[Sugar-devel] [Design] Ad-hoc networks - New Icons

[Gary C Martin]

On 11 Aug 2009, at 16:11, Daniel Drake wrote:

> 2009/8/11 Simon Schampijer <simon at schampijer.de>:
>> From the user POV they are the same I guess. A local network, that  
>> does not
>> need any infrastructure.
>
> I disagree. The mesh connections are automatic, and the presence of
> them does not indicate the presence of another computer like an ad-hoc
> network would do. Also, they do not have the principle of ownership
> that sugar places on ad-hoc networks.
> The behavioural properties of the networks (including the likelihood
> of communication) are different because there is no forwarding of
> frames. Also, neighbouring but sleeping laptops will not forward
> frames on an ad-hoc network.

Hmmmm. Are you sure this is an accurate statement? I was under the  
impression that mesh forwarding support had been removed/disabled from  
OLPCs implementation a long time ago, since soon after the Mongolia  
deployment. Mesh was killing the wireless spectrum with all the  
attempted packet retransmissions. It is really only 'mesh' in name,  
all devices have to be in range of each other to collaborate.

Even with forwarding disabled it still didn't scale as well as hopped,  
so the next fallback plan was to recommend conventional infrastructure  
mode and APs for school size deployments.

Regards,
--Gary