order to get the Browse activity to work properly natively to Fedora, we need to resolve the xulrunner fork in OLPC repos -- ChristopherAillon is trying to get those changes upstream, but is still on vacation. Packaging Sugar activities GregDekoenigsberg 1 Weekly update We need to closely track to the packages listed on the [roadmap] with the package requests that are tracked on the [wishlist page]. Python performance issues between F7 and F9 MarcoPesentiGritti 1 Update on 9/5 Python in F9 is much slower, making Sugar performance painful -- gregdek will try to put the Sugar folks in touch with the Python experts in Fedora. Installation path JimGettys 1 Update on 9/12 What's involved in installation onto internal NAND? What's involved to be able to use olpc-update? What needs to be done to ensure wear levelling? Jim Gettys will lead a discussion on-list. Bug tracker JimGettys 1 Update on 9/12 How do we track various work items that are non-obvious? JimGettys will lead a discussion on-list. --g

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Reminder: Fedora OLPC meeting at 1pm Eastern US time today
by Greg DeKoenigsberg 05 Sep '08

05 Sep '08

On freenode, #fedora-olpc. In about an hour. --g

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An idiot installs Sugar on rawhide
by Greg DeKoenigsberg 05 Sep '08

05 Sep '08

That idiot is me. I installed Rawhide as of September 5th, a minimal install. Here's what I did, and what happened. Cut to the end for my idiot follow-up questions. :) === 1. yum install sugar Installs 20 packages. Great. === 2. sugar-emulator Breaks. Still not installing Xephyr. Hmm. === 3. yum install xorg-X11-server-Xephyr Installs Xephyr. Great. === 4. sugar-emulator Traceback, as follows: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/sugar-shell", line 30, in <module> from main import main File "/usr/share/sugar/shell/main.py", line 34, in <module> import view.Shell File "/usr/share/sugar/shell/view/Shell.py", line 38, in <module> from view.frame import frame File "/usr/share/sugar/shell/view/frame/frame.py", line 29, in <module> from view.frame.activitiestray import ActivitiesTray File "/usr/share/sugar/shell/view/frame/activitiestray.py", line 23, in <module> from sugar.graphics.tray import HTray File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/sugar/graphics/tray.py", line 22, in <module> from sugar.graphics.palette import Palette, ToolInvoker File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/sugar/graphics/palette.py", line 922, in <module> class WidgetInvoker(Invoker): File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/gtk-2.0/gobject/__init__.py", line 40, in __init__ cls._install_properties() File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/gtk-2.0/gobject/__init__.py", line 68, in _install_properties " or getter. This is not allowed" % (cls,)) TypeError: GObject subclass <class 'sugar.graphics.palette.WidgetInvoker'> defines do_get/set_property and it also uses a property which a custom setter or getter. This is not allowed === So. Idiot questions! 1. Who owns the Sugar package, and should we be adding xorg-X11-server-Xephyr as a dependency? 2. Why am I getting this traceback? I'm guessing it's another dependency that isn't getting installed, but I don't know what it is. --g

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Current state of conventional file systems on Flash & Linux....
by Jim Gettys 05 Sep '08

05 Sep '08

I had a conversation with Dave Woodhouse this morning, that people should internalize. The wonderful demoing of running Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu on a SD card, without thought about where what is stored, is something likely to come back to bite us downstream as people use it as a serious support problem. There is real danger, particularly on commodity media, of wearing out the flash device. We need to give serious thought to where what gets stored, on what file system. The only wear leveling we can *count* on is on JFFS2 on our internal flash. And we can strongly encourage the use of particularly "good" vendors/models of flash. - Jim <jg> If you are running a conventional file system on a flash device, what's the right solution for wear leveling right now for conventional SD or USB. <dwmw2> Prayer. . <dwmw2> SD and USB stuff -- none of the things with the built-in translation layers -- have ever been observed to be reliable enough to contemplate using them. <dwmw2> although hopefully the new set of SSD stuff for laptops will mean they have to improve. <dwmw2> but you can't really know what's going on under the covers. <jg> yeah, I know I can't rely on the hardware. <dwmw2> They might be doing some form of wear leveling; they might not <jg> the question is, do we have any wear leveling software layer? <dwmw2> often, if the devices do, they'll do it within certain regions. Not really for wear leveling on a block device. We have stuff like FTL which lets use emulate a block device on top of real flash and that obviously does wear leveling, but we don't have anything which will deliberately spread writes around on a block device. That probably would want to live in the file system itself, rather than a block<->block mapping layer -- although I dare say you _could_ do it with some kind of DM plugin; it's probably something we should look at doing in btrfs. Btrfs has a 'wandering tree' setup, a bit like logfs. I'm planning to see if I can make it work on raw flash, too. Should be really good. <jg> ok, for now, you *really* want to be careful on what you put where you put what, and what kind of media you use if you put a conventional system, say, on SD, to get the best you can get on wear characteristics. <dwmw2> yeah. I wouldn't want to bet the farm on SD or _anything_ which does internal stuff for you. I've never met one that I'd want to take home and meet my mother. Would be an interesting project to tweak block allocation schemes in traditional file systems to think about wear leveling and not defragmentation. <jg> That's what I thought; probably why our M$ friends are being so picky on which SD card they use. <dwmw2>that and the speed of SD cards of course -- they don't want slow ones :) <jg> yup. <jg> Thanks for the insight; it is roughly what I thought, but as I don't track the area, I wanted to be up-to-date.... <dwmw2> Nothing much has changed since we dropped the magic translation layer chip from the XO when we first started <jg> ah, but for our internal flash, we have jffs2. <dwmw2> the trend of putting SSDs in laptops will have a decent effect in time, I hope, but it hasn't yet. Jffs2 doesn't scale much further. We need ubifs/logfs or maybe btrfs in future. The not-so-distant future, I hope. I'm allegedly going to be getting a shiny new translation layer (make flash look like disk) soon, which I'm supposed to make look like proper Linux code and merge upstream -- Jim Gettys <jg(a)laptop.org> One Laptop Per Child

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Applications selection discussion....
by Jim Gettys 04 Sep '08

04 Sep '08

As the following touches many topics, please reply suitably modifying the subject line. I'd like to start a discussion about what applications set to include on a spin targeted at G1G1 purchasers looking for a "conventional" laptop. Daniel Drake's initial experiments make it seem like with care a Gnome desktop is usable, which is a much more polished environment than xfce (which while smaller, is much more of a hacker's system), if one is careful on app selection. Having said that, if someone wants to do an xfce spin too, that is not a bad thing to have in one's hip pocket. For the basic spin, we'll have very limited flash, and should not presume the use of swap (so RAM matters too). Here's some things that I think are a given (note that others are very open to discussion)... Remember: we have a zero-sum game here. Everything we put in, requires we take things out... The question will just be what to take out, and how much work it will require to do any needed repackaging... Toolkit stack ------------- GTK+/Pango/cairo toolkit for UI applications (for I18N and Sugar compatibility) ATK, but only as an option (it pulls in some of the more objectionable bonobo dependencies at the moment). Avoid Mono libraries in basic load (footprint) Window Manager -------------- Metacity Definite outs ------------- Open Office (too big basic footprint; users can load if they want/need it) Evolution (Oink, Oink) Graphics drivers for everyone else's hardware: these add up Fonts We'll need to sort through a lot of these and nuke a lot of bitmap and other fonts (e.g. type1, etc). Extra themes Extra Wallpaper Some icon sizes, those generally used at 72DPI. Basic apps and accessories ========================== Panel Applications Accessories Archive Manager (dependencies?) Calculator Character map Screen shot Text editor Games What games? Can we afford the gnome assortment, or must we repackage for size reasons? Download size is only a bit over 1 meg compressed bz2, so I'm tempted to include them all. Graphics Some camera app for the camera (see below) Some image viewer. (see below) Internet Mail client (see below) Firefox RSS reader (see below) Instant message program (see below) Office Abiword Gnumeric Sound and Video Totem Rythymbox (see below???) Pulseaudio volume control? Sound recorder System tools Disk Management File Browser SE Linux stuff (can we afford SELinux????) System Log System Monitor Terminal Panel->System Preferences Personal About Me File Management Keyboard Shortcuts Preferred Applications (dependencies may kill us). Sessions Look and Feel Appearance Main Menu Screen Saver Windows Internet and Network Network Proxy Hardware Default Printer (see below) Keyboard Mouse Sound Volume Control Systems Authorizations (????) Power Management System Update Administration Add/Remove Software Date & Time Firewall (?) Language Network Network Device Control Printing (see below) SELinux Management (if we can afford SELinux....) Services Software Sources Update System Applets Custom app launcer Application Launcer Character Palette Clock (if we don't get screwed by the cities data) Command Line Disk Mounter Drawer? (does anyone use these?????) Force Quit Lock Screen Log out Main Menu Menu Bar Network Monitor Notification Area Run Application Separator Show Desktop Shutdown Sticky notes (Tomboy pulls in Mono, IIRC). Trash Volume control Window List Window Selector Definite ins ------------ Gnumeric Abiword Firefox (some may question this, but I'm not yet sold on webkit) evince Meta-packages ------------- I'd love to have a few metapackages to pull in a set of o Sugar!! (unless we squeeze enough to get in the base image, which is my first choice...) o regular games o educational games o graphics - (gimp, inkscape, others) o If we need to strip below where we would like to get olpc-update to be an installation path, a meta-package to pull in the rest of basic functionality. o accessibility Questions ========= All these need to be vetted for size and dependencies!!!!! 1) mail client.... The logical candidates would include Thunderbird, Claws, Sylpheed, Balsa. Are there others? Sylpheed has poor docs. I'd be quite interested in Thunderbird, but right now, Thunderbird 2 is based on the old gecko engine, and won't make it in time, so would come at a higher cost of both flash and RAM footprint. Possibilities I know of boil down to Claws and Balsa. Opinions? 2) RSS reader.... Claws has a plug in; Firefox can do it, but dunno how well; others? 3) Printing... Several options: a) none at all unless you yum install it b) default config cups client library only (no cups server); if you are in an IPP environment, you can then find a cups server (Linux or Mac) and use it, or could the last I tried (2.5 years ago) - any volunteers? This is literally like 1 file to configure and test (I had some trouble in the large MIT Media Lab environment when I tried it 2.5 years ago. c) minimal configuration of printer drivers for most popular printers - but who would do this work? Would be generally beneficial, however, to cull a lot of antique prs.inter d) full printing database - probably not feasible at all and would be best left to yum install.hat 4) What themes? 5) What camera application? Need something to demo the camera in the XO. This will likely need testing, as gstreamer/VFL2 seems immature in OLPC's experience.... 6) what IM client? And don't suggest xchat ;-) Pidgin? 7) music player Rhythmbox? or something else? There are many to choose from. 8) Our screen is small, and the keyboard inappropriate for people with disabilities under many circumstances. I think we should keep accessibility out of the basic load if we can, to save space. But a meta package to pull in the usual stuff is well worthwhile, as the size and cost of the OLPC has in particular attracted the interest of people with certain classes of disabilities. I still worry about its memory footprint, however. - Jim -- Jim Gettys <jg(a)laptop.org> One Laptop Per Child

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suggestion on package review for olpc
by subhodip biswas 04 Sep '08

04 Sep '08

hi ! i pushed this review request : https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=461139 but since this my first package for olpc . i would like to have suggestion on where to push this will it be in fedora or will it be in fedora-olpc . here's the original ticket : http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/8221 plus can somebody do a review on this ? -- Regards Subhodip Biswas GPG key : FAEA34AB Server : pgp.mit.edu http://subhodipbiswas.wordpress.com http:/www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/SubhodipBiswas

2 1

Sugar on Fedora 10 Alpha - how to I run it?
by Jerry Williams 03 Sep '08

03 Sep '08

I noticed that there is a sugar-desktop group on Fedora 10 Alpha. How do I run it? I tried running sugar-shell and it kind of works, but not like it is suppose to. Any help would be appreciated, Jerry Williams

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Fedora/OLPC meeting summary: Friday, August 29th
by Greg DeKoenigsberg 02 Sep '08

02 Sep '08

A summary of what's been going on in the world of Fedora and OLPC. :) 1. Fedora on OLPC. The goal: to get a version of Fedora booting on OLPC hardware. Looks like we've got a version booting, and now we're looking to clean it up a bit before we make it more generally available. Issues and owners: a. Using localized spins to cut down on space. (sdziallas) b. Troubleshooting performance issues -- running from USB is painfully slow. (katzj) 2. Sugar in Fedora. The goal: to get Sugar packaged as a top-notch desktop environment for Fedora. Issues and owners: a. Bundlebuilder changes to make packaging activities easier. (marcopg) b. Figuring out the pyxpcom/xulrunner issues to get the browse activity working with native Fedora packages. (katzj/caillon) c. Continuing to package Sugar activities, which will be much easier when marcopg is done with bundlebuilder changes. (See https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackageMaintainers/WishList#Activities for list of important activities.) d. There's a large increase of python memory usage f7->f9, which is hard on Sugar performance-wise, still investigating. (marcopg/tomeu) That's it. We'll meet again this coming Friday to go over progress, and since some of us will be at FUDCon Brno, maybe we will share some of the work that's going on there. --g

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Sugar 0.82.1 is in rawhide
by Marco Pesenti Gritti 02 Sep '08

02 Sep '08

Hello, I built Glucose 0.82.1 in joyride during the weekend. It includes the bundlebuilder changes we discussed. I can build the Journal with the following spec: http://dev.laptop.org/~marco/sugar-journal.spec Does it look good? If so I can build also the Journal and we can update the guidelines and start packaging activities. Cheers, Marco

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