[Sugar-devel] [DESIGN] XO1 | Same hardware, slower internet

[Mikus Grinbergs]

> Hmm, it'd be interesting to see how much of a performance improvement
> webkit offers.

It's no big deal to run webkit-based browsers on the XO.  For instance, 
all of my XO-1s have Midori installed.

The question is - what is this "performance improvement" that you are 
looking for?  I believe that in practice, it is the "usability" of a 
browser that is noticed the most, not the "performance".  What Midori 
has is a smaller footprint -  what it does not have is a richer 
experience than Firefox - the result is that I myself prefer using 
Firefox on the XO-1 to using Midori on the XO-1.  [In my opinion, the 
"performance" of the two is roughly equivalent (e.g., in showing YouTube 
videos).]

It is worth noting that the Google Chrome browser, which *does* have the 
reputation (in the general public) of better performance, does not stand 
out on the XO (perhaps because its footprint is large).


> should we consider loading mobile versions of websites

Regarding creating websites suited to web clients without much 
computational power -- why should the typical internet website owner 
bother?  I'm going to assume there might be 100 users in the worldwide 
audience who are looking for "glitz" for every one user who is looking 
for "fast rendition" -- just look at the size of the images transmitted 
by the typical internet website -- in my opinion any image greater than 
40KB will "slow down" a web client which does not have considerable 
computational power -- yet monster images abound.


Regarding a project providing web transmissions specifically aimed at a 
classroom - the phrase "mobile versions of websites" is often applied to 
video information formatted to be displayed on phones - yet if there are 
XOs in the classroom, they have a significantly larger screen than 
phones.  I expect what you are looking for is video information 
formatted to be displayed on *tablets* - it will come, but I don't know 
if it is available just yet.


What is definitely useful is an aimed-at-classroom setup, where a 
teacher's (or lab experimenter's) mobile system broadcasts to multiple 
(pupils') XO *clients* in that classroom.  [Think of it as a website 
aimed at XOs.]  This setup ideally would use an XO for the system from 
which the video transmissions originate.  The simplest way to provide 
such functionality appears to be a slimmed-down web *server*.  [I've 
seen descriptions of such, but at the moment can't remember the name of 
that software (might have been proprietary).]  Since such a "website" 
would be viewed at XOs, the webpages created for that site definitely 
need to take into account the limited computational power of the XO.


mikus