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

[Art Hunkins]

Clarification of Testing Details (test described in previous mail, below):

The following update/install commands *were* used relative to Context 3 (and 
are the ones recommended by Peter):
su
yum --enablerepo=updates-testing update csound
yum install -y csound-python

Personal Observations from Results (possibly erroneous?):
1) Out of the box, SoaS comes with OLPCsound (5.08) and Python2.6. Since 
5.08 is compatible only with Python2.5,  python/Sugar scripts calling Csound 
can't possibly work.
2) To run from Python, Csound5.10 is dependent upon the csound-python 
package which, up to now, is not installed with a 5.10 update (from 
updates-testing). Again, python/Sugar scripts can't possibly work.
3) Currently, when attempting to install csound-python there are 
dependency/version issues (csound-python vis-a-vis Csound5.10) that disallow 
the install of csound-python. (Scripts can't possibly work.)

Peter says that the dependency/version issues will be resolved as soon as 
python and csound5.10 get working properly together. (Unfortunately, I'm 
unable at present to get them both on my USB drive. Do I need to do some rpm 
magic of which I'm unaware?)

This, from the user standpoint, is the current state of affairs. I'm *most* 
hopeful that these issues can be resolved prior to the offering of SoaS-2. 
I'll help in any way I can

Art Hunkins

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peter Robinson" <pbrobinson at gmail.com>
To: "Art Hunkins" <abhunkin at uncg.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2009 3:11 AM
Subject: Re: Current State of OLPC (XO) and Sugar on a Stick


On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 3:57 AM, Art Hunkins<abhunkin at uncg.edu> wrote:
> 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.

Thinking about this again, I suspect you haven't enabled the
updates-testing repository and that's why your not getting the latest
csound group of packages.

You still haven't given me a non sugar command line test to enable me
to easily test any changes I might make. Think a "hello world" style
app.

Peter