Re: Fedora-olpc-list Digest, Vol 6, Issue 6

[Walter Bender]

Ed,

Who are the real users you are referring to? I just got back from the
Netbook World Summit and it seemed to be universally excepted that
there were two very distinct groups: those who purchase netbooks as
second computers and those who buy netbooks as first computers. The
consensus was these groups had different use models and expectations.
In the former group, close to instant on seemed to be important (which
most people equate with instant boot instead of better power
management a la CJB's work) and familiarity with existing interfaces,
e.g., XP. In the latter group, there wasn't consensus.

-walter

On Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 7:22 AM,   wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
> Re: Fedora 10 on XO (Greg Smith)
> Re: Fedora 10 on XO (Chris Ball)
> Re: Fedora 10 on XO (Mark Bauer)
> Re: Fedora 10 on XO (Chris Ball)
> Re: Fedora 10 on XO (Chris Ball)
> Re: Fedora 10 on XO (Sebastian Dziallas)
> Re: Fedora 10 on XO (Peter Robinson)
> Re: Fedora 10 on XO (Peter Robinson)
> Re: Fedora 10 on XO (Ed McNierney)
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 04 Dec 2008 19:22:59 -0500
> From: Greg Smith 
> Subject: Re: Fedora 10 on XO
> To: Martin Dengler 
> Cc: [e-mail], Erik Garrison ,
>        [e-mail]
> Message-ID: 
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Hi Martin and Peter,
>
> Sorry got my Linux terminology a little munged there.
>
> I meant that we would ship a Sugar interface and a "standard" Fedora
> X-Window interface (e.g. XFCE) on the same NAND. I should have said
> "desktop environments" as Martin notes.
>
> Thanks for the tips and comments. You can even edit the requirement to
> make it more crystal clear if you think my wording there is confusing.
> I'll see the edits and roll back anything which I think changes the
> fundamental requirement.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Greg S
>
> Martin Dengler wrote:
> > On Thu, Dec 04, 2008 at 06:36:53PM -0500, Greg Smith wrote:
> > > [Chris] So we'd ship two different distributions on the NAND?
> > > GS - Yes.
> >
> > GS: I think you meant "desktop environments", not "distributions".
> > > Greg S
> >
> > Martin
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 04 Dec 2008 19:44:20 -0500
> From: Chris Ball 
> Subject: Re: Fedora 10 on XO
> To: [e-mail]
> Cc: [e-mail], [e-mail]
> Message-ID: 
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> Hi,
> > I meant that we would ship a Sugar interface and a "standard"
> > Fedora X-Window interface (e.g. XFCE) on the same NAND. I should
> > have said "desktop environments" as Martin notes.
>
> Okay, I see, that sounds good.  If we're comfortable with Xfce, it
> sounds like we should resurrect Scott's work from about six months
> ago on Xfce-and-Sugar in the "faster" builds.
>
> Thanks,
> Chris.
>
> --
> Chris Ball
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 19:11:30 -0600
> From: Mark Bauer 
> Subject: Re: Fedora 10 on XO
> To: Chris Ball 
> Cc: [e-mail], [e-mail]
> Message-ID: 
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes
>
> I second the motion of putting the xfce as an option in the control
> panel.  As these kids with the
> machine get older, it gives them an option to continue learning and
> using a machine that will
> come closer to matching those in business.
>
> I have been playing with the gentoo xo spin, and it boots from off to
> gnome in 90 seconds.
> This is from the SD card.  Running gentoo is harder for me because
> most of my machines are
> Fedora based.
>
> Mark
>
> On Dec 4, 2008  Thursday, at 6:44:20:0, Chris Ball wrote:
> > Hi,
> > > I meant that we would ship a Sugar interface and a "standard"
> > > Fedora X-Window interface (e.g. XFCE) on the same NAND. I should
> > > have said "desktop environments" as Martin notes.
> >
> > Okay, I see, that sounds good.  If we're comfortable with Xfce, it
> > sounds like we should resurrect Scott's work from about six months
> > ago on Xfce-and-Sugar in the "faster" builds.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Chris.
> >
> > --
> > Chris Ball
> >
> > Fedora-olpc-list mailing list
> > [e-mail]
> > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-olpc-list
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:08:06 -0500
> From: Chris Ball 
> Subject: Re: Fedora 10 on XO
> To: [e-mail]
> Cc: [e-mail], [e-mail]
> Message-ID: 
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> Hi,
> > is xfce the right choice?  i know it's "easy", but we should be
> > sure it's correct.  (i've been using it on my own xo, in a
> > relatively unsophisticated way, but in the end that only makes it
> > feel like an unsophisticated interface, so i may not be the best
> > judge.  :-)
>
> I agree that the choice is yet to be made and isn't totally obvious.
>
> I prefer using GNOME, but our current answer for "How much disk space
> does it require to run Fedora 10 and GNOME and apps?" is "a 4GB SD card
> and 256M of swap", so it seems hard to get there from here.  Maybe we
> can run GNOME and some tiny set of apps without blowing the NAND budget,
> though..
> Chris.
>
> --
> Chris Ball
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:28:40 -0500
> From: Chris Ball 
> Subject: Re: Fedora 10 on XO
> To: [e-mail]
> Cc: [e-mail], [e-mail],
>        [e-mail]
> Message-ID: 
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> Hi,
> > debxo manages to fit a gnome build in a small enough space to fit
> > on the NAND
>
> I agree that there exist smaller distributions than Fedora 10, but that
> doesn't make F10 one of them (yet).  Still, it's nice to have a proof of
> concept, and the delta of debxo's gnome.img - sugar.img (80M) tells us
> that we might be able to get something acceptable, perhaps requiring
> some package rework.
>
> Then we'd just need to turn Scott's Sugar+XFCE into a Sugar+GNOME,
> and work out how much space we can use for GNOME apps..
> Chris.
>
> --
> Chris Ball
>
> Message: 6
> Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2008 06:36:28 +0100
> From: Sebastian Dziallas 
> Subject: Re: Fedora 10 on XO
> To: Chris Ball 
> Cc: [e-mail], [e-mail],
>        [e-mail]
> Message-ID: 
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Chris Ball wrote:
> > Hi,
> > > is xfce the right choice?  i know it's "easy", but we should be
> > > sure it's correct.  (i've been using it on my own xo, in a
> > > relatively unsophisticated way, but in the end that only makes it
> > > feel like an unsophisticated interface, so i may not be the best
> > > judge.  :-)
> >
> > I agree that the choice is yet to be made and isn't totally obvious.
> >
> > I prefer using GNOME, but our current answer for "How much disk space
> > does it require to run Fedora 10 and GNOME and apps?" is "a 4GB SD card
> > and 256M of swap", so it seems hard to get there from here.  Maybe we
> > can run GNOME and some tiny set of apps without blowing the NAND budget,
> > though..
> > Chris.
>
> Well, in the early days of the "Fedora on XO" project, I was working
> with Jim on evaluating the possibility of reducing Fedora's image size
> heavily to make it e.g. fit on the NAND or a SD card. To give you an
> idea where we landed: The latest tries with XFCE resulted in an 300 MB
> image. Using GNOME didn't change a lot, but if I remember correctly, it
> was a few MBs bigger...
>
> --Sebastian
>
> Message: 7
> Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2008 11:17:02 +0100
> From: "Peter Robinson" 
> Subject: Re: Fedora 10 on XO
> To: "Chris Ball" 
> Cc: [e-mail], [e-mail],
>        [e-mail]
> Message-ID:
>        
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
> > > is xfce the right choice?  i know it's "easy", but we should be
> > > sure it's correct.  (i've been using it on my own xo, in a
> > > relatively unsophisticated way, but in the end that only makes it
> > > feel like an unsophisticated interface, so i may not be the best
> > > judge.  :-)
> >
> > I agree that the choice is yet to be made and isn't totally obvious.
> >
> > I prefer using GNOME, but our current answer for "How much disk space
> > does it require to run Fedora 10 and GNOME and apps?" is "a 4GB SD card
> > and 256M of swap", so it seems hard to get there from here.  Maybe we
> > can run GNOME and some tiny set of apps without blowing the NAND budget,
> > though..
>
> I think it should be more achievable once libgnome and friends are
> gone along with some splitting of some of the 'extra' features in some
> main packages out into sub packages. This ties quite nicely in with a
> NetBook "Fedora Mini" spin I've been looking at, which is how I got
> side tracked into OLPC :-)
>
> Peter
>
> Message: 8
> Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2008 11:22:53 +0100
> From: "Peter Robinson" 
> Subject: Re: Fedora 10 on XO
> To: [e-mail]
> Cc: [e-mail], [e-mail]
> Message-ID:
>        
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
> > > > is xfce the right choice?  i know it's "easy", but we should be
> > > > sure it's correct.  (i've been using it on my own xo, in a
> > > > relatively unsophisticated way, but in the end that only makes it
> > > > feel like an unsophisticated interface, so i may not be the best
> > > > judge.  :-)
> > >
> > > I agree that the choice is yet to be made and isn't totally obvious.
> > >
> > > I prefer using GNOME, but our current answer for "How much disk space
> > > does it require to run Fedora 10 and GNOME and apps?" is "a 4GB SD card
> > > and 256M of swap", so it seems hard to get there from here.  Maybe we
> > > can run GNOME and some tiny set of apps without blowing the NAND budget,
> > > though..
> > > Chris.
> >
> > Well, in the early days of the "Fedora on XO" project, I was working
> > with Jim on evaluating the possibility of reducing Fedora's image size
> > heavily to make it e.g. fit on the NAND or a SD card. To give you an
> > idea where we landed: The latest tries with XFCE resulted in an 300 MB
> > image. Using GNOME didn't change a lot, but if I remember correctly, it
> > was a few MBs bigger...
>
> I don't think it would be too much bigger than the current joyride
> image (dependant on what apps you want to add) gnome is quite
> dependant on e-d-s but we already have the likes of xulrunner,
> abiword, totem etc for apps. The foot print to add their "standard"
> interfaces isn't massive. Then you need a windows manager, nautilus
> and gnome-panel. The question is then what deps they pull in and
> filing bugs to get them as slimmed down as possible. Some of the new
> deps will be pulled in anyway because Sugar wants to add support for
> things like printing.
>
> Peter
>
> Message: 9
> Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2008 07:22:06 -0500
> From: Ed McNierney 
> Subject: Re: Fedora 10 on XO
> To: Chris Ball , Paul Fox 
> Cc: [e-mail], [e-mail]
> Message-ID: 
> Content-Type: text/plain;       charset="US-ASCII"
>
> Chris -
>
> Thanks; I think your thoughts are rather similar to mine and I am trying to
> get information on what the actual user need (or perceived need) is.  While
> there are obvious storage and RAM constraints involved, we need to be sure
> we're providing what most users will want (users of this desktop, of
> course).
>
> Thanks to everyone else, too, who is contributing to this discussion, as
> it's very important to move this topic into the real world of "what is
> possible, what would it look like, and what compromises would we have to
> make?"
> Ed
>
> On 12/4/08 10:08 PM, "Chris Ball"  wrote:
> > I agree that the choice is yet to be made and isn't totally obvious.
> >
> > I prefer using GNOME, but our current answer for "How much disk space
> > does it require to run Fedora 10 and GNOME and apps?" is "a 4GB SD card
> > and 256M of swap", so it seems hard to get there from here.  Maybe we
> > can run GNOME and some tiny set of apps without blowing the NAND budget,
> > though..
> > Chris.
>
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> End of Fedora-olpc-list Digest, Vol 6, Issue 6

Fedora-olpc-list Digest, Vol 6, Issue 6

[Ed McNierney]

Walter -

I'm referring to the classes of end users who would use such a feature, as
distinguished from the classes of developers working on it.  I mainly want
to be sure we don't slip into a debate over whose favorite desktop
environment is preferred among the development community.  I don't think
that's happening and it sounds like a good discussion has begun.

I'm not sure this is an obvious answer, as these classes of XO users span
both of your categories below.  Part of this work is to address the needs of
G1G1 recipients, who are more likely to be "second computer" buyers than the
other classes are.  And part is to address the requests of XO deployment
countries; I've asked Greg Smith to collect the details from the field on
those.

- Ed

P.S. I'm not suggesting that G1G1 purchasers are more likely than not to be
second-computer buyers - I have no idea whether that's the case.  I'm
suggesting that an XO recipient who is a G1G1 purchaser is more likely to be
using it as a second computer than an XO recipient who got one as part of a
country deployment.  That may only be the difference between 1% and 0.001%.

On 12/5/08 7:32 AM, "Walter Bender"  wrote:
> Ed,
>
> Who are the real users you are referring to? I just got back from the
> Netbook World Summit and it seemed to be universally excepted that
> there were two very distinct groups: those who purchase netbooks as
> second computers and those who buy netbooks as first computers. The
> consensus was these groups had different use models and expectations.
> In the former group, close to instant on seemed to be important (which
> most people equate with instant boot instead of better power
> management a la CJB's work) and familiarity with existing interfaces,
> e.g., XP. In the latter group, there wasn't consensus.
>
> -walter
>
> On Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 7:22 AM,   wrote:

Fedora-olpc-list Digest, Vol 6, Issue 6

[Walter Bender]

I was actually very surprised at the level of uptake of netbooks as
second computers in Europe. According to an IDC study, it is the vast
majority of the netbook market to date. As to the implications for
G1G1, I don't know, but there are some data kicking around bout usage
that someone might want to explore.

regards.

-walter

On Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 7:50 AM, Ed McNierney  wrote:
> Walter -
>
> I'm referring to the classes of end users who would use such a feature, as
> distinguished from the classes of developers working on it.  I mainly want
> to be sure we don't slip into a debate over whose favorite desktop
> environment is preferred among the development community.  I don't think
> that's happening and it sounds like a good discussion has begun.
>
> I'm not sure this is an obvious answer, as these classes of XO users span
> both of your categories below.  Part of this work is to address the needs of
> G1G1 recipients, who are more likely to be "second computer" buyers than the
> other classes are.  And part is to address the requests of XO deployment
> countries; I've asked Greg Smith to collect the details from the field on
> those.
> Ed
>
> P.S. I'm not suggesting that G1G1 purchasers are more likely than not to be
> second-computer buyers - I have no idea whether that's the case.  I'm
> suggesting that an XO recipient who is a G1G1 purchaser is more likely to be
> using it as a second computer than an XO recipient who got one as part of a
> country deployment.  That may only be the difference between 1% and 0.001%.
>
> On 12/5/08 7:32 AM, "Walter Bender"  wrote:
> > Ed,
> >
> > Who are the real users you are referring to? I just got back from the
> > Netbook World Summit and it seemed to be universally excepted that
> > there were two very distinct groups: those who purchase netbooks as
> > second computers and those who buy netbooks as first computers. The
> > consensus was these groups had different use models and expectations.
> > In the former group, close to instant on seemed to be important (which
> > most people equate with instant boot instead of better power
> > management a la CJB's work) and familiarity with existing interfaces,
> > e.g., XP. In the latter group, there wasn't consensus.
> >
> > -walter
> >
> > On Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 7:22 AM,   wrote: