[Sugar-devel] OLPC mesh support in Sugar-0.84

[Simon Schampijer]

On 05/24/2010 08:03 PM, Martin Langhoff wrote:
> On Mon, May 24, 2010 at 1:38 PM, Simon Schampijer<simon at schampijer.de>  wrote:
>> I have been thinking about how the "olpc mesh network" and the "default
>> adhoc network" can coexist.
>>
>>   From a user point of view, I think the features can be exclusive.
>
> Yes. I will take "user" as "deployment team"(1) and say: I think it's
> safe to say that we need to choose whether to use mesh in the cases
> where we see mesh-capable hardware.
>
> 1 - In this case, clearly, you want to have all participating XOs to
> follow the same behaviour.

Right, a deployment should see the same behavior. As the 'default adhoc 
networks' mimics the old mesh behavior my idea was that we do not need 
to clutter the screen with 6 icons and have similar behavior in parallel.

>> if the mesh hardware is available we use the mesh code and draw the three
>> mesh icons in the neighborhood view. If the hardware is not available we
>> fallback to the "ad hoc network" code and make that available through
>> the three icons in the neighborhood view.
>
> Here, I read "the hardware is available" as "mshN is available". Yes,
> I like it. That means that the decision of not using mesh can be taken
> when preparing the OS image, by loading a different driver, or passing
> options to the driver.

Yes, the sugar code listens on NM for the available devices. And 
dependent on that code it would either choose mesh or 'default adhoc 
networks'.

> What Walter suggests is also interesting -- people have pointed out
> recently that in our 802 OS (and possibly older), NM/Sugar don't
> display ad-hoc networks in the network neighbourhood.

In 0.82, it could be that ad-hoc networks are not displayed. In 0.84 it 
does work.

> Maybe that's resolved these days -- if it is, it means that a laptop
> with mesh (XO-1) would also be able to join an ad-hoc network
> (XO-1.5).

Yes, this will definitely be a test case for landing that code :)

Regards,
    Simon