Re: Fedora Desktop on XO

[Chris Ball]

Hi,

>  Now, the question I have is why we would chose GNOME over XFCE.  I
>  think there are significant differences in system resource
>  consumption. 
We had a long thread about whether to use GNOME or XFCE on devel@ last
month.  I suggested XFCE, and was persuaded that the disk image size
of DebXO+GNOME is not significantly different than DebXO+XFCE, and that
both run fine without swap, suggesting that we might be able to pull off
GNOME on Fedora.  If we find it unbearable, I'm fine with using XFCE
instead, but my impression was that GNOME is preferred.

(For the record, I'm not against investigating adding some swap for 9.1
now that we have NAND partitioning available.  We'd have to be more sure
of our estimate that it won't significantly shorten the lifespan of the
flash chip, though.  What do people think?)

>  Even though XFCE is not a Fedora-supported desktop environment, it
>  is readily supported in other distributions.  We could easily
>  borrow the polish that XUbuntu has applied to its distribution and
>  get a system equally usable as GNOME. 
Scott previously made a build stream ("faster") that contains both Sugar
and XFCE and a way to switch between them, so this integration work has
already been done.

- Chris.
-- 
Chris Ball   <cjb(a)laptop.org&gt;

Fedora Desktop on XO

[Deepak Saxena]

On Jan 06 2009, at 14:23, Chris Ball was caught saying:
>  Hi,
>  
>     > Now, the question I have is why we would chose GNOME over XFCE.  I
>     > think there are significant differences in system resource
>     > consumption.
>  
>  We had a long thread about whether to use GNOME or XFCE on devel@ last
>  month.  I suggested XFCE, and was persuaded that the disk image size
>  of DebXO+GNOME is not significantly different than DebXO+XFCE, and that
>  both run fine without swap, suggesting that we might be able to pull off
>  GNOME on Fedora.  If we find it unbearable, I'm fine with using XFCE
>  instead, but my impression was that GNOME is preferred.
>  
>  (For the record, I'm not against investigating adding some swap for 9.1
>  now that we have NAND partitioning available.  We'd have to be more sure
>  of our estimate that it won't significantly shorten the lifespan of the
>  flash chip, though.  What do people think?) 
I think I missed the previous conversation, re: estimate , but I'm thinking 
that swap will have significant impact on the lifetime of the flash chip.
With only 256MiB of RAM, we are bound to swap a lot. I'd feel more
comfortable if we did flash-wide wear leveling using UBI and created
a swap partition on to pof that.

~Deepak

-- 
 Deepak Saxena - Kernel Developer, One Laptop Per Child
   _____   __o                                   (o>
------    -\<,  Give One Laptop, Get One Laptop  //\
 ----- ( )/ ( )  http://www.amazon.com/xo        V_/_
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fedora Desktop on XO

[Chris Ball]

Hi,

>  I think I missed the previous conversation, re: estimate , but
> I'm
>  thinking that swap will have significant impact on the lifetime of
>  the flash chip.  With only 256MiB of RAM, we are bound to swap a
>  lot. I'd feel more comfortable if we did flash-wide wear leveling
>  using UBI and created a swap partition on to pof that. 
That's fine with me too.  Are we still planning on moving to UBI for
9.1?  If not, maybe we can work out how to get swap files working on
JFFS2 (where they would be wear-leveled)?

The previous conversation is:

http://www.mail-archive.com/[e-mail]/msg03766.html

>     _____   __o                                   (o>
>  ------    -\<,  Give One Laptop, Get One Laptop  //\
>  ----- ( )/ ( )  http://www.amazon.com/xo        V_/_ 
Not anymore.  :)

- Chris.
-- 
Chris Ball   <cjb(a)laptop.org&gt;

Fedora Desktop on XO

[Deepak Saxena]

On Jan 06 2009, at 14:42, Chris Ball was caught saying:
>  Hi,
>  
>     > I think I missed the previous conversation, re: estimate , but I'm
>     > thinking that swap will have significant impact on the lifetime of
>     > the flash chip.  With only 256MiB of RAM, we are bound to swap a
>     > lot. I'd feel more comfortable if we did flash-wide wear leveling
>     > using UBI and created a swap partition on to pof that.
>  
>  That's fine with me too.  Are we still planning on moving to UBI for
>  9.1?  If not, maybe we can work out how to get swap files working on
>  JFFS2 (where they would be wear-leveled)? 
At this point, with < 2 months to desired release date, I do not support
changing the filesystem. If we think a new filesystem is a priority (and 
not everyone does from other conversations I've had), we can intergrate
it into joyride as soon as 9.1 is out the door so we have plenty of time
to do formal testing and get end-user feedback.

~Deepak

-- 
 Deepak Saxena - Kernel Developer, One Laptop Per Child
   _____   __o                                   (o>
------    -\<,  Give One Laptop, Get One Laptop  //\
 ----- ( )/ ( )  http://www.amazon.com/xo        V_/_
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fedora Desktop on XO

[Michael Stone]

On Tue, Jan 06, 2009 at 12:19:52PM -0800, Deepak Saxena wrote:
> On Jan 06 2009, at 14:42, Chris Ball was caught saying:
> > Hi,
> > 
> >    > I think I missed the previous conversation, re: estimate , but I'm
> >    > thinking that swap will have significant impact on the lifetime of
> >    > the flash chip.  With only 256MiB of RAM, we are bound to swap a
> >    > lot. I'd feel more comfortable if we did flash-wide wear leveling
> >    > using UBI and created a swap partition on to pof that.
> > 
> > That's fine with me too.  Are we still planning on moving to UBI for
> > 9.1?  If not, maybe we can work out how to get swap files working on
> > JFFS2 (where they would be wear-leveled)?
>
> At this point, with < 2 months to desired release date,  
Deepak,

I don't think I know anyone who can convincingly argue that the March
date is realistic, based on current rates of change and the remaining
distance to the objective. I asked in the last (maybe even the last
two?) status meetings to re-evaluate that date but was blown off. Make
of that what you will.

Michael

Fedora Desktop on XO

[Greg Smith]

Hi Michael,

We are definitely behind where I would like to be at this stage.

However, we'll only move the date when we must and we'll only do it to 
improve quality or possibly to include a customer critical feature.

We wont move the date to allow in major new features (e.g. new file 
system) so there's no room to add things assuming we will slip.

Lastly, if we have to move the date, I only want to do it once. That 
means we only pick a new date when we know we can hit it. I heard your 
concerns in the last two 9.1 meetings but so far I don't have the 
evidence either way to make any changes.

In short, the plan is the plan until it changes. So far, no change.

Thanks,

Greg S

Michael Stone wrote:
>  On Tue, Jan 06, 2009 at 12:19:52PM -0800, Deepak Saxena wrote:
> > On Jan 06 2009, at 14:42, Chris Ball was caught saying:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >>    > I think I missed the previous conversation, re: estimate , but I'm
> >>    > thinking that swap will have significant impact on the lifetime of
> >>    > the flash chip.  With only 256MiB of RAM, we are bound to swap a
> >>    > lot. I'd feel more comfortable if we did flash-wide wear leveling
> >>    > using UBI and created a swap partition on to pof that.
> >>
> >> That's fine with me too.  Are we still planning on moving to UBI for
> >> 9.1?  If not, maybe we can work out how to get swap files working on
> >> JFFS2 (where they would be wear-leveled)?
> >
> > At this point, with < 2 months to desired release date, 
>  
>  Deepak,
>  
>  I don't think I know anyone who can convincingly argue that the March
>  date is realistic, based on current rates of change and the remaining
>  distance to the objective. I asked in the last (maybe even the last
>  two?) status meetings to re-evaluate that date but was blown off. Make
>  of that what you will.
>  
>  Michael
>

Fedora Desktop on XO

[Michael Stone]

Greg,

I don't mean to be nasty, but I do feel the need to be blunt:

On Tue, Jan 06, 2009 at 04:28:36PM -0500, Greg Smith wrote:
>  Hi Michael,
>
>  We are definitely behind where I would like to be at this stage. 
How far behind?

>  However, we'll only move the date when we must and we'll only
> do it to  
>  improve quality  
What exactly did you think Deepak and Chris were discussing doing? 

Michael

Fedora Desktop on XO

[Greg Smith]

Hi Michael,

No problem being blunt.

I don't know yet how far behind we are or what it will take to catch up. 
We are close if we create a target bug list in the next two weeks then 
start daily triage and weekly test blitzes.

Quality is my primary concern, especially if you throw in a lot of new 
code and potential process changes with Sugar.

Once we get building and testing, it will be a matter of code quality 
and how quickly can we fix important bugs.

On the feature front, my main concern is security/activation/lease 
management features. Point #2 here: 
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/9.1.0#Top_Priority

Good progress on signing delegation and faster imaging. However, lease 
management and image customization need some love. They are critical for 
Ethiopia and Peru and others.

In short, we have a good chance to release with major new features in 
March. We just need to pick up the pace and keep people focused.

In terms of the thread, Deepak said that a replacement for JFFS2 is not 
in the plan for 9.1.0. I agree. It needs more work from a test/design 
perspective and it needs better definition of the ROI (work effort vs 
benefit).

The choice of file system isn't a deal breaker for the Fedora Desktop 
feature. The hard part will be picking the right desktop (more on that 
soon, I already love the dancing benchmark bears :-), making it fit on 
the NAND, and testing it enough to prove its usable.

Thanks,

Greg S

Michael Stone wrote:
>  Greg,
>  
>  I don't mean to be nasty, but I do feel the need to be blunt:
>  
>  On Tue, Jan 06, 2009 at 04:28:36PM -0500, Greg Smith wrote:
> > Hi Michael,
> >
> > We are definitely behind where I would like to be at this stage.
>  
>  How far behind?
>  
> > However, we'll only move the date when we must and we'll only do it 
> > to  improve quality 
>  
>  What exactly did you think Deepak and Chris were discussing doing?
>  Michael
>

Fedora Desktop on XO

[Chris Ball]

Hi Greg,

>  The choice of file system isn't a deal breaker for the Fedora
>  Desktop feature. The hard part will be picking the right desktop
>  (more on that soon, I already love the dancing benchmark bears :-),
>  making it fit on the NAND, and testing it enough to prove its
>  usable. 
The F10 desktop we shipped on SD had swap.  Our current JFFS2 filesystem
doesn't support swap.  I don't think you have any evidence for us being
able to avoid a deal-breaker without adding swap, so I disagree.

If we can't find either a way to get a swap file working on JFFS2 or get
UBI working, maybe it does make more sense to use XFCE (and even that
might not work out well).  I don't have a desire to ship something with
worse performance than the F10 SD build.

- Chris.
-- 
Chris Ball   <cjb(a)laptop.org&gt;