[IAEP] Sugar/OLPC Relations

[Samuel Greenfeld]

On Sat, Jun 4, 2016 at 12:02 AM, Dave Crossland <dave at lab6.com> wrote:

> Sam, I am eager to learn what you personally think the date should be :)
>

My personal answer (at least in past private discussions) has been to end
support sometime in 2020.

The logic behind that being:

   - OLPC no longer makes any batteries compatible with the XO-1 (or any
   unit prior to the XO-4).  By 2020 the existing battery stock for older XOs
   should be pretty much dead.

   It may be possible to convince Paul Fox or someone to write "compatible"
   embedded controller firmware which charges multiple types of batteries
   sub-optimally given the limited EC flash space available.  But that would
   require the more general availability of replacement batteries.

   - Support for i586 CPUs is starting to leave mainline Linux
   distributions.  Note Debian's recent announcement about processors
   supported in Jessie but not Stretch.

   https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2016/05/msg00001.html
   {The AMD Geode LX in XO-1's is a MediaGX derivative}

   The somewhat odd processor in XO-1s has had a history of throwing
   illegal instruction errors whenever someone compiled a library incorrectly,
   or a just-in-time compiler took advantage of an instruction the CPU lacked.

   Other Linux distributions such as RHEL/CentOS have gone 64-bit only.

   - Experiments have been made, but no big push has been made to update
   XOs beyond Fedora 18, which hit end-of-life in early 2014.  This requires
   kernel work to fix upstreamed drivers (XO-1 & 1.5) & more kernel work to
   upstream & port non-upstreamed drivers (XO-1.75 & 4).

   The alternative is to port an older systemd forward; potentially an
   equally annoying headache.

   - By 2020 one would hope Sugar is targeting the latest & most
   appropriate platform of the day, and not restricting itself to capabilities
   invented 15 years ago.



Fair enough. I've schedule a chat with Leah at OLPC in a couple of weeks,
> and I'll keep you all posted on what I can find out.
>

If there is a reason to go to OLPC's Miami office again I don't have an
issue with that.  I was there in October, and as far as I know I'm still on
good terms with them.
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