User:Shaiton/XS ARM request

1. Project Title & Shipment Detail

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   Number of Laptops (or other hardware) You Request to Borrow:  1 XO 1.75
   Loan Length—How Many Months: 12

2. Team Participants

   Name(s) & Contact Info: (include all email addresses & phone numbers)

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       Teams of more than 1 person are not required, but favored! 

   Employer and/or School: I am a  volunteer
   Past Experience/Qualifications: 

Embedded Systems Design Engineer (Master), 3 years of experience. Hugely involved in the Fedora community, involved in the OLPC France community.

3. Objectives

   Project Objectives: XS on ARM XO

       Concrete proposals with defined, measurable outcomes are much more likely to result in a laptop than "it would be cool to play with these and demo them". 

In the French Grassroots, we are going to set an XS for our Nosy Komba (Madagascar) deployment. I strongly think that the XS should use an ARM arch, but it appear to be quite late for this year. My objective is to work with the community to build a strong and reliable XS on ARM, firstly using an XO but I will also work for other hardware if I get a chance to have some.

I see the XS as a wide thing, customizable, that could do: - [web] access point - local web server/book server - backup/restoration server - infrastructure monitoring (power, bandwidth, usage…) - ? open.

4. Plan of Action

   Plan and Procedure for Achieving the Stated Objectives: 
   Helping the Fedora ARM and OLPC-ARM guys, writing configuration files for the above objectives, building custom images in order to share the results, probably 

implement that in 2013 in the French deployment, where we want to bring more laptop and content. Of course, joining all current efforts on the server-devel mailing list where John W. has reminded me about this hardware request.

5. Needs

   Why is this project needed? It is a known ongoing task. The next Fedora release (17) is going to be built for ARM too, there is a wish to move ARM to primary architecture, ARM consume less power than x86, the XS is really needed in all deployment, and finally, because many ARM board are cheap and fanless but really efficient. 

Building the XS on top of an XO is really great as it is (would be) easier to have replacement part if needed. And we would have a common platform here on the community.

   Locally?  

OLPC France

   In the greater OLPC/Sugar community? 

Definitely yes, I know and love the Open Source Way, sharing is simply best.

   Outside the community? 
   Why can't this project be done in emulation using non-XO machines? 

Because I need to work on firmware, kernel and filesystem, I need the real hardware for benchmark, memory usage, setting demo and doing real tests… And mainly because the goal is to bring it to Madagascar and provide tested images for the community to reuse.

   Why are you requesting the number of machines you are asking for?

1 is enough. Which JTAG could be used?

       Will you consider (1) salvaged/rebuilt or (2) damaged XO Laptops? 

(1) yes if the hardware is the same. About 2, it depends of the "damages".

6. Sharing Deliverables

   Project URL—where you'll Blog specific ongoing progress:

OLPC France, OLPC Planet through OLPC France (for English blog posts)

       Please web-publish this entire completed proposal, removing any sections affecting your personal privacy. Ask if you want help -- communicating with our OLPC/Sugar global community is core! 

   How will you convey tentative ideas & results back to the OLPC/Sugar community, prior to completion? 

Mainly through mailing lists

   How will the final fruits of your labor be distributed to children or community members worldwide? 

By us!

   Will your work have any possible application or use outside our community?

Sure, Fedora ARM

       If yes, how will these people be reached? 

They are already open and not waiting for me, but I could be of help, of course.

   Have you investigated working with nearby XO Lending Libraries or Project Groups? 

Yes, member of OLPC France, we meet monthly.

7. Quality/Mentoring

   Would your Project benefit from Support, Documentation and/or Testing people? 

yep

   Teachers' input into Usability?
not really

   How will you promote your work? 

Through deployment, commits, mailing lists…

   Can we help you with an experienced mentor from the OLPC/Sugar community? (WEB-PUBLISHED)

       If YES: specify the kind of Ongoing Mentoring that will benefit you most. 
       If NO: specify who will help you share your progress, creations & results. 

Sure if you know who could it be. But I know that as soon as I'll share first results, plenty of ninja will answer me and drive me to their actual results in order to move forward.

8. Timeline (Start to Finish)

   Please include a Proposed timeline for your Project life-cycle: (this can be in the form of Month 1, Month 2, etc rather than specific dates)

       Include a couple milestones, even if tentative. 

May, defining the whole software architecture, May, having a working Fedora 17 on top of the XO. Summer 2012, setting the project tree, working it all subprojects and having things installed smoothly testing testing Releasing at the end of the summer.

   Specify how you prefer to communicate your ongoing progress and obstacles!

With frequent mailing list messages, and keeping a wiki page updated.

       [X ] I agree to pass on the laptop(s) to a local OLPC group or other interested contributors in case I do not have need for the laptop(s) anymore or in case my project progress stalls.