Software Release Notes

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Software Release Notes

These are early days for the OLPC software (alpha test); nonetheless, there is quite a bit you can do with the laptop out of the box See B1 demo notes, which are very useful to understand the system and what is available. There are also some general instructions on how to use the Sugar interface here.

The software is alpha test. Please refer to the OLPC Human Interface Guidelines for the vision of where we would like the software to lead, only partially reflected in our current software.

Most of our effort to date has been consumed by basic device support as well as putting together the basic user interface framework for children, which has known performance problems. Major components are as yet not complete: power management and the wiki editing system (journal) to name two large components. Enough is now present to begin to sketch the outline of where we believe the children's software should go: enabling the construction of software in which children and teachers can easily collaborate is central to our vision. Children should not be passive receivers of "content" but creators as well.

We do not expect that the software is yet ready for trials with children: BTest-1 is aimed primarily at developers to become familiar with the hardware and to enable testing of both the hardware and software

Base System Notes

Python performance is slow

There are two reasons for slow Python performance in current builds: we're using Python 2.4, which attempts to load far more files than necessary at each module load, and we have compiled it with the "-fPIC" compiler flag which is resulting in a 30% slowdown for Python on our CPU. Both of these problems will be fixed when we move to Python 2.5, which we hope to do in the near future -- see the linked ticket to keep track on progress.

Booting is very slow

We understand where much of the time is currently going, as you can see by checking the bugs referred to in 623. Boot time, however, is not our highest priority; we'll certainly make some of the improvements pretty soon anyway, and CAFE as an ASIC has higher performance that also helps BTest-2 and later.

The sensor input mode of the audio hardware is not supported in the audio driver of build 239

The code for this awaits merging but has been fully debugged and is in our experimental kernel..

SD high speed mode is now supported

Suspend/Resume not yet implemented

The preparatory work in the firmware is complete. This is up next on our agenda.

Functional Wireless Driver

The driver is functional, working much better after 196. The Marvell's wireless chip's boot2 code has yet to be deployed. The boot code on the Marvell wireless interface has previously caused serious USB problems; BTest-1 hardware can now reset of the device to stop the USB problems until the new boot2 code is well enough tested to be deployed. We will likely do this upgrade at the time we deploy suspend/resume, where this will be required.

LED illumination driver needs writing

This is now implemented - Fn space bar will turn it on and off.

Want interrupt on power/battery status change

We have the embedded controller code for this, along with the lid-switch, and the ebook mode switch, but they are not yet hooked up to the Linux input framework, nor integrated into the UI.

CAFÉ NAND ECC poorly understood and needs optimisation

This can cause dramatically differing performance if you happen to hit some bad sectors;

X Window System

Alpha-blended animation is very slow.

The X Window System does support the RandR extension, (rotation of the screen) and a button on the front face of the brick controls rotation. Not all of the additional software work is complete.

If a console application manages to somehow modify the colormap, the system won't recover without rebooting the machine.

We were not happy with the behavior of the touchpad: much of this is caused by capacitive issues; a mylar sheet increased the capacitance and BTest-2's touchpad now functions pretty well. The writing (stylus) mode of the touchpad has been disabled in the BTest-1 units, as the hardware does not work properly and was redesigned. When taking a unit off of power supply onto battery (or vice versa), the touch pad may need recalibration: simultaneously press the four keys in the extreme corners of the keyboard.

Much performance optimization work is possible, and awaits our time or volunteers to work on. Some work has been done and performance is substantially better than initally.

The X Window System Xvideo extension is supported in the X server; note that a slightly different colormap is loaded while video is playing to improve video quality; other colors in use may become slightly strange during this period.

The keymaps for our initial set of keyboards are only installed when Build 185 is installed

There are known issues with the keyboard descriptions. Thai-keyboard support only appears in builds 187+.

The language switching key is still not working. So no english language input is possible on the default image targetted at non-latin-based languages (e.g. Arabic and Thai). To enable english input on those machines, follow the following steps:

1. After the system has booted, press ctrl+alt+f1
2. Login in as root (no password required)
3. Open the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf for editing (use vi or any editor you are comfortable with)
4. In the first InputDevice section do the following modifications:
   • Modify XkbLayout setting from "us" to "us,ara" (for Arabic—use other symbol files for other languages)
   • Add an XkbOptions option with the value "grp:ctrl_shift_toggle"
5. Save and close the file
6. Either reboot the machine or restart X by issueing a "/sbin/telinit 3" command and then "/sbin/telinit 3"

After you make the modifications, the two lines in xorg.conf should be similar to the following

Option    "XkbLayout"   "us,ara"
Option    "XkbOptions"  "grp:ctrl_shift_toggle"

After X is restarted, the default language will be english (that can be changed by swapping us and ara above), and you will be able to switch between languages using the ctrl+shift key combination.

User Interface: Sugar

The "Sugar" user interface environment for children is in place. The OLPC Human Interface Guidelines should be observed when building or repackaging applications. Conventional human interface guidelines have been designed for first world office workers, and are totally unsuitable for children who are just learning to read in any part of the world. As young children are the many/most of the intended audience of our system, their needs are being met first.

Conversion of applications to function under Sugar is very straightforward and most applications can work with little change.

If you are building applications, note that future models of the laptop may have touchscreens or tablets, which enables almost any application to be useful in ebook mode, so take the fact your screen size may change aspect ratio seriously when designing your user interface.

intent and goals

The core ideas: Activities, Not Applications; Presence is Always Present; Tools of Expression; and Journaling are detailed here.

Navigation

Navigation, including the Zoom Metaphor and The Frame, is detailed here.

Release Notes

The Sugar activity launch has performance problems caused by Python's cache footprint. We have good reason to believe that moving to Python 2.5, rebuilt -PIC, should greatly improve performance, independent of work we are doing ourselves. This should occur sometime in March. There are many user interface issues we intend to fix. Among the most notable issues are:

Sugar seems to lock up with the frame out

Pressing F5 allows the Sugar to unhang, and you can then launch applications again.

Sugar needs a UI for controlling audio

This needs to be written.

Sugar presumes applications exit

Usually, you can find some other way to cause an application to exit.

Launching activities are slow

This is under investigation.

The timing of many of the user interactions, such as hover and the coming and going of the Frame are in need of fine-tuning.

Programming Sugar

Sugar Activity Bundles are explained in detail here.

                               Sugar interfaces
                               goocanvas
                               GTK+
                               Cairo
                               Pango/ATK

Activities

Web Browsing

Browser based on Xulrunner (Gecko engine used in Firefox).

No tabs

Does not ship with: Java or Flash

User experience has problems with pop windows, font size, Frame interfering with scrolling

SSL sites without official certificates fail to load

Chat

Jabber-based client works (not pretty - but functional)

EToys

The EToys learning environment has been integrated into the Sugar environment, and you are encouraged both to visit the Squeakland site. Sugar EToys has information specific to EToys in our Sugar environment.

TamTam

The current TamTam is the first echo of a much more open-ended, collaborative, multiuser, music activity.

TamTam doesn't seem to load all instruments initially

Restarting TamTam solves the problem.

The microphone ought to be controlled by TamTam itself

You can use alsamixer in the meanwhile.

xbook

PDF viewer through the browser.

AbiWord

As a place-holder, a simplified version of AbiWord is provided, and efficient, light weight text editor. Some version of AbiWord will be included long term, as AbiWord has the ability to read Microsoft .doc content well and there is a significant amount of web content in this form. It is likely to be used for editing text in the wiki as well.

Terminal

The terminal (activity) does not appear on the Frame, but can be launched by typing Alt-Shift-F11. (F11 is found in the 3rd position from the left in the Volume Slider key.) Note that on some newer builds, the terminal window (Memphis) is launched by typing Alt-Shift-F12. In even more recent builds, e.g., Build 224, Memphis is launched by typing Alt-View_Source or Alt-F12. (The View_Source Key [F12] is the little gear on the = Key that is accessed with the Fn Key.) And on even more recent builds, e.g., Build 231, Alt-= is what brings up Memphis.

F9–F12 are under this key

Temporary placeholders and Missing Pieces

There is no user interface for controlling the audio input/output. The workaround right now is to use "alsamixer" in a terminal window.

There is no way to turn on/off the keyboard light: eventually it will be tied to Fn-space.

Our plans include a web server and wiki system and journal, with a simple what you see is what you get editor. These did not make BTest-1.

Backlight control

The backlight button on the bezel does not work yet, but the backlight can be controlled using F6 (dimmer) and F7 (brighter); F8 turns on color; F9 turns off color.

F6–F9 are under this key

Video/Camera Player

The controls (brightness, hue, saturation) are not hooked up in the device driver or video player applcation in BTest-1 (build 185). The driver adding these controls to Alsa (the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) will be merged in a build soon.

The camera is exhibiting more noise than expected in assembled units; whether this is hardware or software is to be determined.

We have used mplayer on the machine, but as it pulls in many dependencies, we put together a simple gstreamer based application for demonstration of the camera and video playing. Others have reported successful playback of videos and DVD's on the system, including RealNetwork formats and players.

The BTest-2 system does not have a LED to indicate if the camera or microphone is enabled. Such a LED will be present on a later system.

A camera application is under development.

Base system

OLPC Platform

Inventory of "permanent" packages

Inventory of "debug" packages

Inventory of "optional" packages (?)

Development environment

Languages - Logo, javascript, python

Libraries

Where to find source

Internationalization/Localization

Other Multimedia Software

Other software that has been tested on the OLPC systems includes Adobe Flash, and Real's RealPlayer® and Helix player.