Software Release Notes
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 OLPC demo notes, which are very useful to understand the system and some of what is available. There are also some general instructions on how to use the Sugar interface here. Please read these release notes for particularly important software issues you should be aware of. Please also read the BTest-1 Release Notes and BTest-2 Release Notes for hardware problems applying to particular versions of the hardware.
The software is late 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.
The software is just maturing to the point that early stage trials for feedback are just beginning to make sense. Please do not do so without working with us, so we can learn as much as possible from your experience.
Base System Notes
- Network adapter causes slowdown
- Fixed in Q2B81 firmware and later. Any network adapter, if configured, (including the built in Marvell wireless) would cause the system to slow as much as 33%.
- 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 slow, but better than it was
- A fix for jffs2 garbage collection scheduling is new to build 303, and significantly decreases boot time. We understand where much of the rest of the boot 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
- Fixed in build 303.
- Suspend/Resume not yet implemented
- The preparatory work in the firmware is complete, and in development, the hardware is suspending and resuming. We hope to deploy working suspend/resume by BTest-3, though several hardware bugs are annoying and will be fixed in BTest-3.
- WPA/WPA2 not working with Marvell Libertas
- This is waiting on driver/firmware fixes. WPA networks will not show up in the UI's network list. To be fixed by BTest-3.
- Functional Wireless Driver
- The mesh is working in build 303, and works much better on and after Build 354. The UI for the mesh is in the Trial-1 stable system. 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. Note that the keyboard illumination is being dropped in BTest-3 and after.
- 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 optimization
- This can cause dramatically differing performance if you happen to hit some bad sectors.
- Battery problems
- (including failure to charge, overcharge, incorrect capacity reporting, battery draining quickly when turned off). A raft of problems with batteries has been fixed by EC firmware fixes up through Q2B83. Most, but not all dead batteries can be recovered in the field with existing BTest-2 systems, see Battery Charging for more details. The remaining irritating problem applies only to LiFe batteries. Note that for long term storage, removing the battery pack is still good practice; this is true for all battery powered devices. On B2 systems, average NiMH lifetime in a test of multiple machines (Screen on, backlight fully on, wireless associated, all functional units including GPU on, but processor idle) was tested to be approximately 2h40m, LiFePo batteries were approximately 3h 10m, using BTest-2 systems. This will improve as our power management improves.
X Window System
The X server now uses MMX optimized routines for many operations and has improved greatly. We're still not hitting the hardware fast paths very much in the driver; the change to the LX will help here.
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 and rotation might crash the X server, causing a UI restart.
If a console application manages to somehow modify the colormap, the system won't recover without rebooting the machine.
The BTest-1 touchpad worked particularly badly: 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 is enabled and works correction in BTest-2, though additional software work is needed. 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 initially.
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. Note that there is a miswiring from the Geode to the DCON chip, to be fixed in BTest-3, that complicates this problem. The LX processor won't have this problem at all; the RGB-YUV conversion is correct on that video unit.
- 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:
- After the system has booted, press ctrl+alt+f1
- Login in as root (no password required)
- Open the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf for editing (use vi or any editor you are comfortable with)
- 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"
- Save and close the file
- 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, including the Zoom Metaphor and The Frame, is detailed here.
Sugar Release Notes
The Sugar activity launch has performance problems caused by Python's cache footprint. We know that moving to Python 2.5, rebuilt -PIC, should greatly improve performance, independent of work we are doing ourselves, and the LX improve performance still more. Moving to Python 2.5 should occur sometime in April or May There are http://dev.laptop.org/query?status=new&status=assigned&status=reopened&component=sugar&order=priority many user interface issues] we intend to fix. Among the most notable issues are:
- Sugar first boot screen is unintuitive
- Fixed in Build 354. The first time you boot sugar, you'll be asked for a photo/nickname/color. To progress past this screen, you must click on the camera image to take a photo, and then click on the right-arrow at the bottom to proceed. Just clicking the right-arrow will have no effect.
- New networking UI needs documentation
- To choose a network, push the first of the four circular "mesh view" keyboard buttons (or "F1" in an emulator), hover over each triangle until you find the access point you want to associate with, and then click on it.
- Sugar needs a UI for exposing battery status
- Fixed in build 354 or after. In the meantime, you can use `cat /sys/class/battery/PSU_0/capacity_percentage`.
- Sugar seems to lock up with the frame out
- Fixed in Build 354. Pressing F5 allows the Sugar to unhang, and you can then launch applications again.
- Sugar presumes applications exit
- Usually, you can find some other way to cause an application to exit. The specific Abiword bug is fixed.
- Launching activities are slow
- This is now faster, and will improve yet further when a new version of python 2.5 is in the build. And on the LX processor, it is now running quite fast, even using python 2.4.
- 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. (Much improved in build 303).
Programming Sugar
Sugar Activity Bundles are explained in detail here.
Sugar interfaces
goocanvas
GTK+
Cairo
Pango/ATK
Also check the Human Interface Guidelines and the API.
Activities
Web Browsing
Browser based on Xulrunner (the Gecko engine used in Firefox).
Scaling version from Firefox 1.9 is in build 303; this improves browser behavior greatly and font and image sizes much more likely to be acceptable. Later builds improve yet further. With our high resolution screen, we have had to go "first" in innovation in web browser technology.
No tabs
No zoom (yet)
Does ship with an free version of Flash, called gnash. Works fine with Adobe's Flash plug in, which many may find preferable until gnash matures further.
Does not ship with: Java plug in. Sun's Java and web browser plug in work fine.
User experience has problems with pop windows, Frame interfering with scrolling
Chat
We're unhappy enough about the jabber based chat program's state (which needs lots of tender loving care), that we temporarily pulled it from the build for our first trials. We suggest Google Talk, or similar web chat services, as a temporary measure.
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
B2 TamTam includes three activities: miniTamTam, TamTam Edit and synthLab. Release notes will be forthcoming.
xbook
File viewer through the browser, or as a sugar activity. The PDF format view is brought to you by the poppler library and Cairo graphics library.
Write
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.
Paint
A simple paint program is now in the distribution. It is considered just a beginning.
Blockparty
A famous, simple game of falling blocks, often known as Tetris. Contributed by Vadim Gerasimov.
Slideshow
An image viewer which will display images taken earlier by the camera application.
Newsreader
Based on PenguinTV. A few RSS feeds of educational interest have been preprogrammed as examples:
- Astronomy Picture of the Day
- BBC News
- EPOD - Earth Science Picture of the Day
- Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day
- Planet OLPC
Other feeds can easily be added/substituted.
Calculadora
A simple calculator activity contributed by Mauro Torres et. al. of the Tuquito Linux project in Argentina.
Temporary placeholders and Missing Pieces
There is no user interface for controlling the audio input and mixing. The workaround right now is to use "alsamixer" in a terminal window. Speaker volume is controllable by the slider.
Our plans include a web server and wiki system and journal, with a simple what you see is what you get editor (which is based on Abiword, which is the write activity in the distribution; this has a collaborative write capability we will be exploiting).
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.
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; on B1 systems, one of the multiple source vendor's camera exhibits much higher exhibits much higher noise than on others.
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.
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.
Also eToys activity includes support for the Webcam and a lot of experimentation can be done using the eToys scripting system.
Real's Helix Player Activity
Others have successfully played back videos and DVD's on the system, including RealNetwork formats and players. A Sugar version of Real's Helix player is available, though not in the base install. Please see the Helix Media Activity release notes for further detail. A web plug in is expected soon.
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 (see Category:Language support & Category:Languages (international))
Other Multimedia Software
Other software that has been tested on the OLPC systems includes Adobe Flash, and Real's RealPlayer® and Helix player.
Finding the Latest Test Builds
Development and stable builds can be downloaded. Boot firmware is kept in this wiki. The latest stable firmware and system image combined into an easy to use package with a script to automate installation of the firmware and base image makes upgrades to the latest stable software extremely easy.