[Sugar-devel] meshing XOs with netbooks (WAS: Re: [Bugs] #79 NORM: SOAS should mesh network when possible)

[Martin Dengler]

On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 01:20:41AM +0200, Sean DALY wrote:
> Hmmm this is an opportunity to display my ignorance and/or confusion,
> but my XOs usually just "find" each other on the mesh

Unfortunately this 'just "find"' is actually a complex process
involving a few different software components whose interactions are a
bit brittle (not prone to work when one/more software component is
upgraded).  So it's really natural that the normal reasoning will lead
to confusion.  I'm not the best or most available person to explain
the details, though, sorry.

> ... a club the netbooks can't belong to... so back on the XOs I have
> to hunt and click on the wireless network for each one (making the
> other XO avatars disappear, etc).

Yup - the XOs on the "mesh" (802.11s draft) can't see
{XOs,Sugars}-connected-to-jabber-servers, unless the meshed XOs are
themselves connected to the same jabber server via inter-networking
feats completely beyond my (and any OLPC deployments', AFAIC) ken.

> There's no way to designate a favorite AP I guess?

Not really[1], and I'm only slightly oversimplifying/guessing about
everything you mean (I take it you mean you want it to always connect
to that AP even though the mesh devices are around).  The key for
others/google is that you're talking about an OLPC build, not SoaS, so
my "no" is completely invalid for other sugar builds (thankfully).

When I was running OLPC builds as a G1G1 user I'd just always disable
the mesh device:

echo "echo 0 > /sys/class/net/eth0/lbs_mesh" >> /etc/rc.local

> I had thought the jabber server was necessary for local
> collaboration

What do you mean by "local"?

> ... which seemed counterintuitive (two machines on the
> table needing external Internet + jabber server to see each other).

To "see other Sugar learners in the Neighbourhood view", they do.
Unless we're talking about XOs with an OLPC build and one uses the
mesh.  But then they can't talk to non-XOs not using the mesh.

> I hope the draft mesh in those million XOs is not too different from
> the approved mesh :-)

Optimistic.  This is all I can find, and to my layman's eyes it's not
promising (as one would expect bewteen a 2-3-years-pre-standard
implementation and the standard implementation of a wickedly complex
standard):
http://www.fruct.org/images/contentmedia/S4_n8xx_olpc_connectivity.pdf


> thanks
> 
> Sean

Martin

1. http://www.mail-archive.com/devel@lists.laptop.org/msg12281.html

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