[Sugar-devel] Current State of OLPC (XO) and Sugar on a Stick

[Art Hunkins]

I did a rather comprehensive test this evening working with Csound materials 
in the context of the OLPC (XO) and Sugar on a Stick. Here are the results. 
I'd appreciate continued help to resolve the outstanding issues.

Three tests:
Test 1: Running a .csd file from the terminal. ALSA driver specified
Test 2: Running a .csd file from python from the terminal. No audio driver 
specified.
Test 3: Running a .csd file as part of an Activity (python script) within 
Sugar. No driver specified.

Context 1: On the OLPC (XO) computer (OLPCsound - 5.08.91) - out of the box
Test 1: ran fine; ALSA driver used
Test 2: ran fine; ALSA driver used
Test 3: ran fine; ALSA driver used
  Obviously no problems here - except the limitation to OLPCsound (5.08)

I configured a completely new USB stick (in Windows) to run the remaining 
tests.

Context 2: Sugar on a Stick - out of the box (OLPCsound - 5.08.91) - no 
updates
Test 1: ran fine; ALSA driver used
Test 2: fails - cannot import csnd (note: csound-python is not present)
Test 3: fails - during import _csnd; in libcsnd.so.5.1: undefined symbol: 
csoundGetInputBuffer
  Note: csnd.py, _csnd.so etc. *are* present in the /site-packages folder

Context 3: SoaS with updates-testing update csound (to 5.10.1-9.fc11): 
includes fltk but not csound-python
Test 1: ran fine; ALSA driver used
Test 1 rerun, with *no driver specified*: fails - "unknown rtaudio module: 
"PortAudio"
  This is the new audio driver glitch I referred to in the previous mail 
below. Note that the XO (5.08) install doesn't suffer this problem.
Test 2: fails - cannot import csnd; no module named csnd
Test 3: fails - cannot import csnd; no module named csnd

Notes:
*Before* Context 3, I tried to upgrade Csound by doing an install 
csound-python. (During a previous try at this, the install upgraded to a 
compatible build of 5.10; but not this time!) Csound-python would not 
install because it: "conflicts with 5.08.92-15 (the existing OLPCsound). So, 
you must update Csound first, apparently. However...

*After* Context 3, I tried another install csound-python. This time it fails 
with: "requires csound 5.10.1.7.fc11" (a slight downgrade). Thus in this 
test sequence I was unable to test the latest of Peter's 5.10 Fedora builds 
with csound-python. (Since I believe I was able to do this before, and since 
Peter has not changed anything in the meantime, I'm at a loss to explain 
this result. Perhaps I ungraded/installed things in a different order? In 
any case, even when csound-python *was* installed I got the same results as 
the failures above, FWIW.

For anyone interesting in running Csound with or without python simply on a 
1+GB USB drive (any computer - it's basically Fedora11, Sugar and various 
kids' activities on a stick),
simply go to:
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_on_a_Stick/Windows
and create your own Sugar on a Stick USB drive, then boot it from whatever 
computer you like.

I'd be interested in your sharing relevent experiences.

Art Hunkins

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peter Robinson" <pbrobinson at gmail.com>
To: "Art Hunkins" <abhunkin at uncg.edu>
Cc: "Michael Gogins" <michael.gogins at gmail.com>; "Sugar devel" 
<sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2009 4:52 PM
Subject: Re: [Csnd] Re: Latest Project


> Hi,
>
>> I did a fresh install of Sugar on a Stick, and found that the current
>> csound-python package doesn't install with the updated Csound5.10. I 
>> assume
>> Peter has taken the python package down (or whatever) to work on it. You 
>> can
>> just install csound-python by itself and it will upgrade Csound to 5.10 
>> (an
>> earlier, supposedly compatible build) but that combo gives the same
>> problemmatic results.
>
> No Peter hasn't taken the package down. All the packages are linked,
> you can't just take one down. A clean SoaS install without it means
> that the other packages that depend on it haven't setup the
> dependencies properly. You had to manually install csound-python the
> last clean install you did as well.
>
>> I've also spotted another issue. Though Csound is set for ALSA audio 
>> drivers
>> (whether they are specified in CsOptions or not), it cannot find them and
>> aborts with "can't open device "plughw" for audio output. Seems we need 
>> to
>> get audio output straightened up as well. Note: this was not a problem 
>> with
>> OLPCsound (5.08); ALSA drivers were expected and found, whether they were
>> specified or not. (Though this is fine with me, canonical Csound normally
>> defaults to portaudio on all platforms - so I didn't expect this 
>> behavior.
>> Perhaps XO/Sugar/OLPCsound purposefully doesn't include portaudio?)
>
> portaudio isn't used in Fedora, do you mean pulseaudio?
>
>> I'm not sure where this leaves us.
>
> Exactly the same spot as we were before.
>
>> Peter, can you give us an update?
>
> No update. I don't have time to work on it at the moment but patches
> are always welcome.
>
> Peter