[Sugar-devel] easier installation of soas

[Eben Eliason]

On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 8:12 PM, Gary C Martin <gary at garycmartin.com> wrote:
>
> On 2 Mar 2009, at 00:21, Caroline Meeks wrote:
>
>> Point of clarification.
>>
>> The next sticks we are getting will not be randomly given out to
>> people.
>>
>> We are going to use them for:
>>
>> 1. Working with classes of kids at computer labs for an hour or two.
>> In an ideal world we could let them keep their stick so they could
>> work on thier project after the class is over.  We hope to get
>> testing and publicity from these events.
>> 2. Giving out at FOSS VT. A conference for educators interested in
>> Free and Open Source Software. I'd like to see if we can get people
>> back channeling the conference through Sugar Chat and shared write.
>
> Just a word of warning on Write, last time I tested (8.2,
> 8.2.1,Write-60) it's still a 'master/slave' set-up when working
> collaboratively. If you leave (say you go home, or switch off
> wireless), do some more work on the write journal entry, and later
> rejoin a master (i.e the document you had originally shared) – all
> your changes are wiped as they get re-synced with whatever is on the
> current master. Who ever gets to be master of a previously shared
> write session first, gets to keep their work, every one else looses.
>
> Very bad usage case would be:
>
> - teacher get 5 kids to start a shared assay project in class together
> about hobbies
> - then tasks them to each add a new section about their own hobby as
> homework
> - next day... first kid that boots up and resumes their entry will be
> master
> - other 4 kids arrive, resume... and all get their homework auto-wiped
> by kid number 1
>
> Fail.
>
> This is one of the reasons I don't like the design mantra of, "once
> shared you have no private control of that activity any more" (i.e.
> you can never un-share an activity). And combined with the Journal
> auto-keeping, you work is wiped and then auto-saved as wiped, if you
> had the foresight to make an extra 'kept' copy before you came to
> school, don't risk ever resuming it with your network active, or it
> may be wiped as well.

This sounds like a pretty substantial Sugar bug. It's the reason that
I've been adamant that we need to introduce the notion of versions,
and that an (activity_id, version_id) tuple serve as the unique
identifier of a running activity instance.  In this manner, the saved
copies of the "slaves" would take on different version_id, and Sugar
would recognize them as distinct from the running "master" when
resumed, and open them separately (to make copy/paste merge possible).

It sounds like this bug should be added to the list for the next
release.  (We can keep a version identifier of sorts without true
versioning...)

- Eben

> Only solution I've found to this with write is to manually copy and
> paste all the content to a new and un-shared instance of write, where
> you can now work safely.
>
> --Gary
>
>> If we are going to do conferences on a regular we'll need to get
>> them cobranded and have someone else pay.  Then it would be way cool
>> to have them in the conference goodie bag with everyone at the
>> conference talking and sharing through sugar.  We could have Browse
>> set to the conference home page.  It could be very fun at education
>> conferences.  But we need to get someone else to pay. :)  As
>> companies will often pay for a branded USB stick without anything on
>> it to go in the conference goodie bag this seems like a realistic
>> hope.
>>
>> On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 3:41 PM, David Farning
>> <dfarning at sugarlabs.org> wrote:
>> This become an issue of cost effectiveness.  I understand Branded USBs
>> are on the order of $8 a stick.
>>
>> The Fedora Ambassadors tried giving away USB keys.  Thye found that
>> they were not cost effective.  The high cost per unit combined with
>> the low 'stick rate' made them unfeasible.  I understand everybody who
>> walked by, grabbed a stick.  After all, who turns down a free USB
>> stick.  With CDs people who grab one at least have some level of
>> interest about the product.
>>
>> This leads me to believe that good old LiveCDs will continue to be our
>> primary introduction method.  USB keys will be a higher cost method
>> for higher potential users.
>>
>> For example: We give a way CDs in our booth at a conference.   We give
>> away USB sticks as part of Sugar related talks.
>>
>> david
>>
>>
>> 2009/3/1 Eben Eliason <eben at laptop.org>:
>> > As I understand it, this cannot be so simple because it needs to
>> be a
>> > bootable image, and not just a set of files.  I'd also suspect
>> there's
>> > partitioning being done (not sure) so that user data can still be
>> > stored on it as well.
>> >
>> > An alternative proposal (if Sugar Labs is willing to assume the
>> > overhead involved) is to offer "Sugarsticks" at cost to those who
>> want
>> > them.  We could even brand them with the sugar logo, perhaps, in its
>> > variety of colors.  Reducing the barrier to entry like this would
>> make
>> > it really easy for people to try, and "commercializing" like this
>> > gives the project a certain credibility; a realness.
>> >
>> > In a way, we could give kids an attachment to their "Sugarstick"
>> > similar to that of kids to their XOs.
>> >
>> > - Eben
>> >
>> >
>> > On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 12:27 PM, Tomeu Vizoso
>> <tomeu at sugarlabs.org> wrote:
>> >> Hi,
>> >>
>> >> I'm wondering if it may be possible to lower further the barrier
>> for
>> >> the less technical users that want to download sugar on a stick.
>> >>
>> >> Maybe we could offer a .zip for download that can be expanded on a
>> >> bootable usb stick and just work?
>> >>
>> >> Regards,
>> >>
>> >> Tomeu
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>>
>>
>> --
>> Caroline Meeks
>> Solution Grove
>> Caroline at SolutionGrove.com
>>
>> 617-500-3488 - Office
>> 505-213-3268 - Fax
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