Talk:School server

Status of this info

What is the status of the info in this page? User ramblings or OLPC page?

At first it seemed to fit the Category:Hardware ideas, but the use of XS & XSX names seems to hint or plays into some kind of officiality... although it doesn't give the impression of being so.

Given that there are OLPC plans for the servers, this page should clearly state the origin of its content: community or OLPC. --Xavi 09:34, 27 January 2007 (EST)

This page (the XS_Server_* pages) are currently ramblings (hence not referenced from a higher level), which over time have some decent chance of becoming official.

I'm new to these parts, can you explain why the origin of the information must be stated ? --wad

I was just wondering if my classification was 'correct'... :) I had heard 'rumors' about the server and its 'soon more info'...

Thus the 'origin' question: 'idea' or 'fact'? Personally, I take 'ideas' pages as that, ideas--without any concrete implications. While non-ideas pages have a bit more 'weight' on the subject. But that's my PoV... and of course, material is not consistently edited :) --Xavi 00:50, 28 January 2007 (EST)

All 'facts' begin as 'ideas'. You stumbled on a set of questions being posed, which I hope will blossom into 'facts'. The wiki is being used so that these questions can be discussed and edited by interested members of the community. --wad 1/28/07

The correct classification would also list it in Software ideas, as it is a system comprising both hardware and software.--Wad 00:03, 29 January 2007 (EST)

Any old OLPC laptop is a server

All of the OLPC laptops can act as servers. If one kid creates an activity bundle, then his laptop becomes a server. If one kid plugs in a USB thumb drive or USB CD Reader, then his laptop can serve content to others.

Of course. But there are resources needed which aren't well served by ad-hoc presence. If your laptop is acting as a server, you can't just put it to sleep to save power, or close it up to take home! Right now, we use a variety of methods for transferring content from machine to machine (rsync, ftp, smb). We can also do this transfer using an intermediary (rsync,ftp,smb it to a machine which serves it up via http/ftp). The advantage of using the intermediary is that others (even you) can easily access it later.

We ARE trying to build a system which is as distributed and scalable as possible (c.f. the choice of mDNS for service discovery). Perhaps the school server is just a laptop running a different set of software. At the end of the day, however, good engineering practice will probably suggest a slightly different combination of processor/memory/network than that optimum for a laptop, thus the discussion about school servers--Wad 00:49, 2 February 2007 (EST)

These pages seem to have been written by someone stuck in the US high-school IT environment mindset. Free your mind if you want to contribute useful stuff to the OLPC project! Who would have thought of a screen which shifts to low resolution monochrome to save energy? Who would have thought of a wifi module which keeps on running after the computer is shut down?

Please take your ad-hominem attacks elsewhere, they are not constructive... (And please identify yourself!) Constructive would be starting a separate page dedicated to explaining exactly how each of the services being proposed for the school server could be implemented in a fully distributed manner, and starting a real dialog on the pros and cons. Feel free to link to it from the School server page.--Wad 14:43, 1 February 2007 (EST)

BTW, the network interface of XO is strongly reminiscent of the Monsoon project at the MIT AI lab. Separate network processors are not a new idea.

Thoughts from a tiny island

I am teaching in the Kingdom of Tonga. There are about 40 inhabited islands, and every village has at least a primary school. The XO is going to be a good fit here, but I have thoughts about the server. First, hard disks fail too easily. Just as the XO has none, I think the server should go without one too. Second, battery power. There are many smaller islands where the electricity is turned off during the day. It is only on when adults are likely to be home (for the lights). It just wastes petrol to run the generators all day, so I think the server needs battery power too. Also the power is not very reliable even when it is on, breaking many computers and other electronics frequently. Battery and charging circuit in the server, thats what we need.

yours -- james noxon http://teachtonga.com

disk usage

• Core OS - updated specially
• Content mirror - synchronized with a global collection
• Local [Web] cache - shared libraries and services
• Local backups - automatic backups from XOs
• Local content - other material, services, programs installed and created and explicitly saved here for shared use

One Server Per School or One Per District?

While I think one laptop per child is essential, it may not be essential to have one server per school. In Nepal, where I live, it can take several days to walk to remote villages. We can train villagers how to do basic hardware maintenance and restore the Laptop OS from a flash drive, but I am not sure it is realistic that we can train them in server maintenance. I favor the server be located in a regional town that support staff can get to in several hours in case of hardware failure. If the school server has no GUI, that means local support would have to learn Linux command line tools. It has taken me a while just to get rudimentary skill w/ Bash. Nepal Wireless has had great success with this model. Bryan Berry OLE Nepal 24 Oct 2007

P.S. A district in Nepal is about 100 square km, large but nothing like the state of California, my home district/state

XS Alternatives

Has anyone considered the Zonbu desktop platform(the non-subscription developers version) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zonbu as a possible alternative for the XS it being a low cost/low power/small formfactor machine?

I understand that it's new and unproven as to it's reliability but it corporate philosophy (open source, energy use...) appears to be compatible with OLPC's ideals --Chief Mike 08:19, 2 December 2007 (EST) :)