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=LAPTOP NEWS=
=LAPTOP NEWS=
We've made a decision to use the AMD Geode LX for the mass-production machine!
1. Stable build: After a final few bugs that had hidden in corners
were driven into the light, we issued Stable Build 303 along with
Q2B76 firmware this week. Highlights of this stable build include:
* a working mesh network;
* an updated web browser that scales on our high-resolution screen, making for improved web experience;
* Gnash—the FOSS Flash player (still somewhat unstable)—pre-installed; Adobe's Flash 9 is also known to work, but not packaged or installed as part of the build;
* a touch-pad driver fix for jumping cursor: the touch pad should be more usable, and the tablet is enabled on B2 systems; and
* boot time has improved due to a scheduler fix.


1. A team including Chris Ball, Mitch Bradley, Jordan Crouse (AMD),
Please read the [[OLPC_Software_Release_Notes|release notes]].
Matthew Garrett (Cambridge), Andres Salomon, Richard Smith, David
Woodhouse, Tom Sylla, and Marcelo Tosatti succeeded in the initial
"bring up" of suspend and resume.


2. Activities: There are some new activities in the new build:
2. São Paulo: David Cavallo gave a talk at the Catholic University of
São Paulo (PUC-SP). The majority of those attending were people from
* Blockparty (aka Tetris) was written by Vadim Gerasimov and John Palmieri;
the education and technology program, the curriculum program, the
* Slideshow was written by Erik Blankinship and Marco Gritti; and
program for indigenous education, and the mathematics department.
* Journal "Preview" (a first pass at the journal activity) was written by Marco and Tomeu Vizoso.
Included in the group were former colleagues of Paulo Freire, who
maintain the Freire House at the university. The discussion among
people who have worked long and hard for education reform and equity
was excellent and pragmatic, focused on learning from the difficulties
of the past.


3. Community: Mauro Torres and the team from the Tuquito Project in
3. Sugar: Everyone on the Sugar team is working toward an
end-of-the-month deadline. Over the last two weeks, Marco Gritti,
Argentina have put together a calculator activity that will appear
Tomeu Visoso, John Palmieri, Dan Williams, and the Abiword team have
soon in our builds. They are working on a extensions that will let the
made numerous improvements to the interface.
children explore their calculations in notational form as well as get
the "answer."


For Sugar itself, the frame behavior is getting much better—we have
4. Kernel: While Andres Salomon was working on the new stable release,
made changes based on feedback from the field. Specifically, the
he found (and fixed) a build-system bug/interaction that was keeping
heuristics for when the frame is shown and hidden automatically are
fixes from hitting the stable kernel builds.
much more consistent. Rollovers have a much better feel to them and
many random performance problems have been fixed.


The team also spent time setting up activity file dialogs; this
5. Richard Smith and John Watlington modified some B2 machines to ship
includes saving entire web pages, images from web pages (from a right
out to suspend/resume developers; these mods fix some known hardware
click), saving and opening inside the document editor, and the image
problems that only affect suspend/resume.
editor. While file dialogs will eventually be supplanted by the
Journal, it helps with usability in the short term.


Abiword now supports image loading and floating the images anywhere in
6. Q2B76: This firmware release should have a temporary work-around
a document. This should let kids create their own documents based on
for the problem that has been costing us about 1/3 of our system's
images they find on the web.
performance whenever a network interface was alive on USB (either our
wireless or ethernet).


Marco and Tomeu have also started adding support for
7. Mitch Bradley continued improvements to the suspend/resume code:
internationalizing those few text strings that do exist in the
* time-to-resume is now down to 12 mS, except for the CAFE;
interface. SJ Klein is organizing a team of people interested in
* reinit is working well; he can suspend/resume reliably without a serial port;
helping with the translations.
* suspend/resume is now working on B1 in addition to B2;
* the suspend routine is now independent of the virtual address from which it is called.
Mitch also integrated Lilian Walter's first cut at self-test
diagnostics into the experimental firmware.


Dan has been integrating the mesh functionality into Network Manager.
8. Community II: William Cohen reported a major coup: he got the
This includes fixing problems in the driver, adding new functionality
system-level performance tool "oprofile" running on the Geode, and
to Network Manager, and creating the user interface to support it.
immediately started posting very helpful performance data. We have
Pentagram has been iterating on a design for visual feedback for the
wanted this tool for quite a while, and have not had the time to do it
various network states and modes.
ourselves. Our great thanks to Will.


We are approaching a stage of stability in development such that we
9. Trac: The bug-tracking system has passed several milestones: more
need to seriously investigating how to enable a wider network of
than 1000 bugs reported and more than 250 people registered. Our
developers. This includes people who want to hack on the base system
community is growing quickly (See http://dev.laptop.org).
itself as well as people who want to write activities for the XO. For
the latter, we are going to build images that people can download and
run in emulators that are available for just about every platform
these days. John will be working more on this over the next week.


4. Suspend/resume: Chris Ball measured resume time at 900ms with
10. Mesh status: Michail Bletsas and teams from Cozybit and Marvell
drivers unloaded and 1400ms with all drivers loaded, according to the
spent the past week doing intense debugging on the mesh firmware.
kernel. Linux 2.6 currently performs a slow virtual-terminal switch on
There were two serious bugs uncovered: mesh routing was erratic in
suspend/resume, which may account for much or most of this delay we
noisy environments (e.g., OLPC's Cambridge office) and there was data
will immediately eliminate this switch, as we don't need it. In
corruption observed during large file transfers. The first problem was
contrast, resuming conventional laptops running Linux on processors
solved by allowing route request and reply frames to be sent at rates
many times faster than our system are measured at 6–12 seconds, so we
as low as 1Mbps. The data corruption issue was tracked to MTUs (frame
are already many times faster than most systems. Both the power-draw
sizes) larger than 1494 bytes. Firmware addressing the first issue was
numbers and suspend/resume-time numbers will head downwards as we
released early this week and a fix for the second will be incorporated
start optimizing power management. Mitch Bradley has measured the
in next week's firmware build. (In the meantime, people should set the
firmware resume time of approximately 25 milliseconds.
MTU of msh0 to 1494 if they want to utilize the mesh interface). In
parallel a variety of driver issues were addressed and should be
pulled into the XO build next week, at which point the mesh substrate
will be fully functional.


5. Firmware: The firmware end of the suspend/resume code seems to have
11. Fun and games: Chris "sugarized" a game called Kye
held up well in this week's kernel testing. Lilian Walters did some
(http://games.moria.org.uk/kye/pygtk) and posted the bundle to the
work on memtest86 so it can be integrated into the ROMs, giving us a
Sugar mailing list.
heavy-duty memory test capability that will always be available. Mitch
made good progress on the firmware port to the LX; the firmware is
interactive and he is now resolving MSR (model-specific register)
discrepancies. He expects to have a releasable OFW for the LX
development board soon.


6. Kernel: Andres Salomon notes that there is a separate source branch
for the suspend/resume and power management work:

:http://dev.laptop.org/git?p=olpc-2.6;a=shortlog;h=powermgmt

Once the code is ready, it will all end up in both the master and
stable branches.

Andres updated our kernels to 2.6.21-rc4 (previously 2.6.21-rc2), and
merged libertas driver changes. Andres also cleaned up the MFGPT
(multi-function general-purpose timers) driver, as these are drivers
that we would like to get upstream.

7. Cozybit released a new developer version of the wireless firmware
(5.220.10.p1). The driver patches required for correct behavior of FWT
and mesh commands are found at:
:http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/libertas-dev/2007-March/000324.html
:http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/libertas-dev/2007-March/000325.html


Laptop News is archived at [http://laptop.media.mit.edu/laptopnews.nsf/latest/news Laptop News].
Laptop News is archived at [http://laptop.media.mit.edu/laptopnews.nsf/latest/news Laptop News].

Revision as of 01:39, 25 March 2007

  This page is monitored by the OLPC team.


LAPTOP NEWS

We've made a decision to use the AMD Geode LX for the mass-production machine!

1. A team including Chris Ball, Mitch Bradley, Jordan Crouse (AMD), Matthew Garrett (Cambridge), Andres Salomon, Richard Smith, David Woodhouse, Tom Sylla, and Marcelo Tosatti succeeded in the initial "bring up" of suspend and resume.

2. São Paulo: David Cavallo gave a talk at the Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP). The majority of those attending were people from the education and technology program, the curriculum program, the program for indigenous education, and the mathematics department. Included in the group were former colleagues of Paulo Freire, who maintain the Freire House at the university. The discussion among people who have worked long and hard for education reform and equity was excellent and pragmatic, focused on learning from the difficulties of the past.

3. Sugar: Everyone on the Sugar team is working toward an end-of-the-month deadline. Over the last two weeks, Marco Gritti, Tomeu Visoso, John Palmieri, Dan Williams, and the Abiword team have made numerous improvements to the interface.

For Sugar itself, the frame behavior is getting much better—we have made changes based on feedback from the field. Specifically, the heuristics for when the frame is shown and hidden automatically are much more consistent. Rollovers have a much better feel to them and many random performance problems have been fixed.

The team also spent time setting up activity file dialogs; this includes saving entire web pages, images from web pages (from a right click), saving and opening inside the document editor, and the image editor. While file dialogs will eventually be supplanted by the Journal, it helps with usability in the short term.

Abiword now supports image loading and floating the images anywhere in a document. This should let kids create their own documents based on images they find on the web.

Marco and Tomeu have also started adding support for internationalizing those few text strings that do exist in the interface. SJ Klein is organizing a team of people interested in helping with the translations.

Dan has been integrating the mesh functionality into Network Manager. This includes fixing problems in the driver, adding new functionality to Network Manager, and creating the user interface to support it. Pentagram has been iterating on a design for visual feedback for the various network states and modes.

We are approaching a stage of stability in development such that we need to seriously investigating how to enable a wider network of developers. This includes people who want to hack on the base system itself as well as people who want to write activities for the XO. For the latter, we are going to build images that people can download and run in emulators that are available for just about every platform these days. John will be working more on this over the next week.

4. Suspend/resume: Chris Ball measured resume time at 900ms with drivers unloaded and 1400ms with all drivers loaded, according to the kernel. Linux 2.6 currently performs a slow virtual-terminal switch on suspend/resume, which may account for much or most of this delay we will immediately eliminate this switch, as we don't need it. In contrast, resuming conventional laptops running Linux on processors many times faster than our system are measured at 6–12 seconds, so we are already many times faster than most systems. Both the power-draw numbers and suspend/resume-time numbers will head downwards as we start optimizing power management. Mitch Bradley has measured the firmware resume time of approximately 25 milliseconds.

5. Firmware: The firmware end of the suspend/resume code seems to have held up well in this week's kernel testing. Lilian Walters did some work on memtest86 so it can be integrated into the ROMs, giving us a heavy-duty memory test capability that will always be available. Mitch made good progress on the firmware port to the LX; the firmware is interactive and he is now resolving MSR (model-specific register) discrepancies. He expects to have a releasable OFW for the LX development board soon.

6. Kernel: Andres Salomon notes that there is a separate source branch for the suspend/resume and power management work:

http://dev.laptop.org/git?p=olpc-2.6;a=shortlog;h=powermgmt

Once the code is ready, it will all end up in both the master and stable branches.

Andres updated our kernels to 2.6.21-rc4 (previously 2.6.21-rc2), and merged libertas driver changes. Andres also cleaned up the MFGPT (multi-function general-purpose timers) driver, as these are drivers that we would like to get upstream.

7. Cozybit released a new developer version of the wireless firmware (5.220.10.p1). The driver patches required for correct behavior of FWT and mesh commands are found at:

http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/libertas-dev/2007-March/000324.html
http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/libertas-dev/2007-March/000325.html

Laptop News is archived at Laptop News.

You can subscribe to the OLPC community-news mailing list by visiting the laptop.org mailman site.

Press requests: please send email to press@laptop.org

MILESTONES

Feb. 2007 B2-test machines become available and are shipped to developers and the launch countries.
Jan. 2007 Rwanda announced its participation in the project.
Dec. 2006 Uruguay announced its participation in the project.
Nov. 2006 First B1 machines are built; IDB and OLPC formalize an agreement regarding Latin American and Caribbean education.
Oct. 2006 B-test boards become available; Libya announces plans for one laptop for every child
Sep. 2006 UI designs presented; integrated software build released; SES-Astra joins OLPC
Aug. 2006 Working prototype of the dual-mode display
Jun. 2006 500 developer boards are shipped worldwide; WiFi operational; Csound demonstrated over the mesh network
First video with working prototype [1]
May 2006 eBay joins OLPC; display specs set; A-test boards become available; $100 Server is announced
Apr. 2006 Pre-A test board boots; Squid and FreePlay present first human-power systems
Mar. 2006 Yves Behar and FuseProject are selected as industry designers
Feb. 2006 Marvell joins OLPC and continues to partner on network hardware
Jan. 2006 World Economic Forum, Switzerland
UNDP and OLPC Sign Partnership Agreement
news release
Dec. 2005 Quanta Computer Inc. to Manufacture Laptop
(html)(pdf)
Nov. 2005 WSIS, Tunisia
Prototype Unveiled by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan; Nortel joins OLPC

Photos: (Image 1) (Image 2) (Image 3)
Webcast: (Arabic) (English) (French) (original)
Webcast provided by the ITU and UN Webcast Services with the support of RealNetworks Ltd. RealPlayer is required to view the webcast (available at no cost).

Aug. 2005 Design Continuum starts design of first laptop
Jul. 2005 Formal signing of original members of OLPC
Mar. 2005 Brightstar and Red Hat come on board
Jan. 2005 Laptop initiative officially announced at World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland; AMD, News Corp. and Google agree to join OLPC

PRESS

3 Jan. 2007 networkworld.com| OLPC Aims for Mass Production in Third Quarter
3 Jan. 2007 IDG.net| One Laptop per Child Sweetens Hardware with 'Sugar' UI
3 Jan. 2007 YAHOO! Finance| OLPC Announces First-of-Its Kind User Interface for XO Laptop Computer
2 Jan. 2007 Bicyclemark's Communique (podcast)| One Laptop Per Child (@23C3)
22 Dec. 2006 Financial Times| Clever Kit to Benefit Developing Countries (registration required)
27 Nov. 2006 Pagina/12| La manera más económica para mejorar la educación
21 Nov. 2006 Official Release|First 1,000 XO-Laptops Roll off the Assembly Line in Shanghai
19 Nov. 2006 Jamaica Gleaner| Technology - a tool for transformation
19 Nov. 2006 International Herald Tribune| One Laptop per Child: Computer designed for those who can least afford them
Nov./Dec. 2006 Technology Review| Will This Save the World? The $100 Laptop Part III
Nov./Dec. 2006 Technology Review| Will This Save the World? The $100 Laptop Part II
Nov./Dec. 2006 Technology Review| Will This Save the World? The $100 Laptop Part I
8 Nov. 2006 Popular Science| Best of What's New 2006: One Laptop per Child XO- Better Screen, Better World
6 Nov. 2006 ZDNet.co.uk | Why Every Child Deserves a Laptop- Matthew Szulik, CEO, Red Hat
27 Oct. 2006 LinuxWorld | Children's Laptop Inspires Open Source Projects
24 Oct. 2006 LA Times | Upward Mobility in a Laptop
24 Oct. 2006 Fortune | This PC wants to save the world
12 Oct. 2006 Bostonist | One Laptop per Child for Libya
11 Oct. 2006 New York Times | U.S. Group Reaches Deal to Provide Laptops to All Libyan Schoolchildren
3 Oct. 2006 GulfNews.com | College gets look at $100 Children's Laptop Computer
25 Sep. 2006 vnunet.com | OLPC offered free satellite connections
14 Sep. 2006 Vanguard | Keyboard In Three Nigerian Languages Ready-Obasanjo
08 Sep. 2006 Technology Review | Hack: The Hundred Dollar Laptop
06 Sep. 2006 nacion.com | Computadoras de $100 estarán listas en el 2007
 Aug. 2006 Wired | The Laptop Crusade
28 Aug. 2006 PCINpact.com | L'OLPC a 100 $ est finalise: un engin hors du commun
21 Aug. 2006 EWeek.com | Knocking Down Barriers to the $100 Laptop
31 Jul. 2006 NPR | Affordable Laptop Computer Project Moves Forward
07 Jul. 2006 San Diego Union-Tribune | U.S. and international educators show great interest in prototype
Jul. 2006 SPIE Professional | $100 laptop nears launch
21 Jun. 2006 BusinessWeek online | For Brazil's Poor, a Digital Deliverance?
24 May 2006 CNET News.com | $100 laptop gets working prototype
07 Apr. 2006 rediff.com | Our $100 laptops will run on human power
02 Apr. 2006 O Estado de S.Paulo | Fazer a diferença
28 Mar. 2006 FT.com | Waking up to a laptop revolution
24 Mar. 2006 Diário do Comércio | Um Laptop por Crianca
22 Mar. 2006 Times Online | Getting the world's poor logged on
09 Mar. 2006 Correio Popular | País disputa fabricação de laptop de US$ 100
  Folha de S. Paulo | Governo quer comprar 1 milhão de laptops
  Info Exame On Line | Governo quer um milhão de laptops de US$ 100
08 Mar. 2006 IDG Now | Faculdade abre programa de inclusão digital para alunos
  Folha de S. Paulo | Governo negocia fabricação do laptop de US$ 100 no Brasil
  Agência Globo | Governo estuda possibilidade de produção de computador de US$ 100 no país
  Teletime News | DVB detalha contrapartidas oferecidas ao Brasil
05 Mar. 2006 ACM/CIE | Interview with Nicholas Negroponte on the $100 laptop
16 Feb. 2006 MITIR | Podcast of Walter Bender's MURJ lecture on One Laptop per Child
15 Feb. 2006 CNET | PCs for the poor: Which design will win?
10 Feb. 2006 CNET | Perspective: Will the $100 PC fly?
09 Feb. 2006 NYTimes | A Plug for the Unplugged $100 Laptop Computer for Developing Nations
  UPI | One Laptop Project reaches critical stages
31 Jan. 2006 Slashdot | Microsoft OS Smart Phone for Developing Nations
  USA Today | Gates sees cellphones as way to help Third World
  Macworld | Red Hat officially commits to MIT's $100 laptop
20 Dec. 2005 BusinessWeek online | Quanta faces challenges in making "millions and millions" of $100 laptops.
19 Dec. 2005 Forbes.com | China to decide by March whether to join OneLaptopPerChild project.
14 Dec. 2005 UPI | Nortel to take part in OneLaptopPerChild endeavor.
13 Dec. 2005 Red Herring | Quanta to manufacture laptops; expects deliveries in 2006 4th quarter.
11 Dec. 2005 NYTimes | NY Times: 5th Annual Year in Ideas $100 Laptop
01 Dec. 2005 RFDESIGN | $100 Laptops Feature Novel Peer-to-Peer Wireless Connectivity
30 Nov. 2005 FT.com | Five companies in Asia making bids to manufacture $100 laptop.
28 Nov. 2005 Fortune Magazine | THE DIGITAL DIVIDE: I'd Like to Teach the World to Type
25 Nov. 2005 People's Daily Online | Nigerian president says government has budgeted for a million $100 laptops.
17 Nov. 2005 BBC News | UN Debut for $100 Laptop for Poor
  Seattle Times | $100 Laptops Aim to Bring Children the World
  TechWhack | MIT Unveils their USD 100 Laptop
  ZDNet | '$100 Laptops' Here by Next Year
  ABC | $100 Laptop Bridges Digital Divide
  Financial Express | Laptop @$100!
16 Nov. 2005 MIT News Office | Annan to Present Prototype $100 Laptop at World Summit on Information Society
  CNET | $100 Laptop Takes World Stage
  CNET | $100 Laptop Expected in Late 2006
  Christian Science Monitor | A Low-Cost Laptop for Every Child
14 Nov. 2005 WSJ | The $100 Laptop Moves Closer to Reality
13 Nov. 2005 The Inquirer | Hubris over $100 Laptop idea
New York Times | Google Earmarks $265million for Charity and Social Causes
13 Oct. 2005 Technology Review | The Hundred Dollar Man: Technology Review's editor in chief, Jason Pontin, talk with Nicholas Negroponte about the Hundred Dollar Computer.
29 Sep. 2005 I4U News | Sub-$100 Laptop design unveiled
28 Sep. 2005 Boston Globe | Prototypes of $100 laptop with hand crank planned by early next year.
  MIT World | NN at Technology Review
27 Sep. 2005 Datamation | Low cost PCs for the Enterprise
06 Jun. 2005 estadao.com.br | Cada criança na escola com um laptop a tiracolo

PRESS RELEASES

Jan. 2007 OLPC has No Plans to Commercialize XO Computer.
Jan. 2007 OLPC Announces First-of-Its-Kind User Interface for XO Laptop Computer.
Jan. 2007 Rwanda Commits to One Laptop per Child Initiative.
Dec. 2006 Low Cost Laptop Could Tranform Learning.

Video

(Misc. videos of the laptop can be found.)

http://video.globo.com/Videos/Player/Noticias/0,,GIM607884-7823-CRIANCAS+TESTAM+COMPUTADOR+PORTATIL,00.html | Crianças testam computador portátil/ Students test the laptop, GLOBO- BRASIL

http://stanford-online.stanford.edu/courses/ee380/061004-ee380-300.asx | Mark Foster delivers presentation to Standford University

http://www.technologyreview.com/ | Technology Review Mini-Documentary

http://www.radiofarda.com/Article/2007/01/04/f2_Interview-laptop.html | A Brief Demo

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