Deployments support

Technical Issues facing Deployments

This page is meant to be a place to capture configurations and work-arounds that have been successful in real deployments. Not what should work, but what actually does work.

Please add your thoughts and questions through the Discussion page. If you have working models to share, please include information on location and quantities that might help others.

Also, please see the Deployment Guide as a reference for a more complete list of items that should be part of a good deployment plan.

Customization

OLPC is a small organization that does not have expertise in local legal system, language, power constraints, or politics. OLPC has built some tools and process to try to help with the specific needs of a country, but the onus is on the country to provide technical resources to work OLPC to resolve issues that come up in all of these areas. Please read the section from the Deployment Guide on Localization.

Specifically there are three areas that need to be considered when a new country or location is interested in XOs:

1. Power adapter - what are the local plug considerations; what is the local power availability?
2. Keyboard - do we have a keyboard that will work for this country or do we need to create one?
3. Language - sugar user interface, activities, manuals, content are all things that need translation to the local language.

When a country is designing their content and testing the activities they want, they use the customization key process to add activities and content to an existing, signed build.

Power Adapters

Currently we have US, EU, and UK power adapters that include the appropriate plug type. To create a new power adapter, our manufacturing team needs approximately 3 months, there is a minimum order quantity (something over 10,000), and we would need help from the local country to get plug specification and certification for use in that country.

Example: Argentina Power Adapter

(we tried to ship a power adapter that was not exactly the Argentina spec, and it was rejected at customs)

Keyboards

We have designed and built a number of keyboards for country deployments. To see the ones that are already in production, look in the Keyboard Table in the column called 'SKU' and in the comments column. If there is a SKU, it has gone through the approval process. You can click on the keyboard name in the left column to see the keyboard layout that was approved (there may be some discrepancies if the final approved copy hasn't made it to the wiki).

NOTES: To create a new keyboard there is a minimum order (something >5000), and a design and approval time of 3-4 months. Even if a keyboard already exists, there is a minimum order for any SKU (something >500 laptops)

Connectivity

There are many issues to consider with regards to RF or Wifi connectivity. First, it is important to separate the Uplink which connects a school or group to the Internet; and secondly is the ability of the laptops to connect to each other and to a school server.

Uplink Connectivity

(Satelite, Cellular, Fiber, Cable, Copper)

Simple Mesh

Today (8.1.x and 8.2.x builds), laptops working in small groups of approximately 10 or less, can chat and share activities* in simple mesh mode. Since there are 3 simple mesh channels (1, 6, and 11), then three groups of 10 laptops should be able to collaborate at the same time.

If there are more than 10 laptops on the same simple mesh channel, there is too much traffic to reliably get messages through.

Example: 30 Students
In Peru there is a school with 30 students, no school server, and no internet connectivity. If they break the students into three groups and assign each group to a simple mesh channel (by clicking on the mesh circle in the neighborhood view), then each group can share activities within their group.

Note that if the students all open their laptops and default to simple mesh channel 1, then the collaboration experience will not be very good until enough students have moved to another mesh channel to leave 10 or fewer laptops on channel 1.

NOTE: * 'Share Activities' means share browser links, share static record photos, 2-3 people can collaborate at one time on a Write document, all of them should be able to Chat.